nnozomi

Listening recently to Elis Regina sing Ih! Meu Deus do céu, a fantastic song that I tend to forget about in favor of “Amor até o fim” or “Aguas de março” and so on. “Espontaneidade eu sou, eu sou / Na misticidade eu vou, eu vou…” jeez.

Latest farmboy words: 劈叉, the splits; 哇塞, which just means “wow,” usually positive, but I like the way it sounds; 大波斯菊, cosmos flowers (literally “large Persian chrysanthemums”); 熟鸡蛋, boiled eggs (literally “mature eggs” although technically that’s a different usage); 克隆人, clone (a transliteration); 五花八门, all different kinds of something (literally “five flowers and eight doors”)

My friend A-Pei is also a technical translator, in her case from English to Chinese, and the English source texts she receives are sometimes not what they might be. The other day she texted me a line from an agricultural machinery manual: “This combination will reduce the risk of serious injury or death, should the machine be upset.”
We agreed that the machine would certainly pose greater risks if it got emotional or lost its temper. (机器难过时风险变大，请大家注意安全!) It took both of us a moment to arrive at what the source text actually meant to say…

At the Saturday juku last week I happened to work with two siblings in a row, seventh-grade Yuki and his ninth-grade sister Satsuki (pseudonyms). She said cheerfully “My brother’s smarter than me, his English grades are better than mine were in seventh.” Me: Well, how much time did you spend studying English every day in seventh grade? Satsuki: Maybe ten minutes? Me: How about your brother? Satsuki: I don’t know, half an hour, no, an hour? Me: Are you sure this is a question of who’s smarter than who?

I have temporarily (?) finished revising the translation of the Miura Shion novel I’ve been working on (revising a translation is SO MUCH easier than revising my own writing, I don’t have to worry if the plot or structure or emotional beats work, just make sure the words are where they should be, phew); next comes the far more difficult process of trying to figure out how to get it published, oh God. In the meantime, I need something new to translate! Based on past lists of possibilities, if interested please cast a vote or two below? (I have never made a DW poll before, I hope it works).

Poll #32655

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

View Respondents

What should I translate next?

View Answers

Akasaka Mari’s essays on Japan’s struggles immediately postwar
0 (0.0%)

Letters and diaries of Chujo (Miyamoto) Yuriko and Yuasa Yoshiko in the 1920s
0 (0.0%)

One or more of Hara Takeshi's books about trains, emperors, 1970s Communism, and history in general
0 (0.0%)

Haraguchi Takeshi’s book on the Osaka day laborers’ district and its history and sociology
0 (0.0%)

Hasuike Kaoru’s accounts of his abduction to North Korea, eventual return to Japan, and later visits to South Korea and work as a Korean to Japanese translator
0 (0.0%)

Imaizumi Takayuki’s book on his imaginary city maps
1 (9.1%)

One or both of two random books about falling in love with Finland and Finnish, by Inagaki Miharu and Takahashi Erika
0 (0.0%)

Kisaragi Kazusa’s YA book about a boy who figures out he has a good singing voice in the guise of a girl
0 (0.0%)

Komatsu Ayako’s YA book about a high school girl who discovers Arabic calligraphy and Islam through her sister’s half-Turkish classmate
0 (0.0%)

Kuroiwa Hisako’s biography of Sakai Toshihiko
0 (0.0%)

Li Kotomi|Li Qinfeng's essays about foreignness and language and sexuality
5 (45.5%)

Maekawa Masayuki’s book about bicycling around South Korea and revisiting its colonized history
1 (9.1%)

One or more of Miyabe Miyuki’s mystery novels involving telepathy and/or time travel
0 (0.0%)

Nakajima Atsushi’s letters to his wife and young children from the South Pacific in 1940 or thereabouts
1 (9.1%)

Tai Shotaro’s diary of a year working as a conductor on the Osaka city trams in 1930 or so
1 (9.1%)

Hiko Tanaka’s MG trilogy about the first year of junior high school
0 (0.0%)

Tawada Yoko’s essays on language, writing and translation
1 (9.1%)

