#also very funny that hua cheng was like 'hey can i kill those people for you- i mean my beloved'

[noscio]

so i just got TGCF 6

[pekorosu]

On the topic of Chinese names in Banana Fish

Warning for manga spoilers and also a lengthy discussion.

This is something I’ve been wanting to explore due to its differences in the original Japanese and the English localisation. I will mostly be discussing the major recurring characters, starting with the Lees.

The Lee family

Interestingly, the Lees have actual Chinese characters for their names in the original Japanese. They are:

李紅龍 (Localisation: Lee Hong-Lung)

李大龍 / 王龍 (Localisation: Lee Tai-Lung / Wang-Lung)

李華龍 (Localisation: Lee Hua-Lung)

李月龍 (Localisation: Lee Yut-Lung)

Thanks to this, they are also the only ones with confirmed Mandarin-pronounced names. For example, 月龍 (Pinyin: yuè lóng) is given the furigana ユエルン (yuerun) in Japanese. I'm guessing this is because the characters were actually looked up from a proper Chinese source. 

This initially made me inclined to think of the Lee family as hailing from further north of China, especially with the brief mention in volume 4 of them being descendants of the Qing Dynasty’s ruling family (Wouldn’t that make them Manchu people though? And that would open up a whole other can of worms...). 

However, it is also mentioned in volume 17 that Yut-Lung actually came from Hong Kong. So that makes the localisation’s decision to romanise 月龍 as “Yut-Lung” perfectly appropriate.

Localisation

What is it about “Yut-Lung” that makes it so suitable? It is very obviously Cantonese. The transliteration of 李 as “Lee” instead of “Li” could also be indicative of that. Setting Yut-Lung’s birthplace aside, it still wouldn't be farfetched to infer from how established the Lees are in the States plus the fact that Hong-Lung had once been based in HK, that they would be Cantonese speakers.

The eldest Lee son has also been addressed in 3 different ways. He is first introduced as 李大人 (Localisation: Lee Daai Yan), the latter half of which is probably a title of respect (I think "Daai Gor/Lou" would be a better fit though?). We later come to know him as 李大龍 (Lee Tai-Lung), and then 王龍 (Wang-Lung) which is said to be inherited from his predecessor.

Also, Yut-Lung’s attendant was renamed Suk-Leui, which sounds Cantonese (originally スウルー (sūrū)). From this, it’s clear that the localisation is making a deliberate move to depict them as Cantonese speakers.

There is a catch though. If we were to be more accurate, Wang-Lung should be Wong-Lung, Hua-Lung should be Wah-Lung, and Tai-Lung should be Daai-Lung. I have two theories here: 

The localisation is deliberately using Mandarin for the other Lees except Yut-Lung, hence affirming their earlier-mentioned family history. But this would bring up the question of: why is it not Da-Lung instead of Tai-Lung (as far as I know, the “tai/dai” pronunciation for Mandarin should be obsolete)? Are they perhaps just following the original Japanese furigana...?

You could argue that they sound similar enough for the romanisation differences to be considered minor. Especially in the case of Hong-Lung/Hung-Lung, the difference is negligible. 

Another funny thing is that in both versions, the characters are 100% speaking Mandarin whenever they speak “Chinese.” This can be inferred from both the furigana attached and the structure of the sentences itself. 

Note: I don’t know if it sounds natural or not because I don’t speak much Mandarin, just that the grammar and vocab definitely indicates Mandarin.

Example:

I mean, to be fair it’s unrealistic to expect the localisation to change it into written Cantonese, but because of this we now have another inconsistency in the loc. 

(For those who are interested, brief info on Mando/Canto differences: link 1, link 2. Note: “It would usually sound unnatural to speak Cantonese using Mandarin grammar." Also I would argue since this is a manga and therefore an informal medium (plus the charas are conversing not writing), thinking of the dialogue as being in standard written Chinese kinda makes no sense.) 

Summary:

The original Japanese is consistent in ensuring that any furigana attached to Chinese characters in names and Chinese dialogue correspond to Mandarin. However, this contradicts facts involving characters who come from or currently live in Cantonese-dominant areas (HK, Chinatowns of that era).

