Progress reports, etc.

[nnozomi]

·I made (?) two things. The Guardian fic which is basically all my Zhao Xinci feelings in one place is now complete and ended up running to 35K, twice as long as the next longest fic I’ve ever written, which I did not expect. (Wish to hell I could write 35K of even vaguely coherent original work in six weeks!) I think maybe I’ve gotten Zhao Xinci out of my system for a while, but who knows. The fic is also, inevitably, another entry in my administration-saves-the-world series.
Also I’ve spent, oh dear, almost two months poking at another Chinese translation for fun, this one of an interview of Zhu Yilong and Ni Ni, to be found here (on the 0630 sheet), while the original interview is here (via the blessed Wenella; I don’t think she’s posted a proper translation of it, but I may just have missed it). Please note that it is spoilery for 消失的她|Lost in the Stars. Rife with my mistakes as usual, although a-Pei and Xi-laoshi helped me with some of the stickiest places. Notable for very sweet chemistry between them, Ni Ni doing about 2/3 of the talking (see also: all Zhu Yilong’s other shared interviews ever), Ni Ni explaining why she respects him as an actor and also giving him hell (“this from you, Mr. character bleed?”) when she feels he needs it.

·In other cdrama news, elen and I just finished watching Under the Skin, which I enjoyed a lot—good leads, good ensemble cast, lots of competence kink and interesting plot writing. Typically, I fell for a character who only appears in four episodes (Lu Haizhou, played by Zhang Tao), at first because he reminded me of a younger Chen Moqun, and then I kept liking him more the more I saw of him. Am I going to do anything with this? Who knows.

·Listening to San-San-San as it’s known in Japanese, more properly the St.-Saëns Third Symphony, which I’m never gonna get a chance to perform because amateur orchestras can’t afford to do pieces with organs in them, but it’s one of my very favorites and blows me away every single time. I realized that the first measures, the premonitory muttering of the strings, invariably come with a very strong sensory memory: standing on the upper balcony of the vast auditorium where my father’s orchestra rehearsed, listening to them play it, and eating something nougaty and delicious (not white nougat like Toblerones, German-style nougat like this).

·The high school baseball tournament is on—almost over, actually—and I’ve been following it on TV (every game in the national tournament is broadcast on national TV in full, it’s Japan’s national religion, you only think I’m joking) and hoping the Keio team wins, because I’m shallow: unlike almost all the other teams, whose players wear regulated buzz cuts, they’re allowed to have proper hair. Would like to think this also means that they’re somewhat free of the oppressively regulated culture of high school baseball (the fictional Nishiura High School being a shining exception, come to think of it they also have no hair rules), but who knows.

·Reading a couple of Japanese books about language learning experiences.

This got quite long

One is by one of those journalists whose motto is to go places nobody else does and do things nobody else has done, in the course of which he ended up learning bits of French, Lingala, Bomitaba, Spanish, Thai, Burmese, Shan, Chinese, and Wa (three of which I had to look up how to spell in English). His accounts of how to get a working knowledge of a language from scratch on the ground are really interesting (get a native speaker to come up with a bunch of similar but not identical sentences, ie “I eat, you eat, he eats” or “She goes, she went, she will go” etc., and figure out the grammar empirically), and tempt one to go learn a brand-new language somewhere. He talks about having difficulty connecting with French speakers from France, even when having a grasp of the language: “If only the French had different ethnolanguages!” referencing how a sure way to get into conversation in the Congo countries was to ask someone “So what’s your native language?” given the plethora of possible answers. (He really doesn’t like French: I was tickled by the complaint that in French “not only do all the consonants at the ends of words disappear, when there’s a vowel placed after them all these presumed-dead consonants rise up like zombies, it’s a horror show”). He also put me on to “Yokohama Pidgin Japanese,” apparently used for communication among foreigners and Japanese in Meiji-era Yokohama, as summed up in a comical/alarming “dictionary” published in 1879 which has to be seen to be believed (Orientalist all to hell but with not much mercy for foreigners either, and containing an appendix contrasting Chinese and Western pronunciations of Japanese). Weirdly, one of the sites that came up when I looked it up belongs to a university professor whose linguistics research I became familiar with after having met him in a completely different context (friend of a friend of a friend, it’s complicated, he got me some wonderful recordings I couldn’t have found elsewhere). Finally, this journalist describes spending a year in a remote village in the Wa State, speaking three languages (or a language and two dialects, depending on who you ask) none of which he was fluent in. He talks about someone in the village receiving a letter with news that their correspondent was in good health—mailed two years and four months ago, the time lag making him think of communication among different solar systems.
The other book, which I’m actually still working my way through, is by a younger guy who talks about learning Romanian and becoming a published author in Romanian while hardly ever leaving his apartment in Tokyo. I am really turned off by the linguistic tone, which is a sort of heavy forced colloquial style, with 俺 (casual male pronoun) instead of one of the more neutral ones, って instead of と (as in speech, not writing), and だよ thrown in at the end of every sentence, like having “I mean…” or “y’know?” scattered everywhere. (It could be that it grates on me because the latter in particular is very East Japan, and clashes with my West Japan-assimilated ears, but who knows.) He does have some interesting things to say, though, including a discussion of how to translate the title of Usami Rin’s novel 推し、燃ゆ into Romanian, without losing the distinction of the online slang, the comma, and the archaic verb declension (the English title is apparently Idol, Burning; I think My Fave, Aflame might work). Will report further later if he comes up with anything else to the point by the time I finish the book.

