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Meaning of poem in English is here.

《短歌行》 –李白– 白日何短短，百年苦易满。 苍穹浩茫茫，万劫太极长。 麻姑垂两鬓，一半已成霜。 天公见玉女，大笑亿千场。 吾欲揽六龙，回车挂扶桑。 北斗酌美酒，劝龙各一觞。 富贵非所愿���与人驻颜光。

For the meaning of the poem, read this. (It’s in Chinese.)

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Something more serious: The cost of supporting Trump for Christian evangelicals

When addressing the cost to Christian evangelicals in American for supporting Trump despite his overwhelming faults, this writer from The Atlantic puts it so well: 

In his marvelous book The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, Alan Jacobs tells about the theater critic and essayist Kenneth Tynan, who, after reading Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, said, “How thrilling he makes goodness seem—how tangible and radiant!” (At Oxford, Lewis was a tutor to Tynan, who was not himself a believer.)

Tynan perceived something essential about Lewis. One of his most impressive qualities was his ability to present the good life—and his Christian faith, which shaped his understanding of the good—as tangible and radiant, a thrilling and captivating journey, a way to find joy and fulfillment.

That was hardly the whole story. Lewis faced a crisis in faith late in his life, when he was overwhelmed by grief after his wife, Joy Davidman, died of cancer—a crisis he recovered from, but that left its mark. Still, because of his faith, Lewis’s life was more alluring, more captivating, more vivifying. It was said of Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien that they never lost their enchantment with the world.

The greatest cost of the Trump years to evangelical Christianity isn’t in the political sphere, but rather in what Christians refer to as bearing witness—showing how their lives have been transformed by their faith.

Much of the evangelical movement, in aligning itself with Donald Trump, has shown itself to be graceless and joyless, seized by fear, hypocritical, censorious, and filled with grievances. That is not true of all evangelicals, of course, and it’s not true of all evangelicals who are Trump supporters. But it’s true of enough of them, and certainly of the political leadership of the white evangelical movement, to have done deep injury to their public witness.

(Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/white-evangelicals-gambled-and-lost/613999/)

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“Do not give up asking the questions about why we live and what we live for. The moment you give up on that, the romance in life ends.”

— Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim

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“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel… is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

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“The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.”

— Charles Dickens

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You are too concerned with what was and what will be. –– Kung Fu Panda (2008)

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I’ve read the book and surprisingly, I liked it. Didn’t expect to as it looked so fluffy and was not directed at my...ahem...age group. Now, this scene makes me want to watch the show. The actress is really good! The guy’s not bad too. 

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) dir. Susan Johnson

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题都城南庄 ( 崔护)  载于《全唐诗》卷三百六十八

去年今日此门中， 人面桃花相映红。 人面不知何处去， 桃花依旧笑春风。

Translation from here:

Cui Hu (circa 796): At a Homestead South of the Capital City/Reminiscence

1 ‘Twas today, at this doorway, a year ago, 2 Her face and peach-blows re-doubly aglow. 3 Her face is gone now, whereto unknown, yet 4 Peach-blows beam on as spring-winds flow.

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Just the poem where the Chinese title of The Story of Ming Lan came from, but interpreted in plain English.

《如夢令》李清照 “As if a Dream” by Li Qingzhao

昨夜雨疏風驟，濃睡不消殘酒。 Last night the rain was sparse and the wind came sudden and fierce, deep sleep did not take away the last of my intoxication.

試問捲簾人，卻道海棠依舊。 I try asking the one rolling up the curtain, and I’m told the crab apple flowers are the same as always.

知否，知否，應是綠肥紅瘦。 Do you know, do you know - The green leaves should be thickly flourishing, and the red flowers lean and wilting.

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…I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.

Daphne du Maurier (via aliteraryprincess)

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I feel nostalgic looking at this. Can't quite replicate that same relaxed reading mood post exams any more.

my huckleberry friends || 你好，旧时光 → episode 28

yu zhouzhou and all of us post-exams

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Kanji calligraphy of Matsuo Basho’s haiku: Sake nomeba / Itodo nerarenu / Yoru no yuki (The more I drink / the more I can’t sleep / night snow). Source

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Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes was the first of my “adult” Chinese reading at 14 years old. Up till then, I had been reading English, mostly fantasy, books but when I picked up this series, I was hooked. Even though my command of Chinese was average, at best, I plowed through the traditional Chinese characters in my mother’s edition of the series. It was exciting and the language and people were so fascinating. Huang Rong was one of the best female lead characters I have ever read. 

RIP Jin Yong. I will always remember you. 

I am very sad to hear of the passing of Louis Cha, known to most as Jin Yong 金庸. He was the grandfather of the wuxia literary genre. His works (or rather, their 80’s era TV adaptations) imprinted on me hugely as a child, as stories where young female characters had just as much agency, intelligence, fighting capability, and importance as the boys in tales of martial arts derring-do.

His leading ladies in his Condor Heroes Trilogy will forever epitomize some of the ideals of positive representation of women in fiction. He always wrote a lot of wildly different women with different personalities, but he very rarely denied them their agency or their role to play in the unfolding story, or even their historical importance in the canon of his world. I will never fail to point out that Huang Rong 黃蓉 is remembered one hundred years after her death, equally alongside her husband, Guo Jing 郭靖 , not only for her cunning and intelligence, but also for her heroism and valor in defending Xiangyang against the invading Mongolian forces. That in his history, a woman is remembered for her deeds and her character, and never as man’s wife or a character’s daughter or mother, meant more to me as a little kid than I could have imagined or articulated at the time.

In this world of institutionalized racism and sexism, I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I have now without the confidence that Jin Yong’s characters instilled me at an early age. Though he wasn’t really writing more in his later years, his work still had a huge impact on the formation of my identity (and countless other young Chinese or girls of Chinese descent), and he will be missed.

RIP. If you’re interested in checking out Jin Yong’s wuxia world, there are a couple of ways it has now been accessible to English speakers.  The first act of the first book of the Condor Heroes Trilogy, known colloquially as “Legend of the Condor Heroes” or “Legend of the Eagle Shooting Heroes” is officially being translated as A Hero Born. More is supposed to coming soon. 

Fan translations are available as well of all the books in the series, and more, are available at WuxiaSociety. 

There are a lot of adaptations of the TV series, which on average some production company remakes once per decade. The 1980′s versions are the best, but more difficult to find to English-speakers, so I recommend checking out some of the more recent versions (2003, 2008 or 2017 for Legend of the Condor Heroes, 2006 for Return of the Condor Heroes, and 2009 for Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber) which you might be able to find on Youtube or other sites.

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Reminded me of when I was editing Math textbooks.

#tag yourself i’m Bob

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Isobel.“ Rook looked at me gravely."Isobel, listen. The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone, at any time.

Rook, pg 181, An Enchantment of Ravens

Margaret Rogerson

(via the-wrote-n-the-writ)

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Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees’ trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage’s luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn’t look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I’d never be able to drink it all in…

margaret rogerson