In Appendix III of A Hero Born, the first volume of the official English translation of Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes, we get this note about Lotus Huang:

Lotus Huang is known to many fans by the pinyin transliteration of her name, Huang Rong. I wanted to translate her name as Lotus, however, as at this point in the story we the readers are let in on a secret that Guo Jing is not party to. As soon as we see her name written down, we know at once this “beggar boy” is, in fact, a girl — the character for “lotus”, “rong” 蓉 is far too girly to be used for a boy’s name. But due to the fact that there are several Chinese characters that could be pronounced the same way or similar, Guo Jing doesn’t pick up on this. We know that Guo Jing is barely literate in Chinese, so he can be forgiven for his mistake. He is an honest young man, but clearly not the most perceptive, and this moment in the novel is an important way in which Jin Yong develops Guo Jing’s character, while letting Chinese readers in on the joke. If I had kept Lotus’ name in the pinyin, we English readers would be left feeling just as dim as poor Guo Jing.

In the novel, as translated on pg. 275 of A Hero Born, the scene plays out like this:

“My family name is Huang, my given name Lotus.” His companion looked at him meaningfully, but Guo Jing did not know what a lotus was and thus could not understand the significance of the revelation.

“Where are you going? I am heading south; if you are going the same way we could go together.”

“I’m not going that way,” Lotus said. Then, after a pause, “But I’m still a bit hungry.”

“Then let’s get something to eat!” Guo Jing said, despite being very full from their first meal.

The blue text there is text that Jin Yong did not write. It was added by the translator. None of that in blue is in the original Chinese. Instead Guo Jing just asks here where she’s going.

It’s good that they want to keep the clue, but aside from overexplaining it with added text that Jin Yong never wrote, it’s basically a rule of thumb of translating Chinese that you don’t translate names. Translating the literal meaning of a name in English makes that meaning much more prominent than it is reading it in Chinese. In Chinese you realize what it means, but it just registers as a name unless the meaning is specifically being emphasized. Just like in English when you see the name Stephen King you don’t think of royalty. King is just a name in this case. Same thing here.

Of course, the meaning of the name is sort of being emphasized, only Jin Yong doesn’t comment on it like the official translation does. He trusts the reader to understand the implication. I think English readers would be able to pick up on it as well. I really don’t like it when translators treat their readers like idiots who can’t pick up on anything. But I digress.

There’s another problem with translating names: they will get confused with nicknames. Though Huang Rong specifies that “Lotus” is her given name, other characters in the translation have their names translated as well and it’s not specified that these are given names and not nicknames. Does the general reader know that in “Skyfury Guo”, Skyfury is not a nickname? That’s his given name. It ought to be rendered Guo Xiaotian. And indeed some characters’ names are written in pinyin like this. Guo Jing, for example. Also Wang Chongyang and Yang Kang. Qiu Chuji. So there’s a lot of inconsistency that is not accounted for in the above note or in any other note. It’s just a mess.

There is actually a very simple way “Lotus” could have been handled in the text. Just write it this way:

“My family name is Huang, my given name Rong (Lotus).”

Bam. Done. Now the reader knows what Rong means, but Guo Jing still doesn’t. No need even for a footnote. There’s no need for the translator to add a sentence explaining it. I mean, Chinese readers didn’t get any explanation. They just had to figure it out. Why not let English readers do the same? And this way we can keep on using Huang Rong from here on out.

Also, the explanatary note says that Guo Jing is barely literate, but I just want to point out that his literacy here is irrelevant. Huang Rong is speaking to him, so there’s no need for him to know how it’s written. Now of course it is likely that Guo Jing doesn’t know what a lotus is, having grown up in Mongolia. Probably never seen one or heard of one. But that has nothing to do with his literacy. His thick-headedness is not really to blame either because “Rong” sounds masculine if you just hear someone say it. Rong 榮 or 容 or 戎 or 嶸, etc., are found in male names all the time. Only if you saw it written down and saw 蓉 (lotus) would you know it’s a girl’s name. So yeah, the reader knows, but there’s no reason Guo Jing should have picked up on anything; there was nothing to pick up, really. Anyone hearing “Rong” would just assume it’s a guy by default.

