Original text: 望平康，凤城东，千门绿杨。
Xu’s translation: I look up and down
East of phoenix
town
From
door to door stand willow trees
Shi’s Translation: The courtesan’s quarters
east of the ancient palace,
are filled with trees in bloom
Analysis: Here, Xu translated it into Phoenix Town. In
China, Long(龙,dragon) and
Feng(凤,phoenix) are
used as a metaphor of the royal family. Therefore, Feng Cheng(凤城) here refers to Nanjing, the
capital of the Ming dynasty. This sentence contains a typical Chinese cultural
element that may confuse most western readers and audience. Therefore, the
translator must take this factor into account and select an appropriate
strategy of translations which is helpful for the westerners. Xu’s version
keeps the literal meaning of the original text. However, those receptors with
little historical information about China will be confused about this Phoenix
Town. Thus, thy cannot fill their horizon of expectation with the translated
version which will influence their understanding of the plot. Therefore, “the ancient palance” is more acceptable by
the audience and foreignization seems more appropriate in this case.

Original text:偏是俺学校朝堂，混贤奸不问青黄。
Xu’s translation: How can we officials and
scholars bright,
Not tell
good from vice, black from white!
Shi’s Translation: Indeed, it is rather we
scholars who have ceased to make moral distinctions.
Analysis: “不问青黄” originated from an old Chinese saying—“不分青红皂白”, which means confounding right and wrong or do not distinguish
black from white. “皂” means black in ancient China and has the opposite meaning to
white. Similarly , “青” means dark green which is opposite to red. Here, the writter made
some adjustment in the text and adopted “黄” instead of “红” in the libretto. It did not affect the expression of meaning. The
phrase has the same implication with “不分青红皂白”. Xu adopted the translation strategy of foreignization and kept
the feature of color in the original text. Shi’s version made a deepen explanation
for the phrase and also filled the blanks that wasn’t presented in the original
text. To those general receptors, it is not an easy job for them to get previous
plot in their mind, so the translators should have provided this information in
details and so that it can be more acceptable for the target language audience.