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·Reading a Japanese book on Qing- and Republican-era Chinese SF (for work, believe it or not). Some neat things. Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days was first translated into Chinese (via English) in 1900 as 八十日环游记, by the husband-and-wife team of Chen Shoupeng and Xue Shaohui (she quite a bit the more distinguished of the two): he read a translation out loud and she wrote it down in Wenyan, the literary written language of the time. Then there’s the Chinese novel 冰山雪海 (Icebergs and Snowy Seas), published pseudonymously in 1906, in which—among a very long and complex plot—some would-be colonists flee poor conditions in China and end up at the South Pole, where they are joined by several ships full of Black and Jewish Americans fleeing prejudice in the US. What next, I say. Also, “Tarzan” was first serialized in a Chinese magazine in 1923, translated as 野人记 by Hu Xiansheng, with letters from readers proving that anxiety about ongoing WIPs is a constant: “I’m most moved by and most interested in reading Tarzan. …The first section has just finished, but for some reason the second section hasn’t been serialized yet. This is making me very anxious and I can’t enjoy anything. When will the second half come out and bring me joy again?”
·Speaking of WIPs, I have just started posting a fic as a WIP for the first time ever, hoping not to disappoint: the long Zhao Xinci fic I’ve had bits of in my head for a while now. With my original thing with beta readers just now, plus guardian-wishlist not starting until late August and Yuletide, of course, not till Octoberish, I need something to be writing… .
It has occurred to me that if I were more serious about becoming a published author, I would—like one or two people on my f-list—be using this time to write not fic but (theoretically) publishable short stories, among other methods of getting my name out there. And maybe I should, but I’m very resistant to the idea. With only very occasional exceptions, I’ve never been a reader or writer of short stories (fanfic seems different somehow), and I’m not enthusiastic about trying to become one. If I could spend, say, two years writing and submitting short stories and definitely end up with a contract for a published novel, I would certainly give it my best shot, but God knows there is no such guarantee. So, well, it might happen sometime, but not this year.
·A possibly relevant quote in regard to the above, from the one and only Captain Nancy Blackett (I’ve been rereading Swallows and Amazons): “So mother told us he was writing a book and had to be left alone. But we thought it wasn’t his fault to be writing a book, and that we would show him we didn’t think any worse of him for it. But he wasn’t pleased at all.”
·One of the saving graces of summer: frozen tea. Do people do this outside Japan? Take a 500ml bottle of tea (or water), drink a gulp and close it up again, and then put it in the freezer. When it’s thoroughly frozen, wrap it in a towel or similar (so it doesn’t drip everywhere) and sip at lovely cold tea as it gradually melts again.
·Chinese: playing with more interview translations just for fun, no results yet. Because I can’t copy-paste subtitles, I have to apply to the mdbg dictionary to look up characters I can’t read, a process which reminds me nostalgically of using the enormous New Nelson when I was studying Japanese in college. The character 飒 annoys the hell out of me because all reasonable practice would suggest that the radical is 立, but it’s not, it’s 风. Whose good idea was that?
·Orchestra concert next month; Nielsen and Borodin (oh yeah, and Mozart, the Magic Flute overture, which is fine). Borodin usually annoys me with the sentimental melodies, but he also does wild things with rhythm, as noted here before. The second movement opens with just second violins, cello pizzicato, and woodwinds, and then the whole orchestra comes crashing in and the rush of sound is immensely satisfying, especially when seated right in the middle of it. I never think people just listening can have anything like such an immediate experience.
·Photos: A canal in Kyoto and one in Osaka for contrast, some 百日紅, um, crape myrtle? which I always find an underappreciated flower, and some random other stuff.
Be safe and well.
·Speaking of WIPs, I have just started posting a fic as a WIP for the first time ever, hoping not to disappoint: the long Zhao Xinci fic I’ve had bits of in my head for a while now. With my original thing with beta readers just now, plus guardian-wishlist not starting until late August and Yuletide, of course, not till Octoberish, I need something to be writing… .
It has occurred to me that if I were more serious about becoming a published author, I would—like one or two people on my f-list—be using this time to write not fic but (theoretically) publishable short stories, among other methods of getting my name out there. And maybe I should, but I’m very resistant to the idea. With only very occasional exceptions, I’ve never been a reader or writer of short stories (fanfic seems different somehow), and I’m not enthusiastic about trying to become one. If I could spend, say, two years writing and submitting short stories and definitely end up with a contract for a published novel, I would certainly give it my best shot, but God knows there is no such guarantee. So, well, it might happen sometime, but not this year.
·A possibly relevant quote in regard to the above, from the one and only Captain Nancy Blackett (I’ve been rereading Swallows and Amazons): “So mother told us he was writing a book and had to be left alone. But we thought it wasn’t his fault to be writing a book, and that we would show him we didn’t think any worse of him for it. But he wasn’t pleased at all.”
·One of the saving graces of summer: frozen tea. Do people do this outside Japan? Take a 500ml bottle of tea (or water), drink a gulp and close it up again, and then put it in the freezer. When it’s thoroughly frozen, wrap it in a towel or similar (so it doesn’t drip everywhere) and sip at lovely cold tea as it gradually melts again.
·Chinese: playing with more interview translations just for fun, no results yet. Because I can’t copy-paste subtitles, I have to apply to the mdbg dictionary to look up characters I can’t read, a process which reminds me nostalgically of using the enormous New Nelson when I was studying Japanese in college. The character 飒 annoys the hell out of me because all reasonable practice would suggest that the radical is 立, but it’s not, it’s 风. Whose good idea was that?
·Orchestra concert next month; Nielsen and Borodin (oh yeah, and Mozart, the Magic Flute overture, which is fine). Borodin usually annoys me with the sentimental melodies, but he also does wild things with rhythm, as noted here before. The second movement opens with just second violins, cello pizzicato, and woodwinds, and then the whole orchestra comes crashing in and the rush of sound is immensely satisfying, especially when seated right in the middle of it. I never think people just listening can have anything like such an immediate experience.
·Photos: A canal in Kyoto and one in Osaka for contrast, some 百日紅, um, crape myrtle? which I always find an underappreciated flower, and some random other stuff.
Be safe and well.
