This paper is engaged simultaneously with the Dutch, German and English versions of the famed Tang tale of scholar-beauty romance. While they fall into two opposed camps, presenting Cui Yingying either positively or negatively, the translations in the three languages prove that alterity can be preserved in translation. The paper seeks to show that translations are just as much types of signedness as the original itself and that they rely on specific cultural significations to convey meaning. The analysis of the translations is based on the concept of ‘shifts’, the changes that occur during the transfer from one language to another.