The Flower Banquet (Part 3)

"The Flower Banquet (Part 3)" (花都刺客 (其三)), lit. 'Flower Capital Assassin (Part 3)') is the third chapter of the manhua Assassin's Creed: Dynasty written by Xu Xianzhe.

Behind the scenes

Translation errors

In the English edition of Assassin's Creed: Dynasty, published by Tokyopop, there are translation errors throughout the chapter. The most significant are the following, though there are also minor translation errors apart from these.

• On Yang Guozhong's first appearance, he is indicated as "Chancellor of the Right, Yang Guozhong" but this is instead translated as "Prime Minister Yang Guozhong". While Guozhong is indeed prime minister (宰相), this is an imprecise translation since in this instance, the comic is presenting him by the name of his office (右相).
• When An Lushan tells Guozhong, "I... am a barbarian. Barbarians bow to the mother before they bow to the father!" barbarian (胡人, húrén) is mistranslated as "a man of the Hu clan". Hu (胡) does not refer to Lushan's clan but to him being of an ethnicity regarded as barbarian by the Chinese.
• As in the previous chapter, 花魁 (Mandarin: huākuí) is mistranslated as oiran, a class of courtesans in Japanese history, based on the Japanese reading of the term. It actually refers to the grand prize of the contest.
  • When the Emperor tells Lushan, "You're a bit late. The crown of flowers has already been awarded", it is mistranslated as "You're late. The oiran has already emerged!" as though a star courtesan has made her appearance.
  • When Guozhong's chief delegate comments, "It seems the elites are all celebrating Lord Yang's winning the flower crown", it is mistranslated as "It seems they are celebrating Master Yang's victory for the oiran...!" as though Yang has accomplished something for a courtesan.
• An Lushan's retort to Yang Guozhong, "While you're playing with flowers in Chang'an, I am playing with my life at the border!" is translated as "While you're playing with flowers in Chang'an... I'm gambling with my life on the border!" Lushan intentionally utilizes parallelism and repetition as rhetorical devices to make his message more impactful. This is not reflected by changing playing to gambling even though the overall meaning is the same.
• The conventional English name for An Lushan's dance is the Sogdian Whirl although its Chinese name is Dance of the Whirling Barbarian (胡旋舞). As before, the translators fail to translate hú (胡) as 'barbarian', instead treating it as though it were Lushan's clan name. The name they give for the dance is simply "Dance of the Hu".