P大 is a pretty good writer these days, I'm reading Sha Po Lang right now and tbh I have no complaints, but she wasn't the best back in 2012 when Guardian was written. While we (me as well as some other translators that I've spent time shooting messages back and forth about the book with) love the characters and the overall SW character-arc and some of the plot, there are major problems with the book. Typos aside, it's not very well edited and full of wasted words (a whole lot of "at the same time" "while this is happening" and "meanwhile") and it has some blatant pacing and tone problems. Basically, with 'perverted hand' or I suppose more correctly would be 'his pervert hand', a phrase she used multiple times to describe ZYL with, we're running into that tone problem.
She also employs an omnipotent-narrator point of view and tone shift from character to character, so the sentences in that passage is written something like this: SW: serious tone, serious structure, well-phrased dialogue ZYL: playful, slangy, way out there, sometimes using vulgar words, lots of loan words and old words in dialogue --- a lot like someone who's watched too much anime and ming/qing dynasty drama.
repeat and rinse.
In this case, the word here used is 鹹豬手 / Salted pig hand, which is slang for ... someone who gropes women in public, but instead of using it as a noun to describe a person who is a pervert, she used it as a noun in place of ZYL's hand, so it's sort of a pun. It's not a nice word, and it has no business being in the same sentence as the rest, and yet there it is. Another candidate for the same spot may be, "wandering old perv hand."
Canonically a perv, because canonically described as a perv: his heart is said to 沒節操 / lack integrity, he 吃豆腐 / eats tofu / takes advantage of skin-to-skin contact sometimes without permission, and often his gaze is descibed as 猥瑣 / vulgar, and his hand is a salted pig trotter.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-02-28 08:25 pm (UTC)She also employs an omnipotent-narrator point of view and tone shift from character to character, so the sentences in that passage is written something like this:
SW: serious tone, serious structure, well-phrased dialogue
ZYL: playful, slangy, way out there, sometimes using vulgar words, lots of loan words and old words in dialogue --- a lot like someone who's watched too much anime and ming/qing dynasty drama.
repeat and rinse.
In this case, the word here used is 鹹豬手 / Salted pig hand, which is slang for ... someone who gropes women in public, but instead of using it as a noun to describe a person who is a pervert, she used it as a noun in place of ZYL's hand, so it's sort of a pun. It's not a nice word, and it has no business being in the same sentence as the rest, and yet there it is. Another candidate for the same spot may be, "wandering old perv hand."
Canonically a perv, because canonically described as a perv: his heart is said to 沒節操 / lack integrity, he 吃豆腐 / eats tofu / takes advantage of skin-to-skin contact sometimes without permission, and often his gaze is descibed as 猥瑣 / vulgar, and his hand is a salted pig trotter.