#jokes about classical chinese poets

[view-from-a-warm-place]

037 // Truth Time:  “I Am Bad At Maintaining Weblogs.”

Distractions VIII: “Stupid Jaywalking Game, Part II”

Okay, so it has been at least three weeks, going on one month, and I have said exactly jack squat. Until today! >:D

The truth is that I have been out of town with another fantastic girlfriend, and my attention has been divided badly between being with her and doing fun things and being in one of the United States’ republics with a reputation for being rather hostile towards no fewer than three of the minorities to which I belong. The former has certainly weighed more heavily on my productivity, but the latter contributed little, as well. In any case, I find myself back in my home now and am gleefully ensconced in my underachievement, staring at reflections in my own river of mediocrity, desperately fighting the urge to dive in and seize the glittering images taunting me from its surface. (Not in a Narcissus sort of way but more like Li Bai*.) Anyway, in the time since my return (it has been three days, more or less), I have managed to complete most of the code in my Stupid Jaywalking Game (and that is its working title, by the way) required for the automatic construction of Intersections and their attendant components, which include entry and egress points (Nodes) for vehicles transiting the intersection, generation of Routes for vehicles to follow between them, and methods which produce graphics which represent the intersection area to the player.

This is what it looks like so far:

The jumble of tabs and characters that creates this mess of pathways looks a little (exactly) like this:

... IXN = { 'center' : (300,300), 'control' : 'SIGN', # currently does nothing.    'edges' : {        'N' : {            'inputs' : {                'n_left' : ('ENTRY', (40, 40), (215, 40), ('B', 265, 40), (265, 90), (265, 220)),                'n_right' : ('ENTRY', (560, 40), (385, 40), ('B', 335, 40), (335, 90), (335, 220))                },            },        120 : {            'outputs' : {                '120_out' : (('A', 110, 120, (300,300)), ('A', 240, 120, (300,300)), ('B', 'A', 300, 120, (300,300), 12), (580, 450))                        },            },        240 : {            'outputs' : {                '240_out' : (('A', 110, 240, (300,300)), ('A', 240, 240, (300,300)), ('B', 'A', 300, 240, (300,300), 12), (20, 450))                        },           },        },    'links' : {        'n_left' : ('240_out','120_out'),        'n_right' : ('120_out',)            }    } ...

I have also reworked the vehicle navigation code, which, previously, was the software engineering equivalent of a Novocaine-addicted dog’s breakfast (”profoundly messy,” I mean). It was a bit of work but I find myself pleased with the results; I am also surprised that it was only a half-day’s work. I am not sure if the code runs faster (the most micro of optimizations, if better at all) but it sure does look better and it ought to be easier to maintain. More significantly, it ought to be able to include and respond to Stoplights and Stop Signs, which are instrumental considering that the whole purpose here is to create a predictable traffic regime for the player to negotiate and not just a busy roadway. All I need to do now is actually write the signal controllers for the intersections and get it working.

Anyway, there remain a few problems with the way vehicles respond to each other, and which may be an issue with their code or may be an issue with the obstacle-detection system entirely, and that still demands my attention, so there is a bit of ground to cover before I can move on to greater things.

I also miss working on my main project. It has been a month or two. Or three. I should like to maybe poke at it soon, as well, if for no other reason than to keep it fresh in my addled little mind. I think I also promised you guys a view of an animation I was working on before I started this whole jaywalking side-project affair, and I ought to make good on that, I suppose.

Anyway, I shall try and be more diligent in my updates, and where have you heard that before, I wonder? :y

See you next time! :D

* If you get this reference, drop me a line so that I may award you your fifteen points!

[sw1mmingfoolz]

went through the whole list xD

angel, daylight, dreams, gem, hunnybunch, kinky, rainbow, soft,

- livvie <3

thanks babes ily 🥺💕 thank you for asking as always hehe

angel; do you have a nickname?

not really, besides cait (or caits with my family lol). one of my friends calls me caitlin dicky cuz my second name is somewhat similar, and me and my sister have weird inside jokes like "jumbo john johnson flurgenschmurgen" or "old clockwise" but i don't have any cool nicknames with friends haha

daylight; favorite album of all time?

as everyone in my life knows - doppelgänger by the fall of troy. it isn't what anyone ever expects lol but it's a defining album of its genre, the fact they made it when they were like 18/19 gets me, the guitars are UNREAL (especially the fading ones at the end of mouths like sidewinder missiles... so so good) and the combination of actual singing with screaming is incredible. it isn't for everyone, i'm the only person in my life ik who is so passionate about it lol but it's a fan favourite album when it comes to the band :')

dreams; do you want or have any tattoos?

i don't have any right now but i want some and plan on getting my first soon after saving a little! i want the album art to doppelgänger on my thigh, a bunch of basic ass flower tattoos lol, certain quotes that mean a lot to me, something space related and something on my chest, honestly i have a lot of plans i just need the money to match heh

gem; who are your favorite tumblrs?

you obviously 😌 and uh @suhnshinehaos @wondernus @ravixen @husbandhoshi @starlightjoong @etherealyoungk and @mangogyu are all great writers (and ae is a great artist too!) as well as genuinely lovely souls :) i'm probably missing some of my lovely moots agsjdhdj this is by no means exhaustive

hunnybunch; what sounds help you sleep?

i listen to thrash metal to fall asleep and i'm not joking LMAO :') sometimes it is tfot, sometimes slayer, sometimes more classic heavy rock with metallica... idk chaos does it for me :') otherwise i listen to synthwave (i love carpenter brut), kpop, or the birds outside my window at 5am agskdhdj

kinky; do you blush easily?

extremely 😭 i get flustered easily and am very very pale so it shows up easily too, it's a curse istg

rainbow; what was the last line of the last book you read?

it was an anthology of translated chinese poems, the last line being simply "See, they come." from the Ha Jin poem 'They Come'. Great poem by a great poet :)

soft; describe your favourite spot in your house.

my living room! i viewed 3 apartments and got the biggest one; i saw one with a bigger bedroom but i wanted a lot of living room space. my sofa is comfy and is where i spend a lot of my day, it's grey and has teal cushions and is a nice place to watch tv lol. the tv was given to me by my grandma and i watch youtube on it with my switch (animal crossing edition baybeee) and has my two fave plushies (a frog called mr baxendale and a bat called fruitcake) on either side. i have a rug with a big centre table and a smaller table underneath it and a blue armchair and my kitchen is right behind me which is great cuz i snack constantly lol :') it's comfy despite being small and really tidy and already has nice memories here so yeah haha

[hunxi-guilai]

Hello! It’s me, the funerary ritual person swinging back to ask if u know of any poems about death/grieving?

(funerary ritual!!! always a fascinating time)

oh boy oh BOY do I have good news for you!!!! There’s a whole genre of poems in Chinese called 悼亡诗 daowang shi, which originally referred to those poems written by a man mourning his deceased wife, but has later come to encompass the mourning of all family members and friends. The tradition is chock full of grief/mourning poems.

Baidu-Baike tells me that the origin of the term 悼亡 came from the Western Jin era (roundabout 3rd-4th century C.E.), in a collection of three poems by 潘岳 Pan Yue in memory of his wife of twenty-four years. The second of the three begins:

皎皎窗中月，/ Clear and bright, the moon in the window

照我室南端。/ Shining on the southern edge of my room

清商应秋至，/ The qingshang music echoes the autumn equinox

溽暑随节阑。/ The damp summer follows to its close

凛凛凉风升，/ Cold and severe, a cool wind rises

始觉夏衾单。/ I begin to feel my summer robes few

岂曰无重纩，/ How can I speak of lacking thick silk layers?

谁与同岁寒。/ Who will endure the winter of years with me?

(full text -- alas, could not find a translated version -- can be found on baidu-baike here)

But just because that’s where the genre name is coined doesn’t mean that folks weren’t mourning their dead family members from the beginning of written language. We could head all the way back to the beginning, with the 《诗经》 Shijing / Classic of Odes -- off the top of my head, there’s 蓼莪 Liao’e in the 《小雅》section, which specifically mourns one’s parents: 

蓼蓼者莪、匪莪伊蒿。

哀哀父母、生我劬勞。

Long and large grows the e; 

It is not the e but the hao.

Alas! alas! my parents,

With what toil ye gave me birth!

(full text and translation of this poem can be found on ctext by James Legge)

Once you get to the Tang Dynasty, you’ve got 元稹 Yuan Zhen and 白居易 Bai Juyi holding down the fort:

《遣悲怀三首·其二》/ “Three Poems Dispelling the Sorrow in My Heart,” the second

元稹 Yuan Zhen

昔日戏言身后意，/ In bygone days, we joked about time after death

今朝都到眼前来。/ Today, it has come to pass before my eyes

衣裳已施行看尽，/ Your old clothes, I’ve given completely away

针线犹存未忍开。/ Your sewing box, I’ve yet to open

尚想旧情怜婢仆，/ Thinking of our old love, I take pity on your servant girls

也曾因梦送钱财。/ For a dream [of you], I’ve given them money

诚知此恨人人有，/ I understand, with my heart, that everyone has this sorrow

贫贱夫妻百事哀。/ Penniless and poor, husband and wife, a hundred griefs

Here’s one of Bai Juyi mourning Li Bai:

《李白墓》Li Bai’s Tomb

采石江边李白坟，/ By the Caishi riverside -- Li Bai’s tomb,

绕田无限草连云。/ Circling the grave, grass unceasing runs to the clouds

可怜荒垄穷泉骨，/ Pity the desolate earth, the bones buried deep beneath*

曾有惊天动地文。/ they once held words to shock the heavens and shake the earth

但是诗人多薄命，/ but poets are often born under unlucky stars

就中沦落不过君。/ they fall, mid-journey, and none surpass you.

*there’s a reference here to 黄泉 huangquan / ‘the Yellow Springs,’ i.e. the underworld, that I didn’t translate

And I would be horribly, horribly remiss if I didn’t include this mourning poem to end all mourning poems by 苏轼 Su Shi:

《红城子·乙卯正月二十日夜记梦》Son of the Red City· Record of a Dream, On the Twentieth Day of the First Month 

十年生死两茫茫，/ Ten years parted by life and death,

不思量，/ won’t think back

自难忘。/ hard to forget

千里孤坟，/ A thousand miles distant, a lonely grave

无处话凄凉。/ nowhere to speak of my loneliness and desolation

纵使相逢应不识，/ If we met again, we would not know each other

尘满面，/ face of dust

鬓如霜。/ hair of frost.

夜来幽梦忽还乡, / Night comes, faint dreams, suddenly returned home

小轩窗，/ by the window

正梳妆。/ brushing your hair

相顾无言，/ Eyes meet, wordless

惟有泪千行。/ only a thousand tracks of tears

料得年年断肠处，/ who could have guessed these years of broken hearts

明月夜，/ a moonlit night

短松冈。/ short pine hill.

ffs Su Shi let me LIVE

I don’t usually go past the Tang/Song era in terms of poetry, which means I’ve been neglecting another one of my favorite 词 poets of all time, 纳兰性德 Nalan Xingde (courtesy name 容若 Rongruo), who’s actually a fascinating figure -- he’s early Qing Dynasty, part of the Manchurian ruling class, but deeply appreciative of Han Chinese culture and ended up studying the language well-enough to become a highly respected poet. He also has quite a few 悼亡 daowang poems to his name.

Also, he died at the age of 30. talk about poets born under unlucky stars, Bai Juyi

Because this is a CQL blog, I gotta talk about 《木兰花令》, because it has the line 人生若只如初见, which is the title of this tear-jerker track on the CQL OST

人生若只如初见，/ In life, if we could be as when we first met

何事秋风悲画扇 / What need would would we have to mourn painted fans when the autumn winds arrive? [1]

等闲变却故人心，/ Thoughtlessly, change twists your heart, old friend

却道故人心易变 / yet you say to me that the hearts of old friends change easily

骊山语罢清宵半，/ Words spoken at Li Mountain, a clear dawn, a vow [2]

泪雨零铃终不怨 / Tears like rain patter down, but in the end, no resentment

何如薄幸锦衣郎，/ How can you compare to that unlucky man in embroidered robes?

比翼连枝当日愿 / who wishes, to this day, to be biyi birds, entwined trees

references, references, references in this poem!

[1] an anecdote of a Han Dynasty concubine who compared herself to a fan in autumn -- to be left aside and forgotten, now that the need for it and the summer heat has passed

[2] here, and for the rest of the poem, Nalan Xingde is referencing the sweeping love story of Tang Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan, immortalized in this epic Bai Juyi poem, containing some of the quintessential allusions and metaphors hereafter used in descriptions of undying love

One last Nalan Xingde poem, and then I gotta run:

《画堂春》Painted Hall in Spring (this is a 词牌 cipai, i.e. the melody the poem was supposed to be set to as lyrics, and has no relevance to the content of the poem)

一生一代一双人，/ One life, one age, a pair of people

争教两处销魂 / but we are separated, our souls overwhelmed with sorrow

相思相望不相亲，/ thinking of you, gazing at you, but never coming close

天为谁春 / who does the spring come for?

