by Alexa Kang
One of my biggest challenges in writing Shanghai Story was how to best provide clarity to readers who do not read or speak Chinese. The first decision I had to make was whether to use the traditional Wade-Giles romanization system in order to keep the historical accuracy, or whether to use the pinyin system adopted by Mainland China in the 1980s. After a long discussion with my editor, who further inquired with other editors who had dealt with this issue, I decided to use pinyin except for references to locations and places in Shanghai during the war era. Today, pinyin has become the standard. Younger generations of readers have grown up with pinyin. I believe that in the future, Wade-Giles will become obsolete. I wanted this story to be an intuitive read for future readers.
The next big issue was Chinese character names. I wanted the Chinese characters to be relatable and easily recognizable. This can be tough when Chinese names are not familiar and cannot be easily remembered by English readers. Pinyin makes this even harder because some English letters used in the Romanization can seem unpronounceable (e.g.: “qi”). My editor and I debated for weeks which would be the best way to write the Chinese names. On this issue, I didn’t care about the “rules.” My job is to make the names as easy on the eye as possible. We went back and forth between writing a name in the format of three words (e.g, "Yuan Guo Hui"), in the format of three words with the first name being hyphenated (e.g.: "Yuan Guo-Hui"), or apply the latest trend of combining the two words of the first name into one (e.g.: "Yuan Guohui").
I finally decided to use the hyphenated version, except for a few historical characters whose names are widely recognized in one way, and several minor characters whose names actually are easier to read when combined into one word. I also did my best to make each character's name as distinguishable as possible so that readers would not confuse one character with another. This is a general advice for any fiction anyhow. (Those of you who have read or watched The Game of Thrones would know that HBO changed Asha Greyjoy’s name to Yara to avoid confusion with another character, Osha.) The task of distinguishing name turned out to be more challenging for me this time Chinese surnames look very similar when Romanized. My choices were more limited than I had expected. I had considered including a cast of characters, but decided it would not help. Shanghai Story has a huge cast. A long list of characters with an explanation of who they are would probably just bore the readers.
Another critical issue that came up was the dialogues between Chinese characters. Once I started writing, it occurred to me that the way an English speaker would say something is often different than how a Chinese speaker would say the same thing. Chinese customarily use honorifics when addressing others, and they often use idioms in their speech. I decided to include both honorifics and idioms when Chinese characters were speaking to each other because I felt their dialogues without either would be inauthentic. For honorifics, my editor and I had considered including footnotes, but decided it would disrupt the reading experience. In the end, I took a chance and hope the readers would read the Preface before they begin reading the story, and let the chips fall where they may.
Aside from honorifics and idioms, I felt it was important that when Chinese characters were speaking to each other, they talk as if they were speaking in Chinese. In English, there are certain ways of expressing something that simply do not exist in Chinese, and vice versa. It made no sense to me for Chinese characters to speak to each other as if they were speaking English. I decided to write the dialogues between Chinese characters as closely as possible to how they would speak in Chinese. I did the same to Clark’s internal thoughts. I did revert back to standard English for dialogues between Chinese characters and Westerners.
My efforts led to some misunderstanding for my editor. For example, in the chapter A Banquet for the Wicked when Tang Wei talked about Dai Li, the head of the Chinese, Tang said, “After all, this is a good occasion to check out a mount of Party members all at once.” My editor kept correcting me by replacing “mount” with “number.” I kept “mount,” which is the closest word to what a Chinese person would say in this phrase. “Number” would be inaccurate. This is just one of the many examples of what we worked on during the writing process. I am aware that readers who don't speak Chinese may have the same reaction as my editor. However, this is a risk I had decided to take to ensure that you, my readers, can fully experience the world that Clark inhabited.
A final word on street names. In the French concession during the period of pre-war Shanghai, many street names were in French. Technically for official street names, the French do not capitalize routes, avenue, etc. Nonetheless, we chose to apply capitalization because we don't want to create further confusion to the readers, the majority of whom likely do not read French. Therefore, if the street "route Lafayette" was referenced in this story, we have chosen to write it as "Route Lafayette." In any event, capitalization was often used in the materials I had read when researching historical data. I cannot confirm this, but it was possible that in Shanghai, the French way of writing street names was not always followed.
Given all the challenges as to language, I hope my team and I have given you a story that is easy to follow and characters with whom you can relate. I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Please feel free to email me and let me know what you think.
Alexa Kang
May 18, 2018
[email protected]
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Also by Alexa Kang
The Rose of Anzio Series
A sweeping saga of love and war, Rose of Anzio takes you from 1940s Chicago to the WWII Battle of Anzio in Italy and beyond.
Book One ~ Moonlight
Book Two ~ Jalousie
Book Three ~ Desire
Book Four ~ Remembrance
Fatal Encounter
What happened to Johann Hauser, the Nazi soldier accused of murder in Shanghai Story after he was rescued and sent back to Germany?
Find out in Fatal Encounter, a standalone story in Book 5 of the War Girls Series by WWII fiction author Marion Kummerow.
Fatal Encounter will be released on June 5, 2018. Pre-order your copy today on Amazon.
About the Author
Alexa Kang's writing career began in 2014. She grew up in New York City and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. She has travelled to more than 150 cities, and she loves to explore new places and different cultures. When not at work, she lives a secret second life as a novelist. She loves epic loves stories and hopes to bring you many more.
I would love to hear from you.
Contact me or follow me at:
www.alexakang.com
[email protected]
Acknowledgments
Shanghai Story was a huge project. It was truly a challenge to bring it to its final form, and I am tremendously grateful to several author friends who supported me throughout.
My heartfelt gratitude to Roberta Kagan, for penning the Foreword to this story. Roberta’s books on the Jewish experience during Holocaust are exceptional and very popular among readers of WWII fiction. I am incredibly honored that she had penned the Foreword to Shanghai Story.
I would like to thank Marion Kummerow for all her encouragement, as well as collaborating with me to create the story of the character Johann Hauser. This was a very enjoyable experience, and I am looking forward to finding out what happens to Hauser next too when Fatal Encounter is released on June 5, 2018.
Thank you also to Mylius Fox, author of the thriller novel Bandit, who has been with me since I began writing journey with the first book of Rose of Anzio. His input and advice on writing and publishing, as well as moral support, have been wonderful and invaluable.
Thank you to my editor Kristen Tate, for doing a fabul
ous job once again to help me bring this novel up another notch. Thank you, too, to Keri Knutson of Alchemy Book Covers and Design for the wonderful work. I cannot wait to unveil the covers for the rest of the series.
Lastly, thanks to my husband, Dan, for continuing to indulge me in my writing obsession, and being patient and supportive even when I'm ignoring him and our cat for days as I was pressed to meet my writing deadlines.
Copyright © 2018 Alexa Kang
ISBN-10: 1719024413
ISBN-13: 1719024413
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Keri Knutson
https://www.alchemybookcovers.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
