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nnozomiDaily life: I’m working on a long Edo-period thing about the ruizoku, registered descendants of Kirishitan/Japanese Catholic apostates, and getting all sentimental over this Kyushu villager Gizaemon from the early 1800s, who adopted a ruizoku guy called Yasoji when he was in his 50s and Yasoji in his 30s; twenty years later their household consisted of the two of them and Yasoji’s four kids, Ryosuke, Taki, Zensuke, and Ryukichi, aged 21 through 11 (Ryukichi was the family baby). How did nineteen-year-old Taki cope with being the only woman in the household (and what happened to her mother, poor lady?)? Good on Gizaemon getting himself all these grandkids…
Also it’s kind of a textbook of worldbuilding practice, interesting in potential application to fantasy writing at some point. Because Guardian, I immediately imagined an AU where the ruizoku (would they be leizu in Chinese?) were the descendants of Dixingren in Haixing, and the (historical) rule that ruizoku status lasted through five male and three female generations was based on an old belief about how far Dixing powers could be passed down…
Music: Zhu Yilong singing for the Lunar New Year. Not wild about the songs themselves, but they’re nice for his voice and the lyric 我的故事都是关于你 (my story is all about you) gets to me. I appreciate that the producers just let him stand still and sing, maybe closing his eyes occasionally, which seems to suit him best. (My non-ZYL-related thoughts about the Lunar New Year extravaganzas will be saved for a less auspicious time.) I also enjoyed a very silly pre-New Year’s game of Telephone featuring ZYL (video posted by the blesséd Wenella); someone please tell me how he keeps getting more handsome no matter what, where is the upper limit and what kind of devil’s bargain has he made? Also it’s amazing the way his expression flickers among shy-embarrassed, very serious about getting the silly game right, is this okay? am I doing this right??? puppy eyes, and wtf just happened? confusion. (Also 愛你一万年 is a pretty generic romance lyric, but Shen Wei of all people…).
Books: Mass-Obs post to come at some point soon. Also looking forward to all the Sundial Exchange delights.
Chinese: See above, also I’ve achieved a 365-day streak on Duolingo (C-E and E-C), but I’m still graveled for where to go next. What I want, ideally, is: web-based rather than an app, focused on whole-word vocabulary and grammar acquisition rather than reading individual characters, rote with heavy repetition rather than super gamified, pitched around HSK 3 to start from… oh well.
Writing: Slow and struggling. I’m enjoying the character work, but there’s also a ton of plot that should be happening, only some of which I know about already. Some of it is about to get started with a literal bang…
Photos: The first one is a fancy long-haired lady encountered at the shrine on the hill, where she was hunting birds (or thought she was; I suspect the birds had her number). Probably somebody’s free-range pet, both because of the silky fur and because she let me get close enough to stroke her. Also a sleek handsome probably-stray, who split into two cats when followed and then dove into the bushes to merge (butt-first) into one cat again.
The bottom left is a photo Y took for the sake of the background ducks, but I like the almost abstract pattern in the foreground. Bottom right is plum blossoms, I think; they’re prettier as a whole tree, though hard to photograph. In close-up they always remind me of Cassandra Mortmain’s cute little bit of rejected poetry, “Frank-eyed floweret, kitten-whiskered…”.
Be safe and well.
Also it’s kind of a textbook of worldbuilding practice, interesting in potential application to fantasy writing at some point. Because Guardian, I immediately imagined an AU where the ruizoku (would they be leizu in Chinese?) were the descendants of Dixingren in Haixing, and the (historical) rule that ruizoku status lasted through five male and three female generations was based on an old belief about how far Dixing powers could be passed down…
Music: Zhu Yilong singing for the Lunar New Year. Not wild about the songs themselves, but they’re nice for his voice and the lyric 我的故事都是关于你 (my story is all about you) gets to me. I appreciate that the producers just let him stand still and sing, maybe closing his eyes occasionally, which seems to suit him best. (My non-ZYL-related thoughts about the Lunar New Year extravaganzas will be saved for a less auspicious time.) I also enjoyed a very silly pre-New Year’s game of Telephone featuring ZYL (video posted by the blesséd Wenella); someone please tell me how he keeps getting more handsome no matter what, where is the upper limit and what kind of devil’s bargain has he made? Also it’s amazing the way his expression flickers among shy-embarrassed, very serious about getting the silly game right, is this okay? am I doing this right??? puppy eyes, and wtf just happened? confusion. (Also 愛你一万年 is a pretty generic romance lyric, but Shen Wei of all people…).