Be safe and well.

Comments

[maggie33]

Typically, I fell for a character who only appears in four episodes (Lu Haizhou, played by Zhang Tao), at first because he reminded me of a younger Chen Moqun, and then I kept liking him more the more I saw of him. Am I going to do anything with this? Who knows.

Ohhh, I liked him, too. When you say "going to do something with this", do you mean writing a fic? If yes, you'd have at least one reader. :) And Zhang Tao had a secondary part in Nothing But You and he was great there, too. I really liked his character.

[nnozomi]

do you mean writing a fic? If yes, you'd have at least one reader. :)
Good to hear! I don't know if my fic brain is going to turn on for this canon or not, but if it does I'm pretty sure Captain Lu will be heavily featured.

Zhang Tao doesn't seem to have had any lead roles to speak of, which I think is a shame, he seems very good!

[awanderingcoyote]

Ahhh I can’t wait to finish your ZXC story!!! I have it earmarked to finish reading this weekend!!! Thank you for writing such an awesome story and sharing it!!

[nnozomi]

Thank you for your enthusiasm and kind comments! <3

[scytale]

The fic is also, inevitably, another entry in my administration-saves-the-world series.

:D

a younger guy who talks about learning Romanian and becoming a published author in Romanian while hardly ever leaving his apartment in Tokyo.

This is very impressive!

推し、燃ゆ into Romanian, without losing the distinction of the online slang, the comma, and the archaic verb declension (the English title is apparently Idol, Burning; I think My Fave, Aflame might work).

Oh hey I just got this book in translation! From skimming, I think it uses oshi in the book itself. Idol definitely didn't strike me as online slang in the way "fave" does, but does feel very idol subculture-specific (which I guess is implicitly online?) while capturing the, well, idolization aspect.

(and I didn't realize 推し was fave, especially only reading the romaji! I just assumed it was like 偶像.)

[nnozomi]

Idol definitely didn't strike me as online slang in the way "fave" does, but does feel very idol subculture-specific (which I guess is implicitly online?) while capturing the, well, idolization aspect.
(and I didn't realize 推し was fave, especially only reading the romaji! I just assumed it was like 偶像.)
Yeah, it's a hard one! I haven't read the book either, so maybe "idol," as you say, would in fact be more suitable; I don't know enough about Japanese-language online culture...

[scytale]

Oh, another thing that just occured to me is that I think at least the k-pop idol fandom in English prefers bias instead of fave! But My Bias, Burning, while very pretty, feels like a really confusing title for marketing purposes (my first thought was "politics" not "idols").

[nnozomi]

My Bias, Burning, while very pretty, feels like a really confusing title for marketing purposes (my first thought was "politics" not "idols").
Yes, agree on all counts! For, like, a k-pop fic where everyone knows the term it would work, but not for a generally marketed literary novel...

[clevermanka]

Congratulations on finishing and posting the fic! \o/

That sensory memory sounds amazing--so many different senses involved! Btw, you've got an extra L in the .html at the end of the link for the nougat so clicking it goes to a page not found. (also I desperately want to try that nougat now)

[nnozomi]

Thank you! And thanks for note re html, fixed!

[chestnut_pod]

Congratulations on the writing!

You are always reading something so interesting which I am so envious of, as a non-Japanese-speaker!

(P.S. your card arrived, and as always, I loved the beautiful photo! Thank you :))

[nnozomi]

Thank you! (And glad the card arrived <3)

You are always reading something so interesting which I am so envious of, as a non-Japanese-speaker!
Yes, but think of all the books in Spanish etc. that you can read and I can't!
(obviously the only solution is for us all to quit our jobs/other occupations and study languages full-time...)

