Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 158

There is a big announcement from us this week in this translator post. If you would like to skip it the chapter will be at the bottom.

This week there will only be one chapter of WSK, and actually this was supposed to be announced earlier in the week but it just shows how busy we are. We aren’t busy with Pokemon Go if that’s what you’re thinking xD

We’re both trying to climb a bit further ahead in the directions of our lives. At first, translating for us had three objectives: first maybe we’d get some cash (to be perfectly honest xD), second, we really wanted to study Chinese before we got older and supposedly it’s harder to learn languages. Third, we wanted to give back to the community with some diversity.

We never did try the donations for chapters, and part of the reason was that we saw a lot of folks started charging far less than would be for it to be worth it for us to guarantee a chapter no matter how horrible the day was. We persisted for months on the sole foundation of happy readers and studying Chinese. Up to today, we only missed one week in a year of translating, and we have translated well over half a million characters, with nearly 2.4 million views and for that, Team Mushroom is proud :3 That’s really not that much in the broad scheme of things, but a year ago, we definitely never would’ve thought we’d reach this point.

In the beginning our translations were really bad, and viewership was extremely low. It was pretty demoralizing to see negative comments and such comparatively low views after the hours poured into each chapter. We were also making horrendous editing oversights, and every time we encountered the plethora of idioms and sayings that the author loves to use, it was like another tumble down the stairs. Gradually through sheer willpower we pushed, and we found dictionaries, began memorizing and learning idioms, and there was less need to have discussions about what idioms meant and such. We got faster and faster. It went from 12 hrs a chapter to an hour a chapter – yes we came a long ways.

Now though, we’ve really hit a peak in how the current rate is impacting our ability to study. Because of decreased members, increased responsibilities and less time, translating has become a chore that we try to mash out as fast as we can, and we’ve come to rely on dictionaries too much when we should be trying to memorize characters and practicing more with reading only characters.

Instead we’d like to change the translating schedule into free posting, basically whenever we can manage it, which is really irregular and we highly recommend using a tracking resource such as following us or Novelupdates or the like. The reason for this is because both of us are taking night classes and the added stress is becoming heavier and heavier. Until this rough patch is done, we would like to take some time off translating for a few weeks to finish these courses.

So to definitively state it, is this over? For now, no. When the day comes, we will be sure to inform you all without simply disappearing.

Chapter 158

I dunno where this is, Sichuan maybe?

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 156-157

Chapter 156

So….tired. I’m skippin’ translation notes cuz I just wanna crash -_-

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 154-155

Chapter 154

Fourth of July post! The weekend was busy, and actually we almost forgot to post. Good thing it was worked on in advance, so we could still be super late…

Kept making the weirdest errors again! The things most familiar with come out strangely when translating while reading, that disconnect between the English part of the brain and the Chinese one…

Happy 4th of July for those it applies to~

No translation notes since this took so long, happy reading!

Jinan, apparently known for hot springs, and Marco Polo once visited.

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 152-153

Chapter 152

A solo’d week of translations! It lacks DT’s PENETRATING GAZE which is Super Effective against errors cuz he was busy. There was another censored word, and also another usage of the name of a move.

Translation Notes:

司马昭之心路人皆知 Sīmǎ zhāozhī xīn lùrén jiē zhī – ‘everyone knows Sima Zhao’s heart (intentions)’, or as google machine translates, ‘the villain is obvious’. I dunno if ‘the villain is obvious’ is actually a kind of saying, but the Chinese one references the Three Kingdoms period again! Actually so does Tang SanGuo, whose name is literally “Tang Three Kingdoms”.

In history, Sima Zhao is the son of Sima Yi, the Supreme Commander of the Wei Army who had been recruited by Cao Cao. After Shu eventually fell to Wei, the Cao Clan, descendant relatives of Cao Cao (who had passed away years before) had set up their own dynasty replacing the bygone Han Dynasty, and though they had used Sima Yi to unify the lands, they were jealous and fearful of Sima Yi’s talents and his influence in court.

