On the title of ‘There’s A Beauty’

Why I translated ‘有姝’ as ‘There’s a Beauty’ instead of ‘You Shu.’

Right, I translated “You Shu” (有姝) as ‘There’s a Beauty’ because I thought that should be the first layer of meaning the original Chinese readers register when they see the phrase ‘You Shu.’ They probably wouldn’t think that it’s a name at first, since that would be pretty unusual. Only after reading the novel would they understand the second layer of meaning, that clever pun on MC’s name (also You Shu).

Additionally – this is just my assumption but – I believe that the author intentionally wanted the title to be initially read as ‘There’s a Beauty’ for another reason, besides just stating MC is beautiful. That is, to act as a hook, so to speak. Y’know how most stories have eye-catching, hooking titles that will pique the readers’ interests, such as, ‘I have been reincarnated as a blah blah blah’ or ‘Film Emperor’s Adorable Wife from Ancient Times’? Well, I assumed that the phrase ‘there’s a beauty’ was the author’s hook. Chinese readers of the original text would want to know, ‘what beauty?’ ‘why beauty?’ ‘did the ML fall in love for just his beauty?’ ‘will his beauty bring him troubles?’.

Now imagine, English readers reading the title of this story, but not grasping that layer of meaning. Imagine ‘You Shu’ as the title. Sure, it’s still an accurate translation – after all, it does include the second layer of meaning, MC’s name. However, the ‘hook’ about there being a beauty – that part of the author’s original intentions – would be lost. Hence, I translated it as ‘There’s A Beauty’ instead of ‘Have Beauty’ or ‘You Shu’. After being hooked by the title ‘There’s A Beauty’ (hopefully), the readers will naturally read on and discover the title (You Shu) is also MC’s name in the footnotes. This is also in line with the author’s intentions as stated in paragraph 1. ヾ(≧ ▽ ≦)ゝ