虽然是一个杀猪女
“although you are a butcher girl,”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
你呢
“As for you,”
虽然是一个杀猪女
“although you are a butcher girl,”
“You come from the lowest caste, yet I am generous enough to overlook it.”
In dynastic China, marriages across deep class boundaries were unthinkable; an emperor deigning to accept a butcher woman is framed as supreme magnanimity.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
although... but...
The foundational concessive conjunction pair in Chinese, used here to highlight class disparity before offering a concession.
female butcher; pig-butchering girl
Refers to someone engaged in butchery, considered one of the lowest social castes and ritually impure in imperial China.
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“That butcher girl again?”
“If he is together with a female butcher,”
“that butcher woman will surely make a fool of herself.”
“You think just because I'm a butcher girl,”
“he wouldn't have married me, a pig butcher.”
“And I'm just an ordinary female butcher.”