Yamamoto Yukihisa’s novel about a bus tour guide, her company problems, and the power of Pino ice cream
0 (0.0%)

Yonehara Mari’s novel and essays about her childhood at a Soviet school in Prague and its effects on her later life as a Russian interpreter
1 (9.1%)

Various present and prewar oral histories
0 (0.0%)

Favorites from my Chinese song list, part 3 of 3. Three from Liu Chang: 再睡五分钟, making “let me sleep in another five minutes” sound extremely sexy (and 我以为是伦敦时间 always makes me laugh); 谢谢你来听我唱歌, with its lovely syncopations and wistful lyrics on 不怕轻易受伤; and 雨人 (this particular video has a terrific English translation), with the long sad note on 不闻不问 and the way 天大地大的 almost comes out as scat syllables. Along with that one, LTR has the best soundtrack going as far as I’m concerned: 往下跳 still makes me sad, the grief all the way through actually emphasized by the major third of 笔记已合上, and the title song 重启 is for my money some of the best singing Zhu Yilong’s ever done, from the playful-wistful catch in 人们在追寻答案 to the short phrases making up 河川自由奔流会流向哪里, where the melody is major but the harmony wanders into the minor and his voice knows it. Elsewhere, 灵光 because it’s the only sodagreen song I know where you can imagine a whole arena full of people singing along (and probably crying); the way Wu Qingfeng hits the chorus on 霎时灵光拨弄我心弦 is dazzling. Two different versions of 麦芒, fast and loud (warning for flashing lights) and sung by all ten people (this is the farmboys) with each one’s style distinct (and I do like syncopations, okay, the verse makes nice use of them), plus a quieter version sung by Jiang Dunhao solo, where his lower range is lovely. Finally 水星记; the version I really like best is Liu Chang and Wang Leda fooling around, but there are a lot of others, so I’ve linked Shan Yichun. The rising phrase on 还有多远才能进入你的心 does me in, along with the sudden minor on 那个人; I could listen to that so many times.

Photos: This year’s first plum blossoms, some other assorted outdoor moments, a cat that will complain loudly about how cold it is but not actually let you do anything about it, and Jiji-chan thinking I can’t see her.

Be safe and well.

New orchestra music includes Sibelius 3, which I can do without—like so much of Sibelius, it’s both strenuous and unrewarding to play. On the other hand, I hated #7 the whole time we rehearsed it but now I quite like listening to it, so maybe there’s hope, we’ll see. The main symphony is the Rhine, Schumann 3, an old friend—I think this is the third, maybe fourth time I’ve played it, and while there isn’t much new to discover what’s there is wonderful, especially the exuberance of the first and fifth movements, and the sad, stately glory of the fourth (between the minor-key start and the counterpoint, I always think of it as if captioned with “The people mourn as Bach ascends into heaven”).
In other recent listening, Elis Regina singing Cartomante—I think I link to this here every time I listen to it, but it’s just that good. “Porque na verdade, eu te quero vivo…”
Also I went back to some half-forgotten William Bolcom songs recently—I have mixed feelings about Bolcom, but if you need something to make your day a little brighter try Amor. The linked recording is one I found more or less at random on YouTube, with Adèle Charvet singing; I looked her up and found that her grandfather, Charles Ewanjé Epée, is a singer-songwriter from Cameroon, this is one of his songs (watch out for flashes in the video).

Reading a nonfiction Japanese book about women graduates of the National Defense Academy (the college for the Self-Defense Forces). A little too much in the way of broad strokes and for-public-consumption (I also can’t help wonder if the women in the book would have been more natural and forthcoming if the author weren’t a man), but interesting, especially the account of daily life at the Academy itself, obviously modeled on West Point (I have a thing about unique educational environments and own a handful of books about West Point, where I’ve never set foot), and reacting in essentially similar ways to the initial introduction of women cadets (in 1992). Among the other points that strike me is that, while I’m not halfway through yet, three out of the four women profiled so far ended up divorced; the exception, married to a fellow SDF officer and stationed separately, is managing childcare with help from her father-in-law (not her mother-in-law), who moved in to share the load. Also, there’s a family of four sisters who all went to the Academy, good grief.

