Our Sect Does Alchemy - Ch. 1 - Can't Have Both An Er-Shixiong And A Shifu

[MangaDex]

 

[Newbii]

Holy shit the racism(?)(Color-ism? Elite-ism?) Is so real on this one and taken so lightly. I can't even get mad 🤣

 

[fayew28]

Lowkey put off by the colorism

 

[Allexio]

I find this kind of scanlation just so offputting.
Instead of translating actual expressions and words in english, like they should be, you leave the original words/expressions that make absolutely no sense and then we're stuck having to read TNs to understand. This is fine if it happens once in a while, but here it is every panel.
We don't need to read in the main bubbles that the chinese expression for "speaking of the devil" is "cao cao whatnot". No really, this should clearly be placed in TNs, not in the main bubble and then the actually legible text placed in TN.
Same for all the chinese sect mumbo jumbo. Just translate it to english. it will be so much simpler for us readers.
We don't need to see "shizu" and co in actual speech bubbles. The japanese -san and -sensei are all right because let's face it there's a handful and everyone knows them, but these sect honorifics are an absolute pain to memorize and you are not going to keep adding the meaning in TNs so why not just use normal english nomenclature from the get go...
I'm not here to denigrate your work or anything, I see that you did good work, I just find your choice of translation fidelity to be completely off compared to what a normal english reader expects.

 

[Allexio]

Yep. I tried reading more of this, but the scanlation is just such a pain to read through, which is, once again, really a shame, because I can see the work was put in, and the typesetting is great and you guys clearly know the meanings of the words, but just your way of doing this is exasperating and frustrating for a normal english reader.

 

[Ruixi]

I used want to tell the commenter below me, what they are saying is hypocritical.

On the one hand they are like "Yeah, everyone knows the japanese stuff" but on the other hand "no one can remember the chinese stuff!" Duh, do they think everyone knew the japanese stuff from the get go? Exactly the same what's written below I've seen when stuff like -sensei, -san and -kun was first introduced. And now it's "normal" and "everyone knows it". Ofc, if you read lots of stuff like that, you will know it. The same with shizu, shifu, shixiong. When you read stuff like that all the time, ofc you will know it. Just like the japanese. And I haven't heard anyone cry about oppa and hyung yet either. It's just the chinese.
So, it's clearly a you-problem and nothing about the translation. The translation is good. I agree on the Cao Cao thing, since there could easily have been used an english equivalent but not the titles. because the english language don't work that way.
I appreaciate them using the chinese titles. I *hate* it when they are translated into english because it alway sounds wacky and clunky. And as far as I've seen almost all translator don't translate those words. Just like -sensei and -kun aren't translated either. And people *know* what they mean after reading like 2 or 3 works.

So, please, stop being ignorant to the chinese language.

And to everyone else, give the chinese words a chance. If you got used to -sensei and such, you can get used to shizun. Just because comes from another language than you're used to, you shouldn't ignore it. It's a very sweet and funny story with a great art style.

Be open to new things and learn more everyday!

 

[Aldis]

"we don't need" but I need it

it may not a good translation if you think translation need to translate everything to english including... terms and context,
but i prefer literal translation of terms and idioms because i want to know more about the culture

and some things cannot be translated you know... better to have heavy footnotes than missed the meaning

and 'second junior martial arts brother' is way too long than 2nd/Er Shixiong lol

"the japanese -san and sensei allright" well yes and no
for sensei you can change it easily depend on profession (teacher, doctor, etc)m but its tricky for -san
it will more difficult when we encounter -san vs -sama... what to change? Otou-san > Father, Otou-sama > ?? Honorary Father? Lord Father? How about chichi-ue? Super Lord Father??? its awkward in english

better using the original terms, and if you okay with japanese why not chinese

"normal english reader" then read something from english speaking writer then

 

[Chuepomi]

Thanks so much for the translation!!

