Harry Potter in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese: Links

 

Warning: This page has not been updated for a very long time. Harry Potter pages have sprung up like mushrooms after rain in Western countries, but in the Orient, apart from Japan and Taiwan, there aren't many pages devoted to Harry. This list of links covers just a few sites, concentrating on those that have something in common with this site. I've also added links to fan art sites, but there are far too many around to be covered just by this page! Movie sites are outside the scope of this site.

 

Western-language sites

Cornelia Remi's Harry Potter Kiste - includes Character names and Chapter titles from Iceland to Estonia to Portugal to Asia, mistakes in the German edition, etc. Very interesting!

Carolyn's Mikids Harry Potter - lots of goodies including covers from round the world.

The Harry Potter Lexicon - lots of words and information.

Harry Potter Facts - all that time I was tearing my hair out, scrabbling from chapter to chapter trying to find where this character or that gadget appeared. This site has it all at your fingertips!

The Akashic Record - claims to be 'a Compendium of Lore, Onomatology, Miscellanea, and Pareidolia Relating to the Universe of Harry Potter With Commentary Esoteric and Exoteric'. the derivation of words is sometimes a bit far-fetched, but all-in-all a good resource.

Harry Potter Around the World site - book covers from round the world, plus a page of excellent links.

Arabella Figg's Hogwarts Express - a visually beautiful site full of interesting information. What this site would like to be!

Addiction: A Harry Potter Doujinshi Website A doojin-shi is (to quote) 'a Japanese fan produced comic book or a text story. They're usually very high quality and printed, not photocopied'. This is an American site but very useful if you're into this aspect of Harry Potter, as the author of this site most decidedly is!

Fronskie Feint - an interesting site by a U.S. teenager, has the only reliable note on Cho Chang's name that I have seen.

Say-zan-sha's site (in English)

Interview with Yuko Matsuoka, translator of Harry Potter into Japanese, carried by the Japan Times in January 2004.

Introduction to Ly Lan, who did the Vietnamese translation. Includes biography and information on her many other works.

'Harry Potter fever' sweeps through Vietnam - CNN article from 2000 that carries some comments by the Vietnamese translator, Ly Lan.

Vietnamese kids can't wait for the next Harry Potter - article from Vietnam News 2003, with several comments by the Vietnamese translator, Ly Lan.

Harry Potter takes up Baseball: A note about translating Harry Potter into various languages by Jeremy Munday of the University of Surrey

Harry Potter by Tim: A page on the translation of a few names in Harry Potter into Japanese (Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Hagrid). Makes the point that a lot is lost.

Learning Japanese by reading Harry Potter A blog by a person using Harry Potter to improve his Japanese - still at Book 1!

 

Chinese-language sites

China

The Chinese Harry Potter site Mainland China's first comprehensive Harry Potter site. See also the summary of each book. An active bulletin board can be found at Harry Potter Club.

An interview with Ma Ainong, who has been involved in the translation of 4 or the 5 Harry Potter titles so far.

Fairy Dream - a Mainland site that features the entire text of the four books in English (in nice disregard of copyright).

www.yesho.com features an independent Chinese translation of all four Harry Potter books.

ebook invites you to download the text of two of the Harry Potter series.

Netease (portal) feature on Harry Potter

Beijing News, somewhat dated page on Harry (mainly links)

 

Taiwan/Hong Kong (Google is not very good for Taiwan -- too heavily infiltrated by commercial interests)

The Harry Potter's Page (Hong Kong) by Kit Shan: features names of characters etc. from both the Traditional and Simplified versions.

The Yam.com (search engine) feature page on Harry Potter

Harry Potter Fans and Funs (Taiwan) - lots to see here!

Crown Publishing's Harry Potter Page (Taiwan), including a page on studying English through Harry Potter

Warner Bros Taiwan Harry Potter site

Fred and George - a Taiwanese site devoted to the Weasley twins, with fan art/fan fiction.

[es] with manga-style fan art (Taiwan)

Magic Syndrome - another Taiwanese site with fan art and fan fiction.

Whisper of the Wind is supposed to be in both Chinese and Japanese, but as the Chinese government has kindly blocked it from China I'm not able to access it.

 

Japanese-language sites

There are so many Japanese sites it's hard to know where to start. The following is a selection. To find more (and more, and more), try the link sections on some of these sites.

Harry Potter and Chinese: A site about names etc. used the Chinese Mainland version of Harry Potter. Includes quizzes and personal essays.

Harry Potter An attractive general site.

Harry Potter Daisuki Fan Club (by a 15-year-old high-school girl): A nicely done site.

Fairy Lights Sight with impressions and questions by the site owner, with a focus on Book 5.

Harry Potter Yokocho Nicely done site. Has fan graphics (I love those Japanese style graphics!), day in the life of Harry fan contributions, etc. For a visually stunning list of the top 100 Japanese Harry Potter sites (ranked by popularity), try the Links Page.

Pottermania is an excellent site with lots of interesting news and information, message board, etc. It is home to the Harry Potter Dico (next entry).

Harry Potter Dico Japanese-English and English dictionaries of Harry Potter terms, names, etc. Very thorough.

Harry Potter Notebook - Harry with an educational flavour, but well done. Site buttons modelled on a school timetable.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Muggle Yet another beautifully done site.

Platform Nine and Three Quarters Has cute graphics.

Satsuki Sumohara's Beans - Lots of fan art, big-eyed Japanese style.

Every-Flavoured Beans Kaleidoscope I'll leave you to check it out.

EGJ - Fan graphics and fiction (centred on Snape, James Potter, and Lupin). Graphics have homoerotic undertones typical of shojo manga.

Sirius Black Rowling may yet regret killing off Sirius Black, given that he has a strong following in Japan! This is just one of the sites devoted to Sirius.

 

Vietnamese-language sites