There are eight characters written on his clothes: "Enjoy creation, the world is public", and these eight characters now symbolize what he loves more than computer games-OOPS (open source courseware prototype system). OOPS program, Chinese name "Open Course Program", simply means to translate the educational resources published by world-class universities on the Internet into national languages and open them to the world free of charge. It means that no matter where you are, you can study the courses of universities such as MIT and Cambridge through the Internet.
I found the best treasure of knowledge.
On the evening of August 27th, the volunteer activity of OOPS project was held in Shanghai Bund Peace Hotel. Zhu stood out in the crowd. He speaks and acts as if he doesn't care about other people's eyes. He dresses and behaves like a rock singer.
In front of 100 audience, Zhu is speaking loudly. Zhu doesn't need a microphone to speak. It is said that he learned this habit when he joined the debate club in college. The audience said that this young man is very expressive and his speech is very infectious.
In September 2003, Zhu read an article in a science and technology magazine, which described how a student used open courses on the Internet to study MIT courses.
With curiosity, Zhu searched the MIT OCW website, which was really wonderful.
The "open course plan" originated from MIT's open course plan. On September 30, 2002, MIT decided to put the syllabus, textbooks, teaching books, homework exercises, exam questions and answers, extended reading lists and audio-visual documents of many courses on the Internet for all people in the world to consult for free.
Under this influence, more universities such as Cambridge and Waseda open their courses to the Internet. However, all the courses are in English. However, who can complete this translation plan for such a huge course? "Then I'll do it myself?" Zhu's personal request was approved by MIT with a grain of salt.
So, with the help of his fantasy literature foundation, Zhu began a large-scale volunteer action. Almost all the funds for this action were paid by Zhu himself, which came from his income from translating the famous magical novel The Lord of the Rings.
Suddenly became a multimillionaire.
For Zhu, it was a complete accident that the translation of The Lord of the Rings earned more than 30 million royalties.
Because he felt that there were many translation errors in The Lord of the Rings published by Lianjing Publishing House, and the translation was blunt and clumsy, he went to the publishing house and asked to retranslate the work.
"Even if I can't get the money, I'm happy," Zhu said. "I am a wayward person, and everything I do is because I like it. In order to finish the game, I went to learn English spontaneously. This brings me a concept that entertainment is a good driving force. Only when you feel happy will you do it. "
After nine months of hard translation and writing, The Lord of the Rings translated by Zhu came out with a length of 654.38+200,000 words. At this time, the film "The Lord of the Rings" will be released soon, and Zhu's translation has become a super best seller in Taiwan Province Province, with 800,000 sets sold so far. Zhu received more than 30 million Taiwan dollars (about 7 million yuan).
Money has changed Zhu's life, as well as his expectations and ideals for life.
Zhu set up the Fantasy Culture and Art Foundation with NT$ 654.38 million to promote and introduce western fantasy culture and art. Zhu also holds the annual Fantasy Art Award from his own pocket. "I have always felt that the future society and country will win by imagination and creativity, but the current education has not cultivated imagination. Therefore, it is really meaningful to let young people participate in the creation of fantasy culture. "
Making money is doing what you like.
There seems to be natural restlessness in Zhu's life. In his early years, as an electrical engineering department, high flyers persuaded the advertising company to hire him, and then when the advertising company reused him, he decided to jump ship. From advertising, publishing houses to TV stations, he seriously challenges every job to the end, but once he sees the limit of the job, he will jump away without hesitation.
After paying attention to OCW, in February, 2004, Zhu quit his job and began to work full-time at home as an interpreter for MIT OCW.
"In fact, a person's demand is actually not much. You can only live in one room and consume so much food. Now it seems that I am helping others, but I am actually helping myself, because I have also gained happiness in the process of helping others. " This time, Zhu stayed in a hotel, and the daily room rate was 200 yuan. He was very happy when he ate steamed stuffed buns and soybean milk.
However, Zhu encountered many problems. Some people suspect that he cheated money; Some people suspect that he wants to use volunteers to translate the course and publish it as a book; Some people think that Zhu can push the website to the market in the future after he is engaged in this course translation plan.
In a few days in Shanghai, such questions have appeared many times. These questions and suspicious eyes made 30-year-old Zhu feel pain.