Late to the party but I agree. We're reading a manhua about cultivators no less, there's gonna be cultivation terms.
Anyone reading is going to be able to pick up the terminology after seeing it a few times & if you can't, don't read things that you need dumbed down in order to enjoy.
I really hope the translator didn't change it in the next chapters, I would be pretty disappointed.

 

[Pokari]

The stuff here about not wanting a student with dark skin here feels very uncomfortable.

How on earth does this parse to the eyes of Chinese culture, I wonder? Racism? Overzealous application of fashion advice? Either way, "he's ugly, too dark" is simply not a good look, in terms of the consequences for real people... >_>

_{Also he's adorable. Big friggin' meanie.}

@Ruixi:

To be fair (although this is no one's fault), when comparing Japanese to Chinese here, it would quite frankly also have helped a good bit if the transliteration of Chinese was working on something like Hepburn romanization (which parses broadly correctly to English readers, and which scanlated manga has pretty much always used), instead of all this nonsense with completely-unpronounceable-looking stuff full of 'X'es and whatnot. (I realize Chinese is much more of a challenge to transliterate compared to Japanese, between the tonality and a greater number of sounds not found in English, but the end result is rather hostile to the uninitiated).

Oh, and also, the sheer number of titles used in Wuxia and Xianxia are far greater than (modern-setting) Japanese stuff. Like Japanese would have far fewer titles for fellow students and the like (just "senpai" and "kohai", with no regard to gender or status beyond that, and even then only the former is ever used as a form of address, and every teacher is just "sensei" without regard for specifically whether they're your teacher or your teacher's teacher or, heck, your doctor, etc.)

I completely respect the translator's choice to transliterate-and-asterisk everything here and provide a glossary, and the person you were complaining to was totally being an entitled... *ahem*... just, it's also true that it's not quite fully an apples-to-apples comparison, in terms of the difficulty curve for newcomers.

 

[AutumnWorm]

@Pokari
On the dark skin thing, while the artist very clearly really didn't mean to imply that all dark skinned people, whether they be Han Chinese or not, are unattractive, I do understand that it could be interpreted that way by some.

This would be colourism, rather than outright racism. In ancient China, paler skin was a status symbol as it meant that if you had pale skin, you were privileged enough that you could afford to stay indoors and not work out in the fields. I admit that in many places in not just China but also Asian countries, this kind of colourism is actually quite a big issue (though not as big as actual racism....Though colourism and racism may be interconnected depending on the case. Quite a complicated issue).

And also yes, he is absolutely adorable haha.

While I am slightly offended that you call the system we use, which is a real system of transliteration made by Chinese people called Pinyin, 'nonsense', I understand that you are not trying to convey any hostile intentions (hopefully). I also want to politely reject your suggestion of using Hepburn romanization as this system was made for Japanese rather than Chinese.

And yes it is actually true that for those unfamiliar with Wuxia and Xianxia, it can be quite a challenge to learn all of these many, many terms, but we are not trying to be like commercial publication companies that are trying to make sellable, profitable translations of manga.

We are just a group of people messing around really. We saw that there are other people who would be interested in Chinese media, in the culture of some of our group members, and we thought it would be fun to share it with them.

While I do admit, that for newcomers, it really can't be easy, we have tried our best to make the translation understandable and the notes more so. If someone is confused, then I would be more than happy to give more explanations and if someone thinks a certain phrase or term could have been parsed better, I'd also gladly hear out any suggestion if they are willing to make it. But if a person is completely, unwilling to learn anything, then I can't do anything about that.

 

[Pokari]

@AutumnWorm:

Definitely no hostile intentions regarding pinyin. I did wonder if my choice of wording was a bit cavalier, and considered making it clearer that I was strictly expressing how it appears to the naive English speaker (i.e. the "nonsense with 'X'es"), and how unapproachable it is to the uninitiated as a result.

