Titles & forms of address in wuxia drama

[junzi]

In reviewing the YG/XLN relationship, the exact characters which make up the word, 'shifu', should be considered.

The word 'shifu' is made out of the characters 'shi' and 'fu'; the first one means 'master', in the sense of one being a master of a particular school/style/ability. The second character, 'fu', literally means 'father'.

Likewise, the proper way to address your shifu's wife would be 'shiniang'; again, the 'niang' character literally means 'mother'.

if your teacher is female, you'd still call her shifu. then what would you call your shifu's husband?

[Ren Wo Xing]

In a given school, generally speaking, even if the wife's martial arts are superior to the husband's (a very rare occasion), the husband would still be the shifu, and the wife still the shiniang, because of traditional Chinese patriarchy. The situation where the woman would be addressed as shifu would only come up in cases where 1) She's a bachelorette/spinster, or 2) She knows martial arts and her husband is not a person of the Wulin. In the former, the question of what to call her husband is irrelevant. The latter case comes up extremely rarely (especially for women who have a high enough ability in martial arts to take on students), and in the few cases I can think of where that might have happened, in none of them did the woman take on disciples; based upon general Chinese tradition, I believe that if they "marry out of" Wulin by marrying a non-Wulin husband, that they set aside Wulin customs and traditions and take on that of the general populace.

So to answer your question, in the context of Wuxia, I can think of no situation where that might come up, due to the traditions of that time. Yushi, can you think of anything?

[Ren Wo Xing]

I guess I need to stop taking the dictionary definitions to be literal translations.

As far as Jinlun Fawang speaking Mongolian too, I understood that. I just meant that he speaks Mongolian with Da'erba instead of Tibetan in ROCH '06. Guo Fu asks what Jinlun is saying to Da'erba during the contest at Da Xing Guan, and Guo Jing replies that he's speaking Mongolian.

Ah. The novel did not specify if he communicated with Da'erba in Tibetan or Mongolian; neither Guo Jing nor Huang Rong were explicitly described as knowing what he said either. The only thing that the novel said was that Huang Rong noticed that Yang Guo was just repeating whatever Da'erba said, but it didn't say if she actually understood it. He did communicate with Huo Du in Tibetan in the novel though, at least in 2nd edition.

[sniffles]

In a given school, generally speaking, even if the wife's martial arts are superior to the husband's (a very rare occasion), the husband would still be the shifu, and the wife still the shiniang, because of traditional Chinese patriarchy. The situation where the woman would be addressed as shifu would only come up in cases where 1) She's a bachelorette/spinster, or 2) She knows martial arts and her husband is not a person of the Wulin. In the former, the question of what to call her husband is irrelevant. The latter case comes up extremely rarely (especially for women who have a high enough ability in martial arts to take on students), and in the few cases I can think of where that might have happened, in none of them did the woman take on disciples; based upon general Chinese tradition, I believe that if they "marry out of" Wulin by marrying a non-Wulin husband, that they set aside Wulin customs and traditions and take on that of the general populace.

So to answer your question, in the context of Wuxia, I can think of no situation where that might come up, due to the traditions of that time. Yushi, can you think of anything?

I was just watching an episode of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain '03 last night, and if I recall correctly Xue E's disciple Tie addressed her as shifu. I think Hong Lingbo also addresses Li Mochou as shifu in ROCH, at least in the tv versions I mean.

This got me thinking about the titles of the novels and how they're translated into English, so now I'm looking at a different kind of title. The book title that's commonly translated as Return of the Condor Heroes in English is Shen2 Diao1 Xia Lu3 (I hope I've got the tones right). I can't figure out what tone belongs to Xia, though.

I'm having a hard time with that title translation. The version on wuxiapedia is titled Divine Eagle Gallant Knight, and I don't quite see how one could get that interpretation out of Shen Diao Xia Lu.

Not that Return of the Condor Heroes makes any more sense. I guess someone chose that one because it's a sequel to LOCH, which is presumably just the name someone made up for the English release of that series. The other day I also ran across an English-titled version of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu with the title Laughing in the Wind.

[Ren Wo Xing]

I was just watching an episode of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain '03 last night, and if I recall correctly Xue E's disciple Tie addressed her as shifu. I think Hong Lingbo also addresses Li Mochou as shifu in ROCH, at least in the tv versions I mean.

This got me thinking about the titles of the novels and how they're translated into English, so now I'm looking at a different kind of title. The book title that's commonly translated as Return of the Condor Heroes in English is Shen2 Diao1 Xia Lu3 (I hope I've got the tones right). I can't figure out what tone belongs to Xia, though.

