嘴太软了

[nnozomi]

As various people have noted, Zhu Yilong is going to have blue hair for his new movie; I love it that he’s never satisfied unless he’s doing something completely new. No worries though, in this picture it’s clear that blue hair or not, his habit of hugging pillows remains.

Rereading a very good translation of Tove Jansson’s letters, which are wonderful (although on reflection I wish the editors had just lined them up chronologically rather than dividing them by recipient). Mostly more fun in the aggregate than in specific quotations, but a few that I enjoyed:
August 14, 1946
And if rocket-propelled missiles are eventually going to blow us to smithereens along with everything we’ve done, I want to be as calm and happy as I can now and work in peace.
December, 1946
That was when I realized [that I was in love with her], as we were dancing. It came as such a huge surprise. Like finding a new and wondrous room in an old house one thought one knew from top to bottom. Just stepping straight in, and not being able to fathom how one had never known it existed.
June 27, 1956
Everything I do, everything new that I see—there’s a parallel reflection: I shall show this to Tuulikki.

Reading a Japanese book—or rather a book originally published in Taiwan and translated into Japanese—which is a historical novel presented as a travelogue written by a (fictional) Japanese woman author touring Taiwan in 1938. Aoyama Chizuko is a young woman from a good Kyushu family who has just written a bildungsroman that became a huge hit and made her much in demand as a lecturer; when she visits Taiwan, her translator is a modest, immensely competent young Taiwanese woman called Oh Chizuru|Wang Qianhe, who instantly gets Chizuko’s quirkiness (and her absolute passion for eating huge quantities of every new and delicious food she can get her hands on, don’t read this one while hungry). I’m only a few chapters in, but it's clear that the book is going to take on colonialism and class, along with female friendship, in Chizuko’s idiosyncratic voice. More to come when I finish it.

Chinese: I don’t think I’m quite managing three to four hours a day, but I am doing the best I can and getting caught up on my daily Chinese Grammar Wiki Anki deck for the first time in ages. I probably need another deck full of sample sentences at all levels… . Still messing with translation, very slowly. I have finally ventured onto Lofter—if I have to have WeChat for Chinese conversation lessons I might as well make use of it?—and am very confused, but I’m enjoying meandering around tags reading bits of fics.
New words, slang and otherwise, from the farmboys:

· 神不知鬼不觉 without anyone knowing (literally, God doesn’t know and the devil has no clue)
· 裸考 to take a test without studying (literally, a naked test)
· 给你个麦 Guangdong slang (?) for something like “you want a piece of this?” in the aggressive sense
· O不OK? just means “okay or not,” but I adore this piece of Chinese-English (or English-Chinese)
· 嘴硬 stubborn, refusing to back down (literally, hard mouth: used punningly in the show to describe a Sichuanese guy eating a hot pepper without changing expression)
· 无法无天 out of control, unruly, going too far
· 马虎 careless, sloppy

Music: A handful of random things I’ve been listening to lately. Eliane Elias and her trio doing “Aguas de março” (one of the best Tom Jobim songs ever) and “Agua de beber”; Seong-Jin Cho playing Chopin Preludes, with one of the most thrilling openings I know of; and for something completely different, Leroy Anderson’s little novelty piece The Syncopated Clock, which I’ve always found very charming.

Photos: Just a few today; my morning-glories (still blooming steadily, anything from one to five flowers a day, rain or shine), and a tree decorated for Tanabata (on a windy day).

Be safe and well.

Comments

[antisoppist]

I read Tove Jansson's letters in Swedish and also felt I'd rather have had them chronological rather than arranged by recipient. I don't know why they chose to do it that way. It's a bit too curated for me. I suppose published letters are always edited as they are always a selection and sometimes cut but chronological at least leaves the reader free to draw their own conclusions and see how different conversations and links and people are impacting on each other at a specific point in the writer's life. You can check for all the letters to one person if there's a decent index.

But the letters themselves are great. (The translator is also excellent and very nice in person).

[nnozomi]

Oh wow, I envy you being able to read them in the original! Although as you say the translation is excellent (I mean, as far as I can tell not knowing the source text, but it reads very naturally and her voice comes through). Good to know about the translator too.

[nnozomi]

Postscript: You will be amused to know that I've got a job translating a book my bassoon teacher wrote about bassoon and reed-making technique...I think I'm going to learn a lot of new bassoon-related terminology!

[antisoppist]

Ooh that is brilliant news! So exciting. First problem is whether you're calling it a crook or a bocal. Bassoon terminology seems to vary in the US and UK.

I've been looking for bassoon holding advice to avoid strain on my right wrist and there's a lot of research about bassoonist injuries from the weight of the bassoon on their left wrist, which I found odd as the upper weight of my bassoon is on my chest harness, and it's the bottom end I need to support. Then I realised this is all from the US, where seat straps are more common, while in the UK, neck or chest harnesses are used more. I'm going to get a seat strap! But the differences were interesting.

[nnozomi]

I had no idea about the US/UK differences! I think when Japanese borrows bassoon terminology it's mostly the US version (bocal, etc.), so I will probably stick to that (my default is JP->US-EN anyway, I can do limited versions of UK-EN but only when requested). And I never even thought about the strap thing. I have a two-shoulder strap which is supposed to be "designed for women" and works well so far... . Keep me posted on how you feel the different straps work.