It should be noted that the Hepburn romanization for Japanese that I was talking about, is in fact likewise quite unappreciated by a certain set of Japanese speakers (especially certain nationalistic folks, I think? This isn't my expertise here at all though) because it's purely the invention of one American man and doesn't really match the systematic formulation of the Japanese characters. Nonetheless, de facto, for transliterating for English speakers specifically, the Hepburn transliteration of for instance ちゃ as "cha" is way more parse-able than "tya"—which is what it is in the Nihon-shiki transliteration (which the Japanese came up with, being more the equivalent of Pinyin in that sense, and which is I think technically still a more "official" transliteration even if no one much uses it).

My point therein was—disregarding for a moment any larger questions of cultural implications—that as with any encoding for English-language transliteration by non-English speakers (could replace "English" in this sentence with any other language, really), some of the choices made seem a bit bizarre to English eyes, and some stuff ends up looking unpronounceable.

And that apparent-unpronounceablity can makes things significantly more difficult to remember and work with, for anyone to whom writing is connected to the speech center of the brain (i.e. most all of us). Just as a pragmatic consequence of fact.

_{This is way less of a problem for anyone actually learning the language, I assume—for English people trying to learn Mandarin, learning the approximate pronunciations of the sounds with no English equivalent in Mandarin that so particularly distinguish pinyin transliteration, should be the baby step of baby steps, a completely trivial prerequisite to the monumental task of learning... everything else. But... reading manhua doesn't, alas, come up-front with a few days worth of class lessons on reading pinyin. XD I think I've seen a pinyin pronunciation guide one or twice at the front of a manhua, actually, but of course just reading such a page in passing isn't really enough.}

To be clear, using pinyin is obviously quite standard; I'm not really expecting someone to use anything else, nor suggesting it. And it's of course no more confusing for the English speaker (in fact, far better) than, for example, the spelling of Welsh words (which use the same characters, but developed the use of them quite differently over time). The whole point of this was merely to get into the nuances of why it's de facto more of a challenge to deal with, as compared to Japanese transliterations in particular, to the English speaker.

_{(As an aside, the variously somewhat-grim historical reasons that the preferred Japanese romanization is very American-English-friendly, whereas Pinyin is strictly homegrown-Chinese but also still sort-of-English, should all be fairly obvious, I think? I'm just talking about the consequences for the scanlation scene here. XD)}

As a final note: Like I said, I'm totally cool with all the transliterated terms and footnotes and asterisks. Leaving aside that it's the scanlator's prerogative: Honestly, this is more or less what fan-translated stuff should be like, in my mind XD (I admit in this particular case if there wasn't the glossary in front I'd be totally lost, which is an unusual experience for me and requires a few more brain cells, though that's not necessarily bad.)

 

[AutumnWorm]

@Pokari
I'm not sure whether it's because my English failed me or some other reason, but I honestly can't parse the meaning of some of what you said here, as some of it really doesn't seem to have that much of a connection to our topic, so I shall just take your statements at face value.

I can see that you don't see our scanlation in a negative light and I am glad for that and hope that you still continue reading.

But whether you mean to suggest improvements or not, we will not be changing how we transliterate the terms and titles in this manhua.

And furthermore, while a lot of what you said here is quite interesting from a purely linguistic and cultural point of view, I don't really think that you can apply the case of Hepburn vs Nihon-shiki to Pinyin as one of the other more very commonly used transliteration systems for Chinese to English is Wade Giles and that system almost completely butchers the pronunciation of most words in Mandarin. The pronunciation of Japanese words is much, much more similar to English than Mandarin Chinese will ever be.

As I said, we are not scanlating with the purpose of catering to a very wide audience, if a reader really cannot get used to our scanlation, no one would force them to continue reading.

I will take the idea of including Pinyin guides back to my group for further discussion though, and give thanks to you for bringing that up.

 

[Pokari]

@AutumnWorm:

I'm sorry for the confusion. I really wasn't asking/advocating for any changes, I swear! Just discussing the topic in abstract terms. Again, apologies for any confusion.

_{m( _ _ )m}