Still Reading 病案本 Bing An Ben (Case File Compendium). I’m On Chapter 106 (out Of 254) Now. And

MDZS Volume 4 Annotations

Part 5, pages 174 - 208

And so begins my “Please No American Slang!” tirade, plus a few more grammatical / vocabulary changes to make the story flow more clearly.

The Chinese for this is super funny. I could totally see Jin Ling staring at his JiuJiu, staring so hard that JC felt the stare and looked over to see his teenage nephew absolutely googly-eyed as he tried to Jedi-mind-trick / wish his JiuJiu into saying something nice to him.

Jedi mind tricks don’t work on JC, of course. (Wishes don’t work on him, either.)

More below the cut:

WHEN SANITY IS NOT HOME

Starring: DaGe, Director Nie, ErGe, and Yaomei.

Sorry, I can't breathe👻

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 3

Part 3 of 6, pages 133 - 190

More under the cut.

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 4

Part 4 of 6, pages 193 - 267

We are now in the Extras!

I’m just here to provide a little bit of cultural clarification (ex: what it means for a gentleman to use his mouth and not his hands, and No it’s not a scandalous sexy allusion) and context (not all cabbages are just cabbages). And maybe complain about the occasional word choice and commiserate over how hard it is to translate sentence structure (Chinese feels much more flexible to me than English).

I remember back in the Firefly days, when I had to tell an acquaintance that “Mei Mei” did not mean “sweetheart” and maybe don’t call her boyfriend that. Not in public, anyway.

More under the cut.

For more about cabbages and pigs: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/好白菜都讓豬拱了

Yes, you can find places where 面面相觑 translates as “dismay,” but it’s more like “I look at you, you look at me, both of our expressions are blank and helpless (and surprised):” “What is going on with our HGJ?” “I don’t know. Do you hear anything?” “No. You?” “No. Wha?”

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the long-leaved orchids portrayed in so many Chinese paintings; maybe it’s another plant that goes by a similar name. An image search of 兰草 in Chinese is only moderately helpful. Fill in your own best background flora.

Xue Yang is definitely at least a full-height teenager by this time.

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.

MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 1

I finished annotating my copy of MDZS, Volume 2!

First off, I think the translations are perfectly wonderful and I am forever grateful that Seven Seas has given us the ability to share this story with a wider group of friends. With that, I went into Vol 2 trying to pretend that I did not speak Chinese, had little to no knowledge of Chinese culture.

Any time I saw something that didn't flow well to my North American brain or that didn't feel like what I remembered feeling when I read the Chinese version, I made a note. I love this story, and I don't expect my non-Chinese friends to remember the 5+ different things that Lan Xichen is called, or what in the world "shishu" is, so I made a lot of notes. Here they are:

MDZS Vol 2, Annotations Part 1, pages 1 - 86 (I tried to include the page number in each photo).

New Meme Alignment Chart came to me in a fit of Mania this morning. Have fun kids!

I’m rereading 杀破狼 by Priest (Sha Po Lang) (“Stars of Chaos”). It took me forever to read it the first time, but I don’t really want to leave this universe, so….

I love how in the first 5 chapters, Priest perfectly conveys how Chang Geng is terribly in love with Shen Shiliu, completely against his own better judgement. Chang Geng is just entering adolescence and is having his usual nightmares, but now some of them are wet dreams, and he just doesn’t know what to do about all these feelings and Shiliu is not making it easy on him.

Shiliu is blind and deaf (or pretending to be) and lazy (not pretending there) and constantly trying to distract Chang Geng from his studies. He’s always calling Chang Geng over to play and waste time. He’s always throwing his arms around Chang Geng and giving him childish presents. He’s infuriating! And so, so handsome.

But Chang Geng is already building his life around Shen Shiliu. He has to become smart so that he can earn enough money to support Shiliu. He has to become strong so that he can protect poor blind, deaf Shiliu. He will be a good godson and take care of godfather, Yes.

Chang Geng is frustrated and confused out of his mind, and Shiliu keeps grabbing him as if one of them were a child!, but, even at this tender age, he knows who he wants to be with. Even if that person makes him mad in every sense of the word.

MDZS Weibo update, 1.22.2022 “Does the following collection of warm smiles from Hanguang Jun also touch you? There is still 1 day before Hanguangjun's birthday.”

Me: Yes, Yes it does! Hanguang Jun handsome Hanguang Jun.. may his days always be filled with warm smiles and happy moments with Wei Ying

Lost in translation of Word of Honor: southern barbarians and their association with poison

In Word of Honor, Zhao Jing sometimes calls Xie Wang 小南蛮子 xiao nanmanzi - “little southern barbarian”. In the English subtitles, 南蛮 was translated simply as “barbarian”, however, the omission of “southern” not only makes Xie Wang’s ethnicity less specific but also deprives him of an important background characterization: in the Han Chinese folklore, “southern barbarians” have a long-standing association with sinister witchcraft, poison and venomous creatures.

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↳ gif request for anon  ♡