Talk:Xianü (short story)

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A fact from Xianü (short story) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 June 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in translating the short story "Xianü" by Pu Songling, Herbert Giles omitted the protagonist's homosexual relationship with a fox spirit?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Xianü (short story).

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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... that the wuxia film A Touch of Zen (1971) is based on the 18th-century short story "Xianü" by Pu Songling?

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Edward Rath III

Created by Kingoflettuce (talk). Self-nominated at 14:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC).[reply]

New enough, long enough, QPQ done. Hook is short enough, neutral, and cited inline. Article is good enough for DYK, but could still be improved (sections are a bit short). I'm a bit confused that the article uses Traditional Chinese except for 贾人妻, but I'm going to assume you just follow the sources here. Hook formatting should probably be bold italics for the story title. I'm wondering whether the hook could be spiced up a bit by including something about the content? Or use Giles omitting the homosexual relationship? Almost there, but currently —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 21:37, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, that's my bad (couldn't copy and paste from JSTOR)—eagle eyes! Anyway short story titles are always in quote marks (I've done several Liaozhai DYKs already). Kingoflettuce (talk) 06:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ALT1: ... that in translating the short story "Xianü" by Pu Songling, Herbert Giles omitted to mention the protagonist's homosexual relationship with a fox spirit? Kingoflettuce (talk) 06:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll accept your experience on the hook formatting of ALT0. For ALT1, do you think you could mention this fact in the text instead of just in a footnote? I think it is an interesting warning against trusting Giles' translations ... —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 09:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. It's well-known that most of Giles' Liaozhai translations are bowlderised :P (see the main page for more info) Kingoflettuce (talk) 09:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, happy to approve both ALT0 and ALT1 now, with a slight preference for the juicier ALT1.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised about Giles' Victorian attitudes, but I read most classical novels in Franz Kuhn's German translations, and Kuhn usually cut the boring parts, not the sex scenes (he also translated erotica like Rouputuan). —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 10:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]