浆向蓝桥易乞，/ It would be easy to meet on Lan Bridge,*

药成碧海难奔 / what’s hard is escaping to the jade-green ocean*

若容相访饮牛津，/ If only we could meet, and drink of heavenly waters*

相对忘贫 / facing each other, we would forget hardship

*playing it fast and loose here with translating allusions, because in these three lines Nalan Xingde is calling on three separate myths of star-crossed lovers -- 裴航 Pei Hang, 后羿 Hou Yi and 嫦娥 Chang’e, 牛郎 Niu Lang and 织女 Zhi Nv

Ooof, started getting a little side-tracked at the end here towards love poetry, but given the origins of 悼亡 daowang poetry in specifically mourning your dead spouse, you can see where the line starts to get fuzzy.

(here are another 32 poems that are tagged with ‘悼亡’ daowang on shicimingju.com for your further perusal!)

[dramapic]

MASTERLIST

I update this list everytime I watch and review a show. 

Disclaimer: These reviews are subjective and only reflect my opinions. There are no drama on that list that I’ve turned off and all are worthy of a watch. 

Recs welcome!

#1 Crash landing on you 

(사랑의 불시착)

Grade: A++

Genre: Modern, Star-Crossed lovers

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Son Ye-jin (who plays Yoon Se-ri) and Hyun Bin (Ri Jeong-hyeok) have amazing chemistry and every episode plays out like the chapters of an excellent fanfiction. Classic romantic tropes, humour, angst, action, CLOY has it all. Moreover, if you’ve never watched a Kdrama in your life, CLOY is a great starting point—not only will it introduce you to Korean culture but also to popular tropes and codes of the genre.

#2 Rookie historian Goo Hae-ryung 

(신입사관 구해령)

Grade: A++

Genre: Historical, Age gap

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Delightful from end to end, with lots of humour and an engaging story. The romance between Goo Hae-ryung and himbo-prince Dowon will make your heart go soft, especially if you’re into reverse gender dynamics (she’s older and kisses him first *le gasp*)

#3 Memories of the Alhambra 

(알함브라 궁전의 추억)

Grade: B+

Genre: Modern; Sci-fi; Fantasy

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: No

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Intriguing premise, great cast and tons of special effects but the romance between Jin-woo (Hyun Bin) and Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye) won't go down in history. On top of that, the ending is a bit wishy-washy in that annoying “maybe there’s more to come” kind of way. Give us a clear cut ending, damnit!

#4 Good doctor 

(굿 닥터)

Grade: B- 

Genre: Modern, Medical drama

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Good heart but the writing is really clumsy at times and the hospital politics don’t make an awful lot of sense. On the bright side, Joo Won is great in the role of Park Si-on.

Note: I haven’t watched the American remake so can’t compare. 

#5 My love from the star/ You from the stars

(별에서 온 그대)

Grade: A

Genre: Modern, Sci-fi, fantasy, Star-Crossed lovers

Episodes: 21

Happy Ending: Yes-ish

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Jun Ji-hyun is absolutely stellar in the role of Cheon Seong-yi, a ditzy Hallyu* star whose career is going south while Kim Soo-hyun plays the emotionally closed-off alien to perfection. Lots of pinning, a dose of angst mixed with a pinch of wacky humor. 

*Hallyu means “Korean wave” in Chinese and refers to the popularity and spreading of Korean pop-culture outside of Korea. 

#6 Hwarang The Poet Warrior Youth 

(화랑)

Grade: B

Genre: Historical, Coming of age, fake siblings who catch feels

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Cute boys and interesting lore rooted in true facts (the bone rank system and the real Hwarang, the “Flowering Knights” of the Silla kingdom) but the story drags. I guess I expected more bromance and frolicking and less angst. Lastly, the main girl starts off quirky and fun but they quickly transform her into a sobbing mess which becomes real annoying real fast. 

#7 Love in the Moonlight / Moonlight Drawn by Clouds (구르미 그린 달빛)

Grade: A 

Genre: Historical, Romance, Coming of age, Posing as the opposite sex

Episodes: 18

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

A classic tale of a girl raised as a boy who ends up in a situation where she needs to do her best to not blow her cover while catching feels (As someone raised on Versailles no bara and Ribbon no Kishi, it remains one of my favourite tropes)

Sweet romance and good characters. The fact that Crown prince Lee Yeong doesn't turn emo when he starts developing feelings for Eunuch Ra-on before discovering she's a girl is the cherry on top of the cake. 

#8 Something in the rain

(밥 잘 사주는 예쁜 누나)

Grade: C 

Genre: Modern

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes, but it still doesn't make you happy

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Wasted potential! 

Great start but the characterization falls apart quickly and you end up wondering why the main characters keep sabotaging their lives. By the end, despite their reunion, you're left with the impression they've learned nothing and that their relationship is doomed to fall apart. 

On top of it all, watching Jin-ah fight sexism in the workplace and gaining nothing is depressing af (I don’t need realism in my escapism, thank you very much).

Too bad because Son Ye-jin and Jung Hae-in look really good together and the acting is top-notch. My advice is to watch the first 8 episodes then make up your own ending in your head.

#9 Moon embracing the sun 

(해를 품은 달)

Grade: B+

Genre: Historical,Star-Crossed lovers

Episodes: 22

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

A traditional historical drama with all the tropes that go with the genre + a hint of esoterism.

If you love ill-fated relationships, tragic love triangle, evil queens, and amnesia, this is the show for you. Beware, the interrogation/torture scenes are rather brutal. 

#10 My sassy girl 

(엽기적인 그녀)

Grade: B- 

Genre: Historical, Rom-Com

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Cute and lighthearted but easily forgettable. Still worth a watch thanks to Joo Won & Oh Yeon-seo's chemistry. 

#11 Coffee Prince 

(커피프린스 1호점)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern, Posing as the opposite sex

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Solid story, great cast but be ready for a lot of bickering. 

Yoon Eun-hye is a precious bean who manages to sell the story of Eun-chan, a struggling androgynous working-class girl who mistakenly gets hired by a rich guy to play his boyfriend, then becomes his employee, then falls for him while not correcting his assumptions about her gender. Opposite her, Gong Yoo (from Train to Busan fame) is 🥰🥰🥰

Sidenote: Despite Han-kyul's struggle to accept his feelings for Eun-chan, homosexuality isn't treated as a joke or a shameful thing. The one time he goes seek “medical help”, the doctor is depicted as an old, clueless idiot. And honestly, the story would work too if Eun-chan was a guy. 

#12 My girlfriend is a Gumiho/My girlfriend is a Nine-tailed fox 

(내 여자친구는 구미호)

Grade: B+

Genre: Modern; Fantasy

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki - Available on Netflix (FR) too

Campy and goofy. It does look a bit dated (it’s from 2010) and the story is a little predictable but Lee Seung-gi as Cha Dae-woong, an aspiring action film actor and Shin Min-ah as “Gu Mi-ho” the nine-tailed fox looking for a mate are super cute. The show is also a good introduction to Korean folklore.

#13 Goblin / Guardian: The Lonely and Great God / The Lonely and Great God – Goblin 

(쓸쓸하고 찬란하神 – 도깨비)

Grade: A+ 

Genre:  Modern, Historical, Fantasy, bromance

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes-ish

Watched on: Viki 

Unpopular opinion but since I’m not into older guys, I wasn’t invested in the romance between Bride and Goblin until late in the series. I loved everything else though. The show has such a unique tone and atmosphere. It goes from super serious to goofy in no time. The cinematography is gorgeous (especially the historical sets) and you'll cry your eyes out.

#14 Healer 

(힐러)

Grade: A 

Genre:  Modern

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

If you're into toll broody guys and fearless smoll girls, you’ll love Healer. The story is great, the characters are great and the way Jung-hu (played by Ji Chang-wook) and Ji-an (Park Min-young) are horny for each other is peak drama! *chef kiss*

#15 Kangchi the beginning/Gu family book 

(구가의 서)

Grade: B- 

Genre: Historical, Fantasy

Episodes:

Happy Ending: No

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Engaging coming of age story of a half-human half-gumiho looking for his place in this world. If it wasn't for the wishy-washy ending it could have been the perfect mix of action fantasy and romance. 

Special mention for Dam Yeo-wool (played by Suzie Bae) who is a female character who's allowed to be a bit of everything at the same time (strong, kick-ass, funny, cute, romantic) 

#16 Queen for seven days 

(7일의 왕비)

Grade: A 

Genre:  Historical, Romance, Villainous crush

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: No

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

With that title don’t expect a HEA but there are plenty of sweet moments along the way to make you appreciate the journey. 

Chae-kyung loves the Prince and the Prince loves Chae-kyung but the King wants to kill the Prince and Chae-kyung is loyal to the King but the King is a tyrant and everyone wants the Prince to take his throne. On top of that the King wants Chae-kyung. Big mess. Lots of feels.

The story is (very) loosely based on real-life Queen Dangyeong, which makes it even more poignant. I cried my eyes out at the end because I’m a big softy.   

#17 Korean Odyssey

(화유기)

Grade: A-

Genre: Modern, Fantasy

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Kinda

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

The show (very loosely based on Journey to the West) has its faults including the wishy-washy ending and the fact that Jin Seon-mi/Sam-jang starts off as a doormat but I ended up liking the relationship developing between the assholish Monkey god and the naive human girl more than I expected.

The side characters are compelling, and the banter and bickering between the deities work really well. If you grew up with Dragon ball, you’ll have a blast trying to match-up the Japanese and Korean names of everyone without looking up Wikipedia.

Lastly, not something I imagined saying after seeing him in Gumiho and Gu family book but Lee Seung-gi as Son Oh-gong = BDE *fans herself* 🥵

#18 Strong Girl Bong-soon 

(힘쎈여자 도봉순)

Grade: A- 

Genre:  Modern, Super-Heroine

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Trigger warning: Graphic depiction of violence against women

A++ super-heroine story, bad side characters 

First, every girl should aspire to find a Min-hyuk in their life. Someone who'll love them because of their strength, and support them unconditionally. Someone who won't ask them to change or pretend to be somebody else.

Second, western media should learn that a super-heroine can HAVE IT ALL—the superpowers AND the love AND the family. 

My only complaint with the show (and that's why I gave A- instead of A++) is the inclusion of many cringy side characters/situations that spoiled my overall enjoyment (see the caricatural flamboyant gay co-worker, Bong-soon’s mom hitting her dad, the mobsters...)

#19 The K2 

(더 케이투)

Grade: B- 

Genre: Modern, Political

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

The romance is bad and the political story far-fetched but Ji Chang-wook is 🔥🔥PEAK HOTTIE🔥🔥

That being said, I didn’t completely dislike the political intrigue and it was interesting to see the good guy working for the villains (sort of). 

#20 Weightlifting fairy Kim Bok-joo 

(역도요정 김복주)

Grade: A+ 

Genre:  Modern, Coming of age

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Uplifting coming of age story and super sweet romance. Bok-joo (Lee Sung-kyung) & Joon-hyung (Nam Joo-hyuk) are precious children on top of being cutie-patooties. Bok-joo’s insecurities hit hard, especially if you’ve ever been outside the norm of beauty standards.

I liked how the show normalizes therapy and taking care of your mental health.

In one word…

SWAG! 

#21 The scholar who walks the night 

(밤을 걷는 선비)

Grade: B 

Genre:  Historical, Fantasy, Vampire, posing as the opposite sex

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Guilty pleasure. 

Don’t ask me about the details of the main storyline, I’ve already forgotten most of it. Sometimes all you need is a show where a hundred-something years old good vampire with a sad backstory and the main girl who is thirsty for the good vampire are fighting a sexy evil vampire. 

PS: Did I mention the sexy evil vampire?

#22 Romance is a bonus book 

(로맨스는 별책부록)

Grade: A+ 

Genre: Modern, Friends to lovers

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Imagine reading a relaxing book under a cozy blanket while sipping hot cocoa. That’s how that series made me feel. 

Everything is sweet and soft from the characters' fluffy jumpers to the soft palette of color used for the sets. People make books and love books. There’s a mystery but no unnecessary angst. If you need a break from everything, jump in that ship. 

#23 Hotel Del Luna 

(호텔 델루나)

Grade: A- 

Genre: Modern  

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Sorta

Watched on: Viki - Available on Netflix (FR) too

Interesting world-building and a good cast of side characters but the romance lacks a bit of oomph. 

On the + side, the hotel sets are gorgeous and Man-wol's wardrobe is to kill for.