Rereading various things in English.

G. Willow Wilson’s The Butterfly Mosque, which is a gorgeously written account of becoming a Muslim, marrying an Egyptian man, and living in Cairo (not actually in that order). Her description of having learned all the things she needs to live as an adult in Cairo (shopping for live ducks for dinner, sharing Friday prayers with other women at a shrine, dancing at family weddings, mastering Egyptian Arabic idioms, choosing tomatoes without maggots), and how little she knows about living as an adult in the US, her home country, got to me.
Kate Gilmore’s Remembrance of the Sun is also about a romance in a Muslim country, this one a novel rather than a memoir: Iran on the eve of the revolution, where Jill and her pleasantly weird family are spending the year, and Jill meets the proto-revolutionary Shaheen because, improbably enough, they both play French horn in the high school band. Funny, sad, and romantic, full of incredibly evocative descriptions of the setting, pulling no punches about the fucked-up complexity of the political and social situation, using the Egmont Overture beautifully to link Shaheen’s revolutionary vision and the passions (for music as well as each other) he and Jill share.
Also a novel by Kate Gilmore but totally different is Jason and the Bard, set at a professional summer stock theater putting on a repertory of six Shakespeare plays, where the titular Jason is one of six high school apprentices taking part. There is a plot, having to do with a string of practical jokes and an actor with poor recall, and there is some romance, but basically they’re just excuses to write a whole book about the joy of Shakespeare summer stock, and it works. The discussion of the plays is sometimes really moving and always thoughtful, especially Antony and Cleopatra (the image of the dawn light shining onto the dying Cleopatra in the last exhausted moments of a tech rehearsal!), and the description of all these strong and disparate personalities—technicians as well as actors—coming together to make them happen is a delight. It’s a book from thirty years ago, but I think it stands up. Two of the major characters are Black; their characterization is not limited to being Not White, but the narrative is aware of the microaggressions they run into as well. Some of the adult actors and at least one teenage apprentice are heavily implied to be gay—in a 2024 edition I think this would be much more up-front. (The treatment of hapless twelve-year-old Colette, the villain of the piece in many ways, is pretty ruthless, but always makes me smile on account of I knew a dead ringer for her, who by her mid-teens had become a thoughtful, sardonic, attractive person with many talents, so I have hope for Colette too.)

I found some deleted scenes from one of my LTR fics (written when I thought the fic was going to be Bai Haotian/Huo Daofu/Liu Sang, which it ultimately refused to be), and actually I kind of like what they’re doing? I’m not in the habit of writing AUs of my own fic and also porn is not my forte, so this may never go anywhere, but here’s a bit to get it out of my system.

this part is more or less SFW

Bai Haotian perched on the windowsill, feeling the curtain ruffle her hair, and took the opportunity to wriggle out of her tights and panties while she watched the two men undress.
They were both dressed to the nines and it was a complicated process, not helped by the fact that both of them seemed constitutionally incapable of just dropping a piece of clothing to the floor once they took it off. When she saw Huo Daofu fold his waistcoat, crisp as new lettuce, and look up to make eye contact with Liu Sang, who was hanging his jacket carefully on a padded hanger, Bai Haotian started to giggle and didn’t even try to stop herself.
She was no longer concerned about whether either of them really wanted to do this: it was there in the heightened color across Liu Sang’s cheekbones, in Huo Daofu’s elevated breathing. He was the first to finish undressing, and Bai Haotian settled back on the palms of her hands to watch as, the last step, he took off his wristwatch with deliberate care and set it on the tidy pile of folded clothing.
Liu Sang, who had started by taking his watch off, was down to boxer shorts and undershirt. He hesitated, as if a little unnerved by suddenly finding someone else naked in his bedroom, and Huo Daofu went to him and slipped his glasses off.
“What--?”
“Take your shirt off,” the doctor said, in a reasonable facsimile of his usual crisp tones, and Liu Sang did. The color in his face was spreading down to his throat. He tried to reclaim his glasses and Huo Daofu pulled them away. “You’ll manage without them.”
“Then—” The one word came out husky and he cleared his throat. “Then you’re taking yours off.”
Huo Daofu hesitated.
“You heard him, Huo-ge,” Bai Haotian called from her windowsill perch.
Huo Daofu took a visibly deep breath and took his own glasses off, setting them carefully down along with Liu Sang’s on the bedside table. That meant neither of them had anything left to take off. Bai Haotian slid down from the windowsill and stood where she was, suddenly breathless with tension.

