Chinese GL

The ending theme song from the audio drama Love is Above the Clouds (爱呢? 在白云之上, pinyin: ai ne? zai baiyun zhi shang) has been subtitled by laine4466. Based on an original script, this was one of the most popular and most well-regarded baihe audio dramas to be released last year. Video with subtitles below.

[ETA: Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm and generosity in volunteering your time and skills! I'll leave this post pinned for a week or so in case there are further expressions of interest, but I think we've got enough people on the team to start work. Since Discord seems to work for everyone, I'll start setting up a project server and hope to get it up and running by the end of the week/early next week, then I'll send everyone invites. Thanks again!]

As discussed here, here and here, Soul Sisters (双兔, pinyin: shuang tu) was released recently on iQiyi with MTL subtitles. Some people expressed interest in having/working on proper English subtitles, so this is a post about that.

I'm happy to organise (unless someone else wants to — if so please let me know!) a comm project for putting together English fan subtitles for the show. If you are interested in having/working on them, please make a comment below to indicate this. I will pin this post and leave it up for a couple of weeks. I have not organised a fandom project like this before so please let me know if I've missed anything out or there's something I haven't thought of.

Subtitling tasks

We will need people to do the following jobs:

• Translator: This role involves translating the subtitles from Chinese to English I'm happy to do the bulk of this and to do it by myself if necessary, but it would be helpful to have another person on this task if possible. You would obviously need to be comfortable with quasi-historical Chinese and English.
  
• Editor: This role involves reviewing the subtitles for flow and (if possible accuracy). Ideally I would like two editors, one of whom is comfortable enough with Chinese to check for accuracy and potentially suggest alternative interpretations. However, this is not essential and we could make do with one editor who is comfortable reading just English.
  
• Timer: This role involves creating the subtitle script containing the timings for each line. Familiarity with Chinese is obviously helpful, but I'm not sure it's 100% essential given that the raw videos have Chinese hardsubs that provide reasonably clear indications as to the beginning and end of most lines. It would be helpful to have up to two people doing this task. The timer may also be asked to do some minor typesetting for translations of text that appears on screen but not in dialogue (we can have a discussion as a team about how to best present this text).
  
• Encoder: This role involves combining the subtitle files with the raw video files, if we go for a hardsub release option (see below). One person should be sufficient.
  
• Quality control: The role involves watching through the videos with the subtitles to make sure all is as it should be and to catch typos, errors, etc. One to two people should be sufficient.

If you would like to take on more than one task, you are welcome to do so, and please feel free to say so in the comments.

Raw videos

I have the raw videos for all the episodes in reasonable albeit not best quality. I think these should be sufficient to work from. If anyone is able to get hold of the best-quality versions, please let me know.

Communication

I'm happy to set up a separate comm for project-related communications, or a Discord server if people are comfortable using that. Please also feel free to suggest other communication methods.

Output

We can have a discussion about whether people prefer hardsubbed videos, soft subs, whether to limit it to comm members and our friends, etc. There is also a question about where to host the files (YouTube is probably a no go, due to their copyright strike system). There is a browser extension that I use which will let us overlay soft subs onto iQiyi videos directly, and viewers will be able to access this if they have a subscription to the videos on iQiyi and are prepared to install the browser extension. This is another possible option. I'm vaguely aware that iQiyi has some sort of functionality that allows viewers to submit user-generated subtitles, but one of my red lines is that I don't do free labour for large corporations who cannot be bothered to do it properly themselves.

What to do if you're interested

Comment on this post indicating which task(s) you'd like to take on, any limits on time availability/commitment, and your preferred method(s) of project-related communication.

If you are interested in having subtitles, but don't have the time/capacity to commit to a task, please could you also comment on the post to indicate this, and also indicate your preferred format(s) for viewing the subtitles in. Seeing evidence of enthusiasm is always really encouraging!

I've subtitled the first episode (of three) of My Hot Butch Roommate (当合租室友是个很帅的女生, pinyin: dang hezu shiyou shi ge hen shuai de nüsheng), which I guess just about counts as a mini-drama? The total runtime across three episodes is about nine minutes. It aired originally here on the Juzi Niannian (橘子念念) Bilibili channel.