I'm having a hard time with that title translation. The version on wuxiapedia is titled Divine Eagle Gallant Knight, and I don't quite see how one could get that interpretation out of Shen Diao Xia Lu.

Not that Return of the Condor Heroes makes any more sense. I guess someone chose that one because it's a sequel to LOCH, which is presumably just the name someone made up for the English release of that series. The other day I also ran across an English-titled version of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu with the title Laughing in the Wind.

I'm not familiar with the Xue E character, but Li Mochou is a [hot] spinster (and Lingbo does indeed address her as shifu). There's a number of female spinster shifu's throughout Jinyong's novels; the one which immediately springs to mind is Duan Zhengchun's lover, Qin Hongmian. Is Xue E married? I'd bet money on her being single.

Xia2 is the second tone; it is the xia2 in 'wuxia', roughly meaning 'hero', with over-tones of chivalry.

Shen2 Diao1 Xia2 Lu3 literally translates as, "Divine Eagle, Heroic Companion". So "Divine Eagle, Gallant Knight" is a pretty reasonable translation.

Xiao4 Ao4 Jiang1 Hu2 literally translates as "Laughing Proudly at the Jianghu". But of course, the word "Jianghu" is not easily translated, so I imagine that in order to capture the 'feel' of the title, while still keeping relatively close to the actual wording yet keeping the wording understandable, they chose "Laughing in the Wind".

[sniffles]

I'm not familiar with the Xue E character, but Li Mochou is a [hot] spinster (and Lingbo does indeed address her as shifu). There's a number of female spinster shifu's throughout Jinyong's novels; the one which immediately springs to mind is Duan Zhengchun's lover, Qin Hongmian. Is Xue E married? I'd bet money on her being single.

Xia2 is the second tone; it is the xia2 in 'wuxia', roughly meaning 'hero', with over-tones of chivalry.

Shen2 Diao1 Xia2 Lu3 literally translates as, "Divine Eagle, Heroic Companion". So "Divine Eagle, Gallant Knight" is a pretty reasonable translation.

Xiao4 Ao4 Jiang1 Hu2 literally translates as "Laughing Proudly at the Jianghu". But of course, the word "Jianghu" is not easily translated, so I imagine that in order to capture the 'feel' of the title, while still keeping relatively close to the actual wording yet keeping the wording understandable, they chose "Laughing in the Wind".

Xue E is a character the screenwriter invented for that series of Fox Volant, I think. And you're right, she's not married. I'd love to know what thought process resulted in using that English title for the series. I guess it's just because it's title of the published English translation of the novel. Damn Olivia Mok and her strange choice of words from other languages instead of just using the English or Chinese words. (rolls eyes)

I understood the xia2 from wuxia, but there are an awful lot of words spelled xia in Pinyin! So even though I understood it to mean "heroic", I was confused. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

The dictionary also says diao1 means "vulture". The subtitles of ROCH '06 also translate diao1 as vulture, interestingly. I can understand why someone didn't want to translate it as vulture previously, though. Vultures are usually thought of as ugly and unpleasant due to their carrion-eating dietary habits. Even though Shen2 Diao1 is ugly, he isn't unpleasant. And someone probably thought "condor" was a good option because they're the largest flying birds in existence - disregarding the fact that Shen2 Diao1 can't fly in the book (though all the tv versions seem to give him the capability of flight!).

Personally I might have translated Xiao Ao Jiang Hu as "Laughing Proudly at the World", though I know "world" is a bit too broad for Jiang Hu. But Laughing at the Wind sounds more poetic.

Better than if they'd named it something ridiculous like the English title for the movie version of HSDS starring Jet Li: Kung-fu Cult Master. Blech.

[HuangYushi]

In a given school, generally speaking, even if the wife's martial arts are superior to the husband's (a very rare occasion), the husband would still be the shifu, and the wife still the shiniang, because of traditional Chinese patriarchy. The situation where the woman would be addressed as shifu would only come up in cases where 1) She's a bachelorette/spinster, or 2) She knows martial arts and her husband is not a person of the Wulin. In the former, the question of what to call her husband is irrelevant. The latter case comes up extremely rarely (especially for women who have a high enough ability in martial arts to take on students), and in the few cases I can think of where that might have happened, in none of them did the woman take on disciples; based upon general Chinese tradition, I believe that if they "marry out of" Wulin by marrying a non-Wulin husband, that they set aside Wulin customs and traditions and take on that of the general populace.

So to answer your question, in the context of Wuxia, I can think of no situation where that might come up, due to the traditions of that time. Yushi, can you think of anything?