[maggie33]

As various people have noted, Zhu Yilong is going to have blue hair for his new movie

Oh, wow, I didn't know that, so I'm glad you mentioned it here. He looks good, but no surprise here - it's Zhu Yilong, he always looks good, no matter the color or length of his hair. :DDD

[nnozomi]

it's Zhu Yilong, he always looks good, no matter the color or length of his hair. :DDD
You have a point ;)

[landofnowhere]

Oooh, the Tove Jansson letters sound great!

[nnozomi]

Highly recommended! (Even more so if, unlike me, you have actually read a bunch of her fiction...)

[trobadora]

O不OK?

Oh, this is delightful! :D :D :D

(I think I must be the only one who isn't really into the blue-haired look ...)

[nnozomi]

O不OK?
Oh, this is delightful! :D :D :D
Isn't it? I don't know why it pleases me so much...

(I think I must be the only one who isn't really into the blue-haired look ...)
I would choose natural black over blue if given the choice, but the length/style of his blue hair is so much to my taste that I can go along with the color ;)

[umadoshi]

I love it that he’s never satisfied unless he’s doing something completely new.

YES.

when she visits Taiwan, her translator is a modest, immensely competent young Taiwanese woman called Oh Chizuru|Wang Qianhe, who instantly gets Chizuko’s quirkiness (and her absolute passion for eating huge quantities of every new and delicious food she can get her hands on, don’t read this one while hungry).

This sounds wonderful. *^^*

I love the Tanabata tree!

[nnozomi]

This sounds wonderful. *^^*
It's very interesting so far! I'm waiting to see if it shows signs of being actual f/f along with the other stuff going on, or what...

<3

[geraineon]

Reading a Japanese book—or rather a book originally published in Taiwan and translated into Japanese—which is a historical novel presented as a travelogue written by a (fictional) Japanese woman author touring Taiwan in 1938.

This already piqued my interest. The book sounds like a really good read! What's the title of the book?

[nnozomi]

So far it's very interesting! It's 台湾漫游录 in the original, by 杨双子, and 台湾漫遊鉄道のふたり in Japanese (translated by Miura Yuko). I'll keep you posted as I keep on reading.

[geraineon]

Much appreciated <3

[tinny]

I probably need another deck full of sample sentences at all levels… .

If you want an anki deck, the one I am currently using (and have been for years) is called Spoonfed Chinese. It has over 10K cards. It's not tagged by levels, but has a bit of everything, increasing in difficulty (so you can just deactivate some of the first cards if you want). The best thing about it is that it has real people reading out all the sentences. I love it a lot. It's no longer available, but I can re-upload it.

[nnozomi]

ooh, thanks, that sounds terrific! If uploading it isn't a big nuisance for you, that would be great.

[tinny]

no, i can simply upload it to my own server, no hassle at all.

https://tinpix.de/resources/chinese/anki/Chinese%20-%20SpoonFed24.apkg

It's somehow 20MB smaller than it was last year, even though I'm not aware of having deleted anything from the deck... maybe it's the new anki version that makes smaller decks, idk. Anyway, I got this deck from the anki shared decks website, so it's not mine in any way, shape or form.

I did add the two links to the cards, where you can look up the sentences either with an online dictionary (which is good for radicals and writing), or with pleco.

[nnozomi]

Downloaded, thanks a million! I'll enjoy getting into this. Anki is such a help. <3

[tinny]

I love anki.

I know you said you don't need to learn to write the characters, but someone else asked, so I uploaded my writing deck that goes with above spoonfed deck. I only put cards into that when I run out of new ones, so it only covers the first 1200 of the Spoonfed deck's 15K cards so far. So just in case you'd like a try, here's the writing deck, too:

https://tinpix.de/resources/chinese/anki/Chinese%20-%20SpoonFed%20Writing24.apkg

[nnozomi]

oh, thanks! Good to have on hand. <3

[chestnut_pod]

Literary letters, hurray! I agree that splitting them by recipient is an odd choice -- in my vast tome of Virginia Woolf's letters, they're grouped by date, and it's very interesting to see who gets told what details about any given event.

[nnozomi]

in my vast tome of Virginia Woolf's letters, they're grouped by date, and it's very interesting to see who gets told what details about any given event.
This seems to be much more standard and I definitely like it better, yeah!

[antisoppist]

Yes, I've got the published Dorothy L Sayers' letters and it's fascinating to see how she was writing to around six different people about around twelve different things all on the same morning!

[sakana17]

I'm excited about the blue hair because it's so shockingly different and makes me very curious about the movie. I do love the hair length, too.

Like finding a new and wondrous room in an old house one thought one knew from top to bottom. Just stepping straight in, and not being able to fathom how one had never known it existed.

Oh, that's gorgeous.

historical novel presented as a travelogue written by a (fictional) Japanese woman author touring Taiwan in 1938

This sounds interesting and I'll be curious to hear more about it.

I love 神不知鬼不觉 and O不OK an unnatural amount. XD

Lovely colors on the morning glories. And the windy effect on the Tanabata tree is so pretty.

[nnozomi]

I'm excited about the blue hair because it's so shockingly different and makes me very curious about the movie.
I feel like this is one of his movies I might actually watch if it came to Japan (I wish)...

historical novel presented as a travelogue written by a (fictional) Japanese woman author touring Taiwan in 1938
This sounds interesting and I'll be curious to hear more about it.
I'll keep you posted!

I love 神不知鬼不觉 and O不OK an unnatural amount. XD
Oh, me too. Courtesy of Yibo and Gengyun respectively ;)

and glad you liked the photos! <3