I was reading a couple of short stories today and came to a story that while it seems interesting, had one thing in it that pissed me off enough that I just stopped reading. The story had a number of Chinese characters incorporated into the story, without any translation or anyway of reading it. I’m not of Chinese decent. I neither speak nor read Mandarin so having these characters in the story is as effective as having squiggly lines that mean nothing to me.

I was told that the characters were ranks or titles used in the olden days of the Chinese empire. I’m sure that to a person who could read it, it adds dimension to the story but for me, well, doesn’t mean anything.

I wish that the author had included hanyu pinyin of the characters as well as what it means, so that it would not really distract the reader or even break the reading rhythm. That way, at least a non-Mandarin speaker like me could also learn a new word or two.