Reflection Essay:

I was having a hard time deciding what genre to use for this project, and

searching for what genre can I use to write anything. I wasn’t sure to what extent

changing the article can be considered as changing a genre, and what exactly defines a

genre. Then I read the article from Bickmore, “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding

Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)systems.,” sayingThe author claimed that genre is

usually used when we want to classify things., Although but it’s not defined by the

formal markers, and the markers would be helpful signs for us to identify the different

genres, yet the genres were not defined by the featuresose markers. That is to say, we

can identify certain genres with the features given, but those featuresthey don’t define

the genre. Therefore I know that, instead of looking for a genre and trying to fit the

article into it, it’s better to think about how I want to express the idea of the article,

which is. Hence I first decide my topic: the history and development of Hip-hop

without bias, and andthen check the genre that matches.

The reason I chose the article:I chose “Brotherhood and Hip-Hop: The Case of

Chinese Hip-Hop Club Triple H” was thatas the article to translate. The reasons were

that I was impressed by the historical evidence given by the authors, and their attitude

of hip-hop’ development in China. Also, their analysis of the lyrics and rhymes of

many songs by Triple H was impressive. I listened to Triple H a lot, and yet I didn’t

really consider the positive meaning of their songs. ( I just thought their music is

gorgeous and I can’t make any music of the same level) Then another fact came to my

mind: there must have are people, especially Chinese parents,parents who still possess
bias about Hip-hop music, and forbid their children from chasing any “hip-hop

dream”. Then I decided I would like to write about an unbiased truth, or thea

clarification, for hip-hop music, and make people who read the article give up their

prejudges.

I chosedecided to translate the research article into a novel. The original audiences

for the passage were professors and students who were interested in the same research

question: “how is Chinese hip-hop brotherhood reconstructed in the post-subcultural

context in China,”(Chen.etal , 2021). while forFor my translation, I aimed thethe

audiences towould be the teenagers who were interested in Hip-hop, and their parents.

In my opinion, the different choices of the audiences would make some difference

while giving off information and expressing the ideas. Giles mentioned in her article,

“Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking,” how she

would ask her students to address in their essays. She claimed that students have

toshould know what they intend for their essays, the purposethe purpose of their essay,

and , effects they wanted their works to bring to the readersaudiences, and who are the

audiences. In other words, it’s important to have a target audience and what you want

them to know before the writing process. In my case, what I would want my

audiences to know or learnI want my audiences to know is that hip-hop culture was

no longer just a signal for teenagers’ rebellion. I also what parents learn from my

article, and (for parents) that it’s important to respecting (or supporting if possible)

your children's dream. It would be a lot helpful for their happiness than suppressing

and restricting until their obey the “life plan” you made for them. Hence in the end of
the chapter I wrote: “The father squatted down silently, picked up the parts and

fragments on the ground, turned to his son and said, ‘well, you go out with me

tomorrow, and we'll buy better quality ones’ ,”. By doing so, I showed the father’s

changing of attitude on his son’s dream. I hope that could “awaken” more parents to

learn to support their children. to show the change of the father’s attitude.

After deciding the genre I will use, I started to think about how I would make the

chapter meets the standard of a novel. As McCloud stated in his comics,

“understanding comics,” there are two goals authors wanted to achieve while writing

their work. One is: audiences’ understanding of the work, andand another is

audiencestheir' attention. In other words, authors want audiences to understand what

the article was trying to say, and want them to focus on the content until it’s finished.

By keeping these two goals in mind, I could adjust my way of telling the story. To

achieve the first goal, I kept in mind the principles of communicating with clarity. In

the novel, I tried my best to make my description as clear as possible, and add no

extra (useless) depiction of things other than the two characters. For example, I

opened up the conflict between the two characters through a simple dialog: “Why

don't you listen to me? Why spend money on this kind of garbage”. Also, their dialog

was designed simple and relatively short. For the second goal, I paid attention toon

adding elements, which would that attract audiences, to the article. Like the

environmental description at the beginning:, “The ground was littered with various

parts”. Through this environmental depiction, I gave out an imply that there was a

serious conflict going on, and hence arose readers’ interests. I took the advantage of
the novel genre in that there could have a description of the environment and a

statement about the characters’ thoughts since the novel stands from a 3rd person's

perspective. Hence I did wroite about the messy scene in the small room to enforce

the suppressing and intensive atmosphere between the characters.

A difficulty that comes up during the writing was that it’s not that easy to incorporate

the information, history, and development of hip-hop culture in a novel. I wanted to

create an “information effect,” which is the writing that aimed for opposing an

opinion or view, in the chapter. That word was mentioned by Bickmore in his article

“The Information Effect”. He stated that writers should do research about the

information that would support their opinion, and find ways to organize the

information so that the readers could understand it. A way to address it is to consider

the flow of information in the story. Since I could just extract information from the

research article and use that for my passage, there’s no need for me to find

information. The problem is to mention the information and let my audiences accept it.

Then I found out that for a novel, it’s neither logical nor natural to make some

statement about any information during the story. Therefore I arrange the information

so that my characters would tell the information to the audience--- the information

would come up in the dialog, as long as their purpose of saying certain facts was

logical. Most of the information was provided by the Q&A of father and son: "Triple

H? Are they good brands?", "That's right! They have produced more than 300 songs

so far! And each capital is worth savoring”.

