The Chinese studio granted early access on the condition that topics like “feminist propaganda” and “Covid-19” go unmentioned. What followed is the Streisand effect in full force.
“I feel that it only served to bring more attention on Game Science’s culture of sexism,” linktothepabst says. “All they had to do was let the game speak for itself, but it came off, to me, like an own goal, effectively stoking the flames between the people who were using this game as weapon against ‘wokeness in games’ and those who can level-headedly either enjoy the game and criticize GS or just ignore the game altogether.”
It’s the Streisand effect in full force: Try to hide something, and it becomes all the more visible. “Nobody was going to bring up Chinese politics unprompted,” Zhong says, “but the topic was there as soon as they released those guidelines.”
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It is in between, getting licked is the figurative speech for “unjust praises” with a hint of submission in the tone.
English also have a similar expression like “licking one’s boots”, but in Chinese it is more sexual, as it typically refers to licking something else. An alternative is “跪舔”, which means “kneel and lick”.
There are other comments in the article I linked:
That being said, I do not claim that the dev still holds this view point now. China is a rapidly developing country, and its ideology and culture can shift just as fast.
But I am very dishearten that they would mention “feminist propaganda” in their review bans. It seems like they are still not accepting of feminism.
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From my point of view, the IGN article doesn’t seem to have mistranslation, as you claim in your original article.
As for whether using clear sexual language in a professional environment is “sexism”, I think it could be up for debate.
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I see, you are right, but translation are typically limited by space, and can never be 100% accurate without pages to explain the cultural context. Thus, it is typical for translator to choose the cloest translation that is also concise.
I claim that IGN translation is accurate, because I believe it is within the conventional bound of “meaning loss”. The statement certainly reads as edgy in Chinese as they are in English. Yet, I can see an argument that these “meaning loss” can be misleading to some.
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If I have given the chance to vote, I would personally think that your comment is inaccurate, but shouldn’t be removed, especially shouldn’t be removed as sexism.
To me, “mistranslation” means that a translation do not accurately refelect the original content. However, the translation of IGN, although might benefit from additional clarification, accurately reflects the content and sexual nature of the original post.
Regarding your alternative translation, although 舔 is slightly less sexual as “licked”, but 不能勃起 is as much sexual as “cannot erect”, if not more. If you translate it to “cannot sit”, it would significantly tune down its sexual and edgy nature. This is probably why the translator choose to translate it literally instead of rephrase to “kiss ass”.
How are the lead graphics designers comments not sexist?