Asian-Inspired Fantasy Rant

[chromemuffin]

This has probably been at the back of my mind since the magnificent letdown that was The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, but I hadn’t seriously thought about it until recently.

After finishing the 2017 version of Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes and being annoyed at myself for leaving my copy of Janie Chang’s Dragon Springs Road at home, I hopped over to Goodreads to satisfy my itch for a good non-translated Asian-inspired fantasy. Well. I knew that I would be disappointed, but not quite to this extent. The trends revealed in the reviews of many of the novels I browsed through were poor plotting or pacing, lack of character development, and most damningly of all, poor representation to sheer bastardization of the cultures they were “inspired” by.

I looked into 58 Asian-inspired fantasy novels, excluding sci-fi and most that take place in the modern era (though a few slipped under the radar :p oh well).

Of the 58 novels:
• 34% had authors of Asian descent.
• 65% had authors of non-Asian descent.
I expected a similar ratio, but it may come as a surprise that I couldn't care less if the author is Asian or not. Across all 58 novels, authors of Asian descent were just as likely to fuck up the culture as authors of non-Asian descent.

• 55% of the novels were Young Adult
• 45% of the novels were not Young Adult
This actually surprised me a little, haha. I suppose the older unpopular novels evened out the numbers. Though in The Poppy War’s case, 85% of the book was YA, so this might be true of other novels here. I do wish there were more new releases in a non-YA genre though. The depth of the characters, plot, and themes tends to the tropey, with writing possessing a thin vocabulary…I get that it’s easier to consume, but.

• Of the 58 novels, 8 were retellings
• Of those 8 novels, 6 (75%) were retellings of Western stories (Cinderella, Snow White, Evil Queen, and a Hans Christan Anderson story)
• and 2 (25%) were retellings of East-Asian stories (a Korean folktale and the tale of Orihime and Hikoboshi)
The long and short of it: I want more non-Western retellings, damn it! There is a wealth of myths and folktales in other cultures of the world and they are so underutilized outside their culture and language. I understand the appeal of the easily consumable and familiar, but it really is a waste to have two Cinderella retellings and none of…Houyi the archer, or Urashima Taro, or something.

• 22 novels (38%) had a Japanese-inspired setting
• 15 novels (26%) had a Chinese-inspired setting
• 5 novels (9%) had a non-specific Asian-inspired setting
• Of the rest, 1 was set in Thailand, 1 in a fantasy Korea, 2 in Malaysia, and 6 in the modern era
This is interesting, and a no-brainer, but even more interesting is the following:

• Of the 22 novels set in a fantasy Japan, 3 out of 35 central characters had non-Japanese names
• Of these Japanese names, 4 names were anachronistic -ko names*
• Of the 15 novels set in a fantasy China, 12 out of 27 central characters had non-Chinese names
These numbers are counterintuitive and rather disappointing. They also go hand-in-hand with the tendency of these novels to arbitrarily smush Chinese and Japanese culture into the same fantasy land that is explicitly stated to be either Chinese- or Japanese-inspired. Remember, of these novels, only 5 of them had a non-specific Asian-inspired setting.

This brings me into the crux of my salt and head-shaking: Why do so many novels feel the need to mix Chinese and Japanese terms into a novel set in one land or the other? Whether it’s Japanese terms in a Chinese setting or Chinese customs or mannerisms in a Japanese setting. Um. They might share a few things in common, namely the transmission of Buddhism, but they are two totally different cultures.

I do understand that names are selected to be more “friendly” to a Western audience, and this is easier to do with Japanese names (by selecting simpler, shorter names) due to the nature of Japanese syllables. However, all I have to do is look into any Western fantasy novel to find odd names that I have just as much difficulty pronouncing as I did Xing, Qiong, and other of the more difficult pinyin. Pronunciation guides are a thing, you know? At least one of the books on this list (one of the Asian-inspired settings) did this. There are also other, older transcription systems for Chinese that may be easier to pronounce because they don’t use letters like x, zh, etc.

*Many novels set in ancient/feudal Japan have protagonists with anachronistic female names. The suffix -ko (子) did not become common in Japanese female names until modern times. In the past, they were very rare, and during a specific period of history, -ko was actually common to male names.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the state of (non-translated) Asian-inspired fantasy novels. Note that I did find a few interesting ones and not all were as terrible as the points I mentioned above, but in general, I think it’s not too much to wish for a story that a little more complex and lacks the kid gloves.

(You might be wondering at the end of all this: If you’re going to complain so much, why don’t you write something yourself? Well, if I wasn’t enrolled in a doctoral program, haha, maybe. I admit I’m absolutely terrible at plotting things though, and my favored writing style belongs in the Mary Shelley era.)
 

Comments

[extrapenguin]

That's an interesting point about the -ko names! As for people sounding vaguely Japanese or generic-fantasylandese, even selecting only the "easier" pinyin syllables, there are still a lot available that don't occur in Japanese, e.g. "si" and anything ending in -ng. Alas, authors expect that "Asian" names will be too hard for the reading populace, despite stuff like nigh-unpronounceable and ridiculous Westernish fantasy names being de rigueur.

[chromemuffin]

Exactly! Also, if we must thumb-down Asian names to make them easier to pronounce, then I petition for doing the same for French, in which half of the letters don't contribute to the pronunciation.

I did find plenty of names that chose the easier pinyin, so that is definitely a valid point.