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

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?