Help with Chinese - episode 30

[solo]

I hope this is allowed here - apologies if not.

 

I've been re-watching episode 30 and I wonder what exactly is written on Ye Zun's pillar. The translation in the subtitles has issues of grammar and syntax which confuse me. Could anyone shed some light? (Timestamp in the episode is 25:06). I'd be very grateful!

Not sure how to tag this.

Comments

[china_shop]

Absolutely allowed!

If it helps, I've just taken some screencaps of the inscription/subtitles:





(Hopefully I got those the right way around. :-)

[solo]

You did! Thank you!

Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[anotherslashfan]

追想万载之前,对决仓促
遗憾实多
值此月沉风急
天缺地乱，愿你我（终）能倾情一聚
你死我活
以全兄弟之谊
愚弟夜尊顿首

I'll see if I can do a rough translation, but I wanted to put this here, first.

Re: Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[solo]

OMG thanks. There was me getting to work with a hanzi recognition website. This makes life so much easier!

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[anotherslashfan]

I'm afraid that for a good translation, we'll have to wait for one of the native speakers to jump in. I sort of get the meaning but don't feel up to translating it.

Re: Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[foxghost]

When I think of 10,000 years ago, of our sudden confrontation,
Regrets are truly many.
Just so, now that the moon has sunk and the wind is rapid (TN. that is to say, the world has been turned upside down)
The sky is lacking and the ground is a mess (TN. more analogy for world turned upside down), I wish that you and I can finally meet and pour our feelings together
(Where) You die, I live
To fulfill the friendship between brothers
Your foolish little brother Ye Zun, kowtow.

---
It's a challenge letter, written QUITE sarcastically.

Re: Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[anotherslashfan]

Thank you ♥ ♥ ♥!

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[trobadora]

OMG! Wow, that's something all right.

Thank you so much for translating!

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[china_shop]

Thank you!

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[anotherslashfan]

It's a challenge letter, written QUITE sarcastically.

The way you put that... are challenge letters a THING in Chinese literature/history?

Re: Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[foxghost]

It's a very wuxia novel thing. Oh, and I missed it, but in the beginning of this, it reads 致黑袍, or "For Black Cloak" the way one would politely address a letter to someone. It's a typical 下戰書 / written challenge, like throwing down a gauntlet.

In a lot of Wuxia novels you'd get a letter from a martial artist to another, delivered via arrow nailed to tree after whistling by ear, and it'd read something like this: [Addressee] [Vague reason for grievance] [When we're going to meet] [some phrasing of "it will be to the death"] end with 不見不散 (We don't meet, i don't leave) Sincerely, your mortal enemy

Ye Zun threw in his personal little touches by being very sure of his own victory, and 傾情一聚 (a meeting where we pour out our feelings / love) which is something you'd say to a CRUSH, and that's part of what makes his letter soooo sarcastic.

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[mara]

Thank you so much for the translation and explanation! It really helps me to understand :)

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[dayadhvam_triad]

Thanks so much for explaining the context! Ahahaha, the tone of YZ's msg is gloriously snide.

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[solo]

This is also really interesting. So much cultural context to learn. Thank you for the explanations!

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[tinny]

Thank you so much! Especially for the background information, I didn't know what a challenge letter is. (I'm learning so many interesting things in this fandom!)

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[solo]

Thank you so much! There's so much more in it than the subs had and finally it makes some sense. It's also great to know that it's sarcasm, I'd never have known that.

I feel really quite helpless, being a fan of something in a language I don't have a clue about and no easy way to just quickly learn. ;_;

Re: Posting this here to make looking it up easier

[foxghost]

You're very welcome! Ye Zun really does think he's living in a Wuxia novel doesn't he? XD There's also a hint here that "Ye Zun" is as much an alias as "Black Cloak" and he sees them both as 俠, a kind of cultural martial arts hero removed from the world with their own set of laws. (Robinhood is a kind of 俠, for western equivalency)

I know what you mean, when I write, i write for a yaoi manga fandom and I spent. So much time. Researching. And it still never feels like I know enough.

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[solo]

I'm curious, which yaoi manga is this? I'm from a Japanese fandom too, but, um, RPF >_>

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[foxghost]

Finder no Hyouteki.
(In which I'm extremely forgiving of sensei getting EVERYTHING about Hong Kong and Hongkongners WRONG

...so wrong)

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[firestar]

*sidles in in completely unrelated* Out of curiosity, how does SCI hold up in that respect? It's set in Hong Kong, right?

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[foxghost]

SCI was directed by an HK director, and he knew what he was doing. The streets and EVERYTHING is a little more crowded in real life. The least realistic part of the show is Bai Yutong driving his lambo down empty streets in the middle of the day. That ... does not happen. And the dubbing in English was ... uh, let's say that most foreigners living in HK would speak better Chinese and have more of a ... boston accent in English. (City english accent?)

My only complaint from the get-go was that the show was dubbed in Mandarin. If they were going to dub the ENTIRE thing anyway, they may as well have done it in Cantonese. (I can dream) BUT they got the details down: the bilingualism (all the signs are english+chinese), Zhan Yao writing things on a whiteboard in traditional characters, the fashion. They did their homework.

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[firestar]

Ooh, thank you for this, it's good to know they did their homework on that. And having a HK director would really help with that too.

RE: the whiteboard and traditional characters, is that as opposed to simplified characters?

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[foxghost]

Yes. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, traditional characters is still the norm. Whenever they use ANY text at all in SCI, they made sure it's all traditional.

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[firestar]

Learn something new everyday. XD I didn't realise TW and HK used traditional characters as opposed to simplified.

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[naye]

OMG that is amazing and I absolutely treasure this revelation.

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[xparrot]

Hah, that's amazing! Ye Zun, what a bitch...(and thank you for explaining the wuxia-y nuance; I was getting that vibe but very helpful to have it confirmed! Poor Shen Wei, having to deal with a brother like this...)