Little Mushroom: Chapters 4-6 (EN) or 5-13 (CH)

[x_los]

Welcome to week 2's "Little Mushroom" (小蘑菇) discussion for English chapters 4-6 of Book 1 and Chinese chapters 5-13 (inclusive). This spreadsheet contains the schedule and concordances of the chapter endings across the Chinese and English versions. There's an associated Discord server (ask superborb for an invite if you'd like one), and we'll be running comment posts here.

This discussion will wrap up and next week's will begin on April 24th.

Chinese text
English text

SPOILER POLICY: I personally don't give a fuck or even like to give unearned credence to the concept, so since I'm writing the post, anything's fair game.

Comments

Chapter 6, EN

[x_los]

Shaw's wanting an apprentice takes on the narrative shape of a cultivator wanting someone to inherit his legacy in a xianxia story.

“Hubbard said, "You never run a losing business, Scott Shaw.” To make this work in Chinese prose, the author's using Western names in ways that are slightly 'off' for Western conversational norms. Translating the book into English has perhaps made the weirdness a touch starker. Also, what language are these people speaking? If An Ze is ethnically Chinese, 'Shaw' probably isn't.

‘“Captain Hubbard is infinitely resourceful. I’m no good," he said.”’ This translation is good for a danmei, but at times it’s still below the editorial standard I'd hope for from a professional publication.

Why is the arbiter so young?

Why call her ‘Madam D’? That’s only for like, period French novels; this isn’t Balzac. I guess she's technically a 'madame', but that's different.

Re: Chapter 6, EN

[halfcactus]

I’m also trying to wrap my head around the language issue, but I guess it doesn’t matter in the book.

The Madam part I assume is because it’s a word that’s associated with women who run brothels? But it took me a while to process.

Why is the arbiter so young?
I’m very ??? about this too but I’m just interpreting this as shounen manga logic haha

Re: Chapter 6, EN

[x_los]

Just ‘D’ there as well, which is ?

Also maybe the translator is a little confused about madam vs a madame? Is she even supposed to be French, what is going on—

Also maybe this is in the picture:

‘The terms Madame Mao and Madame Chiang Kai-shek were frequently used in English to refer to Jiang Qing (the wife of Mao Zedong) and Soong Mei-ling (the wife of Chiang Kai-shek), respectively; Madame approximated the Chinese respectful forms of address.[34][35][36]‘

Re: Chapter 6, EN

[halfcactus]

She seems vaguely western to me, like the rest of the non-Chinese characters. The choice to shorten her name as “D” is because her name in Chinese is Dusai and in that scene (Madam D) she was referred to as “Du furen”.

In retrospect I’ve seen furen be translated as Madame in other fantranslation projects, and used similarly like in the paragraph you quoted (ie. the wife of a lord/official)! It just wasn’t my first thought when I saw the English translation because it’s the first time we see her referred to that way.

ETA: To clarify, she’s been addressed as Du furen in the Chinese previously (in the scene where she and Shaw interact) but it’s the first time it had to be translated to English.

Re: Chapter 6, EN

[superborb]

It's weird because it's trying to use the Chinese respectful term by turning the first syllable of her name into a last name, but it's not her last name?