师丈 shi1 zhang4, as in 姨丈 yi2 zhang4 and 姑丈 gu1 zhang4, if and when the situation exists, though I can't think of any from the novels right now.
There was a thread on this recently in the Wuxia Fiction Forum: http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=23059

[HuangYushi]

Xue E is a character the screenwriter invented for that series of Fox Volant, I think. And you're right, she's not married. I'd love to know what thought process resulted in using that English title for the series. I guess it's just because it's title of the published English translation of the novel. Damn Olivia Mok and her strange choice of words from other languages instead of just using the English or Chinese words. (rolls eyes)

Xue E does not exist in the novel.
There is a thread that somewhat discusses Olivia Mok's translation and her word choices in the Wuxia Translations forum:
http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=13451

I understood the xia2 from wuxia, but there are an awful lot of words spelled xia in Pinyin! So even though I understood it to mean "heroic", I was confused. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

Wait until you look up words spelled ji in Pinyin. There are way lots more of them than xia!

Better than if they'd named it something ridiculous like the English title for the movie version of HSDS starring Jet Li: Kung-fu Cult Master. Blech.

It does make sense technically, since the story was indeed about the leader (master) of a sect (cult) that used martial arts (kung-fu) and existed in that particular realm.

[HuangYushi]

I think it's very likely I'm the oldest lady on this forum.

Don't be too sure . Even if you're older than Ken Cheng (thread here), there's always Yon (profile here), who's reputed to be a grandma.

[K2Grey]

Hey, Kung Fu Cult Master was awesome. I think I remember it was called Evil Cult in another translation or release or whatever. Pretty bad name there too. However Zhang Sanfeng is awesome in it and it is amusing to look at the extras all obviously jumping when Zhang Wuji blows up stuff with fireballs.
I actually thought Laughs at Martial World had an interesting touch to it even though that title was given as an example of how NOT to translate Xiao Ao Jianghu.
Hmm, is there some reason why it's not accepting returns and is putting everything as one paragraph. I have to manually toss in line break tags.

[JamesG]

The dictionary also says diao1 means "vulture". The subtitles of ROCH '06 also translate diao1 as vulture, interestingly. I can understand why someone didn't want to translate it as vulture previously, though. Vultures are usually thought of as ugly and unpleasant due to their carrion-eating dietary habits. Even though Shen2 Diao1 is ugly, he isn't unpleasant. And someone probably thought "condor" was a good option because they're the largest flying birds in existence - disregarding the fact that Shen2 Diao1 can't fly in the book (though all the tv versions seem to give him the capability of flight!).

Boy did we ever hash over the 'eagle' / 'condor' thing during the translation phase . Your dictionary is wrong about 'diao' meaning vulture which is a common error. I give you this from an expert source on Asian birds of prey and other birds:

"As can be seen, 鵰 diāo is used for large eagles in general. (Mainland ornithologists use the non-standard simplification for diāo. The officially recognised simplification is 雕, a homophonous character meaning 'sculpt'). 鹰 yīng is used for the hawks (Accipiter). Sparrow hawks are officially known as 雀鹰 què-yīng (literally 'sparrow hawk'). The buzzard eagles are known as 鵟鹰 kuáng -yīng (literally 'buzzard hawk'). 鹫 jiù is used for the vultures."
Source: http://www.cjvlang.com/Birds/eagle5.html

I left out the species specific list that headed this comment.

[Han Solo]

Don't be too sure . Even if you're older than Ken Cheng (thread here), there's always Yon (profile here), who's reputed to be a grandma.

LOL.

Sif Yon is a granny- she's probably around my age +/- 5.

Han Solo

[HuangYushi]

LOL.

Sif Yon is a granny- she's probably around my age +/- 5.

Han Solo

Reputed, Han, reputed.

[sniffles]

Boy did we ever hash over the 'eagle' / 'condor' thing during the translation phase . Your dictionary is wrong about 'diao' meaning vulture which is a common error. I give you this from an expert source on Asian birds of prey and other birds:

"As can be seen, 鵰 diāo is used for large eagles in general. (Mainland ornithologists use the non-standard simplification for diāo. The officially recognised simplification is 雕, a homophonous character meaning 'sculpt'). 鹰 yīng is used for the hawks (Accipiter). Sparrow hawks are officially known as 雀鹰 què-yīng (literally 'sparrow hawk'). The buzzard eagles are known as 鵟鹰 kuáng -yīng (literally 'buzzard hawk'). 鹫 jiù is used for the vultures."
Source: http://www.cjvlang.com/Birds/eagle5.html

I left out the species specific list that headed this comment.

I kowtow to your google-fu!!

Obviously the Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary is not as reliable as the Oxford English Dictionary. Or perhaps I should just get used to the fact that translating from one language to another is always a bit of a crapshoot if the two languages in question don't have common origins.