Sima Yi had many enemies, and was constantly fearful of having his clan executed by the incompetent Cao Clan. He feigned illness and tried other reasons to be excused from public service, but each time the Cao Clan encountered troubles it couldn’t solve by itself, namely, Zhuge Liang of Shu attacking, they would summon Sima Yi and force him into service, only to dismiss and exile him each time after.

During this time, the Cao Clan had become corrupt and excessive, using ham-fisted ruling methods and were lavishly wasteful and corrupt. Sima Yi finally saw a chance when he feigned illness and the Regents of the Cao throne decided to go on a hunting party with the pretext being visiting their clan’s tombs. Sima Yi summoned all of the generals who fought with him on the front lines and destroyed the Cao Clan. After Sima Yi’s coup, the majority of ministers supported him.

Sima Yi did not establish a dynasty, however his son wished to become Emperor. Thus, the saying, ‘everyone knows Sima Zhao’s intentions’ is a reference to his ambitions which led to an even more corrupt and incompetent Jin Dynasty (265-420, not the 1115-1234 Jin Dynasty), which is part of the reason Wei is vilified today. If not for Cao Cao suppressing Liu Bei and Shu, thereafter, the Cao Clan being easily crushed by the Sima Clan, which led the chaos and destruction during the Jin Dynasty, then things would’ve been better.

儿 Er – is an endearment suffix. Name + er, such as Jiu-er would be like ‘dear Jiu’ or ‘Jiu dear’. However, that makes the speaker sound like a nice grandma in English or something, and so it was omitted.

五毒行者 Wǔ dú xíngzhě – ‘five poisoner’, or Penta Poisoner as we have liberally translated.

Saviors, or ‘the favor of saving (a) life’ 救命之恩 Jiùmìng zhī ēn, in Chinese culture means that you owe that person your life. If not for them saving you, you wouldn’t have anything anyways – no happiness or anything, so in literature and probably a lot in Wuxia, becoming the servant of the person who saved your life is considered acceptable.

眼缘 Yǎn yuán – ‘eye affinity’, is kind of like ‘love at first sight’, but doesn’t only apply to love. I translated it as ‘fated affinity’ to try to prevent the wordiness I would get from trying to include the ‘eye’ part. It’s kind of like seeing someone, and just feeling deep affinity, and when mutual, that’s when you get things like the Oath in the Peach Garden! Bromance, romance alike!

不愧是有白云居士一称  bùkuì shì yǒu báiyún jūshì yī chēng – ‘worthy of a scholar from the White Cloud residence’, but I just put ‘very wise’. This is a saying which I can’t think of a good parallel to in English, but I suspect that one exists, possibly originating from the Mediterranean region. Anyways, a Daoist School was established near modern-day Beijing, which has been translated as White Cloud Temple, and was famous for intelligent scholars.

BTW this extremely praising language is a way of showing respect – it’s a norm as opposed to ass-kissing to be liked. I blame the ass-kissers for doing it so much, it makes anyone doing less look bad. Also, I’ve never heard such praise to anyone in my life, idk how it factors into the modern usage of the Mainland usage of Chinese.

According to google, my only find of an air view of the White Cloud Temple. Inside looks like typical ancient Chinese architecture.

刀剑无眼 Dāojiàn wú yǎn – ‘blades and swords have no eyes’, so don’t be surprised if I CUTCHA.

换脸的还快 Huàn liǎn de hái kuài – ‘faster than changing faces’, I think this is a reference to face-changers, a part of Sichuan Opera. The usual verb with face-changers is ‘bian’, not ‘huan’. IDK how strictly the verb association is to this, but it seems that way to me.

Face-changers can change their masks as quickly as a gesture past their face.

