The Voice

"The world is becoming a global village, and English is the passport for its citizens and the key for international communication."

My voice booms into the microphone. I am in a sound-proof room wearing headphones that feel like they are consuming my ears. I continue to talk about my school, trying to simultaneously make my voice sound a little deeper (a la Don LaFontaine), while still remembering to dictate the correct intonation that I had already scratched onto the script in the form of red accents.

"Like you are narrating something on the Discovery Channel," they tell me. I only hear voices.

* * *

The week before I found myself in a professional recording studio, someone from Management came to me asking for help writing a script for the school's promotion video. This included captions, subtitles, and of course, the English narrator.

The process was this: She would read the Chinese, explain it to me to the best of her English abilities, I would think about it, then type what I thought it was supposed to be. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

A request followed the translations for me to lend my deep voice and American accent to the promotion of the school. Mostly because this sounded like a pretty fun idea, yet also keeping in mind that requests from Management don't exactly come in the form of "yes-or-no" questions, I agreed and began practicing my voice fluctuation in order to emphasize the appropriate words.

After only 20 minutes in the studio for about 3 minutes of narration, I am finished.

"We will use this DVD until we go bankrupt." The thought lingers.