Before I go I want to comment on the rest of the original excerpt and how it’s translated. The part above where Guo Jing asks Huang Rong where she’s going. There’s some nuance in the original Chinese that the translator ignored for some inexplicable reason.

Here’s the above passage in Chinese, then with my translation, kept as close as I can to the original syntax and wording for the purpose of illustration:

那少年道：“我姓黃，單名一個蓉字。”郭靖道：“你要去哪裡？若是回南方，咱們結伴同行如何？”黃蓉搖頭道：“我不回南方。”忽然說道：“大哥，我肚子又餓啦。”郭靖肚中尚飽，但本不捨得就此與這初結交的朋友分手，喜道：“好，我再陪兄弟去用些酒飯便是。”

The youth said, “My family name is Huang, given name Rong.” “Guo Jing said, “Where are you headed? If you’re headed back south, why don’t we go together?” “Huang Rong shook his head. “I’m not going back south.” Huang Rong suddenly said, “Big Bro, I’m hungry again.” Guo Jing was still full, but he wasn’t ready to part with this friend he’d just met. He said happily, “Alright, I’ll eat with you again, brother.”

Jin Yong doesn’t make a new paragraph when speakers change, so I kept it that way, though I do agree with the official translation in splitting it up. But aside from that, there are a couple subtle, but I think important differences here that the official translation does not include.

First off, when Guo Jing asks Huang Rong where she’s going, he says “if” you’re headed “back” south… He actually doesn’t say “I’m headed”, though that is the implication. But the important part is “back”. As in return. He knows that Huang Rong is from the south (the original text is Jiangnan, the area south of the Yangtze River, though the “rivers and lakes” part on pg. 271 is not in the original Chinese) because of her accent, so he’s wondering if she’s headed back there. She replies that she’s not going back. Not simply that she’s not headed that way. You might say this is a subtle difference that doesn’t matter, but I disagree. It’s not merely that she isn’t going that way, she doesn’t want to go that way. There’s really no reason not to translate it how Jin Yong wrote it.

Then the part about Guo Jing not wanting to part with a newly-made friend is just missing in the official translation. Why? Translator inserts thoughts when Jin Yong didn’t write them, but then omits them when he does.

It is true that in translating to English I needed to use a pronoun when describing Huang Rong shaking her head. I went with “his” because that’s what Guo Jing thinks. In Chinese there is no pronoun so this isn’t an issue. Being pinned down by a pronoun is not ideal, but I don’t think the solution is to just omit that part altogether. Again, in Chinese the only indication so far that Huang Rong is a girl is the character of her name, so I think my solution still works fine. Lotus is just as girly in English as 蓉 is in Chinese.

While looking up the part where Guo Jing learns Huang Rong is from the south, I discovered another cut.

First the official translation:

Guo Jing was delighted to have someone to speak to him in his mother’s tongue.

The Chinese text plus my translation of it:

郭靖之母是浙江臨安人，江南六怪都是嘉興左近人氏，他從小聽慣了江南口音，聽那少年說的正是自己鄉音，很感喜悅。

Guo Jing’s mother was from Lin’an in Zhejiang. The Six Freaks of the South were all from around Jiaxing, so he had gotten used to hearing the Jiangnan accent since he was a kid. He was delighted when he heard this youth speaking in his local dialect.

Some people don’t care about these kinds of cuts and reductions. More power to you. I just don’t see any reason for not including them. It’s not like there’s anything tricky about translating it. In any case, given the cuts I’ve found in the span of just a few pages, one can only assume such cuts and reductions are general throughout the translation.

A pity. In my opinion, we still do not have a “definitive” translation of Legend of the Condor Heroes. There’s more I could say about the official translation, and one day maybe I will do a review of it. But this will do for now.