Another pic on the other side of that city square I posted a few weeks ago. I can’t help but to think Halo xD

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 150-151

Chapter 150

So, there were other things that may have normally consumed the time it would take to write some translation notes, a great way for someone studying Chinese like us to remember them… but today the chapters were really like a berserk tennis ball machine spitting names at a crowd which may be unfamiliar with the language. Actually with this many names, I’d be confused even in English, so I decided to make a lil chart for you guys~

Third Generation of the Tang Family:

• Leader: Tang ZhengTian (Jiu’s father, eldest)
• Other living members:
  • Tang ZhenFeng (YiFei’s father)
    • 2nd of third generation
  • Tang SanGuo (ShaoFeng and Tang Yi’s father)
    • 3rd of third generation
  • Tang WanHe
  • Tang HuaZhong – youngest of the 3rd generation, may be “Seventh Uncle”
  • Tang Seventh Uncle
• Deceased/left the family: Tang Qun’s father, Tang WanXin’s  father(left), and Tang Long’s father.

Fourth Generation of the Tang Family:

There are 9 children of the 4th generation, 8 males and 1 female.

• Order of birth:
  1. Tang Long (father deceased)
  2. Tang YiFei (Tang ZhenFeng’s son)
  3. Tang ShaoFeng (Tang SanGuo’s son)
  4. Tang Yi (Tang SanGuo’s son)
  5. Tang Qun (father deceased)
  6. Tang WanXin (father left)
  7. ???Tang XianDai (Tang Seventh Uncle’s son)
  8. ???Tang JinSheng
  9. Tang Jiu (Tang ZhengTian’s daughter)

Daming Lake in Jinan

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 148-149

Chapter 148

Another week’s chapters! It had a few weird (to us) expressions in Chinese that we’ve never heard of~

Translation Notes:

毛妹 Máo mèi – ‘Mao little sister’, or Russian girl/chick. It’s some kind of reference to Mao ZeDong and his dealings with Russia, but I was too lazy to look further into it. In the text, the Chinese like to abbreviate things a lot, so it was only ‘marry a ‘mao”. Confusing -_-

点个卯就能睡觉 diǎn gè mǎo jiù néng shuìjiào – ‘when it’s mao (ancient reference to 5-7am) then you can go to sleep’ rhymes in Chinese, and it roughly means to stay up all night. However, the expression isn’t simply “sleep when it’s morning”, it’s a reference to time to work. In other words, it’s an accusation of laziness/uselessness to stay up all night before going to bed when everyone else is working. It was brutally mutilated during translation.

百十来万 Bǎi shí lái wàn – ‘100 10 coming to 10,000’ is an expression referring to a number between 100,000 to 1,000,000. After translating a ton of chapters, you just get this instinct when you see some innocent, easily read characters that are actually disguising some kind of buttfuck.

The Chinese bow – lowering your head in a quick nod is the Chinese bow. Other East Asian cultures like the Koreans and the Japanese bow far lower.

Criticizing one’s parents for the child’s insult – in Chinese culture, an adult may directly criticize the parents instead of the child. This is because the child’s status is not equal to the adult’s and they don’t need to give respect to the child, though it has the added effect of being more likely to rein in the child’s behavior. It quickly can devolve into bickering though, because no adult wants to be criticized in front of their children xD Even if the parent will argue on the child’s behalf in public, in private they may turn around and tell their kids to behave.

That same park in Jinan from 2 weeks ago during the day. A very colorful city!

 

 

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 147

Chapter 147

And the rest of last week’s. This chapter will not count towards this week, so there will still be two chapters incoming sometime this week, assuming of course, my shitty internet doesn’t decide to up and die.

Translation Notes:

From last chapter:

(name)-mei – you may recall that this is a relationship suffix for ‘younger sister’. We tried the ‘Sister’ thing, it just piqued the OCD and we couldn’t do it xD. That’s not a stab at anyone, we don’t stab fellow translators cuz seriously, this work seriously sucks sometimes LOL.

Inheritance by eldest – primogeniture is pretty prevalent all over the world, but I’ve noticed that it’s not always obvious to Americans and perhaps other cultures. So here it is, Chinese society also practices primogeniture, the eldest is typically the first and most obvious choice for inheritance. Of course this doesn’t always end up happening for one reason or another.

