problems in puppet theater piece

[Lu]

This is from a puppet theater piece called Fun at the Lantern Festival, and this song is sung by two guys dancing in the street. Very little context, unfortunately.

娘子侥心太薄幸

抛却前盟

你误我痴心一片情

可亏我一身

走南闯北自飘零

望不见知心人亲靓颜容

I can't make much of the first line. 'Girl, you're lucky, you should look happy' is the best I can make of it, but I think I'm probably wrong.

I can't figure out the next line either. I made it 'You broke your promise', but again I'm afraid that's completely off.

The rest I think I got right:

You don't understand how madly in love I am [with you]

Alas, all alone

I wandered far and wide

I searched but never found the friendly face of someone [a woman] who understands me

From the same piece, a bit later:

喜迎村妇踩灯街

心花怒放舞一回

民风输人不输阵

敢展身手敢夺魁

I translated as:

We welcome the village women in the street

They dance a dance elatedly

[don't know what to make of this]

If you dare to show your skills, you might turn out to be the best

Can anyone help me with the second line?

And then said village women sing:

莫看村妇颜容老

犹记当年霓裳飘

舞翩翩 香袅袅

Don't look at how old we village women look

You remember well enough how our dresses fluttered back in the day

We dance and dance, [and what does this mean]

香, is that incense? incense smoke? or some other nice aroma?

Thanks for any help and input!

[ziegphy]

香 is not actual incense.

袅袅's first appearance in 屈原' s poem.

"袅袅兮秋风，洞庭波兮木叶下"

be used for describing gentle soft slight wind.

Then the means extend to describe the light smoke wreathing, the sounds stretching...etc

(but each use is emphasize slight soft 飘逸(I can not find the english word to instead this))

If 袅袅 follow 香.

We can see these words 暗香袅袅, 茶香袅袅,淡香袅袅......

So this 香 is not actual incense, is the slight aroma wreathing like the smoke.

[florazheng]

娘子侥心太薄幸

抛却前盟

你误我痴心一片情

可亏我一身

走南闯北自飘零

望不见知心人亲靓颜容

娘子：address to a man's wife in archaic Mandarin

前盟：以前的山盟海誓

太薄幸: don't cherish our love; will easily betray the love

My wife, you don't cherish our love,

being unfaithful to the swear;

You betray my affection to you;

Alas, all alone,

I wandered far and wide for living,

and could not see my darling.

[florazheng]

# 2

民风输人不输阵: according to the custom of the village, participation is more important than winning

[florazheng]

莫看村妇颜容老

犹记当年霓裳飘

舞翩翩 香袅袅

Don't look at how old we village women look

You remember well enough how our dresses fluttered back in the day

We dance and dance, [and what does this mean]

香, is that incense? incense smoke? or some other nice aroma?

It is "I" rather than "you" who still remember...

It's "They" rather than "we" who dance...

翩翩: elegantly or gracely

香: (in this contex) Women make up with cosmetic which had some aroma. It gave off when they were dancing.

[Lu]

Thanks for everyone's help, now I could solve the last problems I had in translating this piece.

娘子侥心太薄幸

抛却前盟

你误我痴心一片情

可亏我一身

走南闯北自飘零

望不见知心人亲靓颜容

But 娘子 is not necessarily wife, right? From what I know it can also be a young girl. I think here 'young girl' would fit better, so I translated:

Girl, you take our love too lightly

You break your promise

You don't understand how much I am in love with you

Alas, all alone

I wandered far and wide

But nowhere did I find the woman who understands me

喜迎村妇踩灯街

心花怒放舞一回

民风输人不输阵

敢展身手敢夺魁

We welcome the village women in the street

They dance around elatedly

According to custom, participating is more important than winning

If you dare to dance, you might turn out to be the best

莫看村妇颜容老

犹记当年霓裳飘

舞翩翩 香袅袅

Don't look at how old we village women are

You/I remember well how our dresses danced back in the day

We dance and dance, our perfume fills the air

Florazheng: it's the village women themselves who are singing and dancing here, so I think 'we dance' is better than 'they dance' here. And why do you think it should be I remember, not you remember? From the text it can be both, but I thought, because in the first line the women address their audience (who would rather look at young girls dancing), they are also addressing their audience in the second line.

