tiantianxuexi

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Lu You and his Cats

陆游 (Lu You, 1125–1209) was a prominent patriotic poet of China’s Southern Song Dynasty. He was also apparently a crazy cat mom. This is where I shall capture his tributes to his kitties as I come across them. (Will update this post with every new poem.)

Credits to Luna from danmei discord who brought this to my attention. 

Credits to Emperor Huizong of Song for the painting

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Fourth day of the Eleventh Month, Strong Wind & Heavy Rain

其一 | Part 1 风卷江湖雨暗村， 四山声作海涛翻 fēng juǎn jiānghú yǔ àn cūn  sì shān shēng zuò hǎi tāo fān Wind whirls across the waters, bringing rain; the village darkens. Surrounding mountains resound as if with the crashing of waves.

溪柴火软蛮毡暖， 我与狸奴不出门 xī cháihuǒ ruǎn mán zhān nuǎn, wǒ yǔ lí nú bù chūmén With driftwood fire and soft fur blanket enveloping us in warmth, me and kitty won’t be stepping out the door.

其二 | Part 2

[tiantianxuexi]

嘿～

just wanted to say I've been thinking of you. just focusing on esperanto (世界语) recently, i'll spare you the infodump on its connection to china for now lol. if you're out there keep at it, 加油

[tiantianxuexi]

A poem scribbled on the back of a truck in China, apparently written by the trucker. Translation by me

I love eating lamb kebab,

and I can judge from its texture

the age of the lamb.

This lamb today is

about as old as I am,

both full of youthful vigor

to be slaughtered at will.

[tiantianxuexi]

🐯🐟新年快乐!🎊🍊虎你旺旺!🥟🎉

happy new year from a sleepy bodega beast! (prints still available~)

[tiantianxuexi]

喔！there is a mandarin wordle!

I had been thinking about how wordle works well for english because it has consonant clusters and a wide variety of possible syllables that make it interesting but also narrow-down-able, whereas mandarin decidedly Does Not. I guess to get around that this uses four character phrases. Tricky but at least you might learn a new chengyu regardless :)

[tiantianxuexi]

#(Nan)YangGang

Learning Chinese, there is a certain kind of word that drives me nuts. There's some Chinese concept or thing. There's a word in English for it, that one might naively assume was borrowed from Chinese. Except, no, it's not, fuck you, it's probably Malay. The actual Chinese word has nothing to do with that word. Two non-English words for the price of one.

Some examples:

"Congee" is 粥 ("zhōu" in Mandarin, "zuk1"/"juk1"/"jook"[1] in Cantonese). "Congee" is via a Tamil word "kañci"[2], presumably due to the Portuguese or something.

The traditional units of weight "catty" and "tael" are 斤 (jīn) and 两 (liǎng) respectively. "Catty" and "tael" are from the Malay "kati" and "tahil". Again, trade in the east indies, so the words in English are randomly selected from Malay, Tamil, and southern Chinese languages.[3]

A "gong" is a 锣 (luó). "Gong"[4] is Javanese.

"Mandarin" in the sense of an official is 官 (guān)[5]. "Mandarin" is from Malay "menteri", which indirectly derives from Sanskrit[6].

"Cheongsam" is 旗袍 (qípáo). This one is really hilarious, because "cheongsam" is the Cantonese for 长衫 (chángshān in Mandarin), except that that's a different kind of garment in China. But I guess in Shanghainese, a 旗袍 is called a 长衫, and then a bunch of Shanghainese tailors went to HK and now the English world knows the Cantonese pronunciation of a Shanghainese word for 旗袍 dresses. Whatever.

"Joss" (as in "joss", "joss stick", or "joss paper") is... nothing at all? Like there are Chinese words for the incense and for the paper you burn at funerals and for images of deities, but they don't share any common components. "Joss" is bizarrely from fucking Portuguese ("deus"), filtered through... Javanese? Chinese pidgin English? Both? I guess it makes sense, since this is not a Chinese concept at all; it's a grouping of stuff that only made sense to Europeans (i.e., weird idolatrous folk-religion shit).

[1] zuk1 is jyutping; juk1 is yale; jook is not from any particular romanization, but it's very common. [2] Romanization of கஞ்சி. [3] Hey, you know what's worse than catty and tael? Picul! Again, from Malay. However, the Chinese is 石 (stone; usually pronounced shí) but it's pronounced and conceptualized like 担 (a load one bears, e.g., with a pole over your shoulder; pronounced dàn). This is fucking stupid! [4] Romanization of ꦒꦺꦴꦁ. [5] In the sense of the language, it could be 官话 (language of the officials), 北方话 (northern speech), 国语 (national language), or 普通话 (common speech). These words all mean something a bit different from each other, but the point is that none of the Chinese words that could somehow correspond to "Mandarin" have anything to do with the word "Mandarin". [6] मन्त्रिन्; related to English "mantra" and "mentor".