The English localisation made an effort to change some things into Cantonese to better suit the context, but did not extend it to the Chinese dialogue and is overall inconsistent.

Side note: ユーシス (Yousiss) is supposed to be Yut-Lung’s English/”American” name. The English localisation came up with “Yau-Si” which yup, doesn’t sound very English. My guess is that they overlooked it at first, because this tiny mention only shows up once in volume 11. It is omitted in the localisation.

Edit (7/2/2021): I’m now convinced that ユーシス (Yousiss) could actually be “Eustace.” Please see this post for details.

Shorter Wong (ショーター・ウォン), Nadia Wong (マーディア・ウォン), Lao Yen Tai (ラオ・イェン・タイ)

I don’t have much to say about “Shorter” beyond that it's a quirky English name, haha. But interestingly, in one of the Chinese dialogues, Yut-Lung calls him “肖達” (Pinyin: xiào dá) which... I’m just going to assume is a Mandarin transliteration of “Shorter.” 

“Nadia” was originally マーディア (mādia) or as the official guidebook has romanised it, Mardeer. Either way doesn’t affect much. More importantly, I think it’s safe to assume that Wong is a Cantonese romanisation. I think it would be apt if it also happened to be 黃 because yellow is the theme colour of the series... and is reminiscent of “banana (fish)” which is the reason for what befalls Shorter... :x

Lao (or Lau?) can be a Mandarin surname but it seems very uncommon. On the other hand, it could be a non-Mandarin romanisation of Liu (劉/刘). Not sure about “Yen/Yuen Tai.” Fun fact: if we took 劉 and stuck it into a kanji dictionary, we’d get the meaning “to kill” (that meaning is probably obsolete though).

Surprisingly, these names are fitting in very well with the idea that they are not supposed to be read as Mandarin. It would make perfect sense though, as Chinatowns were at that time dominated by Canto speakers, as opposed to the Mandarin of today. 

From this, I feel inclined to posit that “Sing” is either Canto or non-Mandarin as well, though there is no evidence of this intention in the original source material.

Sing Soo Ling (シン・スウ・リン)

This guy is a special case because we actually have the meaning(s) to his name, but no Chinese characters to go with it. So we would have to do a bit of sleuthing.

Since "Sing" is a localisation, it's not going to be the best place to start from. "シン (Shin)" alone is vague too. It could turn out to be Cheng, Shing, Xin, Sim… coupled with not knowing which dialect or system of romanisation to use, that creates way too many options!

However, I’m betting if the mangaka went to the lengths of researching definitions, she would have gone straight to Mandarin, or possibly Canto. So that’s where I’ve restricted my search to.

Which is it?

According to Sing in Garden of Light, his name carries the Japanese meanings of 魔神, 獅子 and 罪. The localisation translated them as “demon,” “lion” and “guilt” respectively.

You'd think that each of those would match up with all the characters in his name since it's unlikely for only 1 character to carry all 3 meanings. Unfortunately I've looked into various dictionaries with very little success. They just don’t match up at all!

Here's my speculation:

獅子

I thought 獅子 would be the easiest to start with since there can't possibly be that many characters for "lion". Which proved to be true! But that just meant I hit a dead end pretty quick. 

“Lion” in Chinese is also 獅子 but pronounced "shī zi" and "si zi" in Mando and Canto respectively. Not close at all to "shin/sing" plus they’re missing the final n/ng sound.

I was pretty stumped, but then it hit me that… hey! "Singa" is “lion” in Malay. And that led me to "Singapore" which then led me to 新加坡 / 星加坡 (Pinyin: xīn jiā pō / xīng jiā pō. The former is the official transliteration. Not sure about the latter but I think it is a Canto reading because: san gaa bo / sing gaa bo). Also: [Sin]gapore = [シン]ガポール!

"Xin/Xing" doesn't mean "lion" per se, but since it's a Mandarin transliteration of its native name, it could sort of, partly... indirectly... mean that...? I feel like I'm reaching a little here but damn, the mangaka is not making this easy.