#24 Suspicious Partner 

(수상한 파트너)

Grade: A- 

Genre: Modern, Star-crossed lovers in an office

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Toll serious who hates criminal falls for smoll weirdo falsely accused of murder. A must watch for anyone in search of a quirky romance.

#25 Touch your heart 

(진심이 닿다)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern  

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

Tooth rotting sweetness. The series is just a pretext to watch two good looking people (Lee Dong-wook and Yoo In-na) being nice and awkward around each other. What do you need more? 0

Note: If you watched Goblin you can also pretend it's a spin-off series about the reincarnations of Grim Reaper and Sunny. 💡

#26 Because this is my first life 

(이번 생은 처음이라)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern, Fake marriage

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

The Fake Marriage AU you’re looking for, mixed with slices of modern, messy, complicated life. 

The main storyline revolves around Ji-ho an assistant drama screenwriter who struggles to find her place within the patriarchal structure of Korean society, and Se-hee, a socially incompetent computer designer who only cares for his cat and his mortgage. The way they end up in a fake marriage as well as the development of their relationship feels organic and doesn’t rely too heavily on comedy like it’s often the case with that trope.

The show also follows the stories of Ji-ho’s friends, Su-ji and Ho-rang who have different aspirations in life—Su-ji’s goal is to become CEO while Ho-rang only cares about becoming a housewife. I loved that the show makes a point to not pit women against each other and advocate living your life the way YOU want rather than trying to follow societal expectations of what love, work and marriage should look like. 

Also they have the cutest cat.

#27 What's wrong with Secretary Kim? 

(김비서가 왜 그럴까 )

Grade: A- 

Genre: Modern  

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

I wish Secretary Kim had more agency in certain situations but the romance develops well and the horny moments are caliente 🥵🔥 

#28 Where your eyes linger 

(너의 시선이 머무는 곳에)

Grade: A++ 

Genre: Modern, BL, Coming of age, Friends to lovers

Episodes: 8

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

Bite-size BL gem to devour in one sitting. 

Stellar acting from the two leads and the balance between fluff and angst is just right. There's no graphic violence that sometimes plagues yaoi and BL and the story is believable. I got emo remembering my first love. 

#29 Live up to your name 

(명불허전)

Grade: A- 

Genre: Modern, Historical, Time travel, Star-crossed lovers

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Trigger warning for graphic depiction of violence

Big surprise. I was looking for a cheesy comedy but it was actually a thoughtful story about humanism. I even teared up a little. 

Trigger warning for needles. They do some pretty impressive procedures with those acupuncture needles. 

#30 W - Two Worlds Apart 

(더블유)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern  

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Imaginary men > Real men, especially when they're played by Lee Jong-suk. Nuf’ said.

Imaginary men > Real men, especially when they're played by Lee Jong-suk.

The silly premise hides a solid story that keeps you on your toes and I was suprised by the rollercoaster of emotions I went through.

“Option 3″

“That’s 4 fingers”

#31 Life 

(라이프)

Grade: C 

Genre: Modern

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Kinda

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Unless you want to learn how fucked up the private health sector is becoming in Korea, there's not much to gain watching this show. 

The story starts off well though. The problem is that by the middle of the series the writers have dropped the main mystery (the circumstances surrounding the death of the director) to deliver an exposé on the political machinations of big corporations, and then shoehorn an explanation at the last minute (“it was all but a misunderstanding”). Very underwhelming.

The relationship between the two brothers played by Lee Dong-wook and Lee Kyu-hyung is the only bright spot.

#32 Pinocchio 

(피노키오)

Grade: A- 

Genre: Modern, Fake family members who catch feels

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

On paper, the story sounds a little crazy but it all comes together nicely.

Lee Jong-suk and Park Shin-hye have great chemistry and deliver a stellar performance as “uncle” and “niece” (not related by blood) who can’t fight the romantic feelings they harbor for one another. The main storyline has enough twists to keep you entertained and surprised. 

My only complaint is that it drags a little. 16 episodes would have been enough. 

#33 My Holo Love 

(나 홀로 그대)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern, Sci-fi

Episodes: 12

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Fake men > Real men 

Imagine a Black Mirror episode about a love triangle between a woman suffering from face blindness, an emotionally supportive AI boyfriend and the disenchanted creator of said AI, minus the nihilism. *chef kiss*

#34 Legend of the blue sea 

(푸른 바다의 전설)

Grade: B++ 

Genre: Modern, Fantasy, Fairy tale, Star-crossed lovers

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

Park Ji-eu (the writer) read the little mermaid and decided to give her a happy ending. Great chemistry between Lee Min-ho and Jun Ji-hyun but the spark is missing for me. 

The antics of modern-day mermaid Shim Cheong are a little predictable and Joon-jae needs to be less of a control freak at times but the story remains enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised to see Shim Cheong’s character grow, making the power imbalance between the clueless mermaid and the con-artist less pronounced by the end of the series. 

The side characters are interesting but underused, and I wish Tae-oh was more developed. On the other hand, the Joseon area sets and costumes are absolutely gorgeous (Don’t tell anyone but Joseon!Lee Min-ho is hotter than Modern!Lee Min-ho 🥵)

#35 Tale of Arang / Arang and the Magistrate 

(아랑사또전)

Grade: B 

Genre: Historical, Fantasy,

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

One word: Campy.

Interesting lore but the pacing is a little off—there’s a lot of back and forth between the characters and the locations and the love triangle doesn't add much. 

#36 My ID is Gangnam Beauty / Gangnam Beauty  

(내 아이디는 강남미인)

Grade: A+ 

Genre: Modern, Coming of age

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

If you’ve ever been bullied for your looks, you’re gonna bawl your eyes out. 

The show does a great job of calling out the unhealthy beauty standards imposed on Korean women but the topic is universal enough for the story to resonate with everyone. I love that you never see Mi-rae’s old face because it’s not our perception of her lack of beauty that matters but the fact she suffers greatly. Don’t you hate in western shows when they take a beautiful actress, give her a pair of glasses or a fat suit and call her ugly, making sure the audience feels shittier about themselves? Here, the writers concentrate on Mi-rae’s transformation and her coping with the consequences of her decision to do plastic surgery. 

It’s also not a revenge fantasy where the ugly duckling suddenly becomes the most popular girl at school. Being a “Gangnam beauty” leads to a new form of suffering. 

Romance-wise, it’s the slowest burn of slow burns because Mi-rae and Do Kyung-seok are the most socially awkward beans on the planet. I love them, Your Honor. 

#37 Tale of Nokdu 

(조선로코-녹두전)

Grade: A

Genre: Historical, Posing as the opposite sex

Episodes: 32 x 30mns

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki - Now available on Netflix (FR)

Fun and lighthearted all the way through.

The story of a guy who puts on a dress to investigate a village of widows could have gone very wrong but it was well handled. It’s refreshing to see the classic trope of posing as the opposite sex reversed and Jang Dong-yoon is never cringy when he’s pretending to be Lady Kim Nok-soon.

#38 Bride of Habaek / Bride of the Water God

(하백의 신부 2017)

Grade: B

Genre: Modern, Fantasy

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Content warning: Crime against fashion

Promising premise and lore (I'm interested in reading the original comics now) but the writing fails to deliver an epic romance and a cathartic ending. Moreover, the sets lack imagination (or money?) and in the end I failed to ever feel immersed in a fantasy world.

The unfortunate consequence of the clumsy writing is that the male characters who are meant to be arrogant/confident Gods (Habaek and By-ryeom) sound like they're negging their love interests more than wooing them, and the relationship between Mu-ra and By-ryeom particularly irked me.

#39 Strangers from Hell / Hell is other people 

(타인은 지옥이다) 

Grade: A+

Genre: Modern, Psychological Thriller

Episodes: 10

Happy Ending: Spoiler

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Content warning: Violence 

What a departure from everything else in that list! Absolutely worth a watch if you enjoy thrillers and shows like Hannibal. If psychological horror isn’t your cup of tea though, you might give it a pass. 

The storyline and the characters are a little cliché (it goes with the genre) but the cinematography and photography are fantastic. You can notice how the pension becomes more and more sinister throughout the series via the use of dark greens and browns and pale yellows, as opposed to the mundanity and coldness of the city (greys, and cold blues).

Last but not least, the acting is top-tiers. Im Siwan does a great job at portraying Jong-woo, an aspiring crime novelist who slowly loses his marbles but the true revelation for me is Lee Dong-wook. After seeing him so many times in roles where he plays awkward yet charming men who can barely express emotions, I was intrigued to see him take on the role of a serial killer, and holy cow, he's the perfect mix of sinister and alluring. Towards the end of the series, his character Moon-jo acts like a black-hole whenever he appears in a scene—a towering, dark presence who sucks the light out of the room (If he carries any of that darkness in the upcoming Tale of Gumiho, it’s gonna be *chef kiss*).

#40 Empress Ki 

(기황후)

Grade: A

Genre: Historical, posing as the opposite sex

Episodes: 51

Happy Ending: From a certain point of view

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Trigger warning for violence against women (not graphic but implied)

51 episodes.

Fifty.One.Episodes.

That's a lot of episodes considering the story starts with the ending. 

Did I enjoy this show? Yes, very much so. Do I think it's for everyone? Nope. 

You'll enjoy Empress Ki if you're into old-school historical sagas or you wished Game of thrones had no gratuitous nudity and violence. If you’re looking for an historically accurate biography of the real empress Ki though, then look away because Empress Ki is basically a lengthy fanfiction trying to justify how the Goryeo native Seung-nyang married the wimpy Emperor of the Yuan dynasty whilst trying to portray her as loyal to her motherland and to her first love, the Crown Prince of Goryeo. 

Personally, I didn’t care for the love triangle formed by Seung-nyang (Ha Ji-won), Wang-yoo (Joo Jin-mo) and Toghon Temür (Ji Chang-wook) but I liked the politics and the backstabbing. Also, contrary to GoT, the bad guys get their comeuppance at the end so it makes watching the side characters die less painful.

#41 Meow, the secret boy / Welcome 

(어서와)

Grade: B-

Genre: Modern, Modern fantasy

Episodes: 24 x 35mns 

Happy Ending: I guess

Watched on: Viki

How do I put it? It's not *terribad* but it's not *good* either. 

I was super on board with the concept—if Lee Seung-gi can bang a nine-tailed fox in My girlfriend is a gumiho, I have zero issues with Sol ah, our heroine, falling in love with Hong-jo the cat-person after being dumped for no reason by Jae-sun her boyfriend—but it didn’t exactly develop that way, and as soon as they explained why Jae-sun had broken up with Sol-ah, the writers lost me because I like when things happen for a reason. 

#42 Clean with a passion for now 

(일단 뜨겁게 청소하라!!)

Grade: A-

Genre: Modern, Rom-Com

Episodes: 16 

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Super zany and tropey but that’s why it works so well. The only reason I’m giving it a minus is because it’s trying to be woke but in the end there’s still a lot of unsolicited grabbing and some iffy remarks/pick-up lines said by every male characters (IRL that’s the kind of story that ends up with a restraining order and a lawsuit for sexual harassment).

#43 Mystic pop-up bar 

(쌍갑포차)

Grade: A

Genre: Modern, Fantasy

Episodes: 12

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Trigger warning: Heavy themes (miscarriage, pregnancy, loss of a child, death of loved ones)

You know how the meme goes... Sometimes a family is a hot-tempered bar owner, a cursed kid and an ex-Afterlife-Police officer with a secret past. 

It took me a few episodes to get into it, but once the characters were established it became really enjoyable. 

The tone of the series leans toward wacky but the core of the story is actually pretty dark if you look into it. Every grudge they solve for their “clients” gives a clue about Wol-joo’s personal story and by the last episode I was crying my eyes out.

Last but not least, Wol-joo’s collection of modernized hanboks is *chef kiss*

#44 My secret Terrius 

(내 뒤에 테리우스)

Grade: A

Genre: Modern, Action, Comedy, Bromance

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

An enjoyable action drama to watch with your family or your significant other.

Koreans prove that you can write a story about a black ops agent on the run who becomes a childminder without reeking of toxic masculinity. Contrary to American comedies where the manly-man-hero working undercover is incompetent and believes that working with children is a woman’s job and a waste of his manly-man talents until he has an epiphany of some sorts, Kim Bon (played by So Ji-sub) never once expresses discomfort to the idea of looking after two kids. In spite of his sober demeanor, he’s a caring and attentive person from the start and watching him gradually becoming a part of this spunky family while investigating a national security threat made my heart go awww.

Opposite him, fearless and resourceful mom Go Ae-rin (played Jung In-sun) brings a lot of energy, and the twins are absolutely adorable.

