Sinomach

choi

Dinny McMahon, 打造中国版 '通用电气' 困难重重. 华尔街日报, Dec 3, 2014
cn.wsj.com/gb/20141203/biz154705.asp

, which is translated from

Dinny McMahon, The Troubles With Building ‘China’s GE;’ After creating world’s biggest press forge, state-run sinomach lacks customers; Long lunch breaks/ Wall Street Journal, Dec 3, 2014
online.wsj.com/articles/the-troubles-with-building-chinas-ge-1417566236

Note:
(a) Deyang  四川省 德阳市  
(b) "The mammoth closed-die hydraulic press forge—which went into operation last year—is the largest in the world. It makes highly resilient components—such as aircraft landing gear—from titanium and metal alloys that are pressed into shape by its 80,000 tons of force."

forging
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging
(section 1 History; Forging can produce a piece that is stronger than an equivalent cast or machined part; section 3.2 Drop forging: open-die and closed-die; section 3.3 Press forging)

(c) "Sinomach, a company controlled by Beijing and instrumental in everything from China’s military build-up to its space ambitions, runs the forge. * * * At the end of 2013, China had about 155,000 firms owned by central, provincial and local governments , according to the Ministry of Finance. Beijing itself directly controls less than 120 of the biggest and most strategically significant industrial companies * * * Formally China National Machinery Industry Corp 中国机械工业集团有限公司, Sinomach already has 40 units that make up a grab bag of Beijing’s strategic interests."
(i) grab bag
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grab+bag
(ii) The Wednesday Grab Bag Is Here * * *   RiverLink, undated.
riverlink.org/the-wednesday-grab-bag-is-here/
(a sketch below the title)

(d) "Last year, the Chinese government bailed out the forge’s parent company, called Erzhong Group [中国第二重型机械集团公司（简称：中国二重）], by folding it into Sinomach. The new company will 'become China’s GE, Mitsubishi and Alstom,' Sinomach’s internal, Communist Party-controlled newspaper said."
(e) "The main entrance, a grand sandstone affair, has yet to be connected by road to the rest of the facility."

affair (n): "[WITH ADJECTIVE] informal An object of a particular type <her dress was a black low-cut affair>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/affair
(f) "At noon workers headed home on their bicycles, followed 15 minutes later by people in cars, for their two-and-half-hour lunch break. Despite China having passed through more than three decades of reform, Sinomach’s Erzhong unit—set up by China’s Red Army in 1958—still adheres to many of the traditional customs of the country’s major state-owned firms. It still pays retirees a living stipend, and runs a sports center with two swimming pools and a television station. * * * Party members account for more than 60% of the unit’s 13,000-person work force. * * * Some retirees * * * grumble that Erzhong’s financial problems mean they no longer get bonuses at Chinese New Year. But for employees, so far there haven’t been job losses, and layoffs seem unlikely.

choi

罗杰·科恩, 让美国人摸不着头脑的英式英语. 纽约时报中文网, Dec 4, 2014 (专栏)
cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20141204/c04cohen/

, which is translated from

Roger Cohen, From Oops to Whoops; The long road from American to English. Paris: The International New York Times, Dec 2, 2014.

Note:
(a) "Having become an American, I returned to England a few years back after an absence of 31 years. I expected to speak the language. I was wrong. Somewhere in the interim the letter aitch had become 'haitch,' with the result that spelling out my family name (surname) was painful. You had somehow morphed into the ghastly reflexive 'yourself,' as in, 'And for yourself?'”
(i) translation by cn.nytimes.com:
"几年前，已经成为美国人的我回到了阔别31年的英国。我打算说英国话来着。但我错了。在我离开的31年间，字母H在某些地方的发音已经从 '哎吃' (aitch)变成了 '嗨吃' (haitch)，致使我很难读出自己的姓氏。'You'（你）不知怎地已经演变成了可怕的反身词 'yourself'（你自己）。例如，'And for yourself?'（那你自己呢？）"
(ii) aitch (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aitch
(iii) Regarding "Somewhere in the interim" (where the interim" is a noun, not an adjective). The "somewhere" is some point in time, NOT in place (as the translation says: "字母H在某些地方的发音").
(iv) The translation is great by putting "you" within the quotation marks; the English original does not--and I did not know what the sentence was saying.

(b) "a cheesy, simpering, faux-friendly, off-key, faintly Essex hail-well-met affectation (Never just plain 'Hello,' always 'Well, hellooo there') was near universal."
(i) simper (vi): "to smile in a silly manner"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simper
(ii) hail-fellow-well-met (adj; from the archaic salutation “Hail, fellow! Well met!”): "heartily friendly and informal : COMRADELY"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hail-fellow-well-met

Similarly, Oxforddictionaries.com has "hail-fellow-well-met" only--without "hail--well-met."

(c)  “'When I look at them, I am in awe,' she said, 'I realize most of us are such weeds. Yes, we really are weeds.'”

translation: “'看着他们的时候，我感到敬畏，' 她说，'我意识到我们中的大多数人都这么像weeds（杂草），没错，我们真是杂草。'”

It can not be 杂草. Only an English dictionary can tell you  (the following definition can not be found in www.merriam-webster.com).

weed (n): "British informal A contemptibly feeble person <he thought party games were for weeds and wets>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/weed

(d) "Unease was palpable in the cinema (movie theater) * * * Wimp came to mind. Wuss did, too, for a little more intensity. We’re just a bunch of wimps and wusses.."
(i) cinema (n): "chiefly British"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cinema
(ii) wuss (n; origin unknown): "WIMP"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wuss

(e) “They don’t actually spell tires with a ‘y,’ do they?”

tire (n): "a shortened form of attire (n.). The notion is of the tire as the dressing of the wheel. The original spelling was tyre, which had shifted to tire in 17c.-18c., but since early 19c. tyre has been revived in Great Britain and become standard there"
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tire

(f) " They have things called anoraks and plimsolls — you don’t want to know."
(i) For anoraks, see parka
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parka
(section 1 Etymology)
(ii) Plimsoll
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plimsoll

(g) "They 'get cracking,' in a soundless way, and they actually have a dessert called 'Spotted Dick' (often served with golden syrup and custard); and cheese comes after dessert. * * * You read things like, 'White-van man does not eat braised endive.' * * * And the flat that costs two million quid (three million bucks) "
(i) get cracking: "informal Act quickly and decisively"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/get-cracking
(ii) Spotted Dick
(iii) endive
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endive
(iii) endive
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick
(iv) quid (n; origin unknown): "British : a pound sterling"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quid