A Bite of Bilingualism in Hōzuki no Reitetsu

Key words: bilingualism, reception, production, society, commercial, culture, re-contextualization

                                 

Background

Hōzuki no Reitetsu (Japanese: 鬼灯の冷徹; Chinese: 鬼燈的冷徹) is a Japanese supernatural dark comedy manga series written and illustrated by Natsumi Eguchi. An anime television series adaptation by Wit Studio began airing from January 9, 2014.

The story centers on demon Hōzuki (Japanese:鬼灯; Chinese:鬼燈) who works with King Yama (Japanese & Chinese: 閻魔大王) and other demons in the Japanese afterlife. The serious-minded Hōzuki attempts to manage and troubleshoot unusual problems which occur there.

Hakutaku (Japanese & Chinese: 白澤) is one of the characters in Hōzuki no Reitetsu whose setting and plots involved perform a large amount of bilingualism strategically.

  Hakutaku as a fictional Chinese figure

In Hōzuki no Reitetsu, Hakutaku is a Chinese celestial beast (Chinese: 中國神獸) and excellent pharmacist in Kampo medicine (Chinese: 日本漢方醫學) living in a farm in Heaven who has moved to Japan ages ago. He speaks Japanese, lives in Japan, has a Japanese staff, works for Japanese and yet He carries very obvious Chinese identity around.

From the picture on the left, the white shirt with a Mandarin standing collar Hakutaku wears hints his national identity and his nature - A Chinese white beast.

Hakutaku as a bilingual site

Though has been not directly mentioned by the author, Hakutaku clearly refers the image of the fantastic beast in ancient Chinese legends Baí Zé (Chinese: 白澤; Wade–Giles: Pai Tse). The name literally means ‘white marsh’. In this case, it is a form of re-contextualization by extracting a cultural sign (Baí Zé) from its original context (China) and introducing it to another context (the fictional Japan) which implies changes in the nature of the sign.

Many plots in Hōzuki no Reitetsu manga series has performed features of bilingualism and Chinese heritage in Hakutaku. However, their effects evoked in manga are not as obvious and direct as those in anime television series adaptation due to the limitation of the text (manga). Animation allows bilingualism to be performed verbally whereas manga can only do it by shifting written languages which cannot create a immediate impression to readers like that animation can do.

In a few scenes in episode 9 of the anime television series adaptation, Hakutaku shows his Chinese identity by speaking Chinese, including:

(1) moaning in washroom for hangover

Chinese:  "我不喝了"

(Pinyin: wǒ bù hē le )

English: I won't drink anymore.

Chinese: 我以後都不喝酒了 請原諒我 (Pinyin: Wǒ yǐ hòu dōu bù hē jiǔ le 
Qǐng yuán liàng wǒ) English: I won't drink anymore. Please forgive me.

(2) and calling his staff Momo Taro (Japanese: 桃太郎) in Chinese which is Táo Tài Láng.

In Japanese, 桃 is read as momo whereas it is read as Táo in Chinese.

In episode 9, only a few spectacular fragments of dialogues, including names, phrases and short sentences (e.g.桃太郎 Táo Tài Láng), are used in Chinese by Hakutaku. In fact, The portion of Chinese used in Hōzuki no Reitetsu is very little.

Therefore, given that Japanese people do not understand Chinese and the Japanese society is basically monolingual (Japanese only) for cultural and historical factors, the use of Chinese in Hōzuki no Reitetsu falls into the categories of minimal bilingualism, impersonal bilingualism and emblematic bilingualism.

These modes function as the framing device of the expression of the image for Hakutaku in order to evoke the consumption interest of the audience. They respond to the anticipation on a fictional Chinese character Japanese people would have while symbols the national and cultural identity as well as that Hakutaku being exotic.

Rather that the semantic function of the words, the symbolic capital they carry is more important as it attracts particular target group in the market. Hence, producers can extract profits through strategic production.

Also, code-switching applys in Hakutaku speaking Japanese with Momo Taro while calling his name in Chinese.

Though very little, the use of Chinese in Hōzuki no Reitetsu could imply the changing social environment of Japan that it is becoming increasingly open to foreign cultures. China as one of the most culturally, politically and historically influential countries to China has been the centre of the raising social reception to foreign cultures in recent decades. It has boosted media production containing Chinese cultural and linguistic fragments in which their portion are raising at the moment. The curiosity on China provides new markets with new groups of customers and hence a new theme fitting the interest of these groups arises.

In conclusion, the bilingualism in Hōzuki no Reitetsu is certainly commercially driven but its existence implies some social phenomenon the text is in. Perhaps the tone of Hōzuki no Reitetsu could also be read as the Japanese attitude to Chinese: we may fight and argue but we will make up anyway - afterall, we are friends.

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P.S. 

Reference has been indicated in the article by hyperlinks.haha

I think this article itself contains bilingual items too. May anyone find them out and discuss with us? haha

Last but not least, recommend Hōzuki no Reitetsu to you all!

P.S.S.

I tried to insert hyperlinks but they just didn't work.

So, reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dzuki_no_Reitetsu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Ze
http://www.bilibili.tv/video/av997570/
http://morning.moae.jp/lineup/116
http://album.blog.yam.com/show.php?a=vicky8466&f=9244485&i=22861049