[amedia]

I'm so glad to hear the ZXC fic is done! I've been watching the chapter count go steadily up with great excitement. I don't like to start a fic until it's complete, so now I look forward to indulging!!!

Loved the quote from the writer who doesn't like French: when there’s a vowel placed after them all these presumed-dead consonants rise up like zombies, it’s a horror show - LOLOLOL so true!!!

"My Fave, Aflame" sounds like an excellent way to capture the original, with its combination of slangy ("fave") and archaic ("aflame")!

[nnozomi]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy(ed) the fic :)

[amedia]

It was AMAZINGLY good. I found your ZXC POV plausible, even convincing, and for a story whose description made me think it would be unrelievedly sad, it was instead engaging and enjoyable, even with its backdrop of sadness. I had to chuckle over ZXC's inner thoughts about the Guo uncle & nephew, as well as his give-no-fucks honesty when dealing with Wu Ch-something on the council--which worked better than diplomacy, for the two of them, anyway.

I hope to leave a more detailed comment someday but in the meantime, please know how impressed and delighted I was!

[nnozomi]

Oh, thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad the Zhao Xinci POV worked for you, and you picked out some of the bits I especially enjoyed writing ;) . So glad you enjoyed the fic <3

[antisoppist]

I caught a radio 4 programme last week called "How to Play" about Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with Anna Lapwood and the London Mozart Players. It is on BBCsounds but I don't expect you can access that?

"As an organist you're sitting there with a little grin on your face thinking 'they don't know what's about to hit them'"

What I hadn't really thought about before I heard Anna Lapwood talking about it was how if you're an organist, you have to turn up at a church or concert hall or wherever and play an instrument you haven't ever played before. So she comes in the day before the rehearsal and spends 6 hours working out how that particular organ sounds and which stops will make the sounds she wants and where they are on that organ, and how the pedals are laid out. And that's before she starts practising the music on it.

[nnozomi]

Not sure about BBCsounds but I'll see what I can find, thank you! Wonderful quotation. And wow, I always vaguely thought "lucky organists, they don't have to schlep their instruments around," but as you say, I never thought of the flip side that they have to perform on brand new (and often temperamental, I'm sure) instruments with little or no time to get accustomed to them...

[mekare]

Even worse than it is for pianists. And as a piano player you at least have the same key layout, even if the response can vary a LOT.

[trobadora]

The Guardian fic which is basically all my Zhao Xinci feelings in one place is now complete and ended up running to 35K, twice as long as the next longest fic I’ve ever written, which I did not expect.

Woohoo, congrats! I read the beginning of it a while ago, and it looked brilliant, so I'm looking forward to getting back to it now that it's finished. :D

Also, yay for the interview translation, I love that you're doing this, and I'm so impressed! That was an excellent read.

(All Zhu Yilong's interviews are so much better these days - he's getting so much better questions!)

In other cdrama news, elen and I just finished watching Under the Skin, which I enjoyed a lot—good leads, good ensemble cast, lots of competence kink and interesting plot writing. Typically, I fell for a character who only appears in four episodes (Lu Haizhou, played by Zhang Tao), at first because he reminded me of a younger Chen Moqun, and then I kept liking him more the more I saw of him.

Under the Skin is very good, I enjoyed it a lot too! But I had to look up who Lu Haizhou was. (In fairness, it's been a while since I watched, and I'm bad with names. I did remember the character, who I liked. *g*)

He also put me on to “Yokohama Pidgin Japanese,” apparently used for communication among foreigners and Japanese in Meiji-era Yokohama, as summed up in a comical/alarming “dictionary” published in 1879 which has to be seen to be believed (Orientalist all to hell but with not much mercy for foreigners either, and containing an appendix contrasting Chinese and Western pronunciations of Japanese).

That sounds fascinating!

the English title is apparently Idol, Burning; I think My Fave, Aflame might work

Damn, yeah, those are two entirely different flavours with EXTREMELY different connotations! I love translation. *g*

[nnozomi]

Thank you for kind words!

(All Zhu Yilong's interviews are so much better these days - he's getting so much better questions!)
Yes! The interviewers seem to have switched into Serious Artist mode with him? so he actually gets to talk about his craft, which he can do fluently.

Damn, yeah, those are two entirely different flavours with EXTREMELY different connotations! I love translation. *g*
I know! There's a term in Japanese I use a lot, 翻訳者泣かせ, which basically means "a thing that makes the translator cry" or, you know, things like puns, culturally specific phrases that are hard to translate. But also the most fun...