#45 Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo

(달의 연인 - 보보경심 려)

Grade: A--

Genre: Historical  

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: No

Watched on: Random streaming site

Don’t get attached—Moon Lovers is the missing link between Empress Ki and Boys over flowers, but with a sad ending.

I did binge watch the series but there are some frustrating aspects to it that prevented me from giving a perfect score, notably the fact that Wang So remains possessive and demanding with Hae Soo throughout the years—for instance “You’re my person” is a romantic statement until it evolves into “You can never leave me.”

The other problem of the series is that Lee Ji-eun (UI) does cute and goofy really well, but she doesn’t have the emotional range needed to portray a character who goes through many heartbreaks and betrayals. As a result, Hae Soo appears a little fickle in her infatuations with the princes.  

That being said if you’re a sucker for tragic romance and you believe that power corrupts even the purest of love, you’ll have a blast.

#46 Forest 

(포레스트)

Grade: B++

Genre: Modern, Romance

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

UST in the woods (Dat first kiss 🥵🥵🥵)

The characters and the story are a little cliché but who doesn’t love a story where the protagonists are clearly attracted to each other but can’t act on their desires because their moral values are opposite?

*slams fist*

San Hyeok is your typical heartless businessman who refuses to confront his childhood trauma, and Yeong Jae is a surgeon who suffers from panic attacks and cares too much about other people. They’re both good looking and fate brings them to a remote village in the middle of the forest where they have to share a house. Really, I wonder what’s gonna happen?

#47 100 Days My Prince / Hundred days husband

(백일의 낭군님)

Grade: B+

Genre: Historical

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki 

Trigger warning: Important character death.

Cute and charming but also very annoying at times. Obviously, the story is tropey af (fake marriage doubled with amnesia, you can’t really beat that) but it also includes elements I’ve never seen in any other dramas like the fact that the Crown Princess is pregnant with another man’s child (le gasp!). The things that annoy me the most were the unnecessary flip-flopping of the heroine towards the end of the show for the sake of creating artificial drama (just let them be together FFS!) and the fact that the male characters take a lot of decisions for Yeon Hong-shim.

Romance wise, Do Kyung-soo and Nam Ji-hyun are really cute together but in the end I found myself more interested in the political intrigue and the side characters than the main romance because slow burn has its limit. In essence, it’s the perfect drama to watch with your conservative family because whilst the main couple is living under the same roof and is technically married they don’t get frisky. 

#48 I Am Not A Robot (로봇이 아니야)

Grade: A++

Genre: Modern

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Angsty with a good pay-off.

With a premise like that, things could have gone wrong really quickly but the writers managed to write a story that isn’t a man wanting to fuck a robot because real women are scary so big kudos for them. Seeing Min-kyu celebrating his Roomba’s birthday because he has no other friends will instantly melt your heart and from that point on you’ll cheer for his recovery. The show has the right amount of angst without becoming a mess and they handle the big reveal very well, making sure to show how hurt both Min-kyu and Ji-ah are by the situation, without making you doubt that they can find each other again. The other strong point of the show is that it’s not just about romance, it’s also about friendship and learning to let other people in your life. 

The acting is incredible to the point that by the end I wondered if Yoo Seung-ho and Chae Soo-bin were making out in front of my salad or if I was still watching the characters Min-kyu and Ji-ah being lovey dovey. 

#49 Sungkyunkwan Scandal (성균관 스캔들)

Grade: A

Genre: Historical, Posing as the opposite gender

Episodes: 20

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Viki

Hana zakari no kimi tachi he��with gats.

This show checks so many boxes when it comes to my favourite tropes story-wise and character-wise that I instantly fell in love with it. It might feel a little dated for a younger audience and it definitely suffers from the second male lead syndrome (who wants unseasoned boiled chicken when there are not just one but two juicy rotisserie chickens on the table next to you?!) but it’s still very much enjoyable. Also, they don’t shy away from using the word “homosexuality” and having one of the second lead confessing to having romantic feelings for his friend (I’ll take any scrap of bi-representation, okay?)

#50 It’s Okay to not be okay  (사이코지만 괜찮아)

Grade: A 

Genre: Modern

Episodes: 16

Happy Ending: Yes

Watched on: Netflix (FR)

Found family. 

In spite of one ridiculous plot twist (that I was aware of when I started the show) this show has made me feel all the feelz. The three main actors all did a phenomenal job portraying their characters in all their complexity and fragility and I ended up crying so many cathartic tears in the second to last & the last episodes.The relationship between Sang-tae and Gang-tae is one of the best sibling relationships I’ve seen on-screen in a long time while the romance between Moon-yeong and Gang-tae blends perfectly elements of comedy and melodrama. Mental illness isn’t treated as something to be ashamed of, whilst showing that you can grow and recover from trauma and finding your own happiness.

PSA from my boyfriend, who dropped the show before the end: 

The plot twist is so stupid that it takes away from the rest of the series. In my opinion it negated the positive portrayal of mental illness built up until then. They completely lost me.

^ We discussed a lot about it which is why I wanted to share his POV to balance my own review.

#51 coming soon

[folklorewhispers]

( bae suzy, cisfemale, she/her )╰ ✧ ˔ ⭒ magic is in the air ! oh wait - that’s just my old friend, MOON “SUN” CHIN-SUN, the TWENTY-FOUR year old LIBRARIAN / ASPIRING POET. they’ve lived in rome pines for ages, so everyone knows that they’re IMAGINATIVE and ECCENTRIC, just like BELLE from BEAUTY & THE BEAST they may not have any magic in them, but the neighborhood sure knows them from their WHITE GLOVES & CLASSIC ROMANCE NOVELS. apparently, they are THRILLED about meeting these magical citizens from pastoral city, so let’s just hope they will get along with their new neighbors…⭒˔ ╮

hi everyone ! my name is victoria, but you’re free to call me vic or vega, or however you want ! i’m super excited to be here & i’m looking forward to getting to know all of you and write with each and every one of you ! you already know how this goes: like this post & i’ll be in your dms asap for plots and interactions ! here are a few bullet points about odette. some wanted connections will be added at the end of this post on the next couple of days, so make sure to keep an eye out for them !

BACKGROUND DETAILS:

moon chin-sun, also known as sun or sunny, was born in rome pines twenty four years ago in a loving family. she was the highlight of their life and her parents promised to do everything they can so that their daughter will forever be happy. but fate had something else in store for the moon family. not long after sun celebrated her first birthday, her mother fell sick and she lost the fight with her illness, leaving this world a little too soon. since her mother’s tragic death, sun’s father did his best to keep the promise he and his wife made. he believed that one day, he will develop a crazy invention that will make their family rich and this way, he could provide his daughter everything she wanted.

but sun wasn’t interested in materialistic things at all. she had always been quite fond of books and she spent most of her time indoors, reading and dreaming of breathtaking castles and outstanding adventures, of princes and princesses and of eternal love. she started writing poems from a young age, most of them dedicated to the mother she never got the chance to meet. the others were either inspired by what happened in her life, or they were simply the result of her flowing imagination and creativity.

the citizens of rome pines started to believe her father was a mad scientist, as he always talked about how close he was to revolutionize science and come up with some great invention that is going to change this world for the better. however, all of his attempts have been nothing but failures so far and that turned him into the butt of the joke. but sun loved him nonetheless and she always believed in his dreams. she knew that one day, her father was going to succeed and his name will be written down in history books.

NAME MEANING & PERSONALITY:

chin-sun means truth and goodness in korean. persons who were named like this are often optimistic souls who have a genuine enthusiasm about life and the living of it. however, in english, her nickname, sun, is opposed to her given surname, moon, which symbolizes depth and being complete by itself. it is also a reference to sun’s duality: she comes off as shy, reserved and private, but she can be compassionate and adventurous and she dreams of a life that’s worth writing about. moon is the korean version of wén, which is a chinese character meaning literature, culture and writing.

personality wise, sun is not exactly the most sociable person you could meet, but that’s because of her slightly wary nature. she has been treated as an outcast since she was little, because of growing up with just one parent, because everybody found her father strange, because she preferred reading books rather than socializing, because of her strange name choice that symbolizes the moon and the sun. so she grew used to being alone and after a while, it didn’t even bother her that much anymore. but even so, she still feels lonely sometimes. she built up high walls around her heart, she has always been afraid of being hurt again by people, but if you manage to somehow break through these walls, you’ll find that she is a sweet and loving girl, who spends all of her time daydreaming about a wondrous life and fantastic adventures. she hates it when people think she is just a pretty face and she tends to stay away from narcissists and materialistic people.

LIFE IN ROME PINES:

sun works at the local library. she’s there almost every day, either working her own shifts or just filling up for her workmates. she loves being surrounded by books. sometimes, you may even find her writing something in her sparkly notebook. she writes poems and she hopes that one day, she will be able to share her works with the entire world. she attempted to write children stories and fairytales too, but she focuses on poetry.

she was thrilled to find out magical citizens from pastoral city will move here. she still is concerned about the fire that forced them to relocate to rome pines and she is sad about the disaster that occurred, but she is looking forward to welcome the magic users in her town. maybe that’s exactly what she needed in her life: a little spark of magic.

[jspark3000]

Ugly Asian Male: On Being the Least Attractive Guy in the Room

Statistically, I’m the least attractive person in the dating scene. Alongside black women, the Asian-American male is considered the most ugly and undesirable person in the room.

Take it from Steve Harvey, who won’t eat what he can’t pronounce:

Eddie Huang, creator of the groundbreaking Asian-American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, responded to Steve Harvey in The New York Times:

“[Every] Asian-American man knows what the dominant culture has to say about us. We count good, we bow well, we are technologically proficient, we’re naturally subordinate, our male anatomy is the size of a thumb drive and we could never in a thousand millenniums be a threat to steal your girl.” 

Asian-American men, like me, know the score. That is, we don’t count at all.

Hollywood won’t bank on me. Think: When was the last time you saw an Asian male kiss a non-Asian female in a movie or TV show? Or when was the last time an Asian-American male was the desired person in a romantic comedy? And more specifically, when where they not Kung Fu practitioners or computer geniuses? I can only think of two examples: Steven Yeun as Glenn from The Walking Dead and John Cho as Harold from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. So it takes either a zombie apocalypse or the munchies to see a fully breathing Asian male lead, or a Photoshop campaign #StarringJohnCho for an Asian protagonist with actual thoughts in his head. 

It’s so rare to see a three-dimensional Asian male character, with actual hopes and dreams, that Steven Yeun remarks in GQ Magazine:

GQ Magazine: When you look back on your long tenure on The Walking Dead, what makes you proudest?

Steven Yeun: Honestly, the privilege that I had to play an Asian-American character that didn’t have to apologize at all for being Asian, or even acknowledge that he was Asian. Obviously, you’re going to address it. It’s real. It’s a thing. I am Asian, and Glenn is Asian. But I was very honored to be able to play somebody that showed multiple sides, and showed depth, and showed a way to relate to everyone. It was quite an honor, in that regard. This didn’t exist when I was a kid. I didn’t get to see Glenn. I didn’t get to see a fully formed Asian-American person on my television, where you could say, “That dude just belongs here.” Kids, growing up now, can see this show and see a face that they recognize. And go, “Oh my god. That’s my face too.”

Growing up, I never had that, either. I can’t help but think of this scene from the biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, in which Bruce Lee watches the controversial Asian stereotype played by Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s to a theater filled with derisive laughter. This moment with Bruce Lee is most likely fictional, but the weight of it is not lost on us:

This was a powerful moment for me as a kid, because I grew up with the same sort of mocking laughter, whether it was watching Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with my white neighbors, or being assailed by the Bruce Lee wail in the local grocery store. I knew they were laughing at me, and not with.

“But hey wait!”—I’m told, with fervent knowing, “I know some Asian guys who are hot!” and I’m pointed to an infamous Buzzfeed list that shows “the hottest Asian men who will prove you wrong about Asian men,” with zero irony. Yes, I’ve seen the list. And yes, they’re like I expected: hard-rock glistening abs that are impossible for the working Asian dad, with classically European, chiseled faces and surgically-lifted eyes. More than that, it plays into the same creepy objectification of Asians as sexual play-toys.

Perhaps even worse than the portrayal of Asian men is how they’re not. More often, an acting role becomes “whitewashed” to suit a global audience, or an Anglo-American is the audience-avatar as a safety net for box office returns (remember, the last samurai in The Last Samurai was white). 

I know this is a shrill, ill-discussed subject with all kinds of variables, but from the prosthetic slanted eyes in Cloud Atlas to race-bleaching in Ghost in the Shell to the the “Yellow Peril” demonizing of Asian males as evil ninjas and drug dealers in Daredevil and Iron Fist, Asian-Americans—especially males, as females can still literally serve as co-stars—are vastly both mis- and under-represented. We’re used for a footnote joke at the Academy Awards (the same year that there was a campaign called #OscarsSoWhite), an overly loud insane person in raunchy comedies like The Hangover or Saving Silverman, or a “funny foreigners” punchline in the falsely interpreted romantic comedy, 500 Days of Summer.

