One of my stories is built around a house with three men living there (names picked randomly): Li Hwa (Age 53, the boss, who is Chinese) Tanaka Akira (Age 21, his assistant, who is Japanese, a son of Li Hwa's friend and business partner Tanaka Enki) Zhang Ming (Age 30, let's say, he's a butler, he is Chinese) The hierarchy in this house is extremely strong and Li Hwa demands impeccable order and unquestionable fidelity from his crew. Li's hard on both of men, but in different ways and for different reasons. Tanaka accepts Li as his mentor and teacher and highly respects him, but disrespects Zhang, following the habits of his boss (this is done to provoke a moral question, crucial for the plot). Though Tanaka had spent some time in China, he doesn't speak Mandarin or any dialect of Chinese, so the question is: how should Tanaka address the others while talking to an English-speaking character? I don't want make him brutally rude to Zhang or put any offensive subtext into it (including cultural), but to make him sound barely polite with a shade of mockery, and to outline the idea that Li's not insisting on Tanaka studying Chinese and Zhang studying Japanese to keep them divided when he wants to (example: giving directions in Japanese to Tanaka). As for Tanaka addressing Li: Mr. Li, Li sama, Li xiānshēng - nothing seems to sound right yet. Also: what do you think of writing last names without honorifics in the main text? Per say: "... she should've paid attention to what Miles said... " "... then Li shut the door in front of him..." (Been blamed for this lately) With all due respect - I'm lost and in need of help.
If speaking in English, I would suggest Tanaka just says "Mr. Li". Not Li on its own, that would be disrespectful. As for talking to Zhang, I would suggest he uses a diminutive. I don't know Chinese well enough to suggest one, but if it was Japanese, it could be something like Ming-kun, which is not a dimunitive, but an honorific used between friends and colleagues. But used in this way, it stresses his inferior position (rather than calling him Ming-san), and is insulting. I'd also have him deliberately use the Japanese honorific when speaking English, while he doesn't do that for anyone else. A similar thing in Chinese would be to call him "Ah Ming", which is normally used for familiarity, but is used by householders to talk to servants as well. In the narrative, definitely omit the honorifics.
I have this impression that you can also omit all suffixes (no -kun or -san) and that's also pretty rude. Also in Japanese if you use "Anata" (you) it's supposed to be quite rude As for Chinese - just make him use his name rather than surname. Unless you're friends, you shouldn't be using first names anyway. Mr Zhang vs Ah-Ming. As for in narrative, I'd go with whatever is natural for the character whose POV it's in. You're dealing with a lot of cross-cultural stuff here. I admire your efforts! It's no small feat.
Omitting honorifics is rude in Japanese, but I'm assuming he's addressing the butler in English. Most Japanese won't use honorifics in English. "Anata" is generally neutral, but most people avoid using it (pronouns are generally avoided anyway). Husbands and wives often use it to mean "darling". "Omae" is very rude except amongst friends.
@Naomasa298 yes I know about Omae - see it all the time in manga, only ever used between boys? @LucatheRat it's brave, esp in this day and age when everyone gets offended by everything. I'm also doing some cross-cultural stuff, but I wouldn't dare do it about someone else's culture - way too much research required and I hate research lol. Mine surrounds a British Chinese cast and I include snippets of their cross-cultural experience in England. What inspired you to write yours?
Girls do use it, but it's very uncouth and tomboyish. Omae wasn't always rude. It used to (and sometimes still is, amongst old folks) used to mean "darling" between a married couple the same way as "anata" does.
Good luck on your work! Several things, but the most relevant one is lost love. (It's always about Someone, if you ask me.))
