Cultural oddities with Yiyun Jen, and some proposed fixes

Yiyun Jen is presented by the text of Pale as a first generation Chinese Canadian immigrant, but there are several elements that feel strange or incorrect for someone with that history. In particular, Yiyun’s name and Practice feel off for her cultural background. While the most likely explanation is that Wildbow is not Chinese and happened to miss some details in research, there are ways to make it work, without contradicting canonical information as given.

Who am I to make such a claim? I am a Chinese diaspora reader of Pale, speculating in conjunction with another Chinese diaspora reader, Cyphron. None of us are Canadian, but there are parts that stood out to us anyways.

My intent with this post is to be informative and to open up discussion on this matter. I do not advocate for Wildbow to be harassed over this, or for him to stop writing Asian characters. Should this post contain any inaccuracies, I welcome being corrected.

What’s in a name?

First of all, it is important to understand how Chinese is transliterated into English. Chinese has many different dialects, which are verbally distinguishable, but all use the same writing system. Chinese writing uses logograms, so any instance of Chinese being written using English letters must be translated in some way. Over time, romanization standards have shifted, and now different areas use different standards in the modern day. That means that the English spelling of a Chinese name can convey quite a lot of information on its own.

Yiyun was born in Wuxi, China, where the official dialect is Mandarin and the local dialect is Wu.0 After 1978, Canada recognized Pinyin as the official romanization system for the names of immigrants from the People's Republic of China, so it is natural to assume that Yiyun's name would be based on that.0 The problem is, "Jen" is not a valid Pinyin word. "Jen" is the romanized form of many different possible surnames, including Jin, Jian, Yuan, or Ren, before the Pinyin or Wade-Giles systems were created.0 This means that Yiyun is a 21st century woman with a surname that sounds like it was transliterated in the 20th century.

Now, there are Chinese Canadians with surnames that are not in Pinyin. Generally, this is because their names are romanized in Wade-Giles, are Cantonese and romanized using Jyutping, lived in another country in between China and Canada, or had their families immigrate to Canada before 1978. None of these cases apply. Yiyun is from the wrong region to use Wade-Giles or have a Cantonese name, is a first generation immigrant directly from China, and would have to be at least 42 years old to have immigrated before Canada decided to standardize. While nothing directly contradicts the last point, the text suggests she is much younger. Freeman Boyd describes Yiyun as "pretty" in the same sentence that he mentions instituting personal rules against dating St. Victor's students.0 To put it politely, Freeman does not seem like the type of man to consider a woman of 40 years or more attractive.

All in all, Yiyun's surname, Jen, is inaccurate for her stated background.

Region typo

This second part is very simple: the region Yiyun is from, “Jiansu,” is misspelled in the text and should be “Jiangsu” instead.0

Language, Practice, and cultural power

Yiyun is a necromancer, who turns corpses into the undead. In general, depictions of death are taboo in Chinese culture, but this by itself doesn’t make the concept of a Chinese necromancer into a nonstarter — many Practitioners deal with dark, unsavory forces by the standards of their community. However, Yiyun’s necromancy feels extremely Western in ways that do not engage with the particular cultural nuances around death in China.

When Yiyun teaches Nomi, she is insistent on Nomi learning specific English terminology. See here:

“Bestealcian. Moderate tier undead,” Yiyun said. “You need canines, wild cats, or raptors who choked on the meat of their prey or died in pursuit. With trained Sight, you should be able to see how they died and the quality of that death. There are ways to find bodies like this, if you devote the time and resources. Treatment of the body is detailed in one of the texts I gave you. The stakes are wood from any graveyard, tomb, or tree growing over where a body was buried, used to kill something.

“I’m probably just going to call them dogs.”

“Bestealcian.”

"I’m probably not going to remember that.”

“Try.” Yiyun unboxed wriggling scarabs from a little matchbox, and shoved one down each dog’s throat.