Off on a tangent: My audio lessons this morning were telling me that nar3 is the word for "where". But I know that na3 li3 is also a word for "where". Are there different uses for each word? Are they interchangeable? Or is this a regional dialect difference?

Sif Yon is a granny- she's probably around my age +/- 5.

I could be a granny, if I had kids. I was 8 years old when Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon.

[JamesG]

I kowtow to your google-fu!!

I know 'google-fu'!!!! And I never knew!

[Ren Wo Xing]

Na'er and nali are effectively interchangeable. It's sorta like the difference between 'where is he' and 'what place is he at'.

PS: 48 is not granny age just yet!

[sniffles]

Na'r and nali are effectively interchangeable. It's sorta like the difference between 'where is he' and 'what place is he at'.

PS: 48 is not granny age just yet!

Thanks! I thought I noticed the same actor using both terms when I was watching Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain last night. I wonder why my audio lessons decided just to go with nar3. I'm still wondering why they chose tai4tai for wife instead of qi1zi.

Where I grew up, 48 is granny age. But I agree with you.

[sniffles]

New question:

Do Chinese personal names have any gender association? Or in other words, are there certain names that are only used for males and others only for females?

In English of course there are a lot of gender-specific names. You'll probably seldom find a female named Justin or a male named Britney. But there are also 'unisex' names, such as Terry (though it's often spelled differently when used as a feminine name).

And there are sometimes masculine and feminine versions of certain names; i.e. the feminine version of Justin is Justine. Do Chinese personal names have anything similar to this?

I have noticed that I've never seen a man named Ziyi, for instance, but that may just be my limited experience of Chinese names.

[Ren Wo Xing]

In considering Chinese names, it's important to remember that there are no real 'set' names; all names are essentially made from 'scratch', using one or more Chinese characters, which each have their own meaning. Generally speaking, the 'masculity' or 'femininity' of Chinese names depends entirely on the meaning of the character(s) forming the name. Many names, consequently, can be entirely gender neutral.

For example, my father's name is "小年", "Xiao3 nian2", "Little Year." This is a gender-neutral name; nothing about its meaning tilts one way or another. I would say the majority of Chinese names are like this.

One of my cousin is named "若冰", "ruo4 bing1", "Like Ice". This is a feminine-sounding name, because water and ice are considered feminine, 'ying' elements. My cousin though is a guy, although he himself says that if you ask a Chinese person if a person named 'Ruobing' is male or female, nine out of ten would guess female.

For a male name, we can just look at Bruce Lee. His given name was "小龙", "xiao3 long2", "Little Dragon." This is an extremely masculine name, because dragons are 'yang' symbols of power, masculinity, and virility. Very, very few parents would think of including the character 'dragon' in a girls name! They might be much more inclined to use the character "凤", "feng4", meaning "phoenix", instead, as that is a very female symbol, and is the female counterpart to the dragon.

Hope this clarifies things up for you a bit!

[sniffles]

In considering Chinese names, it's important to remember that there are no real 'set' names; all names are essentially made from 'scratch', using one or more Chinese characters, which each have their own meaning. Generally speaking, the 'masculity' or 'femininity' of Chinese names depends entirely on the meaning of the character(s) forming the name. Many names, consequently, can be entirely gender neutral.

For example, my father's name is "小年", "Xiao3 nian2", "Little Year." This is a gender-neutral name; nothing about its meaning tilts one way or another. I would say the majority of Chinese names are like this.

One of my cousin is named "若冰", "ruo4 bing1", "Like Ice". This is a feminine-sounding name, because water and ice are considered feminine, 'ying' elements. My cousin though is a guy, although he himself says that if you ask a Chinese person if a person named 'Ruobing' is male or female, nine out of ten would guess female.

For a male name, we can just look at Bruce Lee. His given name was "小龙", "xiao3 long2", "little dragon." This is an extremely masculine name, because dragons are 'yang' symbols of power, masculinity, and virility. Very, very few parents would think of including the character 'dragon' in a girls name! They might be much more inclined to use the character "凤", "feng4", meaning "phoenix", instead, as that is a very female symbol, and is the female counterpart to the dragon.

Hope this clarifies things up for you a bit!

Well it does tell me why there seems to be such a huge variety of names in Chinese.

It also tells me a lot about cultural associations. My parents chose my name because they liked the sound of it and it was traditionally a feminine name; I don't think they were even aware of the underlying meaning. And the individual sounds or letters of my name don't have any relationship to whether it's considered masculine or feminine. It just started out as a feminine name in ancient times and has continued as that to the present.

So it's a very different way of thinking about names.