#poto china original

[lucygold95]

POTO China Phantom 何亮辰[He Liang-chen] and POTO Korea Phantom 김주택[Kim/Gim Joo/Ju-taek].

(* Both phantoms are opera baritons.)

何亮辰 also watched other musicals.

[paperandsong]

My fic, Erik Gets a COVID Test, is being translated into Chinese by Snowydove7. It’s an honor to have someone volunteer to translate fic and it’s been a great experience so far. It is so much fun to watch Chinese readers interact with the fic on Lofter, a Chinese language fanfic site. 

I do not speak Chinese so I’ve been using Google Translate to read the comments, which has been an interesting lesson in the limitations of Google. I use the program to translate between Portuguese and English fairly regularly for work purposes and while it always needs editing, it is readable. But I have found that for Chinese, Google Translate loses all ability to convey nuance or slang. As a human translator, this actually makes me feel pretty good. Computers can’t replace us just yet. 

Here’s an example:

Reader：这个设定好有趣！！会乱骂人还肌肤饥渴的桶子最傲娇了哈哈哈～～

Reader: This setting is so interesting! ! A bucket who can curse people and get thirsty skin is the most arrogant hahaha~~

Snowydove7 has been great about answering any questions I might have about the comments. I’ve learned that “skin-thirst” and “thirsty for skin” is how one talks about being “touch-starved” in Chinese. 

Comment from Snowydove7 about the use of “bucket” to discuss Erik: 

'Bucket' is 'bucket'. In Chinese, the word Phantom has similar pronunciation as 'meal bucket(饭桶, spelled as Fantong in Pinyin）', which means a good-for-nothing. It's such an interesting coincidence that Chinese POTO fans uses 'bucket' or 'meal bucket' a nickname of Erik. AI has a long way to go before understanding homophones.

Another interesting conversation we’ve had is about the Chinese translation of Leroux’s novel. Snowydove7 noticed my author’s note in which I explain that Christine sings the Night Queen’s aria from The Magic Flute in the original French, which was left out of the Teixeira de Mattos translation (along with many other details!) Snowy mentioned this scene was also missing from their Chinese Leroux. I asked Snowy to check for several other details - the scissors, the enlarged coffin - and they were all missing from the Chinese translation too. Which means it is very likely that the translation Snowy was looking at was translated from Teixeira’s English, and not the original French. The omitted passages are like watermarks of Teixeira’s censorship - and they show up in the translations of other languages too. 

Snowy confirmed that there are many Chinese language editions of Leroux and some of the newer translations do include these missing details. That still doesn’t confirm whether the translation was made from the original French or from a more recent English translation that is more faithful to Leroux. I find it fascinating that French literature would be translated into Chinese via English. But it makes sense. There are more English speakers in China than French. 

I couldn’t find a date for the first translation of Phantom of the Opera into Chinese, but it seems it must have been at least prior to 1937, when “Song at Midnight”, a Chinese made silent film based on Leroux’s novel, was released. 

Here are the Chinese editions I found available on Amazon. It is impossible to know which were translated from Teixeira or other English translations, and which were translated from the original. 

(No year provided) Phantom of the Opera (Traditional Chinese Edition) Unknown Binding

1991 China Astronautics Publishing House

2000  Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House (Youth Edition)

2010 Chongqing Press

2012 New World Press

2013 大连理工大学出版社 (Graphic Novel)

2016  Changjiang Juvenile & Children's Publishing House

2020  Yuan Liu (might be translated from the original French)

2021 Shang Hai Yi Wen Chu Ban She (The description sounds like the 2004 film)

“Eric was born deformed and was abandoned by his parents and society. The kind Madame Giry hid him in the basement of the opera house.”

Chinese fans, do you have any recommendations for Chinese language translations of Phantom of the Opera? Any comments about PotO slang in Chinese? Leave a note!

[hanyusan]

Something I can’t understand is why is masquerade being compared to phantom of the opera?? I think that someone said that opening pose is same but I cannot understand why? Apologies for bad english :)

Hello! Here are some of the clearer similarities between these two programs:

Masquerade starts with the main musical theme of POTO

The Masquerade costume shares design aspects and its black + red/white accent color palette with the original POTO costume

Similar moves. Mainly, the motif of the mask:

What’s most important seems to be its symbolism in the context of Yuzu’s career. The 2014–2015 season (during which POTO was Yuzu’s free skate) was not a pleasant one due to constant injuries. Namely, there was the infamous Cup of China incident, where he and fellow skater Han Yan crashed into one another during warmups for the free. Yuzu proceeded to skate POTO with injuries across his entire body. It was more heartbreaking than anything else, to watch an athlete insist on competing because he felt that was the only option, even though he was not in any physical state to do so.

To have him return five years later and perform to similar music was like watching him pay homage to himself and to all the trials and tribulations that he’s experienced. But Masquerade was not the same POTO that we knew, but rather an evolved version that could best display the intensity of his spirit and how far he’s come. At least, that’s how I view it :) 

(Also, your English is great!! Keep at it!)

[lucygold95]

Finally!

POTO Korea 2nd revival's Christine masquerade mask(*middle) and POTO China original's mask(*right) have a similar form(Similar to West End mask design renewed in the 2010s(*left) + The handle of the mask is located on the side like a Broadway mask, giving an opera glass feel.),

but the Korean one looks biger(like the recent West End one) than Chinese one. Except for the handle position, there are also differences between the design of Korean mask and the design of recent West End masks. It was fun to compare three types of masks💖

Pan Hangwei ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

[lucygold95]

<Korean Christines' two different Hannibal tiaras> (+ Chinese Christines' different costumes.)

송은혜 Christine only wore this tall height tiara when she took selfies,

but 손지수 Christine wore both short height tiara and tall height tiara.

(* 송은혜 is over 170cm tall and 손지수 is 16ncm tall(I guess she's around 161cm tall), so it is interesting that 송은혜 wears a tall height tiara and 손지수 tends to wear a short height tiara.)

+ Both Korean Christines and Christine understudy wear short height tiaras during Masquerade.

++ Chinese Christines' different costumes.

[lucygold95]

권가민[Kwon Ga-min](Christine understudy)'s debut day photos. (+전동석, 송원근, 한보라...)

[justaboutsnapped]

So people are asking about the POTO’s nickname in Chinese being the Rice Bucket but tbh this one’s not as fun

Basically, the word Phantom sounds a lot like the Chinese word 饭桶(fàn tǒng), which is the word for — you guessed it — rice bucket.

We do this quite a lot for nicknames and simply find words in Chinese that sound similar to the English counterpart. For example, Ramin’s is 拉面(lā mìan), the Chinese translation of Ramen (I mean is it really the Chinese translation of Ramen if Ramen originated in China)

Meanwhile Hadley is called steak-

So regarding the whole Les Mis’ nickname being The Big Sad™ thing I feel like more explanation is needed alsjfhsgjsjsk

Anyways the full Chinese translation of Les Miséables is 悲惨世界 - which literally means “The Miserable/Tragic World”, but no we decided four characters weren’t fucking short enough so we came up with LM. Then noooo we need a Chinese nickname so in comes 大悲. The second character in 大悲is obviously the first character in the full title — kinda like how Miserable was shortened into Mis — and by itself it’s meaning is closer to sad than miserable/tragic (at least imo)

By this time you’ve probably guessed it: 大 means Big. I have no idea why it was tacked on but there we go. The Big Sad. Now let’s talk about POTO’s nickname rice bucket-