猫哭耗子 Māo kū hàozi – is an expression about a cat crying for a mouse. It works just like alligator tears in English. Chinese culture has noted how cruel cats are to mice, playing with them cruelly before ultimately eating them, so a cat crying for a mouse genuinely? Well, pretty much a snowball’s chance in hell.

Baotuquan Park in Jinan during Lantern Festival. All owned by the Tang Family!

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 146

Chapter 146

Guyyyyyyys… so my wonderful 1st world ISP completely died for most of yesterday. It set me super behind in work cuz I do everything on Google Docs, and this week DT is busy so I’ve been soloing. I tried as best as I could, but I can’t push out the other chapter by tonight, so it’ll come out some time Monday….sorry :S

I’ll write a better post tomorrow X_X

Jinan, which we believe is the basis for JiBei City, clearly another land full of gangsters.

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 145

Chapter 145

Random poll for fun!

Translation Notes:

先来后到 Xiān lái hòu dào – is simply the Chinese way of saying first come, first served, but doesn’t use any equatable characters. We put first dibs in this case.

JiBei 济北 – ‘Jì běi’, if put into a machine it will say ‘North Jinan’ (Jinan is a real city), and that’s because Ji Bei no longer exists. Long ago, it was absorbed into Jinan, which means “South of the Ji River” – but the Ji River dried up a long time ago. Just the same, Ji Bei means North of the Ji River.

The author extremely confusingly incorporates real cities with cities that no longer exist, and we’re left to wonder why he does he that. Just like he has never referred to China as ‘zhong guo’ or ‘middle kingdom’, instead calling it 华夏 huá xià, which is a reference to Chinese civilization, not explicitly a country. We just call in ‘China’. TBH, we don’t know why he’s doing it so we can’t interpretive-ly translate.

Jinan, which may be supposedly what Jibei is, is city with a population twice that of possibly fictional HeDong. And just a random fact about Jinan, it was the place where Cao Cao was a minister at the twilight of the Han Dynasty..

Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 144

Chapter 144

Earlier than usual surprise!

Translation Notes:

抠脚 Kōu jiǎo – ‘pull feet’, translated as ‘slovenly’. Perhaps you may have noticed someone touching their feet a lot – this is considered a disgusting habit, so people who ‘pull their feet’ are generally considered unhygienic and dirty. I guess you can liken it to the kid that always has his hands in his pants in manga (and irl too I guess xD).

Bringing Money to a Grand Opening – In Chinese culture, the gift of money is not considered tacky, or un-thoughtful. In fact, if you attended a Chinese wedding and tried to pull a West on them and bring them a blender or something, that would be quite strange to them. This varies for second generation Chinese and up of course. The culture prefers the flexibility of cash as opposed to buying something that may be perhaps useless, something the West really ought to pick up (gift cards are getting closer ;p).

For weddings or say the opening of a friend’s business, you will typically come to give them face and bring a red envelope of money. Your contribution numbers will indicate how well you are doing and how much you value the relationship, so bringing $10 will just make you look like an ass. A few hundred at least, is expected for your typical civvies, idk about rich families.

People don’t necessarily need to be invited to show up, but if you show up, bring a red envelope. In the case of our characters who have plenty of status, many people will come out of nowhere just to say they’ve shown up, and shown you respect. Each guest who comes will have their red envelope amounts painstakingly recorded with their names.

I should also add that ‘face’ culture is probably biggest in mainland China. Overseas Chinese, even in other parts of Asia, do not adhere so heavily to the concept of face. When dealing with a mainlander for instance, you may say “I’ve given you plenty of face” and they may consider backing down, curbing their demands or generally considering if they have overstepped their position. Saying that to overseas Chinese from other areas has, from my own experience, not been nearly as effective, and in conversation it has hardly come up.

North Temple Pagoda in Suzhou. Behind it is the typically gloomy night all over China. No, it is not always a giant cloud of pollution, though of course there are incredibly polluted cities.