Continuing from part one, found here, we examine insights from this article written by Audrey Wong.
Juggling a demonstration of cultural awareness with the brevity of their translations, some wuxia translators have opted to translate proper nouns into their corresponding English terms while embedding as much cultural meaning within them as possible. This approach (see Part I for my own translation of 降龍十八掌 into the ‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’) is an alternative to transliteration, where Chinese characters are directly anglicised using a phonetic system (e.g. 黃蓉, pronounced huáng róng → Huang Rong). However, while this translation strategy perhaps minimises footnote usage, it also sacrifices equally significant features of Chinese names that are best preserved in the original characters and their transliterated pronunciations. Certain martial sects, such as the Shaolin Monastery, adopt a generation-hierarchical naming system—that is to say, disciples of the same generation have one common character and one unique character in their names or titles. In English, however, the sonic unity of such titles as 空智 (Kong Zhi), 空聞 (Kong Wen) and 空見 (Kong Jian) is comically rendered as ‘Empty Intelligence’, ‘Empty Hearing’ and ‘Empty Sight’. Literally translated, the names 郭靖 and 楊康 —the two key characters in The Legend of the Condor Heroes—become ‘Pacify Guo’ and ‘Prosperous Yang’; the utterly horrendous nature of these English translations aside, they also elide Jin’s intentional naming of the two warriors after the 靖康事變 (Jingkang Incident) in Chinese history, where invaders from the Jin Empire abducted the then-Chinese Emperor and much of the imperial family. ‘Prosperous Yang’ goes on to sell his country to the Jin Empire, while ‘Pacify Guo’, by contrast, eventually sacrifices himself to defend China against the conquering Mongol army. The rooting of their Chinese names in this historical moment and its relevant nationalistic sentiments is therefore symbolically significant—a feature that cannot be reflected when translators opt for translation over transliteration.
While the above examples show the nuances that slip past when we rely exclusively on translation, transliteration clearly also has its own pitfall of requiring countless footnotes and explanations. As neither strategy has proved infallible, certain translators such as Gigi Chang have tried using them in combination—yet the results are even more unwieldy and anachronistic, with the transliterated names Guo Jing and Yang Kang (i.e. the aforementioned ‘Pacify’ and ‘Prosperous’) existing in the same text as ridiculous titles like ‘Blithe Li, the Red Serpent Celestial’. With no simple solution to this matter, pages upon pages of unfamiliar names and proper nouns plague both translators and English readers of wuxia alike, making for very confusing and overcomplicated narratives.
One small comfort is that the significances of particular names and proper nouns are often elaborated within the content of wuxia novels themselves, or are so obscure that even the regular Chinese reader wouldn’t recognise them immediately. However, a sufficiently deep understanding of Chinese culture, philosophy and history is still key to the reading of wuxia literature, and is what ultimately eases the Chinese (or even Asian) reading experience compared to a Western one. Beyond simple textual references, Chinese culture greatly shapes wuxia narratives: from setting the overarching ideological backdrops, to driving characters’ psychological developments, to providing the impetus for certain conflicts. Without a corresponding cultural background, non-Chinese readers might find all of these hard to grasp or relate to. Therefore, ironically, the driving force behind wuxia’s popularity within Chinese communities—its deep roots in Chinese culture—is also the biggest obstacle to its dissemination in Western society.
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