can i enquire your opinion on what i perceive as misuse of the words "zhiji" / "zhiyin" by western authors? it's often translated as soulmates, or even used synonymously, and for wx, often in romantic situations to fulfil non romantic soulmate fic tropes. i often get a bit frustrated by it. zhiji and zhiyin are both bosom friends, people who get you, appreciate you but they are not the western term of soulmates. what do you think? seeking perspectives to shape my opinion!!! thank you!!
nonny! I am so sorry! I meant to answer this the week you sent this and then i kept on getting sidetracked and forgot. >.> this is why i don’t get asks. i’m terrible at answering things.
First of all, for those who are reading this and not nonny, i’m assuming you are either familiar with chinese or have read the blog post by @/hunxi-guilai by now. If you are not chinese and/or have not read her blog, go to her blog and go to linguistic meta and then read the post titled “ all right guys, let’s have a conversation about soulmates ” (gonna delete the link if i can’t get this to show up in tags since this is a nonny ask i want nonny to be able to find this... )
ok. now that we’re on the same page, let’s talk about translation. translation is messy. cultures don’t have the same concepts. when expressing words as complex as 知己/ 知音, you do what you can.
do i think soulmates is an acceptable translation? yes. i would not hesitate to call wangxian soulmates.
Is 知己/ 知音 inherently romantic? no.
do i think the connotations of 知己/知音 and the connotations of soulmates match perfectly? no.
am i fine with fanfiction authors writing what they want? yeah. if i don’t like it, i just won’t engage with the material. it’s the idgaf of old age that i’m really glad i acquired. i can just nope right out and go find something i prefer. e.g. if i see a baobei in a wangxian fic, i usually nope right now. it’s not worth getting worked up over. lol.
yes 知己/ 知音 are bosom friends but it’s deeper than that, right?
Actually, i’m really glad i’ve waited. I’ve just binged Word of Honor (or what eps are currently out) and they toss out 知己/ 知音 a lot -- as they should. The show is spectacular (thus far 25 of 36 eps are out and i am dying at how amazing the main CP interactions are). Basically my heart is full of 知己/ 知音 mood so i think i can do a better job of explaining what it means to me now.
To me, 知己/ 知音 is knowing someone/hearing someone so deeply that your souls are in sync. It’s being open and vulnerable. The mortifying ordeal of being KNOWN and/or HEARD. it’s joyous to discover that your eccentricities are understood implicitly. it’s stolen cheeky grins and stupid laughs that makes you feel alive again. It’s precious and rare and if you get one person in your life that REALLY knows/hears or tries to know/to hear you, you are lucky. this can be part of a romantic or platonic relationship.
someone wants to call that a soulmate? sure. by all means.
But if I were to see it in a novel or show I was trying to translate, I may translate it differently each time. The beauty of translation is, as the translator, I have the power (and the terrible responsibility) to interpret a work. My choices will be the text moving forward. My diction, if the only translation around, could be overanalyzed by a portion of the fandom. So would i always translate 知己/ 知音 as soulmates? no. Sometimes I might say say, “You’re the only person to know me truly.” or “To be truly heard in this life by one person is enough.” or I might say “soulmate” sometimes.
so, i guess i do agree that soulmates limits the translation of the concept. but if you’re watching a show and there are subs, the subbers have more than meaning to worry about. you have to consider characters per second: 1) physically focusing on words with one’s eyes and then reading them takes time; 2) some people are much slower readers than others. (subbers also have to consider sentence structure and how to breakup a lines. and, depending on the show, sometimes the subs come out at an INSANE pace. it’s approximately 3-4 hrs of translation work once you have the chinese in front of you for a 20ish min ep if you’re being neurotic and probably just as much if not more of timing work to get an episode out. not to mention the translation checks and quality checks. so sometimes shortcuts are required... but i digress...) Is soulmates a good, succinct way to get the message across? yes. so i’m fine with it. and if it captures peoples’ imagination and brings someone joy, then even better.
fandom should be fun. it should be happy. it should be a place where you grow and meet people that bring you joy. :) so am i upset that it’s the preferred translation of the mdzs/cql fandom? not really. it’s not perfect but it’s good enough for fandom (and horseshoes and hand grenades as people would say).
