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Tuesday 11 February 2020

Some Novel Titles

At a café, I spied a row of novels. Some of these titles sound ... interesting.


吃定總經理 / Eyeing the General Manager / GM Sasaranku
總裁賴定你 / The CEO Relies on You / CEO Bergantung Padamu
惡魔大總裁 / The Devilish CEO / CEO Ku Setan
邪王的嬌妻 / The Evil King's Lovely Wife / Bini Molek Raja Durjana
壞總裁的剋星 / The Wicked CEO's Bane / Duri Dalam Daging CEO
替身格格 / Stand-in Princess / Puteri Gantian
惡魔的求婚 / The Devil's Marriage Proposal / Setan Datang Meminang
丫鬟不願嫁 / Maid Don't Wanna Marry / Dayang Tak Nak Nikah
絕情貝勒 / Heartless Lord / Kejamnya Tuan
公爵的豔遇 / The Duke's Encounter / Pertembungan Dengan Kerabat

I translated parts of the text with Google Translate, which deciphered zongcai (總裁) as "chairman" one day and "CEO" days later. Beile (貝勒) is a title for a Manchurian noble, and Tishen Gege (替身格格) sounds a lot like the premise of a popular Chinese drama series.

A small sample, but one can see a pattern and infer which eras the stories take place, from medieval era and Qing Dynasty to modern times.

Why a market for this is huge – and why such novels get written – is obvious. Not every book has to enlighten or educate. Books are also a form of entertainment, and not everybody wants to walk in familiar shoes on familiar streets. The boots of a mage or the greaves of a knight in a faraway or fantasy setting would be more tempting than the flip-flops of a weary executive seeking to "eat, pray, love".

Am I going anywhere with this? Not really. Curious about the titles, I tried typing them out and translated them later. I didn't want all that work to be wasted and it's nice to see something familiar in other languages.