One of the obvious reasons that Asian-Americans are sidelined in the mainstream is because there’s no money in it. It’s that simple. Freddie Wong, in his parody video of Ghost in the Shell casting Scarlett Johansson, says it best:

“Because, as a studio executive, the immorality of whitewashing a beloved work of Japanese culture is outweighed by my fear that audiences won’t want to watch a movie starring an Asian woman. And I don’t have the balls to take that risk. Besides, whatever political outrage this decision evokes doesn’t materially effect how much money I make.”

In other words, we’re stuck in a Catch-22. There can be no roles for an Asian-American unless it guarantees a profit, but since we’re not portrayed regularly in most media, there’s never a chance for Asian-American leads to draw a profit in the first place. I get the bottom line here, and I’m not so oblivious to consider that investors are all idealistic innovators. The creative risk is too daring. From an executive’s point of view, I can almost painfully understand.

So besides whitewashing an entirely Asian property, the next best thing is to throw in a scrap of representation by using the whole stereotype.  Make the Asian guy the smartest or the martial artist, and there’s your token diversity. It’s why major Hollywood blockbusters have now made shoehorned references to China: because they’re a huge source of box office revenue, and a pandering shout-out to China, no matter how forced or unoriginal, will mean more ticket sales. (It’s even going the other way, with Chinese movies like The Great Wall casting a white role to get more sales in America.)

Yet these roles have little nuance and only serve to further someone else’s plot. I’m the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and the Magical Negro, rolled into a non-threatening sidekick or the meditative Zen master. I will never be the action star or the romantic lead. God forbid that an Asian-American male would ever win against a non-Asian.

In some cases, Asians have capitalized on their own mockery by making fun of themselves in minstrel-like deprecation. I was surprised to find that the first winner of Last Comic Standing was a Vietnamese-American named Dat Phan, until I saw his routine, which went for the lowest hanging fruit possible. If you can’t beat the laughter, why not become the jester? Even other Asians want in on their own sabotage. 

Representation for the Asian-American only seems to happens when it aims for the least common denominator. The cheapest move, of course, is to completely hijack the “exotic quaintness” of Asian culture without going “fully Asian,” in order to boost a pseudo-masculinity. It’s easy: throw in Chinese tattoos or an Asian-type mysticism, and the non-Asian character instantly gains credibility. You can make up an Asian-sounding name, like “David Wong,” actual name Jason Pargin, a white author at Cracked.com, or Michael Derrick Hudson, a white poet who uses pen name “Yi-Fen Chou,” and watch the doors open. All the benefits, none of the fuss. Use my name without the actual struggle.

Of course, Asian-Americans are accused of allowing such undercover racism in the mainstream because we’re silent, passive, and obedient. We’re easy targets. We don’t typically march or cause disruption. We’re not socially involved. It’s why a huge clothing company like Abercrombie & Fitch can make shirts with Asian stereotypes like “Two Wongs Can Make It White.” It’s why Stephen Colbert (whom I love, by the way), can get away with non-apologies when he cracks yet another Asian joke. It’s why Ryo Oyamada, a 24 year old Japanese college student, can get run over by a police car in New York, and the officer goes free and no one chants in the streets.  

If you replaced the race with any other, the response would be louder, with solidarity on every side. Asian? No one cares. Literally and statistically, no one cares. Worst of all, it appears that Asians don’t care, either. It’s always a surprise when we speak up. You can drag an Asian-American off an airplane, and the most noise you’ll hear from other Asians is that they just don’t want to be seen as noisy and displeasing. 

The thing is, there are no shortage of Asian-American men who are physically and intellectually desirable, who could portray themselves as fully living beings with compelling stories and relatable conflicts. Is it possible that the mainstream, for all its talk about diversity, is afraid of encountering a man who is both Asian-American and attractive? Is it simply intolerable to witness an Asian-American switch lanes between the sidekick and the star? Has the Asian-American male been permanently imprinted as comic relief or Karate expert? Is it too culturally explosive to pair an Asian-American male with a non-Asian female? Can we really handle an Asian alpha male who gets the girl at the end? (Much less a non-Asian female lead get an Asian guy at the end?)

I have to admit that some of this is on us. No, I don’t mean that we brought it on ourselves. I would never, ever perpetuate blaming the victim. I mean that we can still fight against the pervasive, seemingly impermeable walls around the identity of the Asian male, by reaching and demanding for more challenging roles in every sphere of media. The shift in perception of the Asian-American male coincides with a shift in self-perception. 

Is it also possible to take a creative risk without guarantees? I know today’s market is less likely to pave new ground, with its risk-averse eye on sequels and reboots and recycling the same tale, but I wonder how we can tell new tales without resorting to the cheapest, easiest cliches, without exploiting Asian culture for “mystical credibility” but celebrating its uniqueness with a thoughtful exploration of both its treasures and its trials.  

I’ll leave you with a quote from Lewis Tan, the half-Asian-American actor who was rejected for the role of Iron Fist. In a recent interview, he says:

“I’ve turned down a couple roles. My agents will tell you when I first signed with them, I turned down the first three or four things that came up. I’ve just turned down roles that were super-stereotypically Asian that I didn’t feel represented me and I didn’t want to do. Not to necessarily say they’re bad roles, but it just wasn’t me. I’m not going to do this dorky Asian accent and just play someone in the background. That’s not why I’m here to act. I’m here to represent and to make stories that I believe in and to achieve new things in the industry.”

[tumblunni]

MORE PERSONASONA THOUGHTS

Actually maybe it could be cool to imagine a design for a phantom thief whose mask is like a full face-covering thing? Like a faceless mask. or a mask with a buncha eye symbols on it. OR maybe the persona has that aesthetic, I dunno??? One of the beta protag designs in the artbook has a mask like that, but with a smiley face covering it. That + an all-concealing cloak = a pretty damn cool aesthetic! Even if it didnt fit the protagonist its a shame that they didnt give it to another character, so I might try and make something with a similar appeal.

MORE POTENTIAL THINGS THAT SHOULD BE PERSONAS

Bunnies of myth! There’s the Jackalope (a bunny with horns), the Wolpertinger (a bunny with horns AND wings) and Al-mi’raq (a bunny with only one horn, also said to be one of a kind and incredibly powerful despite being regular bunny sized) And there’s apparantly quite a few other tales of powerful horned rabbits from all different countries and time periods! O_O I was totally under the impression that the Jackalope was just made up in semi-modern cryptid legends, and didnt really count as a proper mythological creature. Rasselbock is the german name, and that sounds really awesome! Also there’s apparantly a hella mysterious recurring symbol of three hares attatched at the ears in an eternal circle, which has appeared in multiple cultures across the world and nobody knows its meaning.

Okay I LEGITIMATELY DID NOT KNOW that Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is given neutral pronouns in the original form of the play! O_O I mean, the pop culture version is always male, and in school when we read it the character was taught to us as male! I feel totally destroyed that I missed a chance to learn about LGBT characters in history during my school years... Holy shit I REALLY wanna pick Puck now! I always love trickster figures!!

okay i really do not know much at all about folk heroes/classical literature heroes but I do know one from my country at least! Taliesin (tally-essin) was a kind of robin hood esque figure who gets all the same ‘did he actually exist? is he a myth? did a real man exist but was exaggerated in myth?’ stuff. He was a super magical poet bard dude who was magically blessed with the most witty tongue in all of existance because he stole a potion of super knowledge from a witch as a child. It also made him super beautiful cos the witch’s son was super ugly, I always felt REALLy sorry for the poor witch’s son cos seriously she made this potion for him and some random kid stole it and then he’s never mentioned again except to say that ‘he was so ugly that everyone who saw him died, so he made a career as a warrior’. Poor guy. Man, I actually like Morfran a lot better, can I make him a persona? He’s not really a hero or anything, he only gets like two sentences in someone else’s story but I just wanna give him a hug. It also always bugged me that the description of his ‘ugliness’ mentioned how his skin was ‘so black he was like a human crow’ like seriously screw u ancient mythological racisms... ANYWAY thats the only celtic mythology character that’s interesting that hasnt already appeared as a persona, lol. Tho since most of the personas that’ve appeared have been the scottish and irish versions, Finn MacCool was the equivelant to Taliesin. (Same origin story and everything!) The disadvantage is that his name sounds like a shitpost. Also incidentally its really fuckin sad that the only canonical depictions of LGBT characters in welsh myth are all like.. Problematic As Fuck Negative Depictions. I used to like the character Math Ap Mathonwy but then I read the story where he punishes the villains by turning them into a pig and a sow and making them rape each other and get pregnant... as punishment... its so fucked up.. And they’re like the only gay characters ever, and they’re also incestuous brothers, and just... so fucked up... The bad side of getting a mythology Special Interest as a kid: pretty much every mythology has at least one horrible sex story in it!

I’m really interested in learning more about Tu’er Shen! He’s apparantly a chinese deity of gay blessings, the spirit of a mortal man who was executed for loving other men and reincarnated as the form of a magical rabbit spirit. I hope he ended up finding true love in the spirit world... :( Seriously, even friggin mythological figures are dying from hate crimes. I don’t think people were very optimistic when they created this story, its horrible to know that society still hasnt progressed far enough that this bullshit has stopped happening! Cmon, seriously!! Please say the future is gonna be safe, someday! I can just imagine Tu’er Shen looking down on us and still crying.

Huh! Persona 5′s homophobia also manifesting in a weird unintentional way! They mention how one of the ways everyone attempted to get the sun god Ameratsu to open up her door was ‘someone doing a lewd dance’, and there’s a joke about Ryuji being that person. But I had NO IDEA that originally the person who did that was Ame No Uzume, another female deity! And it seems pretty damn ‘LGBT themes in mythology’, i mean the dialogue is Ame No Uzume saying ‘come and admire how perfect I am’ *points at crotch* I mean they probably couldnt mention all the explicit details in this random cameo mention in a persona game, but seriously would it have been so hard to just say it was ameratsu and ame no uzume? I suppose maybe since its a japanese game there was the assumption everyone would know the myth tho, so its more of a failure of the dubbing.

And then there’s a lot of themes of androgeny and gender-changing in Hindu and various african mythologies, but I feel like I’d have to do a lot more research into those cultures to depict them accurately. Its a damn shame that barely any european cultures had that level of respect for LGBT people so long ago, yet we like to act like we’re the height of progress and assume every other culture followed along the same historical template as us... I’m really interested in learning more about Dahomey mythology, wikipedia says that they have a genderless creator deity who split into two male and female twins, which then combined again into a different bigender deity. (Nana Buluku, Mawu, Lisa and Mawu-Lisa) And apparantly in zimbabwe there’s a shona deity called Mwari who is also genderless. I really don’t know anything about these cultures though, and there’s no way I’m gonna be drawing dumb anime versions of people’s important mythological figures based on just a wikipedia crawl! But at least this has inspired me to wanna go learn more. Also it just makes me feel a lot happier about myself to know that its not like there’s zero genderless people in all of mythology, just because my country has always been hella bigoted ^_^ But man, wikipedia’s list of LGBT figures in mythology is really REALLY focused on only depictions of sex, and it counts all the super negative stereotypes and shit of villainous rapist gay folks and people being ‘punished’ by being turned into another gender. And then any sort of positive interpretation is all THIS IS TOTALLY JUST AN INTERPRETATION HERE IS ALL THE EVIDENCE FOR IT BEING WRONG, YOU CANT IMPOSE MODERN IDEALS ON MYTHOLOGY NOBODY WAS EVER GAY BEFORE THE WORD EXISTED IN ENGLISH SO yeah its really demotivating to me to continue reading this and just Yikes with a capital Yikes. I’m gonna try and find if there’s more sources online about LGBT mythology education written by actual LGBT scholars...

