#dragonhead

dragonhead caterpillar... he is determined

Chapter 29 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

First up why did the parents name her Hundred Flowers’ Shame though? I’m inclined to believe they meant it like she puts even a hundred flowers to shame with her beauty. Both the J. F. Jenner and German translation confirm this as well. Given the track record of the novel so far though it was only natural for me to squint a little and stop to think about it for a moment. This is likely a case of things having become a little unclear in translation with the Chinese name probably being very clear in its meaning when you understand the language.

Precious Image Kingdom is called Elephantia in the J. F. Jenner translation, which I find quite hilarious.

This chapter’s creature feature is the scorpaenid. They probably mean scorpaenidae which is a fish! They’re better known as scorpionfish though fishes called Dragonhead also fall under that family!

This is one of these beauties!

However from what I could gather from the Chinese Original with the help of Google Translate and images specifically looking at [鰲魚 Áo yú] it seems to be a mythical fish with the appearance of a dragon, so this was likely the closest translation available.

Yet in the J. F. Jenner translation it is a turtle instead of a fish, which makes for a decently cohesive image as well. And if you only take the character [鰲 Áo] it can refer to a mythological turtle, so this can be seen as a plausible translation as well.

Moving on to some place names, personally I prefer the J. F. Jenner translation here for the Halls and Palaces. They just sound a little too silly for the grandeur they are meant to portrait in the Anthony C. Yu translation.

Hehe, Tang Sanzang is collecting those seals like loyalty stamps on a stamp card. That’s a pretty decent metaphor as to how it works since he gets one in every place with his grand price at the end when he collected them all being the scriptures.

Green hair you say? Why that sounds like an anime character! Also yes, golden eyes, blue face and green hair all checks out in terms of accurate colour translation.

Now the other two translations specify that in the letter she means her two sons are bad, which makes me wonder if she even tried to raise them to be good. Like the father’s influence is undeniable since he probably had a hand in raising them as well, but nobody is born bad and they did also have their mother sooo. I’m just saying. It would understandable if she has a difficult relationship with them given how they came about, but flat out condemning children like this is not okay.

Entomological phone cases by John Horstman (itchydogimages, SINOBUG) for iPhone & Samsung models with slim, tough, and soft case options on REDBUBBLE...

Tawny Rajah Butterfly "Dragonhead" Caterpillar (Charaxes bernardus, Charaxinae, Nymphalidae) Pu'er, Yunnan, China

Full store:

A pic I drew for my upcoming TTRPG Dragonhead.