To sum up, I chose to translate the academic article into a chapter of novel.
Tthe transition would have some aiming audiences, teenagers who were interested in

Hip-hop, and their parents, as audiences. and anThe idea thing that I would like

themwant the parents to learn, to make a “clarification” is to give up their prejudges

for hip-hop music. I managed to express the information by inserting them into the

characters’ dialog, and there would enough attractive descriptions so that the audience

would keep focusing on the passage until it was done.

Work Cited:

Bickmore, L. (2016, August 1). Genre in the wild: Understanding genre within

rhetorical (eco)systems. Go to the cover page of Open English @ SLCC.

Retrieved May 20, 2022, from

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understandi

ng-genre-within-rhetorical-ecosystems/

Bickmore, L. (2016, August 1). The information effect: The facts, the figures, the so

what? Go to the cover page of Open English @ SLCC. Retrieved May 20, 2022,

from

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/the-information-effect-the-fac

ts-the-figures-the-so-what/

Chen, X., Tong, Y. and Zhang, J. (2021, November 23). Brotherhood and Hip-Hop:

The Case of Chinese Hip-Hop Club Triple H. SAGE Journals. Retrieved May 20,

2022, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440211061532

Giles, S. (2010). Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You

Thinking?. 1st ed. Charles Lowe, Pavel Zemliansky, p.191-204. Retrieved May

20, 2022, from

https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/4101648/mod_resource/cont

ent/0/giles--reflective-writing-and-the-revision-process%20%281%29.pdf

McCloud, S. (2006). Writing with pictures. Making comics. P8-57. Retrieved May

20, 2022, from

https://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/index.html

Translation:

The ground was littered with various parts -- that was the new microphone he had just

bought with his pocket money saved for half a year -- a small old man stood in the

middle of the room staring at the young man sitting in the chair. The young man's fist

clenched as if it would be waved out in the next second.

"Why don't you listen to me? Why spend money on this kind of garbage!"

"This is not rubbish..."

"Isn't this? I'm stuck in the house every day just to write those swearing words? Do

you want to record it as a song?"

After hearing this, the boy turned on his computer, called up the song he was writing

recently, enlarged and thickened all the fonts, and slid down line by line to ensure that

his father could see each of his lyrics clearly.

"Where are dirty words? Your impression of rap is only superficial. It's the most

superficial and outdated view!"

"How dare you say the words you heard that said singing without swearing?"

"So what? What do you usually say? Besides, it'sis it illegal to add a few modal

particles in the lyrics? Did youanyone got kill because of this? Or did these dirty

words fight the country?"

MyThe father choked at these words. After thinking for a long time, he simply said,

"he is also a foreigner's thing, not our own China. You should not be a Chinese!"

"Dad! It's the 21st century! Rap is indeed an imported product and spread from the

United States, but it has been integrated with Chinese culture for decades. Now a

large number of people are doing Chinese style rap."

"Then why are so many Chinese singing and speaking English?"

"This is the exchange and integration between language and culture! Moreover, rap is

originally born in English. In order to better fit the audience who are used to English

rap, many rappers will habitually add some English."

"Rapper! It's rapper again! Which serious star does that every day!"

"Jay Chou? You also listen to his songs, don't you? The romance of the Three

Kingdoms, blue and white porcelain, nunchaku, which one doesn't count?"

After hearing this, the father lowered his head and tried to recall the melody of these

songs in his mind. "He seems to be right." He thought so and began to think about

whether rap was really a "crooked road" that could not be done and touched.

"So... Do you have anyone with you when you do this?" The father seems to want to

persuade his son to give up this seemingly hopeless hobby.

"Yes, my brand friends and I often write songs together to help each other."

"Brand?" The father was puzzled by the term. He began to guess whether his son had

joined any bad organization.

"Yes, that is, people who like to make music gather together. Our goal is to become a

brand like Triple H!"

"Triple H? Are they good brands?"

"That's right! They have produced more than 300 songs so far! And each capital is

worth savoring. You're more optimistic about talking ，hit ，freestyle. Although the

title of the song is not very harmonious, almost every sentence of it is filled with

emotion for the encouragement and energy between brothers and thanks for the power

and help brought to him by the brand. Just pick one and look at it: "My brothers can

be here at any time and are ready to bear the consequences of your plan" is about how

reliable brothers are. Their songs will also write very real social phenomena, such as

this song "false friends", "he called him brother yesterday, but he couldn't let go in his
heart. It's a good name", which means superficial friendship in society. You can also

see many lyrics of heroism and positive energy, and the courage to overcome

adversity and forge ahead. It is repeatedly emphasized in the lyrics of HHH that the

song "QTSD" is full of heroism! This sentence "take all this as a training for me. If

you can't beat me, you can only make me stronger." And... "

The father looked at the child who had not spoken to him for nearly months. Now he

was talking about rap and seemed to understand what was good for him. Let go, he

thought. Letting him continue will make him happier than obstructing him in every

way. He'll be happy. The father squatted down silently, picked up the parts and

fragments on the ground, turned to his son and said, "well, you go out with me

tomorrow, and we'll buy better quality ones."

The son sat in the chair and couldn't return to his mind for a long time. He thought of

his father's words again and again. He wanted to laugh and cry.