[clubofinfo]

Expert: It is all done in a fully barefaced manner. Those who are not part of this world could never even dream about such a ‘perfect’ design. You come to your club, in my case to The Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand (FCCT), and immediately the long arm of indoctrination begins stretching towards you. US filmmakers of Neighbour at FCCT Bangkok (Vltchek photo) You place yourself on a comfortable couch, and soon after get fully serviced. You get instructed, told what to think and how to formulate or modify your ideas. You are periodically shown movies about “corruption and immorality” in China. You get encouraged to participate in some public discussions that are, among other things, trashing the anti-Western president of the Philippines. Although lately also the Middle East, and particularly Syria, are brought into the spotlight. Of course, almost all that is on offer in such places like FCCT is the Western view, or concretely a set of Western views raging from conservative to ‘liberal’. The club is located in Asia, in the heart of Southeast Asia, but very few Asians are invited to speak here, except the few Thais who are well versed in the Western way of thinking. Or Western agents like the Dalai Lama, of course – such individuals can come anytime they want! Forget about hearing from ‘the other side’ – you’d never stumble here over speakers such as Communist thinkers or writers from Mainland China, or pro-Duterte academics or activists from the Philippines. Most of the Thais who get spotted at the FCCT are actually those who provide support services for the Western gurus of mainstream media: interpreters, fixers, waiters and as well as some administrative support staff. This is not a place for Asians to lecture Westerners about Asia; this is where Westerners tell Asians how to think in general, and what to think about their own countries in particular. On the same floor as the FCCT, right down the narrow carpeted corridor, there are the offices of the BBC, the NBC and several other mainstream Western media outlets. ‘The Penthouse’ of the Maneeya Center Building in Bangkok is actually a self-sufficient propaganda complex. At FCCT in Bangkok it is mostly whites and their friends who can speak (Vltchek) And tonight it is offering a free screening (free for us, members) of a U.S. documentary film called Salam Neighbor, about Jordan’s huge Za’atari refugee camp, which hosts approximately 80,000 refugees just a few miles away from the Syrian border. On the FCCT flier it says openly: “In partnership with the U.S. Embassy Bangkok and The American Film Showcase.“ A U.S. embassy official introduces the film. It is also being sponsored (openly) by the U.S. Department of State. The FCCT is packed. Beer flows. People obediently clap to all the opening speeches. No one seems to be noticing the irony: The Empire’s foreign ministry hosting an event at the foreign correspondent’s club in the most important city of Southeast Asia. There are no jokes flying about, no sarcasm. Western media people are well disciplined. Forget about “Salvador” by Oliver Stone – these are quite different times. It all feels mildly embarrassing. Here, one can never really witness a fiery ideological confrontation. People know their place. They are well aware of what they should say, and how to behave. But most importantly, they know what to write. ***** The film is short, only some 75 minutes, and it is truly predictable. It is not out-rightly bad. Cinematography is fine, and there are very few factual errors, perhaps because there are only a few facts on offer. The filmmakers are ‘politically correct’: they periodically break down in tears, particularly when interacting with some refugee children. It is full of clichés, such as: “….. inhabitants of the camp opened their hearts and homes to us”. But there are also several clearly predictable scenes, appearing on the monitors in all corners of the FCCT, with chilling regularity. Here is one, for instance: kids are playing violent war video games. One child suddenly comments: Yes, and this is Assad’s regime flag… They give me ammunition and weapons… We are fed with soft, ‘well-intentioned’ and well-filmed propaganda. Not one word is uttered about the essential and monstrous role of the West in the Syrian war. There is nothing about the Za’atari Camp being one of the training camps for the most extreme pro-Western and pro-Gulf terrorist organizations. After the films ends, I decide to participate in the Q/A session. Somehow sarcastically, I congratulate the two filmmakers who were flown to Thailand at the US taxpayer’s expense. I mention that I have also made some films inside refugee camps, including the notorious and brutal Dadaab on the Kenyan-Somali border. Then I ask, point blank: Did you know that Syrian refugees were allowed to tell you only one side of the story? I am well familiar with the Za’atari camp. There, as well as in the camps for Syrian refugees located in the Iraqi Kurdish region, Syrians are screened and unless they declare that they are against President Assad, they have no chance of getting processed and receiving assistance. The annoyed faces of veteran Western propaganda-makers now stare at me, point blank. The US embassy apparatchiks maintain their composure. These people are professionals and they hardly ever lose their calm. But media people are scandalized. I exaggerate my Russia accent and I mention South American Telesur as one of the channels for which I have been making films. How dare I? Don’t I know my place? A non-Westerner telling Western opinion-makers about the world! I conclude: Most of the Syrian refugees are not escaping from their government. They are fleeing from the horrors of war, triggered and upheld by the West and its allies in the Gulf and elsewhere. The silence is now complete. Then a girl, a local Thai miss, obviously coming from the upper middle class and groomed in the West, approaches the microphone and asks with a cute giggle: I want to visit the Za’atari Camp early next year. I don’t know why, as I don’t know anything about the Middle East… but maybe I can do something for the refugees, no? And maybe I learn something? “And maybe take some selfies,” I think. Soon after I begin to feel sick, and literally flee the place. ***** The entire Southeast Asia is imprisoned in the tight straightjacket of Western and Japanese pro-Western propaganda. However, the mainstream media and the way it disseminates Western propaganda is not the only example of how the straightjacket works. Almost all serious and large bookstores, (at least those that are selling books in English), have already been ‘defeated’ by Kinokuniya, a Japanese mega seller. Kinokuniya is to bookselling in Southeast Asia, what Carrefour is to food vending. It operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, and its shops look elegant and sleek. But unless you want to buy some mainstream stuff, you may be truly disappointed, even shocked, by what you find (or not find) on the shelves. At Jakarta Kinokuniya Bookstore – Mein Kampf and anti-Communist propaganda (Vltchek photo) It goes without saying that in those stores, one would always be able to find hundreds of appalling anti-Soviet propaganda books, such as those of the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Svetlana Alexievich. But try to search for a great, iconic Mexican left-wing author like Elena Poniatowska, and you will get nothing! And forget about finding most of works there of such enormous (but Communist) thinkers like Jose Saramago, Dario Fo, and Harold Pinter (all three authors were also awarded with the Nobel prizes in literature, but are strongly hated by the regime). If you are lucky, you will find one or two books from each of them, but not more than that. Perhaps you may also find one or two plays by Bertolt Brecht. I searched in Bangkok, and found only one – Galileo. In Southeast Asian bookstores, you can have “all you can eat” anti-Chinese, anti-Communist propaganda, but except for Mo Yan, not one book of any truly great modern Chinese Communist novelist or a poet. Of course, you should never even try to find some “offensive materials”; and by offensive I mean sarcastically critical of all that the West has been implanting and upholding in this part of the world – religion, neo-colonialism, monarchism, or even local feudalistic structures which often hide behind such terms as ‘cultures’… In Indonesia, the situation is the most ridiculous. There, all decent bookstores that mushroomed after Suharto stepped down have literally disappeared. Thereafter, Kinokuniya ‘modified’ its operation in Jakarta, and is presently selling only pop fiction, some Penguin classics and similar mainstream stuff. Mr. Ariff, a staff marketing person at Kinokuniya, Plaza Senayang in Jakarta, explained: Arrangement of the shells has to be the same as in our Singapore store, but Indonesian management decides what to sell here. And decide they do! As expected, many books about Adolf Hitler (very popular historic individual in Indonesia), including his ‘best selling’ (at least in Jakarta) Mein Kampf. Right next to it, there are few shelves filled with anti-Communist propaganda of the lowest grade. Indonesia has been, since 1965, always a Southeast Asian leader in brainwashing of the population. One could, of course, argue that there are also some local chains of bookstores, selling books exclusively in the languages of Southeast Asia. However, the offering there is very limited. Frankly, there is no culture of high-quality translations of books in this part of the world, and the number of titles published in local languages is relatively small. Even the most prominent Indonesian novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, once confessed to me, that while translating Maxim Gorky’s “Mother” to Bahasa Indonesia (“Ibunda”), he used the Dutch translation for his work, as well as his ‘intuition’ while scrolling through the original Russian text (he did not really speak much Russian, as he admitted). ***** After decades of great effort, the Western intellectual indoctrination of Southeast Asia is now almost complete. It is partially being done through ‘education’, by disbursing scholarships for students and offering conditional funding for Indonesian, Thai, Malaysian and other ‘scholars’ and professors. Anti-Communist propaganda in Indonesia (Vltchek photo) Western propaganda is also ‘successfully’ distributed through ‘culture’. Western ‘cultural centers’, which are often (bizarrely) the only places offering ‘high art’ in most of the local cities, are clearly advancing their European and North American imperialist agenda (as I colorfully described in my latest novel Aurora). The elites here are almost fully subservient to foreign business and political interests. Patriotism is only a buzzword, with no substance behind it. There is no other part of the world so disconnected from the ideological and physical opposition to Western imperialism, as Southeast Asia. The consequences of total Western brainwashing are devastating: the entire colossus of Southeast Asia is unable to produce great thinkers, writers, filmmakers, or scientists. There are only a few small exceptions in Thailand (including an important novelist Chart Korbjitti) and in Indonesia (the political painter Djokopekik, a former political prisoner during Suharto’s fascist regime, described by my Australian friend, the artist George Burchett, as ‘an explosive local fusion of Diego Rivera and Picasso’). Other poor, devastated or complex parts of the world are literally regurgitating entire armies of tremendous writers, filmmakers and intellectuals: from Nigeria to Lebanon, from Iran to Mexico. ***** With the exception of Vietnam (and to some extent, Laos), the West has literally uprooted all Communist and socialist ways of thinking, as well as internationalism. It was done brutally, though orchestrating massacres and purges. Hundreds of thousands of leftists, perhaps millions, were killed in Indonesia alone, after the 1965 coup. 30% of the population was murdered by Suharto’s military in East Timor, after the left-wing FRETILIN movement won independence from Portugal and consequently took power in fair and clear elections. In Thailand, Communists were burned alive in oil barrels. The killing and disappearing of Communists took place in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. In several countries, including Indonesia, the entire ‘Communist ideology’ is still officially banned. After internationalism, anti-imperialism, Communism and intellectualism were destroyed, Southeast Asia was injected from abroad with conservative forms of religion, with consumerism, ‘traditional family values’ and grotesquely extreme individualism. Simultaneously and already for years and decades, this part of the world has become truly famous, even notorious, for sex tourism, and for armies of ‘expats’ who are searching for a cheap and easy lifestyle. In the process they are managing to shape local ‘cultures’, to de-intellectualize this part of the continent. While Beijing and Tokyo are attracting, like magnets, countless great foreign scholars, thinkers and creative people, Southeast Asia is generally besieged by, to put it mildly, a very different type of foreigners. Why are they so comfortable here? It is because of the ‘great respect’ they can enjoy in Southeast Asia for just being white, no matter what their age or life achievements. This respect comes from the clear indoctrination of locals, from the pronounced lie, repeated thousands of times (mostly indirectly), that Western culture is superior, and, in fact, the greatest in the world. To make Europeans and North Americans even more comfortable here: in Southeast Asia, almost all basic doctrines disseminated by Western propaganda, as well as the most primitive grain of capitalist and right wing ideologies have been historically accepted, tolerated, and even dutifully replicated. ***** For the local academia, it is only the Western (or Japanese) stamp of approval that matters. As a result Southeast Asia forgot what patriotic and independent thought truly consists of. Most of the Southeast Asian newspapers have no ‘foreign correspondents’ in faraway places. Almost all of their international news reports come directly from Western mainstream agencies such as Reuters, AFP and AP. No loopholes through which at least some alternative opposition information could enter and influence the masses, seems to be available. You ask on the streets of Bangkok, Jakarta or even Kuala Lumpur about ‘South-South’ co-operation, and you will be greeted with blank stares. You would be suspected of talking about some new mobile phone application, or a chain of fast food restaurants. And what is BRICS, masonry? While bookstores are basically finished, commercial cinemas are offering extremely carefully selected (the emptier the better) Hollywood ‘blockbusters’ and local horror films. Local art forms, including traditional political theatre in Indonesia (ketoprak) is lately ‘out of fashion’, read: sidelined, made fully irrelevant, silenced. Scarce art film clubs, like the one in the River City in Bangkok, has stickers of US and European cultural institutions (“sponsors”) ‘decorating its entrance. One naughty art seller, in one of the galleries near the River City film club, just recently dared to exhibit a painting depicting Obama, with two obnoxious missiles hanging in between his legs. But was apparently asked to remove provocative art work, right before the official film screening which was sponsored by the Turkish embassy and attended by several Western diplomats. “Come with me into the storage and I will show you,” he whispered to me, as if he was peddling some illegal pornographic material or narcotics. ***** Perhaps the most telling example of “how things are done”, I encountered several years ago on the premises of the Goethe Institute in Jakarta. Its curators decided to exhibit some old photographs from the Polish ‘Solidarity’ days, when, during one protest in the city of Gdansk, security forces fired at protesters. The exhibition was put together, barefacedly, in the capital city of Indonesia, where ‘Communism’ is patently banned, where millions were massacred during the US-sponsored coup of 1965, and where the entire huge archipelago has been irreversibly plundered and devastated by multi-national and local mining and logging cartels. The nightmarish, ultra-extreme capitalism has been ruling and ruining Indonesia for years and decades, but it was Gdansk that Germany decided to show to the Indonesian public! A handful of people killed by the Communists, decades ago, in Poland, were commemorated and the act shown to Jakarta dwellers. Of course, the German cultural institute would never even dream about arranging an exhibition commemorating the mass slaughter of Communists by Indonesian pro-Western genocidal forces. ***** Now Southeast Asia knows nearly nothing about Russia, and almost nothing about China (except what the Western demagogues want it to know). Africa, including South Africa, is located on another planet, and so is Latin America. Only local elites can afford to travel to far away places, and these people are loyal to their Western masters and official doctrines; they would never tell the truth, never rock the boat of disinformation. The local population knows generally more about North American pop or European football, than about its neighboring countries. The Southeast Asian poor are kept totally ignorant about Latin American attempts to build just, egalitarian societies. They know close to zero about Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela or Ecuador. Of course, there is absolutely no way one could discuss, in Southeast Asia, the recent re-election of MPLA in Angola (an event of tremendous global significance, as Angola is one of the symbols of the Western colonialist crimes against humanity, as well as of neo-colonial plunder). There is no way of discussing Cuba and its internationalism here, or even the coalition of countries, which are now standing proudly and determinedly against Western imperialism. And what about the Middle East? It is fully limited to the Palestinian issue, and even that is discussed only in predominantly Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia. Another Middle Eastern ‘link’ is the unnaturally injected hatred for President Assad, who is accused of being too ‘secular’ and too ‘socialist’ (of course, these are great ‘crimes’ here, definitely not praise). ***** In Southeast Asia, the West is clearly victorious. It has successfully ‘neutralized’, ‘pacified’, indoctrinated and intellectually enslaved this large (and in the past diverse) part of the world. Hopefully this situation will not last forever, and not even for too long a time. The Philippines and Vietnam are rapidly coming back to their senses, increasingly determined not to take dictates from the West. But Indonesia has suffered a major setback, after its traditional-style ‘legal coup’ against Jakarta’s progressive Governor ‘Ahok’, who was smeared and then imprisoned on thoroughly irrational and bizarre accusations that he ‘insulted Islam’ (charges so bizarre that even local linguists came to his defense, but the verdict was ‘political’ and had nothing to do with justice). His true ‘sin’: Ahok tried to implement at least some elements of socialism in this still hopelessly fascist country. He fell. Others may make a fresh attempt, soon. In the meantime, both China and Russia are making great inroads in the region. Local ‘creams’ are watching, attentively. Most of Southeast Asian elites have always been for sale, for centuries, of course, with the exception of those in North Vietnam. As the anti-imperialist coalition is getting stronger and wealthier, there could actually be some serious changes of heart in foreseeable future, at the top of several Southeast Asian countries. Even Communism could be finally legalized again, but only if it manages to disperse some funding, scholarships, and substantial grants. If it would, than those uniform debates at the FCCT in Bangkok could finally become vibrant and diverse. The West will, of course, work very hard to prevent all this from happening. ***** • First published in New Eastern Outlook (NEO) http://clubof.info/

