CS Asian Stereotypes Fratching Edition

[Nekojin]

So is this Onii-chan a Japanese thing or is it Western, taking a word and slapping -chan at the end regardless of it's context being correct or not.

It's extremely Japanese, definitely not just a Western adoption. "-san" and "-chan" are honorifics, something that you say for politeness' sake (and/or etiquette's sake), and they denote a difference in social standing. "-chan" is a diminutive, and in the case kaycivine relates, it's intended as possessive - not just "brother," but, "MY brother." Among people who are close in social status, it can also represent a lack of formality, or a degree of closeness between the parties. (it's my understanding that random girls asking if a guy can be their "onii-chan" without any sort of introduction is kind of rude, if not outright objectifying).

"-san" is more formal, and usually used either when speaking to someone with a higher social standing, someone whose social standing is unknown, or social situations (such as corporate settings) where politeness is a must. The lack of any honorific at all is considered to be extremely informal - it's implying a casual relationship between the speaker and the object of speech.

If the two people aren't close friends, failing to use an honorific is a breach of etiquette.

[Ginger Tea]

I know San to be akin to Mr etc.

But I've not encountered least consciously -chan in the films I have watched, granted most are from the Tartan Asia Extreme and are bias towards horror and violence and again I wouldn't be able to say 100% which were Japanese movies and not just Asian, Only Ringu and the sequels and Battle Royale are for certain from my library. I think if I tallied it all up it would be predominantly Korean.

But I only ever seem to hear -chan spoken by westerners who for all I know might be using it out of context and as the fandom seems to be more skewed to Anime than live action, least as far as cosplaying goes, probably due to film actors normally dressing rather dully compared to their animated counterparts.

Either Jesse Cox or Total Biscuit had a mini rant on a TGS podcast ages ago, it might have just been playful joshing with Dodger who does the manga podcast as well.
Which ever it was, although my head is hearing Jesse saying it, was adding -chan and possibly -kune to almost any other word, I have no idea if -kune if it is spelt that way is a word or if I just found it added in there as it flittered away into "I'll not need to bring this up at any point" pile in my head.

It's been about 5 years since I last really spoke Japanese, so I have no idea what are real words and what are made up Anime 'squeals', I hope to god there is a more mature version of kawaii without veering away from the word cute as id rather tell someone that dress makes them look like a pig ejaculated glitter over a chicken than say in Japanese it makes her look kawaii.

JB Fletcher, however, I do not know how many nieces and nephews she has and how many might just call her Aunt Jess, iir she was a school teacher before retiring and taking up mystery writing, some might just be overly affectionate former pupils she kept in contact with.

But some friends can be so close that its almost as if they are sisters and never lessen that bond, so although biologically not related they kind of do become Aunt to her friends children.
There has to be some form of long term bond or family connection for it to work, although one night out after a Lou Reed concert (for his metal machine trio) I spent some time with a few students and although male and because I was a good 10-15 years older than they were, I said it was OK for them to call me Aunty.
Mostly due to Uncle being the name the kids living here gave everyone, even though I had only known them a month, that one we laughed off and put it down to Mr rather than anything else, his step dad was Uncle Tom, that was the only time it genuinely worked.
After a while I found a 10 year old boy calling me Uncle damn right creepy, so when the students wanted to call me Uncle I shot that down there and then.

We didn't trade numbers or bump into each other again, but if we had, I would always be Aunty to them.

[Andara Bledin]

Wikipedia has a decent page on honorific use and separate, more complete pages on several specific language/regional uses, including Japanese, with a section devoted to familial honorifics.

[kaycivine]

Also in Korean

You call your elders the following;

Older sister/Older brother
Mister/Miss
grandpa/grandma

even if you're NOT related...depending on age.

My ex is Korean, so I called him "oppa" sometimes (big brother)

Koreans are a bit more stickler for respect.
First name basis is almost more rare than in Japanese

[Ginger Tea]

Calling non relatives brother or sister?
That just has me doubting people all the time now, incest abound.

The Don't click fan sub I just put down to overzealous use of chan in American fandom bleeding into the Korean branch and it just being added randomly by whomever was scripting their section.