Based on what I've been able to find, Juzi Niannian ('juzi' means tangerine, which is an allusion to GL due to its associations with the Japanese yuri manga Citrus) is run by four women, who have produced a number of contemporary GL one-shot short films with (to my eye) quite decent production values. They typically feature the same actress, Wu Yanling (吴焰凌), who plays the protagonist here (and is also the editor of these short films), alongside a rotating cast of co-leads. Wu Yanling gives a brief description of their team's setup in this Weibo post. She also explains that the creative team are all from Fujian, which may explain why people sometimes think they sound Taiwanese. The team has had a higher profile since last year when they released a commercial for the bubble tea brand Chagee.

I've subtitled a very short film starring gufeng influencers Yang Yimo (杨伊墨) and Tang Tang (糖糖). It aired originally here on director Jun Ci's Bilibili channel.



The director, Jun Ci, notes that it was filmed about four years ago (though only released now), and explains that this accounts for the lack of a real plot — it's mostly vignettes in the shared life of the two characters. It is interesting to reflect on how far these kinds of indie projects have come in a few short years.

Very against my better judgment and in breach of all my usual rules (never translate a novel that's still ongoing being the top one), I've started translating Ning Yuan's currently-serialising historical cyberpunk baihe novel To Embers We Return (焚情, pinyin: fen qing). This is primarily for the purpose of making people scream as loudly over Chapters 17 and 18 (and a bunch of other chapters, actually make that most of them) as I did.

The first chapter is now up, together with the timeline and dramatis personae (to be updated as new events and characters are revealed). You can read it here.

Based on my current work rate, a new chapter should be posted every ten days or so. I don't plan on making myself work faster, as it would both undermine the quality of the translation and negatively impact my enjoyment of the process (and I am enjoying it, at least so far, though I did spend much of the morning trying and failing to figure out the difference between two shades of red mentioned in the novel).

For people who find these things useful, there's also a NovelUpdates page and a carrd.

There's an official summary for the novel on its JJWXC page, which I translated here. Here's a slightly more Anglo-publishing-style synopsis that I wrote for the translation's landing page and the carrd:

'How I fixed my wife: I opened her up and put my heart into her body.'

It's the Tang Dynasty, but not as you know it. Hovercars criss-cross the sky; drones whisk back and forth; and the commander of the city guard's favoured weapon is a Gatling gun. The rich augment themselves with a wide array of cybernetic implants, while the poor have to scrimp and save for even the most basic prosthetics. The empire's machinists make a lucrative living crafting, installing and maintaining implants and neural modules.

When Shen Ni, the empire’s foremost machinist, returns home victorious from battle against their long-standing foe, the emperor showers her with rewards, including the hand in marriage of the woman she had loved in her youth — Bian Jin.

Bian Jin had once been the empire’s sharpest blade: a weapon in human form whose very name made their enemies cower. After a string of near-fatal battlefield injuries, however, she’s battered, broken, and stands accused of high treason, though she claims to have no memory of what transpired. Shen Ni takes on the onerous task of retrieving Bian Jin's lost memories and repairing her much-battered cybernetic spine and neural core, but Bian Jin seems to be keeping something back. Can they trust each other? And can they trust the empire?

Veteran baihe author Ning Yuan’s most ambitious work yet, this historical cyberpunk novel tells the story of a group of determined women whose lives become ever more intertwined as they seek to uncover secrets both past and future, and make a place for themselves in a turbulent world.

My current estimate is that it's going to take me upwards of five years to finish translating this (if she ends it at the length I think she's going to end it at — she could surprise me, it's happened before!), so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish myself continued good health. May I not regret this very ill-advised life choice.

Judging by the frequency with which this scene and this particular line of dialogue from the Legend of Yunze special season keeps cropping up in fanvids, I think it's safe to say that it's pretty popular with the audience. So I thought I would have a go at explaining my (not particularly extensive) thought process at translating this particular load-bearing line.

( Read more; spoilers for the Legend of Yunze mini-drama series )

I've finished translating the two extras for Purely by Accident (纯属意外, pinyin: chun shu yiwai). The first extra sees Zisong and Feichen in their new home, dealing with visitors welcome and unwelcome alike. The second is from an outsider perspective — a young hunter decides to join Zisong's outlaw band (or is it Feichen's outlaw band, or do they swap), and is completely mystified by the goings-on he sees around him. The translation can be read here. I still need to go through the whole of the text and revise it properly, but as of today there's no new translation text to be generated.

I thought I would write some brief reflections on the novel, why I chose it as a project, and the experience of translating long-form prose fiction for the first time.

( about the novel )

( my thoughts on the novel; some potentially spoilery details )

( why I chose this project )

( brief reflections on translation )

The next project is going to be a wuxia baihe short story, which I already have a first draft for, so hopefully it won't be too long before I can publish it.