English-Speaking Cmedia Fandom
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| Name(s): | English-Speaking Cmedia Fandom |
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The English-speaking Cmedia fandom, a fandom consisting of C-media fans who don't speak Mandarin,[1] was a microfandom until the 2010s. While many of those fans are native speakers of English, the language has turned into a Lingua franca in the English-speaking C-media fandom even amongst a great number of non-native speakers from different cultural backgrounds. The Untamed, a live-action adaptation of the novel Mo Dao Zu Shi, marked a huge surge in English language fan activity.
The struggle of buying merch off Chinese language websites for C-fandom, especially to ship to international countries makes both the i-fandom and C-fandom feel separate at times.
Translation
Names
Character Naming Practices
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Epithets
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It is common to refer to others by their relationship to you, and many of these terms are familial: 哥哥 gege (‘elder brother’) 姐姐 jiejie (‘elder sister’) 弟弟 didi (‘younger brother’) 妹妹 , as examples.
the usage of 哥 ge and 姐 jie are further complicated in that they’ve taken on the meaning of “young man” or “young lady” with no familial overtones at all; the last time I was in China, it was a Thing to call young men 帅哥 shuaige (lit. “handsome brother”) and young women 美女 meinv (lit. “beautiful woman”) as a way to talk to someone even if you don’t know their names (you could hail a waiter in a restaurant by saying hey good-looking fella and it was like, the expected thing to do).
Nicknames can also be a struggle to translate or use in English fic. This thread elaborates on some of the cultural nuances of nicknaming and naming characters in dialogue: https://twitter.com/fandoestrans/status/1642464468474150917 (unrolled thread)
Honorifics
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Honorifics introduce distance and show respect
Poetry
Names can also be taken or adapted from famous poems. Some fan translations of these poems are made to understand the source material better.
Idioms
This needs some connection to fandom - how does this impact fans?
Chinese is a very idiomatic language. When translated into English, the meaning of these phrases is often not obvious. However, due to the way these common idioms are translated into English, these phrases are often included in fic written in English by native speakers. Hence, English language fic may be written in a style that seems to deliberately mimic the way translated Chinese is might be written. An example is Born of Fire, a The King's Avatar E-fandom Classic.
- Cough Blood / Vomit Blood Used when the person feels extreme anger, hatred or sadness.
- Not recognise Mt Tai (有眼不识泰山) Not recognise an obvious fact, usually someones skill or importance.
- You can you up, No can no BB (“你行你上，不行就别BB”) This chinglish phrase means "If you can, step up and do it; if you can't, don't complain) BB (哔哔), is onomatopoeia for annoying chatter, and is also particularly rude because bi is a homophone for the chinese word for pussy.
Diacritics or no diacritics?
The issue of diacritics was especially contentious in the The Untamed fandom. See the "Hello everyone. i'm one of the ao3 tag wranglers for mdzs" twitter thread for further explanation.
Fan translations as fan work
Fan Translation, the practice of unofficially translating of source media or fanworks into other languages, is also present.
With the translation of source media, this may be because of flaws perceived in the official translation, or the lack of such a translation for parts or the entirety of the source material. Subtitles may be captioned over episode raws and hosted on Google Drive or Mediafire. Transcripts might also be uploaded. In some cases, such as on Webtoon, fan translations have an "official" platform. (Webtoon and Webnovel are common sites for authorised fan translations)
AO3 hosts a body of translated fanfiction.
Scanalations
fan translations on legal platforms (webnovel)
subs / dubs?
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Language Meta
As Chinese-Language fandoms grow in popularity with non-Chinese speaking audiences, many bilingual fans have taken to explaining some of the cultural and linguistic nuances that are missing from the translated works.
- [https://hunxi-guilai.tumblr.com/linguistic-meta hunxi-guilai (main: hoidy-boi) does linguistic and historical meta.
MTL translations
Cmedia fans, facing a dearth of fanworks in other languages, may turn to machine-translating fanworks. Google Translate or Deeplearning programs may prove popular. However, due to the differing language structures, it is somewhat more difficult to decipher meaning as compared to Other-language-to-English translations.
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Translations
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- on translation (again), 知己, “soulmates”, danmei, and cdrama subtitling by pumpkinpaix (August 10, 2021)
Concerns & Controversies
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- Podficcers being concerned about mispronouncing names + related meta about that and other anti-racist work. See MDZS Podfic Fandom.
Chinese diaspora
A large problem with the English-speaking C-media fandom is its overall lack of knowledge regarding Chinese culture and history which frequently leads to misunderstandings. The Western Chinese diaspora has often behaved as educators on this topic to people who are not ethnically Chinese, but they have also come under fire from mainland Chinese for superimposing their own Western interpretations onto Chinese media. Mainland Chinese audiences have criticised the diaspora for behaving as "authorities" in fandom spaces by mere virtue of their blood inheritance; and many mainland Chinese believe being a Western diaspora means they are detached from the actual experience of living within Chinese society, and thus they have internalized Western perceptions of China. These Western-raised Chinese are often disparagingly labelled as "whitewashed" and called "bananas".
Other mainland Chinese on Weibo and related social media have mocked Chinese diaspora in the West for being "pathetic" or "sell outs" because they are perceived to be only taking an interest in their own ethnic heritage after some pop culture product has made their identity more "trendy" to non-Chinese people, as these overseas Chinese are are otherwise often discriminatory and racist towards mainland Chinese people. Xiran Jay Zhao is an example of a Chinese diasporan who enjoys a decent reputation in the West but a poor one among native Chinese people. This intraethnic conflict is common in the danmei and Genshin Impact fandoms. Criticism of non-Western Chinese diaspora (such as those in Southeast Asia) also exists.
"Incest"
Due to the familial terms used to show closeness, English-speaking fans and antis have started policing certain ships for being incestuous.
This ignores some nuance that brothers in cfandom is often used as a romance trope for queerbaiting (is this used in the right context? BL where u can pretend its no homo) or even just in straight up het romance novels.
For example, in The Untamed.. anyway a twitter thread. different thread with a link to another one. one with a lot of people bitching about this. i'd ABSOLUTELY forgotten "xicheng is incest" happened. someone showing a p common dni thing to see. here's someone explaining the logic. "people just call their NOTP incest". general post about racism that touches on this subject.
The Untamed
- treatment of untamed as being everything when its the tip of the iceberg an eng speaker, after consuming a handful of mainstream cmedia only, assuming that means they understand c-ent industry and cfandom climate: -- a general perception of intl fans being out of touch with cfandom. i didn't realise x/z was so unpopular LOL but im not in untamed fandom so that explains why.
Fannish Resources
- c_ent dreamwidth community
- Overview of Chinese-entertainment related communities on Dreamwidth (Last updated: Sept 2022)