Zhu said: "The motivation is simple. I think these courses are very important, valuable and useful for China people. "
Translation scheme of gathering sand into a tower
How can a dream close to the Arabian Nights be realized by the love of volunteers without any economic benefits?
The seemingly impossible task has become a reality step by step. With the establishment of the open plan website, the volunteer team has gradually grown. At present, * * * has 1500 volunteers, including 37% with bachelor's degree, 48% with master's degree and 0/3% with doctoral degree.
The way to participate in this translation program is also very simple: each volunteer "claims" the course on the website of OOPS according to his own professional knowledge and expertise. If someone leaves halfway, someone else will take over the baton of translation and continue to do the work.
Up to now, the Chinese translation project has been carried out for 570 days, and all 55 courses have been translated. In 2005, the translation scope of OCW began to expand to OCW of Cambridge University and other schools. In 2004, the daily average number of visitors was 6,000, and the average click rate was about10.5 million. The cumulative number of users of simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese websites of open courses has reached 500,000.
On the OOPS website, volunteers describe their ultimate goal as follows: through translation, let more China users learn and get in touch with these valuable knowledge, and create more knowledge while sharing knowledge. ...
Hou Xiaodi, a student of Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that "at present, students only pay attention to exams, not the real pursuit of knowledge. Alas, it just satisfies my desire and demand for knowledge. "
Have a chance to change the world.
For Zhu, the biggest problem at present is money. If there is no money, what about this huge plan? He said, "I can only try to continue this plan because it is very valuable, but I can't promise to keep doing it." But I believe that God will not close one door, he will open another. Although tired, if I can help more people and even change their lives. It's also worthwhile. "
Now Zhu has to work more than 12 hours a day, sort out and send a steady stream of translated manuscripts online, and also reply to letters from netizens everywhere. Now his life ideal is, "When I am down and out one day, even on the roadside, others are still good to me, not because of my fame, but because of my character."
On the Internet, the advertisement of the Fantasy Foundation for recruiting system engineers reads: "From any angle, the salary is not high, and we will not go public in the future, nor will we bluff that there are many learning opportunities here-we can only say that we have the opportunity to change the world."
Spread this story, maybe the world will change.
At the end of 2006, the Chinese version of The World is Flat was published, which set off a reading frenzy in China. It has been on the bestseller list in The New York Times for more than a year. Now, the English version of Friedman's new book "Green is New Patriotism" has not been released, and his keynote speech about this book has been posted on YouTube with Chinese subtitles.
This man is Zhu, a famous leader of fantasy literature in Taiwan Province. In today's era, it is difficult to be famous by translation, but Zhu is a famous translator, because he has done two sensational things: one is to translate the novel The Lord of the Rings, which earned 7.5 million yuan in royalties; The second is to start the Open Courses Program (OOPS), recruit Chinese volunteers all over the world, and translate all the 1800 open courses of M.I.T into Chinese. This is the largest folk translation project on the Internet in China.
Zhu is a person with a strong desire to share. He personally listened to thomas l. friedman's lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said, "I was very shocked by the green topic he mentioned. Without translation, you can't tell others that such a big thing is happening. "
This impulse to spread and share often happens to him. Once, a friend sent him a link in the middle of the night, which was a video of RandyPausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The professor was terminally ill and stood on the platform at the last moment of his life, sharing his life experiences with students and listeners. Zhu was deeply shocked by this class. In the middle of the night, he took time to sit on the bench and turn over the subtitles, calling on all his friends to spread it together. He felt that spreading this story and touching more people might change the world.
Actually, translation is quite boring. Just like The Lord of the Rings, although the war scenes are gripping and heroic, it is an extremely difficult process to translate, even more boring than business management books. However, before The Lord of the Rings was translated into Chinese, the total number of readers in China would not exceed 10000, and once translated into Chinese, the number of people enjoying the fun would increase by 10 times and 100 times. "I cherish the feeling of having more friends." Zhu said, "I want more people to like what I like, so I am willing to endure the boring translation process for a while." Besides, translation itself is the best knowledge. A good translator must understand these contents as well as the author. In the process of translation, your vision will become broader, your knowledge will be more solid and your way of thinking will be constantly adjusted. In fact, you have not sacrificed, you have learned more, and you are just willing to do more things. "