What the Coffee Beans as Payment Incident Says About Coffee Culture

A coffee festival in Jiangmen, Guangdong, drew wide online attention after a coffee bean stall posted a notice recruiting a Japanese translator and offering coffee beans as payment. A passerby wrote "Shameless" on the board, and the photo spread quickly on social media. The incident sparked jokes and serious discussion about whether beans are fair pay for professional translation work.

Commenters noted that exhibition translators typically earn several hundred to over a thousand yuan per day, and simultaneous interpreters charge more, making beans an unusual offer. Some joked about receiving ten tons of beans or a jin of Panama Geisha in exchange for bringing translators, showing how coffee culture and humor mixed in the response.

Recently, at a coffee festival in Jiangmen, Guangdong, a coffee bean stall put up a notice recruiting a Japanese translator, claiming the pay would be coffee beans, sparking heated discussion online. In a photo taken by a passerby, someone had written "Shameless" in large characters in the blank space of the recruitment board. Netizens had mixed views: some joked, "Is it pure gold coffee beans?", while others speculated that the stall owner originally intended to recruit volunteers and thank them with coffee beans. The poster revealed that the stall owner might not understand Chinese and did not notice the message. This article reviews the incident and various opinions, and retains recommendations related to the Front Street brand.

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Recently, a stall recruitment notice for a translator at a coffee festival in Jiangmen, Guangdong, spread rapidly on social media and triggered widespread discussion.

According to a netizen's tip, the recruitment notice came from a stall selling coffee beans. The notice roughly said it was recruiting a Japanese translator to assist with communication during the event, with coffee beans as payment. Notably, someone had written "Shameless" in large black characters in the blank space of the notice.

Once posted, the recruitment notice attracted a large crowd of netizens, with discussion focusing on the payment offered by the stall owner. Netizens familiar with the translation industry pointed out that the pay for professional foreign-language translators is usually determined comprehensively based on factors such as language pair, difficulty of content, and working hours.

Taking exhibition translation as an example, professional translators generally earn several hundred to over a thousand yuan per day; for simultaneous interpretation, the daily rate is even higher. Therefore, most people believed that if the stall owner intended to hire a professional translator to assist with sales and customer communication, offering only coffee beans as payment was inappropriate. Some netizens joked: "Why not say settlement in Happy Beans?", "Is it pure gold coffee beans?", "One bean per word?"

Some netizens also joked: "Can you call Lalamove to haul the coffee beans?", "Coffee beans are fine too, bring 10 tons and deliver them to the designated location", "Give me 1 jin of Panama Geisha and I'll immediately call two translators over", saying that if the quantity of coffee beans was large enough and the quality good enough, this kind of labor payment was not entirely unacceptable.

On the other hand, some users speculated based on the recruitment content that the stall owner may have originally intended to recruit a Japanese-speaking volunteer or unpaid helper to assist with work during the coffee festival, and to thank them with coffee beans after the event.

They said that temporary events like coffee festivals indeed often have organizers recruiting volunteers, and after the event some merchants express thanks with physical items such as coffee beans or branded merchandise. But some people believed that if it was only volunteer recruitment, the notice should not have used words like "recruitment" and "payment," as such wording easily causes misunderstanding.

The poster explained in the comments section that the photo was taken casually while visiting the coffee festival because it seemed interesting, and that they did not know whether the shop successfully recruited a translator through this notice.

The poster also revealed that the person in charge of the stall that posted the notice probably did not understand Chinese, saying, "The boss couldn't understand it, and he was still smiling happily at the time." It was speculated that he may have misunderstood what the passerby had written, and therefore did not cover up the inappropriate message, but instead displayed it openly.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.