[florazheng]

#1 It is up to you to understand 娘子 means young girl. As a native Chinese speaker, I have unmistakably told you 娘子 refers to wife.

#2 I never told you 香 must refer to perfume. Many cosmetics, eg. rouge, have their special aroma. And in ancient, there was not perfume at all.

#3 I don't think you have read my previous reply carefully, and you don't try to understand the lyrics. I would say it loses the beauty of the original.

By the way, there's not really a dialogue called Taiwanese. The so-called Taiwanese is southern Fujian dialect, which is popular in the south of Fujian Province, mainly Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. Except for Taiwanese and Fujianese, overseas Chinese call the dialect Hokkien, which means Fujian in the pronunciation of the dialect.

The forefathers of Taiwanese emigrated from the mainland of China, especially from the southern Fujian many years ago. So they called the dialect "Taiwanese." It is useless to learn to speak this dialect. It doesn't has it own independent writing system at all.

[Lu]

Flora, no offense was intended, I hope you don't feel offended. It's just that there were a few things in your reply that I didn't fully understand, so I asked a few more questions.

I understand your explanation about 香, the line makes much more sense now. I took some liberty in translating it as 'perfume', the translation is for subtitles, these have to be short and to the point, that's why I did so.

I did read all your explanations, and I am trying to understand the lyrics, I just don't understand why 'I remember' rather than 'you remember'. I'd be happy if you could help me understand.

Finally, you are of course right that 'Taiwanese' is just a form of Minnanyu, and that it is from Fujian. Linguistically speaking, you're also probably right that 'Taiwanese' is not the proper term for this dialect. In Taiwan, however, most people call their dialect Taiwanese, and since I lived in Taiwan for quite a while, I have a habit of also calling it Taiwanese. Feel free to read it as Minnanyu. I also learned a bit of Minnanyu; I never thought it would be useful outside of Taiwan, but I actually needed it when translating another piece for the puppet theater (which is partly in Minnanyu), so it turns out to be at least a little bit useful.

Again, thanks for your remarks and answers, they were very helpful.

[florazheng]

Lu:

It's good that you have right to pose the questions about my answers when you don't understand or have any uncertainty. I didn't see any reliable counter-evidence you could offer to refute my answers. Or at least, you even didn't ask me to offer any reliable source to prove my interpretation but stick to your gun. So I lost my interest to explain the other questions about it further.

I didn't feel offended. I just feel a bit of upset it seems that you didn't really care about my answers when I took time to respond, ie, 娘子,翩翩 etc. And I just paraphrased "民风输人不输阵" for you, and I didn't think it is suitable for the lyric. I am afraid you have to write it by yourself.

As to "Taiwanese" dialect, I do know Taiwanese call this dialect that. I just feel ridiculous they label it. The English language originates from the UK. However, I never hear that Americans, Aussies say they speak American language, Australian lauguage but English. Well, this might be uncalled-for. But I just cannot resist to comment on it.

[Lu]

Actually I'm translating into Dutch, not English, so what I wrote here in English is a paraphrasing of an inexact translation. There's an existing Dutch saying that means 'participating is more important than winning' (meedoen is belangrijker dan winnen), that's what I used for 民风输人不输阵, it sounds better than in English.

It was not my intention to stubbornly stick to my own ideas, the reason I asked in the first place was because I didn't know or wasn't sure. I do appreciate your replies.

[chenpv]

Baidu-ed the piece and found this link and this video.

[众舞女唱] 头插花蕊面带笑 轻歌曼舞乐逍遥 莫看村妇颜容老 又见当年霓裳飘

means 'in a second/ in the blink', this '又见' actually assists the performance where a group of old ladies lay down, but transformed into beautiful young dancers when they stood back again.

In such performances, words always play second fiddle to visual effects , and thus always been made a tool to smooth any obstrusive changes.

I also second Lu's understanding on the '娘子' one. It is more of a 'fiancee' or 'girlfriend' type of appellation in this context.

[Lu]

Chenpv, yep, that's the piece. I should have known they would have something online. I hadn't thought of linking the words to the changing of the dancers. Thanks! I'll try to change the titles (already made the supertitles by now, but I think I'll have an opportunity to change it).

Edited October 14, 2008 at 12:20 PM by Lu