[kaycivine]

So they were using 'chan' in the fansub or was I totally reading like an idiot?

[Ginger Tea]

No they were not really using Chan, but I found it odd (although correct) for a woman to call her sisters boyfriend elder brother.
But with the liberal use of chan kun and other words that I have no honest idea if they are being used correctly or not, I just assumed that they had been using Chan and others for so long that they just borked the translation.
Edit: although I did say it in my previous post, yes I am aware I am using a Japanese honorific when describing parts of a Korean subtitle, but I zone out the language and read the subs not caring what country it is from and I am probably not alone in the I'll watch the movie cos it's meant to be good or sounds nice, not "oh it's in language I think I'll pass." so a movie fan who is learning Korean might have had experience working on Japanese fan subs and seen the phrases in question pop up a lot in the forums related to them.

Having cat smileys pop up in dialogue was not giving me hope for an accurate translation, but it is better than Croissant Baguette, Baguette Baguette Croissant, which is how I will forever read La Horde subtitles.

Had it been an official DVD subtitle job, I think they would have reworded the phrase big brother to something else seeing as they were not siblings and it's probably not well known that people in Korea do call friends brother and sister.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, how things get subtitled changes.

I, personally, find the changing of basic things that are cultural, but not unknowable, to be irritating.

When a character greets her older brother John with "Hello, big brother," I want to see subtitles that reflect that, not ones that say, "Hello, John." Anyone who pays attention will quickly start spotting these little deviations, and after a few, they become downright distracting and/or immersion-breaking.

And, yes, this goes for things like when they're using familial forms of address for non family members.

[Ginger Tea]

In the UK I don't think I've met anyone who greets their brother with hello brother, but I will not mind if it is kept intact, it's a cultural thing that can go either way.
The first Orisukidoji (never can get that right without looking at my tshirt) gave me the impression Amano Jako (sp) and the main woman were siblings as she said "hey bro" but not bro as in bruv, but in the 2nd or the 3rd she was calling him by his full name, I had to ask myself which seems normal, calling your brother by bro or calling him by his full name.
I'd go with Bro in that case, but again translations could have it that it was more hey dude, but cos of the script it was taken as brother.
But that was in the early days of dubbing Anime outside of children's cartoons, shits were not given for quality control.

But as they were not related in the movie it might be a direct translation, but it left me thinking some form of incest was going down.
Hello big brother, my sister is pissed off with you for seeing some other woman behind her back.
Paraphrased, but the gist I got was one guy with two sisters one younger the other closer to his or older and banging with the elder had been going on or on the cards till he saw this other woman, or more specifically the elder sister saw him.

So as a westerner, I would not go up to anyone and call them brother or sister if they were not biologically so, you might find it immersion breaking for them to be inaccurate in the translations, but I took it as literal siblings, can we leave incest to hentai.

Edit: although I would be disappointed if they called someone by an English name when they were in fact calling out an obviously Japanese name.
The last name first name order I have no issue with, but some might muck up the order so I end up reading the first name as last as it is written how we would write ours, hell it wasn't all that long before he was executed that anyone on the news bothered to say "Oh by the way Sadam is his family name." when they said his sons name, it was always Sadam's son whatever, not Sadam first name, so without this bit of information we just automatically thought he was first name Hussain.

[Andara Bledin]

... is it bad that I can spell Urotsukidooji without looking it up?

Anyway, my preference in subbing is that any oddity such as calling non-family members by familial honorific titles be briefly explained in another subtitle positioned out of the way on the screen, or in a pack-in that goes with the disk, or in an explanation before the feature (or as an extra) that explains those and other cultural things that might not be expected.

[Ginger Tea]

Our family just called it ooji bong as I gave up trying to get the name right and if I was wearing the now worn tshirt I would look down and go you rot suk ee doh jee very slowly and probably not even correctly.
but I last saw that on VHS and only recently found my tshirt thinking it was in a box oop norf


Depends on the movie, I knew ghosts vampires and other supernatural things were different over there, hence why grudge and ring sucked as American movies, I got that my ghosts and their ghosts would be different and just took the movie as is.

