“I Named This Cat Lan Zhan. Why? Because...whenever I Say To Him ‘Lan Zhan, It’s Haishi*.’”

MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 6

Here is Part 6 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 2, pages 321 - 351.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if any of my notes are too fuzzy or squiggly to read, and I'll let you know what I meant to write.

MDZS Vol 3 Annotations, part 3

Here is Part 3 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 3, pages 219-312. I hope it helps improve your reading experience!

(It's mostly cultural annotations and reminders of appropriately-untranslated words, with a few "remember when..." notes and a few re-translations of really thorny sentences that I admit have no good translation.)

(I had a field day writing "Good boy" over Jin Zixuan and "lame cousin" over JinZixun, but I didn't include all those notes here. Just be sure to pay attention to if Zixuan/Zixun has an "a" in it or not in Ch 15.)

(By the way, "Wintry Room" sounds really pretty in Chinese and not weird at all. Maybe "Winter Room" would be better?)

Still reading 病案本 Bing An Ben (Case File Compendium). I’m on chapter 106 (out of 254) now. And I can totally see why Meatbun needs another 148 chapters. I have no idea how she is going to resolve the basic romance, much less the mafia murder mystery treachery conspiracy thing.

Instead of thinking of this book in terms of Plot Arcs, I’m thinking of it in terms on Intractable Relationship Arcs.

(Minor spoilers under the cut.)

So, ch 1 - 51: Xie QingCheng and He Yu hate each other. They get thrown in every romance trope imaginable, but they both hate each other. It’s cute. I’m enjoying it.

Ch 52: oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I don’t see how they are going to come back from this. Oh no.

Ch 54 - 87: So… I guess this is… something? I mean, at least one of them is appreciating the other one now. There’s a lot of sugar to read. And bitter. Ugh. This is not healthy.

Ch 88 - 101: Finally, some mutual respect. Sort of.

Ch 102: 23,730 words. This scene was 23,730 words. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted just reading this chapter. I think I Really Like It. And now they like each other! Yay!

Ch 103: Wait — Xie QingCheng doesn’t want to continue with liking each other? But… we read 101 chapters just to finally get to a mutually consenting kiss! And then another 23,730 words of consensual kissing ☺️ (kinda 😏).

Ch 104 - ?: It’s great that He Yu is finally self-aware, but how in the world is He Yu going to get Xie QingChen to ever Talk to him again?!?!

This is why there is a mafia murder mystery, isn’t it? Because without fresh corpses and the threat of imminent death, there is no way to move their relationship forward. Or sideways. Or any way at all.

Man. This story is such a roller coaster. I’m pulling my hair out.

Still one of my favorite instrumental songs.

Our Shining Days - Review

This review is for the movie from 2017, not the TV series from 2019. I really enjoyed this. It’s silly (very silly), but it’s fun. If you’re a trained musician maybe close your eyes during those parts but I assume you do that anyway (other than for the guzheng player anyway, since the word is she can actually play). Pros:

Funny! It was properly funny for me

Largely focused on the musical angst rather than romantic angst

GREAT music

Generally enjoyable leads

Cons:

I mean, it is silly, so if you don’t like silly then that’s a con for you

Bad miming of the western classical music esp, if that bothers you (I tend to space out and just listen)

Female lead’s hair slightly bothered me most of the movie (but they didn’t give her a makeover, which I appreciate)

A little over the top in the school western vs Chinese instrument hierarchy, but that IS the point of the movie (the folk music department is literally behind a gate, which I found hilarious).

This was mainly on my watch list, because I figured the music would be good (I love a traditional instrument), and it turned out to be really enjoyable over all. Just a quick, fun watch. Most of the cons aren’t things that bothered me much, but I try to think about what might bother other people.

I just noticed there’s a flute/recorder part in that video and none of them play that… Luckily that stuff doesn’t really bother me if I’m enjoying the media.

Read the notes 😘

je croix que nous devons arrêter de parler anglais et semplicemente ricominciare a usare la nostra prima lingua quia istud clarum dii signum est ita ut nos ne loquamur barbarorum linguam

jin zixun has such a main character complex that he thinks wei wuxian, the yiling patriarch, declared enemy of the cultivation world cursed him specifically for something that happened like a year ago and when zixun accuses him of doing so wuxian’s like look man first off i don’t care about you enough to hold a grudge i only have a vague idea of who you are and second off it’s awful bold of you to assume i’d let you live if i did

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 8/8, pages 370 - end

The story is progressing!!!

“muttered into... ear" in Chinese here is 咬耳朵道, "bite ear said." Totally lets you know where Gu Yun is when he's talking to Tan Hongfei, yah?

Chinese for the entire 长庚 quote: 可惜没有长花容月貌，掷果盈车的大帅不肯要。

花容月貌 - flower appearance moon appearance (it sounds good in Chinese, trust me)

掷果盈车 - throw fruit fill carriage. There was this famously beautiful man name 潘安 Pan An (247-300 AD) who was so famously beautiful that when women saw his carriage coming, they would link hands and slow it down just to get a peak at him, and then they would throw flowers and fruit at him in appreciation, so that by the time he got home, his carriage was full of fruit and flowers. Famous Chinese Beauties <3

启明 Qiming -- Pleco: "Classical Chinese name for planet Venus in the east before dawn"

混账. Pleco: Noun. Vulgar. "scoundrel; bastard; son of a bitch"

But you can't say the latter two to Chang Geng, and I don't want to talk about body parts like that between Gu Yun and Chang Geng, so I think we should all read this as "Unreasonable Impudent Scoundrel."

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed learning about heel ropes and pills of immortality and historically significant hotness with me. I learn huge amounts of (Chinese and) Chinese culture every time I pick up a Priest book, and I hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do.

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

Is Chinese Concert Fashion more interesting than American Concert Fashion, or do I just not care enough about American Concert Fashion to pay attention?

Or are Hua ChenYu and Zhou Shen just more interesting than any other singers in the world?

Mars Concert 2021 - more pictures

sources 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6

I have some Nordic heritage and this hit me right between the smile and the tears.

I drew a little something for the Hiveworks micro comic summer~

Tumblr

Hiveworks Comics

It's time! Today is the day. Share the comic you've been working on all summer with the tag #MicroComicSummer

MDZS Volume 4 Annotations

Part 8, pages 267 - 288

More little clarifications :)

The Appendix has a “Time” section, but I always forget what each time period is called, so I wrote the times in here.

下不为例 is an awesome phrase. Nearly-literally, it means “this is not setting an example for the future.” Formally speaking, I’d translate it as “Don’t take this as precedent.” Here, I felt that “Just this once” conveys the feeling of the message best.

(“There will be no next time” is what I threaten my children with when they severely mess up, which is not the case here.)

More under the cut.

Please don’t refer to bone-bits as crumbs. I eat cookie crumbs with a spoon. I smoosh bread crumbs together and pop them in my mouth like little biscuits. I live off brownie crumbs for breakfast.

No bone crumbs, please.