[tiantianxuexi]

Hebrew manuscript from Kaifeng, mixing in some Chinese too in order to communicate people's names.

[tiantianxuexi]

If you have a hard time getting yourself to read big chunks in mandarin (or any L2) I suggest comics! Even if you're not a fan normally! You'll get more natural language than textbooks but in more manageable bits, and with visual context to help out.

Ray is a series I read in high school but never finished--because apparently it wasn't all translated into english! So I was excited to find it in mandarin. She's a surgeon with x-ray eyes, so unsurprisingly I'm picking up some medical vocabulary.

Language practice is hard enough, don't force yourself to read originally-written-in-chinese work if there's other things you're interested in already. You can find scans by searching [title] 漫画. eg: Saint Young Men 漫画 Or depending where you live the library might have some! Especially for graphic novels you might have to find a print version; I found an excerpt of Fun Home so at least I know it was translated. For looots of original comics, the app 快看漫画 is great if a little overwhelming, or this site.

[tiantianxuexi]

When I saw this I thought. "wait, is 蒙古包 the word for Mongolian style dumplings?" No, it's the word for yurt! (or as it's called in Mongolian, a ger. and I think arguably a geodeisic dome with a cover is not one...)

Need one of those charts where "structure neutral" x "doesn't have to be edbile" is 'a building can be a bao'

[tiantianxuexi]

囍 traditional patterns 傳統紋樣

「Superior Design Consortium」 @優秀網頁設計 www.uisdc.com

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Getting Used To: 适应 vs 习惯

适应 (適應) shìyìng and 习惯 (習慣) xíguàn can both be used to describe adapting to a new things, but they’re not the same!

适应 (適應) shìyìng

V. to adapt, to fit, to suit. This can be about something’s compatibility with a system, a sort of “coming into alignment with” maybe. 

适应需要 shìyìng xūyào meet the requirments (say on a job app)

你的思想必须适应变化了的情况。 nǐ de sīxiǎng bìxū shìyìng biànhuàle de qíngkuàng You need to adapt your thinking to the changed circumstance. 

习惯 (習慣) xíguàn

N. habit, custom. (不良习惯 - bad habit) nothing tricky here

V. to accustom to, to get used to. For me this kind of “adapting” feels much more about personal contexts. For example when I was studying abroad people would ask if I had 习惯ed to the city, to the food eg. 

他习惯早起。 tā xíguàn zǎoqǐ He’s used to getting up early.

我已经习惯了纽约的生活节奏。 wǒ yǐjīng xíguànle niǔyuē de shēnghuó jiézòu I've already gotten used to the pace of life in New York.

As always the more times you encounter them they will naturally disambiguate themselves, but hopefully this gets you going!

[tiantianxuexi]

Shoutout to @MixmagAsia on this one. “The debut release for Shy People comes via Night Swimmer …. you can watch the Wuhan-based Musician play music from his forthcoming album in front of White Dagoba Temple alongside American musician thruoutin.”

https://mixmag.asia/read/shy-people-label-electronic-music-chinese-perspective-local/

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dolores, a Chinese lecturer (@learnchinesewithdolores)

开斋节快乐！kāi zhāi jié kuài lè! Happy Eid!

斋月  zhāi yuè  Ramadan (occasionally 拉马丹 lā mǎ dān）

封斋  fēng zhāi  to fast (she says it's only for Muslims, but I think she means is it has religious connotations, since it can also be applied to Lent)

This account does a lot of daily life scenarios, sometimes she'll interview a friend. This Ramadan explainer is a little over-simplified but has some good vocab! (also to note, yes the Hui minority is Muslim, but there are regional differences, and there are also non-Hui Muslim Chinese. for more on ethnic minority definition mess see)

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黑齿 Heichi is a bilingual Chinese-English online magazine, "Heichi neither claims an origin nor pursues lost traditions; it considers alternative perspectives on art’s relation to politics and society, spirituality and technology, the beautiful and the grotesque."

It's easy to toggle between the two version, so handy for checking comprehension. Once you get advanced-ish it's easy to get mired in HSK vocab lists but feel like you /still/ can't read anything you care about! At some point you have to aim your vocab acquisition for yourself !(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

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[tiantianxuexi]

Chinese Zero To Hero made a free short series on famous Chinese poems! They're from the Tang Dynasty & in Classical Chinese, so this is a nice way to get some guidance (if you'd like something more contemporary they also did a songs series)

[tiantianxuexi]

Out For Delivery is a 42 minute playable documentary shot with a 360-degree camera. The slice-of-life experience follows a food delivery courier in Beijing on January 23, 2020, the day before Lunar New Year, and the day Wuhan shut down due to COVID-19.

And it’s free! (I found it through this article all of computer games: Travel the World From Home With These Immersive, Accessible Video Games)