[trobadora]

The interviewers seem to have switched into Serious Artist mode with him?

Yes! I love it! (Clearly he loves it too. He can get downright chatty if you ask him something he actually cares about!)

There's a term in Japanese I use a lot, 翻訳者泣かせ, which basically means "a thing that makes the translator cry"

What an excellent, useful phrase! :D

[nnozomi]

(Clearly he loves it too. He can get downright chatty if you ask him something he actually cares about!)
Yes! (There's a line in the interview I translated somewhere, I'd have to look up where, where he's using 把 and just keeps on going 把 this and that and pushing the verb further and further to the end of the sentence--positively German-like ;)--and it made me laugh, for a man of few words he can speak in very long sentences when he's engaged with what he's talking about.)

[trobadora]

here he's using 把 and just keeps on going 把 this and that and pushing the verb further and further to the end of the sentence

Hee! That's delightful! :D

[sakana17]

I'm so glad you made things! I've now consumed both of them (had to wait until work, ugh, unstrangled me, but glad I did because I could focus and luxuriate in them) and they're both *wonderful*. Thank you for them!

(Gosh, that interview. This man.)

I keep hearing good things about Under the Skin and I think I should bump it up on the to-watch list. Though typing this, I feel like I just said the same thing about a Cdrama recently but I can't even guess what it might've been. Hmmm, if I'm lucky, it was also about Under the Skin, heh.

“not only do all the consonants at the ends of words disappear, when there’s a vowel placed after them all these presumed-dead consonants rise up like zombies, it’s a horror show”

I legit LOLed at this!

I'm fascinated by "Yokohama Pidgin Japanese." Am now O_O at it in another tab.

[nnozomi]

Thank you so much for all the kind words! <3

(Gosh, that interview. This man.)
I know! (Among other things, it just makes me happy that the people he works with seem to like and respect him so much.)

I keep hearing good things about Under the Skin and I think I should bump it up on the to-watch list.
You know I'm not much of a watcher, obvious exceptions aside, but I did enjoy it--it's really well done.

I'm fascinated by "Yokohama Pidgin Japanese." Am now O_O at it in another tab.
O_O is right. It's funny, and legit linguistically interesting, but also so much period-typical EVERYTHING...

[sakana17]

Among other things, it just makes me happy that the people he works with seem to like and respect him so much.

Yes, same. Plus in general he seems happier now? Not that we can really tell, I guess, but... like he said in the interview, he's less tense now. Which I'm glad about.

It's funny, and legit linguistically interesting, but also so much period-typical EVERYTHING...

It's all that, wow.

(Having been influenced by reading a certain story yesterday, I'm thinking about some ancient "Traveller's Guide to Dixinghua"... And now I'm wondering if the language everyone is speaking originated on Haixing or was brought there by Dixingren.)

[nnozomi]

Plus in general he seems happier now? Not that we can really tell, I guess, but... like he said in the interview, he's less tense now. Which I'm glad about.
Yes! Here's hoping this is just one high point of many in a long, happy, and secure career.

I'm thinking about some ancient "Traveller's Guide to Dixinghua"... And now I'm wondering if the language everyone is speaking originated on Haixing or was brought there by Dixingren.)
Oh man, don't even get me started! I would read so many fics just about this, in all its variations. (I think extrapenguin was playing with a Dixing conlang a couple of years ago; I'd need to know more about Chinese to think about it seriously, but it's such a fascinating set of ideas, whether silly or serious.)

[tinny]

Wow, 35K! Congrats! <3

I'll check out the interview! Thank you so much! <3 I've kind of been sucked into the Lost You Forever hole along with elenothar and a few others, and it's really a rude awakening once you have to go from "wenella translates everything" to trying to find *anything* Tan Jianci does with subtitles. It's all raw, and so very frustrating. (I have the same problem with Chen Minghao, of course, but he barely does anything in terms of publicity, so it's not so noticeable.)

[nnozomi]

and it's really a rude awakening once you have to go from "wenella translates everything" to trying to find *anything* Tan Jianci does with subtitles. It's all raw, and so very frustrating.
Stressful! I'm just getting to the point where I can _mostly_ follow what's going on as long as there are C-subtitles, but anything unsubtitled is out of the question. I almost wish Wenella wasn't quite so on the ball--it would be fun to have, like, a couple of weeks to work out my own understanding and then check it with her proper version--but she's certainly a blessing. You guys will just have to start doing it yourselves ;)