[cool-crossword-quiz-answers-blog]

Work a crossword puzzle With 31-Across, flying exhibition Vegas signs Trouser material Top-left PC key Sundial number opposite I Summer of disco Sudden burst Soil-moving tool Sitting on Shoes that make you look taller Shade-loving plant See 30-Across S.A. country at zero degrees latitude Rock gp. with winds and strings Right triangle ratio Ques. response Pull's opposite Prepare to advance after a fly ball Plus Petting __ Outdoor faucet attachment Operatic icon NYSE listings Natives for whom a Great Lake is named Most of the Atlantic, to Columbus Most fit to be drafted Moscow's land: Abbr More than fair, less than great Monday, in Metz Mimics Meetings of self-improvement seekers Massage facility Like Superman's special vision Like a clever devil Lay eyes on Kitty coat Joke with a homophone, say Itinerary word Indian flatbread Hidden downside Hebrew or Latin, e.g Hanger near the shower Glamorous Gardner Giants great Mel Game with rooms and weapons Forty-__ Form 1040 and schedules Flees Elevate to sainthood Easy run Early spring blooms Dubai's fed Doctor with a pager Dinner, e.g Developing egg Desert plants Cpl., for one Contractor's detail, briefly Composer Bartók Child of a boomer Cereal grain Captures Buckeye State sch Broadband letters Bridge partnerships Be a debtor of Army vet Allow to board Acronym for a big mess About to happen 'That's __!': 'Piece of cake!' 'Macbeth' cauldron stirrer 'It all happened so fast' memory 'Impractical Jokers' network __TV 'Frozen' queen 'CSI' evidence 'Ben-Hur' setting - See more at: http://crosswordssolver.net/clue/L.A.-Times-Daily-Crossword-Answers---Jan-23-2017#sthash.iE2uc1s7.dpuf

___ Ste. Marie, Mich Wrong for the role Writers' wrongs? What the starts of 17-, 26-, 35- and 50-Across are What it takes to tango Versatile piece of furniture Used a light beam on in surgery Trig or calc To whom Butler said 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' Tel Aviv native Takes a chair Something cleared up by Clearasil Some pudgy, middle-aged physiques, informally Slow-cooked beef entree Sch. run by the Latter-day Saints Samuel of the Supreme Court Regarding Red Monopoly purchases Recorded on a cassette Put into law Passage in a plane One with a leg up in the circus business? Off to the ___ (starting strong) October birthstones Many a John Wayne film, informally Macy's Thanksgiving event Long-necked waders Little shaver, to a Scot List-ending abbr Like a live radio announcer Laughs loudly Language in Vientiane Kindle or Nook Indian tribe that lent its name to two states Indenting key High on pot Have bills Hang, Wild West-style Gambling scam Fly swatter sound Fabled city of wealth sought by conquistadors Eye-related Detroit factory output Described, as something in the past Cow sound Corkscrew-shaped noodles Container for eggs Commotion Coll. entrance exam Clear the blackboard Cincinnati team Carb-heavy buffet area Bottle alternative Big name in retail jewelry Big name in potato chips Before, to Byron Aware of, in cool-cat slang Asia's ___ Sea All thumbs Alert to squad cars, for short Akron's home Airing after midnight, say Actor Hawke of 'Boyhood' 401(k) relative 'Your work is wonderful' 'Winnie-the-___' 'So THAT's the story here!' 'Shucks, you shouldn't have!' 'Kisses, dahling!' 'How do you ___?' (court query) 'Go ahead, shoot!' 'Evil Woman' rock grp 'Balderdash!' '50s Ford flops - See more at: http://crosswordssolver.net/clue/New-York-Times-Crossword-Answers---Jan-23-2017#sthash.bnH0qTzo.dpuf

___ fly Worry-free state Weapon for masked athletes Varieties Utah ski resort Ultimate act of betrayal Super star? Sum total Stone of 'La La Land' Statement that might prompt folding Stadium level Spoken tests Spirit in a Moscow mule Smelting material School locker location Scarlett's plantation Saint at the Pearly Gates Russian ruler of the past Running shoe brand Running gag Ristorante fare Possible earthquake aftereffect Persian's weapon Org. that issues food recalls One in front None too bright NBC news anchor Lester Mongolia setting Molecule component Marx's masterwork Lippy remarks Kubrick computer Knock for a loop Kind of closet John of 'High Fidelity' Jazz band staple Jackson Hole beast Infielder Ripken In need of spices Howled like a wolf Healthy green vegetable Guessed-at fig Grassy dance attire Gentle toss Gas pump number Garb for a Highland games competitor Galileo's birthplace Furniture seller with unique product names Fun facts Floppy top Fish eggs Fish eggs Feat for a duffer DVR button label Drop in on Dog trainer's command Does penance Do the laundry Dirty quarters Cuts back Comes down with Classic toy introduced in 1960 Claim on a property Cause for some TV-MA ratings Cat with colorful points Bus. bigwig Boxer's doc Best of seven, for example Beatles song, for example Bart's grandpa Bag-scanning org Assassination, mafia-style 2001 Tom Cruise/Penelope Cruz movie 'That's a lie!' 'Sounds good!' 'Look here!' 'Hold on!' 'Gimme ___!' - See more at: http://crosswordssolver.net/clue/Wall-Street-Journal-Crossword-Answers---Jan-23-2017---Inquire-Within#sthash.kiwfzkPw.dpuf

Words of rejection Word often cut from headlines What's at the end of a tunnel, proverbially What high spirits and eagles do Vacation involving packing Unidentified Jane or John Tinker with text The stuff of bird feeders The Roaring Twenties and others The act of sticking together Tattered clothing, e.g Strong impulse Starchy veggie, in slang Stand around aimlessly Series shutout Semi-aquatic alligator relative See 24-Across Rubber-stamp Romantic poetry's 'before' Relief or alleviation Really strapped for cash Prophet Poker player's giveaway Poker fees Place with water jets Part of a phone number Outpouring, as of words Old-fashioned 'Goodness!' Nice book? Nautical spine Monstrous loch Mas' guys Makes wine 'fine' Main artery from the heart Load on board Like many cars for sale Like a wet noodle Leak slowly Kind of lodge Killed, as a dragon Kidnapper's demand Keats offering It's far from a full meal Involuntary twitch, e.g Ink mishap Hyperlinked item, often Harp ancestors Grad Good buddy Glimpse in the distance Gas burner of labs Former Italian currency Flower with sword-shaped leaves Fizzle on Broadway Father's female sibling, to you Fairly matched Dovetail joint part Dignified manner or conduct Create text Court summons Cook's thickening agent Common spicy snack Colossal, in the film biz Colored part of the eye Cockatoo topper Chinese 'bear' Champion's prize, sometimes Blueprint contents Bitter brew Bit of land in the sea Betsy Wetsy maker Beaut or stunner Be extremely generous Be a good sport Bathsheba's ill-fated husband Arrow-shooter on Olympus 'It's been ___ pleasure!' 'Do-well' start - See more at: http://crosswordssolver.net/clue/Universal-Crossword-Answers---Jan-23-2017#sthash.fbvD7jjz.dpuf

Woman from the barrio, most likely Without prior inspection Winding downhill course Where swine dine Upside-down sleepers Typography option Trevi Fountain coin, once Those folks Tex-Mex dips Tender strokes Target rival Symbol of gloom, in comics Switchboard staffers Stop on a movie studio tour Stone for some Scorpios Steinway string material Steep-roofed house style Standard reply SpongeBob's milieu Spike Lee's 'She's ___ Have It' Shipbuilding wood SEALs' org Sans escort Rugged, as a cliff Rotund desert plant Rock band Blink 182, for one Recipe phrase Ready to pluck Razor brand introduced in 1977 Quick to learn PX customers Pugilist's weapons Pricing word Pooh's 'hunny' holder Playground plank Pitch-checking gadget Phone-to-phone message Pendulum's path Patches up Overly permissive Online pop-up producer One who's no pro More like a milquetoast Misleading maneuver Mineo of 'Exodus' Medicinal measure Masseur's target area, maybe Make a wrong turn, say Lauder of cosmetics Land in a lake King Kong or Donkey Kong Husbands of countesses Hardly any Get one's mitts on Dove's home Day-___ paint Croquet opponent of the Queen of Hearts Cream-colored horses County or country statistics Cornerstone abbr Common coffee break hr Chinese Disney heroine Causes to see red Cause of goose bumps Camelot, to King Arthur Bronco's offspring Before now Bearded Smurf Be dishonest with Barnyard brayer Assign new actors to Amusement park transport 'You may kiss the bride' spot 'Speak up!' 'South Park' co-creator Parker 'Bye, old bean!' '. . . and children of all ___!' '&' follower in some business names - See more at: http://crosswordssolver.net/clue/USA-Today-Crossword-Answers---Jan-23-2017#sthash.6jMNxRyB.dpuf

__ so (nevertheless) __ of the time (now and then) __ and crafts Young grizzlies Words of concern Wide necktie West Coast coll Went by bus or train Washbowl Walkway between floors Walk through water Volcano's outflow Venetian blind strip Unfortunate accident Twilled suit material Turn to slush Touch on the shoulder Took a tour Tiresome person Tiny bite Tavern projectile Suspicious (of) Spelling contests Soon-to-be grads: Abbr Song from long ago Snug and warm Sedans and coupes Scottish caps Remote-control button Read a bar code Prom dresses Point in the right direction Piece of lettuce Paid out Old furnace fuel Nickname for a noncom More skilled Mo. city with the Gateway Arch Minestrone, for one Mine passageway Medicinal amount Mall alternatives to a 49 Across Make happy Make amends (for) Lawyer's customer Is introduced to Horses' paces Hollywood award Hawaiian garlands Has a meal Had debts Garden soil Garden nuisance Frequently Fortune-teller Farmland measure Fake wood in a fireplace Eight-person band Drive too fast Do great on a test 

Acquired relative 'The Age of Anxiety' poet and family 'Mater' lead-in 'In memoriam' item 'Hold off!' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' poet John 'Don ___' (Mozart opera) 'By yesterday!' 'A Fish Called ___'

[ultraphilosophicalman-blog]

Summer in Beijing

Summer in Beijing is hot, smothering and moist. The moist mainly comes from people’s sweat. Generally speaking, Beijing is a quiet dry city, however people in Beijing can sweat like 3 tons a day in total and the sweat evaporating into the air makes it a humid city.

