Crop top Tuxedo

Corresponding ExR chapter: Aggression Part 1 Frontier Works pages 21-33

I’m not going in order of Vocab then Quotations this time. Just things I thought might be interesting to look at.

辟穀 hekikoku is specifically the Daoist concept bi4gu3. “Inedia” is a nice Latin word to describe it (lit. “fasting”). Unfortunately, the first Wikipedia page you fall on is for breatharianism–a pseudoscience. Bi4gu3 is back translated as “grain avoidance” and there are several interpretations about how literal that is. I’ll let you peruse the wiki article. If I learned anything from Classical Chinese class, it’s that 9 times out of 10, whatever you’re looking at is a metaphor for a sassy political statement. It seems like a large leap of logic to go from what appears to be a primitive celiac treatment to “returning to the ‘golden age'”–ie 'pre-agrarian’ society–elitism. I’m sure I’m missing some of the in between steps regarding spiritualism and such, but I’ll be damned if I have to read any more Laozi, Zhuangzi, or Mengze in the original just to track this down…

Example

The YiLing Patriarch had just returned to the moral world, but the first thing he came upon was a kick and a scolding, not to mention the leftovers that served as his welcoming-meal[sic]. where were the blood and gore? The ruthless slaughter? the absolute destruction? Who would believe him? He was like the tiger in a flatland, the dragon in shallow water, the phoenix without feathers, losing his advantage and belittled by those weaker than him. (ExR pg 7)

夷陵老祖と呼ばれた自分が現世に蘇ったというのに、足蹴にされるわ怒鳴られるわ、復活を祝う最初の宴もこんな冷たい残飯だなんてーー。血の雨、漆黒の嵐は？残虐非道は？一族郎党皆殺しは？こんな仕打ち、あとで話したところで誰も信じてくれないだろう。虎も山を下りれば犬にいじめられ、龍も浅水で泳げば海老に遊ばれ、鳳凰の羽を抜けば鶏以下ーー力を失ったら、こんな格下の存在にも愚弄されるなんて。(FW pg 22) Even though he himself who had been called the Iryou Elder had been resurrected to the present world, he’d been treated poorly (double meaning: kicked), he’d been yelled at, and the first feast to celebrate his reincarnation was these cold leftovers?? Where’s the blood rain, the jet black storm? The atrocity? The massacre of an entire clan? No one would believe he’d suffered this sort of poor treatment when he’d talk about it later. If a tiger descending the mountain only to be bullied by a dog; if a dragon swimming in shallow water only to be teased by a shrimp; If a phoenix with plucked feathers, a chicken [verb dropped], etc.–When he lost his powers, he’d be mocked these sorts of lower ranked beings!

The back translation above is not in clean sentences as the Japanese text is effectively fragmented anyway. Please note that 夷陵老祖 IS NOT GLOSSED. Place names in general ARE NOT GLOSSED the way that personal names are. (I’m genuinely not sure if I should be reading 現世 as gense or utsushiyo, but that’s probably the myriad of Buddhist and Buddhist inspired literature experience speaking. Blame my translating Kagrra, lyrics on JPopAsia back in 2009.)

彷屍 houshi I’m not sure if I like ExR’s “walking corpses”. They “wander” 彷徨 (urotsuku, samayou, houkou). Then again, Japanese is prone to redundancy in a way that English tends to avoid.

A-Tong complained, “Delivering his meal is not the only work I do! > How an you dare to go outside these days? With so many walking corpses out there, everyone’s locking themselves in their houses.” (ExR pg 8) > > 「俺だって他にも仕事があるんだ！それより、外に遊びに行きたいって？あんなに大量の彷屍がうろついていて、どこの家も皆ガッチガチに扉を閉ざしているんだぞ。」(FW pg 23) > “I’ve got plenty of other work to do. But that’s beside the point–you said you want to go play outside? With that many wandering corpses roaming around, every house is bolting their doors shut.

Side note: It’s clear that A-Tong is speaking rather than A-Ding because the two servants are established earlier in the passage to have distinct speech patterns in addition to their assigned social genders, including but not limited to first- and second person pronominal usage. This is not easily replicated in English, therefore specification of the speaker is required in English only.

修為 shuui because it got an inline note:

重ねた修行の成果。また、その段階。(FW pg 22) The cumulative results of training, or rank thereof.

This feels like Chinese. Kotobank’s only entry for the term redirects to 修養 shuuyou, “self-improvement” and then quotes a poem by Zhang Yanghao.

Seisenban nihon kokugo daijiten: 学問をおさめ、徳性をやしない、より高い人格形成に努めること。精神を練磨し、品性をやしない、人格を高めること。 ※童子問（1707）中「夫修養之引年、資質之変化、皆可勉而至焉」 〔張養浩‐寿子詩〕

Side note: If you look 修養 up on Kotobank, you’ll see additional markings on that poetry fragment. That’s kanbun kundoku 漢文訓読 Japanese reading notation for Chinese texts. It’s obnoxious to work with, and honestly much easier to just read the Literary Chinese straight than attempt to rework it into Classical Japanese and then finally English. Ladder translation gets messy rather quickly. I have removed the notation since my current word processor doesn’t support subscripts.

