{"id":289,"date":"2006-03-02T16:13:10","date_gmt":"2006-03-02T08:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2006\/a-geisha-by-any-other-character\/"},"modified":"2018-08-21T17:23:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T09:23:28","slug":"a-geisha-by-any-other-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2006\/a-geisha-by-any-other-character\/","title":{"rendered":"a geisha by any other character"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has to do with Memoirs of a Geisha<\/em>. But I don’t give a hoot about what is probably a profoundly silly movie that I have no intention of paying money to see. Nor do I care about Beijing’s profoundly silly objections to it. What I’m interested here is how Chinese characters were manipulated for the name. <\/p>\n

In Mandarin, the word for “geisha” is yìjì<\/span>, which is written 藝妓 in traditional Chinese characters and 艺妓 in “simplified” Chinese characters. The word for “memoirs” is huíyìlù<\/span>, written 回憶錄 (回忆录 in simplified characters).<\/p>\n

Thus, Memoirs of a Geisha<\/em> could be translated as Yìjì huíyìlù<\/span>, which it has been up to a point<\/em>. (This is something of a surprise in itself, because Western movies tend to be completely retitled in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China rather than have their titles translated into Mandarin. There’s a tedious sameness to most of these titles, which tend to imitate titles of other popular movies and throw in 愛 (ài, love) a lot.)<\/p>\n

As written in Chinese characters, the title in Taiwan of the movie is 藝伎回憶錄, not the expected 藝妓回憶錄. Note the difference in the second character: <\/p>\n

伎<\/span> vs. 妓<\/span><\/p>\n

The form in the movie title has the “person” radical 亻, while the original form has the “woman” radical 女.<\/p>\n

The one with the woman radical is strongly associated with prostitution. Here are a few of the many prostitution-related words that contain this character: <\/p>\n