I was there for a movie and to be entertained, depending on what your cultural pack entails, that might end up as homework between me and a movie, I would not care if the movie was Korean Chinese Japanese or from Thailand (just the same as French German Spanish or Italian), so I would have 4 sets of cultures to wade through picking up the relevant crib notes (but there is less cultural differences with European movies, but I still didn't care about the spoken lingo, just the story unfolding).

Perhaps a dual subtitles option, one English for those that want the movie and English for those wanting to learn the language and culture, with a more literal translation.
With too much extra info to read you run the risk of missing dialogue and you are already missing visual clues having your attention away from the main part of the screen.

Again with the fan subs, I for shits and giggles looked up the lyrics to some 4minute songs, most were just transliterated so I could read them as my Hangeul skill is zilch, but I found one in English and parts of it made little sense, the song is catchy and bouncy but the words given I couldn't tell you if they were accurate, perhaps Google translate didn't do a good job, or only a line was fed in instead of the whole verse drastically altering the meaning, given that Korean like Japanese works differently to English.

Without a Hangeul version to check each word individually I can not say if the song really did make little sense or if they picked the wrong meaning of a word that could have 3 depending on context.
Or they just put the words down as they appeared in the song instead of actually translating them into English sentences from the words available.

[Ginger Tea]

I wasn't even looking for this.

It was a side bar from a totally unrelated YouTube video, guess my search history is building up.

[Ginger Tea]

I didn't see the whole of the film, I did a random search of Korean movies on YouTube to see what was out there aside from the usual suspects of Gangster, Horror and (although predominantly Japanese) live action Anime as those are the 3 options dominating the UK DVD shelves (mostly Tartan Asia Extreme).

This random movie I skipped around had a scene where a wife/gf was talking to her partner after finding him in a bar with a woman he was working for as a match maker, she did say Oppa as you expect, but it was subtitled as Honey and variants there of.

Again like don't click, it established a relationship between the two, but as it didn't use the word brother I was not left with skeevy feelings of more Korean incest, even though biologically it was proven to be false, just the usage of the English word making it so.

[Gravekeeper]

Western anime culture can be pretty terrible with the honorifics. Especially when it comes to -chan. You really shouldn't be using -chan with anyone you're not close too or unless there's an age gap. ( For example a child might call an adult male onii-san or onii-chan even if they're not related. Or a younger person might use it on an older person they're close too or have a lot of respect or affection for. ).

Whereas you might use -chan on a young child even if you don't know them well. It also has a age diffential/feminine slant too it. Calling another guy the same age as you with -chan would basically teasing him. Whereas your 80 year old grandmother using -chan on you even though you're 25 would be tolerated. Because she's coddling/sweet talking you -.-

Therein lays the problem with direct translations though. In Japan you can use the term for brother or sister to refer to someone else even if they aren't related. Its also common to refer to a sibling by their title/age in relation to you ( Onii-san, Onii-chan, etc ) instead of their name. Or mix their name with their title by adding part of the word to as a suffix. ( Changing Onee-chan to Name-nee for example ). Which would basically be calling your sister Lisa as "Big Sis Lisa" all the time.

That does not translate well at all to English. Because then you get dialogue where one character is constantly calling another big brother. Which is unusual in western languages where we refer to siblings mainly by their actual name. Thus it should likely be westernized for a dub and in subs, kept as the Japanese terms.

It can especially weird when the show is a romance between a younger female and older male so they're calling him Onee-chan. I've seen a couple of romcoms were the English dub did a straight translation and made the entire show super weird because of some girl trying to get it on with her "big brother".

Tsukuyomi / Moon Phase is a great example. The original anime and manga are a romance. The English dub had to literally rewrite the shows synopsis to give them a sibling relationship because they insisted on translating Onee-chan to Big Brother.

It straight up changed the show's genre because they insisted on a direct translation ;p

[Ginger Tea]

Bennet the sage has spoken about a few anime that have incest in them, some might be inaccurate (but at the same time accurate) translations, others though straight up no doubt about it incest.

So with Anime I take it with a pinch of salt, mind you I have not watched much anime for over a decade.