Zebadiah Brooks suffers a lot in summer’s Beijing; he’s a big guy, about 6.3 feet and 180 pounds. He has huge pores, especially around his underarm. It is truly embarrassing to have huge pores. They get people smell like hell. Actually for Zeb, it is not that bad, since he always wears cologne and doubles it in underarm.

  On his way home, Zeb could feel the air-conditioned cool air touching his face and kissing his porous underarm. The air was blowing out from where-you-can-get-laid bars and night clubs. Zeb’s neighborhood is known for its foreigner-filled bars and night clubs. These clubs are prestigious in the circle for its high quality beauties. The show usually started at 10 o’clock in the evening. You can find all kinds of beautiful girls around, blond, brunet, red hair, teen, sugar babe, petite, cougar, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, American, European, Indian, Black, White, Brown,...as long as you name one. For many times, Zeb wanted to go into those alluring bars and get a cold beer, not for the girls, just for the cool air and cold beer. But he never stepped inside. There seems to be a protecting membrane all over those bars keeping him outside. Through the pellucid cover, he often saw Mia around the bars, a little bit drunk, chatting lithely with different men. He wanted to say hi, but he never did so. Every time passing by, he just looked at somewhere else pretending he did not recognize her.

 In fact, he knew Mia and Mia knew him. They were classmates in a Chinese summer school. Zeb spent his whole summer vacation in Beijing learning Chinese. It’s an odd decision. China, or Chinese, or Chinese culture has nothing to do with Zeb’s life. He did not even care about Jackie Chan or Ziyi Zhang. Zeb’s major in college is Greek drama and his a frantic fan of  Greek mythology. He always thinks it sounds too nerdy, though he enjoys studying it very much, exactly the way he enjoys cello lessons, medieval poet society and alchemy study club.He knows they are nerdy, but he can’t help loving them. He has been longing to do something less nerdy all the time, so this he decided to go to China to learn Chinese. To learn a totally strange language in a totally strange country sounds challenging and exciting to him. It seems to be a choice of a cool kid.

In the class, Zeb sat in the back of the class, while Mia sat in the front row. Zeb always stared at Mia during the class. She has beautiful blond hair, falling down onto her shoulder. Mia comes from Paris, major in fashion designing. She speaks Chinese and English in a sexy French accent. She always carries a Louis Vuitton bag, the classic one with numerous logos on it. She is about 1.65m and 90 pounds, a little bit chubby in face. She usually wears rosy lipsticks and no other makeups. Sometimes she appears in jeans with Converse or Newbalance. Sometimes she appears in a dress with cute high hield shoes. Usually Zeb finds women in high hield shoes sexy, but for Mia, he finds it cute.

On the first day of class, Zeb introduced himself as Zeb Brooks. At this time, an Indian guy, later became his partner, asked is Zeb short for Zebadiah. Zeb was startled, the Indian guy was not even a Christian. He hesitated and said no, Zeb for Zebulon. Zeb never uses his full name Zebadiah. He thinks it’s too creepy to tell some first-time-meet guy that your name is Zebadiah. It seems to tell him that you are from a devout Judaism family and all males in your family has been rabbis. Anyway, the pronunciation itself is creepy enough in the first place. He would just use the short form Zeb, and most people take Zeb short for Zebulon.

The Indian guy named Somaiya, meaning smart warrior in Indian, but sounds like a girl. He was a junior student in Imperial Technology University, the MIT of in India. He was major in IT, a typical geek, like Raj in Big Bang. Zeb did not know why he came to China to learn Chinese. He did not bother to ask. Actually, he did not even want to be partner with Somaiya. The first day of class, Zeb came early and chose a seat near window in the last second row, which made him feel comfortable and safe. Somaiya was late that day, and there was no other seat available except for the seat next to Zeb. And their Chinese teacher, Miss Chan decided to have the seat fixed.

Miss Chan is about twenty five and speaks very good English. She is very thoughtful and helpful person, just like a big sister to Zeb. On the first day, during the rest, she made a  detailed ppt about the eatable canteens inside the campus, the coffee shops outside the campus, the supermarkets where you can buy authentic cheese and pasta(the 70-year-old Italian couple in the front row nodded their head heavily) and where to have genuine sushi and sake (the Japanese businessman wrote down the address) This information is  vital for her students, a bunch of foreigners who have no idea of what China is.

Zeb did not really pay attention to Miss Chan’s presentation. Down the street of his apartment, there are 2 cafes, one Subway, one 7-11, two McDonald’s, one KFC, three bakeries(one is owned by a Korean couple), two pizza huts and numerous bars. Here international hub inside Beijing. He had already checked up all these information and rent an apartment online in this golden area. When he arrived, he was satisfied with all the surroundings but his apartment.

Before he came to China, he learned that it is impossible to rent a whole apartment here. The demand of house is so high that even the communist government had to compromise. Zeb compromised, too. He had never shared a room with anyone apart from his family. Even when he was a scout, he stayed in a single tent. He scrutinized every piece of information on the 58tongcheng, the Chinese craglist, to make sure his roommates are decent. He did not want to share a room with couples. He could not bear the idea that in the midnight two strangers making love on the other side of the apartment. He did not want college students to be his roommates either. Zeb had a strange anxiety when he is with his peer. Finally, he had decided his roommates, a software engineer working in a nearby company and a graduate student major in biochemistry. He was quite pleased with his choice, only when he arrived at his apartment, he realized that both of his roommates were girls.

He did considered gender factor into his roommate filter. But he made a mistake. He took it for granted that computer geek and biochemist are male. What makes the situation worse is that those two girls were both single and pretty. He can not live with two strange single Chinese beauties. He was not ready for that, even it may be a bless for others. He did not intend to have a erotic relationship this summer in this country and he knew it clearly that he could not have any. Zed only had two girl friends in his life. Sally was his first girl friend when they were at primary school. He dumped her. For Zeb, she was more an admirer than a competent mate and she was no pretty at all. Later, Sally went out with Aaron from chess club. His second girlfriend was Selina, the cheerleader in his high school. They went out for about three days and broke up. Selina dumped Zeb and went out with Joe ,the football star in no time. Zeb was firmly confirmed that it must be a sick joke for Selina dating him. Apart from Selina and Sally, he had no girlfriends or any girl friends.

[hunxi-guilai]

I'm the 海内存知己 anon back with ANOTHER poem (sorry). So I came across 行路难三首 and the line 大道如青天，我独不得岀 reminds me of wwx, esp in ep29 when he says something like "there isn't a 阳关道 that allows me to protect those I want to protect"- the line is basically the situation he was in. In the same set of poetry is also the line 且乐生前一杯酒，何须身后千载名 which reminds me of the two wwx related alcohol lines you've posted about before (the idea of "what the heck, I'll drink first and deal with life later")

okay listen anon, you can’t just come into my askbox quoting 李白 Li Bai without some WARNING first

all righty so some context for folks who aren’t familiar with the greatest Chinese poet of all time*, Li Bai is a fucking ICON. Poet. Swordsman. Hermit. Drunkard. Li Bai, in my head, is the ULTIMATE poetic mood for Wei Wuxian, and yes this is a hill I will die on.

(* the asterisk is so I can say “joke’s on you, Li Bai and Du Fu actually trade off on that title, and also we’re pretty sure Li Bai was central Asian, not Han Chinese, so HAH”)

Receipts? Damn right I got receipts (by which I mean anon’s got the receipts)

The poems anon mentioned,《行路难三首》Three Poems on Difficult Roads, is a collection of three Li Bai poems written as he confronts his frustrated political ambitions; throughout the poems, he comes to the various conclusions that 1) the muddied world simply does not appreciate his upstanding and unique genius, 2) it’s not worth it to get involved in the messiness of court politics ft. many many historical examples of worthy men of service whose stories ended badly, and 3) he’ll drink to that, thanks.

I’m not going to translate all three poems, but some highlights!

其一 / the first

金樽清酒斗十千，玉盘珍羞直万钱 / The clear liquor in the golden goblet is worth a thousand taels; the delicacies on the jade plate costs ten thousand taels

停杯投箸不能食，拔剑四顾心茫然 / I hold the cup, cast aside my chopsticks, I cannot eat; I draw my sword, looking about at a loss

欲渡黄河冰塞川，将登太行雪满山 / I wish to ford the Yellow River, stop up the waters with ice; I want to climb up the snow-covered sides of the Taihang Ranges

闲来垂钓碧溪上，忽复乘舟梦日边 / An idle worthy once trailed a fishhook in a stream; another daydreamed in a boat by the riverside*

行路难！行路难！多歧路，今安在？/ The road is hard! The road is hard! There are many forks in the road; where am I today?

长风破浪会有时，直挂云帆济沧海 / There will be time enough to ride the wind and waves; until then, I raise the sails and cross the deep seas, headed for the low-hanging clouds.

god Li Bai is so good at that...高昂 elevated，豪放 unrestrained style. Just the sweeping scope of this poem...gosh.

(* yes these are references. yes I am also too tired to explain them)

其二 / the second

大道如青天，我独不得出 / The great way is as broad as the clear sky, yet I alone do not walk out on it

...

行路难，归去来 / The road is hard! Return, go home!

brb SCREAMING about the wide and sunny way and 魂兮归来 at the same time

其三 / the third

...

含光混世贵无名，何用孤高碧云月？/ When one holds light within in this muddied world, prize namelessness; what use is there to sit, high and alone, amidst the clouds and moon?

我观自古贤达人，功成不退皆殒身 / I look at the worthies, from ancient times to today; those who did not retire after achievement all lost their lives

子胥既弃吴江上，屈原终投湘水滨 / [Wu] Zixu was discarded into the Wu River; Qu Yuan, in the end, flung himself into the Xiang waters from the shores

...

君不见吴中张翰称达生，秋风忽忆江东行 / My lord, do you not see how Zhang Han of Wuzhong truly understood life; when the autumn winds blew, he suddenly thought of home, and departed for Jiangdong

且乐生前一杯酒，何须身后千载名？/ What joy can be found in a single cup of wine; why seek leaving a name for oneself in a thousand years?

gosh, I mean, I know there’s no government in the world of CQL, but Wei Wuxian would’ve been such a great travelling Daoist poet-swordsman oh my god

Bonus Round, 《将进酒》, another Li Bai classic, aka one of my favorite poems in existence

君不见，黄河之水天上来，奔流到海不复回。

君不见，高堂明镜悲白发，朝如青丝暮成雪。

人生得意须尽欢，莫使金樽空对月。

天生我材必有用，千金散尽还复来。

烹羊宰牛且为乐，会须一饮三百杯。

岑夫子，丹丘生，将进酒，杯莫停。

与君歌一曲，请君为我倾耳听。

钟鼓馔玉不足贵，但愿长醉不复醒。

古来圣贤皆寂寞，惟有饮者留其名。

陈王昔时宴平乐，斗酒十千恣欢谑。

主人何为言少钱，径须沽取对君酌。

五花马，千金裘，呼儿将出换美酒，与尔同销万古愁。

Do you not see the waters of the Yellow River from on high 

       surging down to sea, never to return?


Do you not see the elder generation sighing over their hair,

      in the morning as dark strands,


      in the evening already white as snow?


Happiness in a human life ought to be enjoyed to the utmost;

      raise not this wine cup empty to the moon.


My god-given talent has a purpose in this world,

      even if you scattered a thousand gold coins to the wind,

      they would still return.


But for now, we feast on lamb and ox to make merry,

      tonight, we'll drink at least three hundred cups.


Come, Cen-fuzi, Danqiu-sheng - drink with me, let our cups never still.

I will sing a song for you –

      turn your ears and listen carefully to what my song has to say:


Sonorous bells, magnificent drums, rare delicacies, fine jade - none

      are precious enough to win my heart,

      and yet, I'd gladly drown in drunkenness


      and never wake again.


All the sages and men of talent since ancient times have always walked

      alone; only the drinkers among them have left behind their names


The warrior-king Chen, in days of old, held magnificent banquets at Pingle,

      Uninhibited, they would down flagon after flagon

      Unheeding of the cost, so drunk on jubilation.


My dear host, why do you speak of lacking money?

      Go, go fetch more wine to pour for me.


Your five-flowered horse, your fur coat of a thousand gold--

      call your boy out to exchange them for wine,


      and with me, drink away the sorrows of the ages.


fuck I almost forgot how much I love this poem