Great Tang Idyll

Book 1: Chapter 69

Translator's Notes 1. China's Leader of Flowers

This is a reference to the Chinese movie called "Chinese Armed Policewomen" or "Zhong Guo Ba Wang Hua" and was released in 1990. The movie follows a young female that underwent strict training to join the armed police force and later, she went on to solve a major robbery crime.

This was rather hard to translate and I decided to go with the literal translation of the phrase instead of going for the movie name since it made more sense given the context. "Flower" is a common metaphor for woman. Basically, Zhang Xiao'bao is complimenting Wang Juan for being a good role model policewoman.

2. Bullied us already

The literal translation of what Wang Juan said was "they have bullied to the top of our heads". Although the imagery of the original phrase is a bit more imaginative and funny, it doesn't make much sense in English.

3. "Shoot two condors with one arrow"

This idiom is equivalent to "hit two birds with one stone".

4. mian' pi, liang pi

As mentioned by Zhang Xiao'bao, these two names refer to the same type of noodles. The literal translation of mian'pi is "flour/dough skin", hence, Zhang Xiao'bao's comment on saying that calling it mian'pi will be easy for people to guess that it's made from flour. The literal translation of liang'pi is "cool skin", probably because this noodle dish is eaten cold and usually enjoyed on hot summer days.

(For those that are curious, Zhang Xiao'bao's instructions on making the dish is rather accurate, and it's one of my favorite dish to make and eat! It's really delicious, so for those who haven't tried it before, please do~)

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Miscellaneous Note You may or may have noticed that I've been inconsistent with using the term "catty" and sometimes I just substitute in kilogram instead (1 catty = 0.5 kg). I apologize for the confusion, but I will be using the term "catty" from now on!