抹額 makkou also got an inline note on FW pg 25. I’m not typing it up as we all know it’s the Lan clan headband/ “forehead ribbon”. Denshi Jisho says they’re usually red, as confirmed by Taiwanese hanfu websites via Google Images.

客卿 kakkei (in the other dictionaries I’ve checked, it comes up as kakukei first) similarly on FW pg 25 but without an inline note— Government bureaucracy terminology from the Qin dynasty, but as overarching government in general has been poorly established, what is government to MXTX sensei anyway? I’m going to go with “guest cultivator”.

Seisenban nihon kokugo daijiten: 他国から来て、一時その国の支配者に仕え公卿の地位にある人。 Weblio: 中国戦国時代に秦で用いられた古代の官名の一つ。他国の者でありながら秦の高官の地位に就いた者に与えられた官名であり、位置的には左庶長と同等であったとされる。

I do think it’s quite funny that the narrator refers to the Lan clan’s white costuming as a “school uniform” 校服 (still FW pg 25). And funnier still that ExR calls the Lan juniors “ikemen” (pg 9).

These boys grew up in a cultivation clan, exposed to splendor and that only. (ExR pg 10) 姑蘇藍氏で育った弟子たちがこれまで見聞きしてきたのは、雪月風花のような雅で美しいものだけだろう。(FW pg 28) Disciples raised by the Koso Lan clan had probably only experienced elegant and beautiful things like the beauties of nature [lit. the snow, moon, wind, and flowers].

Again, place names like 姑蘇 (“Gusu”) are not glossed but people's names like 藍 Lan are.

雪月風花 setsugetsufuuka is a whole tangent that I will write about in a separate post. TLDR it's an allusion to the phrase 雪月花 setsugekka/xue3 yue4 hua1 from a lesser known Bai Juyi 白居易 poem to his friend and subordinate Yin Xielü 殷協律 back when he was stationed in Chang'an that Japanese literati just fell in love with, and at some point shoved in an extra character. Tracking the etymology of that would be a collegiate research paper, and I just don't have that kind of free time or resources.

Of all the things that could possibly make me second guess myself, it’s 腕. But it’s because of a specific translation choice by ExR. In Chinese, I keep getting “wrist” as the primary definition and “arm” as the second. In Japanese, it’s definitely an “arm”.

“Who said that my words shouldn’t be taken seriously? Next time, try stealing anything from me again. You steal once and I cut off off one of your hands.” (ExR pg 11)

「事実無根だって？今度また俺の物を盗んでみろよ。誰であろうが、一回盗んだらその代わりにそいつの腕を一本斬り落としてやるから！」 (FW pg 29) “'Not grounded in reality?’ Next time try stealing from me. Doesn’t matter who, steal my stuff one more time and I’ll lop off one of your arms in return.”

I’m just going to assume that it’s supposed to be an arm because of the donghua’s depiction of the events that follow.

These last two notes are about Japanese specific text additions, both near the bottom of FW pg 33.

He sprinted off the moment he threw the flag away. the boys who stood on the roof to watch the bustle almost fell off from laughter, after hearing his ridiculous words. Lan JingYi also chuckled from anger and picked up the Phantom Attraction Flag. “What a maniac!” (ExR pg 12)

魏無羨は旗を捨てるとすぐさま逃げだした。屋根の上で面白そうに事の成り行きを見守っていた少年たちは、彼の戯言を聞いて危うく屋根から落ちそうなくらいどっと笑いだした。藍景儀も憤慨しつつ苦笑して召陰旗を拾い上げて埃を払う。 「あいつは本当におかしい！」 「そう言わないで。それより早くこっちを手伝ってよ」と藍思追が言った。(FW pg 33) Wei Wuxian threw away the flag and promptly fled. From the rooftop, the boys, who were watching the hilarious course of events, burst into laughter at his nonsense so much so that they were in danger of falling off. Lan Jingyi, despite his indignation, smiled wryly as he picked up the yin calling flag and paid the dust. “That guy’s truly ridiculous!” “Don’t say that. Besides, come over here and help already,” said Lan Sizhui.

And a little further down the same page…

A series of chaotic footsteps quickly approached, along with cries and screams. Wei WuXian heard a few phrases being repeated, “… Barge in and drag him out!” “Notify the officers!” “What do you mean 'notify the officers’? Beat him to death.” (ibid.)

騒がしい足音の中に泣き喚く声と叫び声が混ざっている。どんどん近づいてくるその声の中から、いくつかの物騒な言葉が繰り返し聞こえてきた。 「……殴り込んで、そのまま引きずり出せ！」 「役所に届けよう！」 「何が役所だ。頭に布被せて殴り殺すんだ！(ibid.) Screams and shouts were mixed into the turbulent footsteps. In the approaching voices Wei Wuxian could hear numerous unsettling phrases repeated. “Barge in there and drag him out immediately!” “Notify the authorities!” “What do you mean ‘the authorities’? Cover his head with cloth and beat him to death.”

Again, these aren’t in the ExR translation, but I don’t think they’re necessarily bad textual additions. I like the banter. It makes the world feel more lived in and the characters a little more lively. It also makes things visually clearer.