Edit (18/8/2020): I've omitted a lot of my research in order to keep this post short and concise, but as time goes on I am more convinced that Yoshida took her meanings not from Chinese, but elsewhere. So I'm making a minor edit to include this as well:

- The word siṃhá from Sanskrit carries the meaning of “lion.” (x) 

- It seems to have descended into "sinh/sing" in languages such as Hindi (सिंह), Lao (ສິງ) and others. 

- In Thai, lion is “singto/sing” and there’s even a common given name called Sing(h). (x)

- The Sikh surname “Singh” is also said to have been derived from Sanskrit.

Combined with the fact that "singa" itself from "Singapore" has its roots in this Sanskrit word, this seems to be the strongest contender at the moment.

罪

It's possible that 罪 could be referring to not just "guilt" but "sin". After all, "sin" is close to how the average Japanese person would romanise シン (using Kunrei-Shiki romanisation). And guess what, it IS romanised as “Sin” in New York Sense and in the first edition of the official guidebook. I wouldn’t rule out the mangaka going through an English dictionary looking for the definition of “sin” because to her, it’s the same as シン. Honestly, I’m 99% sure that’s what she did.

魔神

I haven’t had any success with 魔神 which can also mean “devil/evil spirit.” The only thing that came to mind is that some kanji can be read as both “shin” or “jin” depending on the context, which then made me think of djinns? Which are evil spirits in a sense… This feels way too vague though.

Edit (18/8/2020): Still no luck here, but tumblr user sayaka19fan has suggested that "魔神" could refer to "死神/shinigami", the god of death.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Yoshida just use “死神” from the get-go? sayaka19fan explained that it could have something to do with the taboo surrounding the word “shi (死)” or “death” in Japanese culture. Personally, I am not quite convinced because:

1) Yoshida had no problem depicting Ash talking at length about “death” in the leopard scene. I don’t see any reason why Sing would shy away from the topic/word either, unless maybe he’s extra aware of Akira’s presence, since she’s a child?

2) Also, "shinigami" is shi-ni-ga-mi (シニガミ), not shin-i-ga-mi (シンイガミ). By dropping the n (ン) sound, the entire word changes and shi (シ) alone is not Sing's name anymore.

If all 3 meanings had the same pattern of only drawing from shi (シ) then I might be more convinced, but as shown above, 2 out of 3 derive from words that can definitively be read as "sin/sing/シン". I'm inclined to think that 魔神 should follow as well, since there’s no reason for Yoshida to suddenly diverge from this rule. 

- - - - - - - -

"スウリン/Soo Ling" doesn't seem to factor into any of these at all, so I’m convinced that the mangaka meant for those meanings to originate only from “Sing.”

I feel hesitant going with 新 / 星 as his family name, since they look like extremely uncommon ones. For what it’s worth, the Taiwanese(?) Mandarin localisation has gone with 辛舒霖 (Pinyin: xīn shū lín) with 辛 being the most common form of the “Xin” surname. He also shows up in another one of Yoshida’s works, Yasha, but they went with 沈叔林 (Pinyin: shěn shū lín) there.

At this point I suppose there’s still no One True Answer. But for the sake of consistency, it’s probably best to stick with 辛舒霖 if people want to use his Chinese name.

Edit (13/10/2021): I have expanded more on Sing’s name HERE.

Final thoughts:

It’s perfectly possible that the mangaka did not think too deeply about most of these names. She once named a Chinese character キム・ヨン・タイ (kim yong tai) which thanks to the surname, ended up sounding Korean instead. Of course, you could argue that it’s another non-Mandarin variation (Hokkien?). The English localisation however, changed it to “Hong Zhe-Ming.” There’s also the fact that she has twice referred to Lao as “Lao Yen” in Japanese, which is a heinous but hilarious mash up of his surname and half of his first name. 

Yeah, this series is far from being 100% accurate in other areas as well but hey, sometimes it’s just fun to point this stuff out :p

Thanks if you’ve read this far, and feel free to let me know if I’ve made a mistake or missed anything!

Extra footnote just in case: Regarding the whole "do they speak Mando/Canto" thing, I am examining it purely from the manga's perspective. I think that circumstances in the anime are different and perhaps more complex due to the change in setting.