Photos: Various flowers, a canal, a very old photographer’s studio, a cat on a warm roof.

Be safe and well.

A little bit of 自画自赞 bragging: I passed the HSK4! With a notably lower score on writing than on listening or reading lol, but at least I managed to scrape through. This is an utterly useless qualification--you need HSK5 at the lowest for work etc., and that's still far out of my reach--but it's a nice milestone.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint of the week: damn, “...I might end up nagging you for more chapter uploads" is basically Kim Dokja saying “I love you too” (not in a romantic sense) and they both know it *sniff*. Honestly, I love Han Sooyoung more and more.
Yoo Joonghyuk, oh dear: “The sin of living on, the sin of surviving by trampling on someone else's stories, the sin of using others' Stories as your fertiliser and daring to spread your branches and sprouting new buds – so, if you're alive, then be responsible for those sins.”

Quotidiana: I had this idea I wouldn't have much work in August, so I started a serious housecleaning, a little bit every day. Actually I've had rather more work than expected...but it's a break from sitting at the computer at least, even though I hate kitchen cleaning with a passion. Why doesn't somebody invent a mini Roomba thing that would zoom around the stovetop or counter or whatever and get it clean, no scrubbing required?
From yaaurens' Shakespeare readings, Titus Andronicus is a horrifying play but I'm delighted by Tamora's complaint, "Why have I patience to endure all this?". You said it, lady.

Music: I know I've posted Elis Regina singing "Cartomante" before, but she's just so good. "Porque na verdade, eu te quero vivo..."
Also I've been watching a lot of smalin's videos lately, various (mostly classical) pieces, some well known and some less so, animated in shape and color; they're very carefully thought out, occasionally funny (the triangle!), and very soothing.

Guardian: I've been enjoying the DW mirror of the "Dragon City interior design" tumblr site; I wonder if it would be a faux pas to comment on the DW posts, even if the original poster won't see it, it seems like such a shame to have all these amazing conversation starters and no actual discussion (why isn't there a site with the good features of both tumblr and DW).

Photos: A white-and-orange sequence (the white flower will be pink by the end of the day, it's a drunk hibiscus, that's its name), a veranda morning-glory in profile, and two (sober) hibisci.
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Be safe and well.

Daily life: I don't think I've been anywhere on DW for a week? Not for any reason to speak of, just somehow. I don't know. It was good to get jogged back into interaction this morning with the watch-Guardian people at glymr's, though.
The title of a physics paper I came across while researching somebody's CV for work: "Spin chirality, berry phase, and anomalous Hall effect in a frustrated ferromagnet." I know it must make sense to people who speak physics, but to me in my ignorance it's delightfully surreal.

Music: "Eu quero uma casa no campo," one of my favorite bossa nova songs. "...onde eu possa plantar meus amigos, meus discos, meus livros e nada mais."

Books: ( Wall of Words in both title and content )

Chinese: Still working away with Duolingo review; I need something new but I'm not sure what, especially since what comes to me easiest, reading individual characters, is what a lot of Chinese apps seem to focus on. I might just settle down to reading every sample sentence on the Chinese Grammar Wiki thing until they settle into my head.

Writing: Making progress? I think? The next-book oriented plot keeps feeling more and more improbable, but I am hoping it will fall into place as it happens. I was thinking about the way, when thinking through various possible plot options, character traits, etc., there's (if lucky) one thing that, to cite Antonia Forest again, "[rings] true where others though possible are doubtful," a very satisfying feeling when it happens. Call it a frozen sea moment, after Forest?

Photos: ( Autumnal )

Be safe and well.