Books: Mass-Obs post to come at some point soon. Also looking forward to all the Sundial Exchange delights.
Chinese: See above, also I’ve achieved a 365-day streak on Duolingo (C-E and E-C), but I’m still graveled for where to go next. What I want, ideally, is: web-based rather than an app, focused on whole-word vocabulary and grammar acquisition rather than reading individual characters, rote with heavy repetition rather than super gamified, pitched around HSK 3 to start from… oh well.
Writing: Slow and struggling. I’m enjoying the character work, but there’s also a ton of plot that should be happening, only some of which I know about already. Some of it is about to get started with a literal bang…
Photos: The first one is a fancy long-haired lady encountered at the shrine on the hill, where she was hunting birds (or thought she was; I suspect the birds had her number). Probably somebody’s free-range pet, both because of the silky fur and because she let me get close enough to stroke her. Also a sleek handsome probably-stray, who split into two cats when followed and then dove into the bushes to merge (butt-first) into one cat again.
The bottom left is a photo Y took for the sake of the background ducks, but I like the almost abstract pattern in the foreground. Bottom right is plum blossoms, I think; they’re prettier as a whole tree, though hard to photograph. In close-up they always remind me of Cassandra Mortmain’s cute little bit of rejected poetry, “Frank-eyed floweret, kitten-whiskered…”.
Be safe and well.
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Date: 2021-02-13 02:58 am (UTC)Zhu Yilong is looking so much more comfortable performing like this. I'm relieved for him.
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Date: 2021-02-14 05:16 am (UTC)Yes, he looks like he's enjoying singing and it's nice.
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Date: 2021-02-13 11:35 am (UTC)In 20 or so years the world will explode from the sheer force of his gorgeousness.
Also 愛你一万年 is a pretty generic romance lyric, but Shen Wei of all people…).
RIGHT????
And these are some lovely cats! ♥
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Date: 2021-02-14 05:17 am (UTC)What a way to go.
RIGHT????
Ha! It wasn't just me who thought so... :D
♡
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Date: 2021-02-13 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-14 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-13 05:40 pm (UTC)rote with heavy repetition rather than super gamified
Yeah, that's also my preference with language apps, but it would seem we're in the minority >.
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Date: 2021-02-14 05:19 am (UTC)but it would seem we're in the minority >.
Maybe other people don't find, like, the actual grammar-and-vocab language learning process fun? Poor them if so.
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Date: 2021-02-14 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-14 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-14 08:05 pm (UTC)Also it’s amazing the way his expression flickers among shy-embarrassed, very serious about getting the silly game right, is this okay? am I doing this right??? puppy eyes, and wtf just happened? confusion.
So cute! <3
What I want, ideally, is: web-based rather than an app, focused on whole-word vocabulary and grammar acquisition rather than reading individual characters, rote with heavy repetition rather than super gamified, pitched around HSK 3 to start from… oh well.
I am sure I've recced this before, and of course it's not web-based per se, since it's an anki deck... I really like "Spoonfed Chinese". It has tons of vocab, all in full sentences, with pronunciation by native speakers, and you can delete as many as you want of the "too easy" sentences at the start of the deck. (I found them hard enough that I kept them all, they vanish quickly enough once you get them right three times, and I like the motivation of getting things right sometimes. :D)
I am also still working on the Guardian deck, btw, to get the character writing in there. I made some progress in December, but still need a few more sessions to straighten out the rest. Although I'm sure you don't need that, since you already know lots of characters, anyway.
Lovely pics! I especially love the plum blossoms and the two cats - the round mosaic reminds me of Chu Shuzhi and the Envoy in... ep 1? 2? One of the early ones.
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Date: 2021-02-14 11:47 pm (UTC)So cute! <3
Seriously how is he like that. Not that I'm complaining.
I really like "Spoonfed Chinese".
Thank you! I still have Anki on my desktop somewhere from working on the Guardian deck (and it's extremely nice of you to keep that one in mind too...no priority ;) ), so I will check this out. "vanishing once you get them right three times" sounds promising too, one of the things that annoys me about Duolingo is that it's not a smart program in that way.
the round mosaic reminds me of Chu Shuzhi and the Envoy
I know which one you mean! It's a much smaller plaza in real life but I can see what you're talking about. I have more plum blossom photos coming :)
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Date: 2021-02-15 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-15 05:19 am (UTC)