(Also, random side complaint: I can understand Anglicizing Ai Li's name when seeing her from the hero's pov. But calling her "Ailey" even when in her pov gives me the impression that the author isn't as interested in Tang China as she ought to be.)
Urgh! It's been a while since I read the book and I've read many others since then... but NOW you remind me of that! I kept thinking "Am I the only one annoyed by the Westernization of the girl's name?!" -- I mean, it's not like it was a long and complicated name to shorten... it was seriously the last straw in a long series of "screw the foreign location!" references.
And since I actually study modern and ancient China as part of my degree, I felt the insult much deeper than the average reader!
Urgh! It's been a while since I read the book and I've read many others since then... but NOW you remind me of that! I kept thinking "Am I the only one annoyed by the Westernization of the girl's name?!" -- I mean, it's not like it was a long and complicated name to shorten... it was seriously the last straw in a long series of "screw the foreign location!" references.
And since I actually study modern and ancient China as part of my degree, I felt the insult much deeper than the average reader!