- Pale Let slip 20.a [1]

“Bestealcian. Moderate tier undead,” Yiyun said. “You need canines, wild cats, or raptors who choked on the meat of their prey or died in pursuit. With trained Sight, you should be able to see how they died and the quality of that death. There are ways to find bodies like this, if you devote the time and resources. Treatment of the body is detailed in one of the texts I gave you. The stakes are wood from any graveyard, tomb, or tree growing over where a body was buried, used to kill something.

“I’m probably just going to call them dogs.”

“Bestealcian.”

“I’m probably not going to remember that.”

“Try.” Yiyun unboxed wriggling scarabs from a little matchbox, and shoved one down each dog’s throat.

- Pale Let slip 20.a

“Bestealcian” is an Old English term that means “to steal along, walk warily.”0 Another term used is “widwe,” which is another Old English word for widow.0 “Cimitare” does not turn up any search results on google by itself, but is close to “cimetière,” a French word that means graveyard.0 All of these feel like the type of words to show up in a fantasy European setting or magic system based on Western tropes. However, Yiyun is from China, and presumably would have grown up speaking Mandarin or one of the local dialects. None of these seem like words that Chinese Practitioners would come up with to describe their own Practice, nor the type of words that a Chinese Practitioner would reach for when translating to a student speaking English.

Yiyun’s use of Old English and French to describe her Practice raises questions about the relationship between Chinese and Western Practice, in a work that is meant to explore colonialism. A sample: Are these words created by Western Practitioner academia to describe Chinese Practice? Do Chinese Practitioners use English terminology to describe their Practices to themselves and each other? Is Chinese necromancy simply so similar to Canadian necromancy that for any possible concept of Chinese necromancy, there is an identical concept in Canadian necromancy?

In other urban fantasy works with a smaller scope, it is easier for me as a reader to accept that it doesn’t matter how the magic works in other countries. However, Pale sets its worldbuilding scope wide, and deliberately explores what it means to have standards and labels set by one group forced onto another. Thus, I am scrutinizing it more heavily along these standards than I would for other urban fantasy works. Yiyun’s use of European terminology, adhered to to the point that she corrects her student’s attempts to do otherwise, feels subtly wrong for a Chinese immigrant speaking of a Chinese family Practice. Unless, of course, the intent is to say that Western Practitioners have imposed their language and frameworks onto Chinese Practitioners in a way that has not shaken off by the 2020s.

Chances are, Wildbow has not put that much thought into things. Yiyun is a minor character from a different cultural background than he is, and he happened to bungle some nuances while short on time. It happens. However, this combination of mistakes, when taken together, weakens how convincing Yiyun is as a character and creates awkward implications about the worldbuilding that drag against the themes the story is trying to convey.

Proposed Fixes and Headcanons

In sum, Yiyun has some oddities that make her less convincing as a first generation immigrant from China to Canada. That isn’t a dealbreaker, and none of these are serious enough issues that I feel that the character should be removed from the story entirely. Still, there are elements that can be executed better with her character, whether by Wildbow in Pale or in fanfic by other writers. Here are some proposed fixes, some of which can slot in with existing given information, some of which require changing what is stated in the text.

Birthplace issue

Correct the province name to Jiangsu.

The name issue

Yiyun’s surname isn’t in Pinyin because she married, and took on her husband’s name.

The Practice terminology issue

Yiyun happens to be knowledgeable enough to know the terms that Western academia has assigned to Chinese necromancy, as well as the original Chinese terms she learned everything in, and thinks that the European terms will be easier for Nomi to learn than Chinese ones.

At some historical point, Western powers took over the Chinese Practitioner scene so completely that English is now the dominant language, and a good deal of Practice is done in English. Yiyun grew up learning English for Practice.

Name and Practice terminology combined

Yiyun’s family has longstanding ties to Western Practitioners, with business conducted primarily in English, starting before the system of Pinyin was created. When they immigrated, they decided to keep to the same pre-Pinyin romanization for name recognition value among those contacts.

Change of canon. Yiyun is ethnically Chinese, but grew up in a country such as Singapore or Malaysia, which use other romanization systems. English is her first language, not Mandarin.

Change of canon. Yiyun’s family immigrated to Canada before 1978, several generations back. English is her first language, not Mandarin.