BOTM February 2008 - 《停车暂借问》

[imron]

Ok, Book of the Month for February is 《停车暂借问》by 钟晓阳

An online version can be found in 3 parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[muyongshi]

Wow is it February already?? Guess I should get started...except the page isn't loading for me. I'll check later tonight when I get back to China.

[muyongshi]

Anyone else having a problem with the links???

[gougou]

Can't open white-collar from here either. Which is strange, as I just went there a couple of days ago.

[roddy]

Same problem here - was working late last week though. I read about a third of part one, haven't really formed any opinions yet.

[imron]

Maybe the site admin has gone home for the spring festival and doesn't realise his machine's crashed They were working fine for me too, but not any more.

[studentyoung]

看看这个网行不行->

http://www.xici.net/b225406/d10651593.htm 《停车暂借问》

Cheers!

[muyongshi]

studentyoung 真的很感谢你了！

第一部分

第二部分

第三部分

[roddy]

In case they're of any use, the attached archive has the entire text from studentyoung's links in both .doc and mobipocket format. In my experience Mobipocket won't handle Chinese files on Palm, but does on PPC and desktop.

Just under 90,000 characters in this one, so aim for about 3,000 per day, statistics fans!

Feb BOTM doc and mobi.rar

[zhwj]

I had some time this morning so I read Part I, the story of the ill-fated romance between Zhao Ningjing (赵宁静) and Yoshida Chie (I believe that's his name: 吉田千重) in 1944, shortly before Japan withdraws from China. This part of the book apparently didn't make it into the 2001 screen adaptation A Pinwheel Without Wind that starred Zhou Xun and Jeff Chang.

Some notes:

- The overall narrative style reminded me of traditional fiction

- I enjoyed the realistic details of life in the northeast - the local dialect, foods, and characterization.

But not much else specific. I think it works as a tragic love story, and I'm interested in reading about Ningjing's next romantic escapade.

[imron]

*sigh* epic fail for me this month. I didn't even get the first part finished.

[skylee]

What a pity. But why? It is not your type of story?

[imron]

More a matter of other things taking precedence, and not finding the time.

[monto]

Is that so interesting?

I forced myself to read one page and had no taste for another. And there are quite a number of mistypings there.

Maybe, everyone has different stomach even for reading.

[Shadowdh]

Is that so interesting?

perhaps some suggestions regarding books to read?

[muyongshi]

If we actually are able to find a book that EVERYBODY likes I will be amazed!!! It's impossible for everyone to like every book. So in that sense it is good that we have a very wide variety so that in the end there is at least something that will grab on or two peoples attention.

I personally didn't get past the first two paragraphs this month for pretty much the same reasons as Imron. School starts up on Monday so then I should have more time to read (it sounds like an oxymoron I know!)

[studentyoung]

But not much else specific. I think it works as a tragic love story, and I'm interested in reading about Ningjing's next romantic escapade.

Perhaps because I finished the whole book, I think there is at least two tragic love stories in Miss Zhao’s life, one was with 吉田千重, the other was with 林爽然. (I like these two boys, too, especially 吉田千重, whose characters seem quite familiar to me. Hehe. ) In my opinion, the book shows how hard a girl chose her true love in a war time and how deeply her choices on love affected her life-time.

Hehe, I think the book is more suitable for girls than boys. Hehe.

Cheers!

[monto]

Shadowdh:

perhaps some suggestions regarding books to read?

read classics

1) Chinese classics

They may be difficult to read for the beginners and intemediate learners. that doesn't matter, as there are siplified versions for teenages of the native Chinese. Some of them are even with Pinyin.

2) World -wide classics

Almost all the famous classics of the world have the Chinese version. You might have read same of them in your native language, then choose these books in Chinese. The dvantages of doing so are obvious, first it them are easier to understand because you know the story already, secondly it quickly offers you means to express idea or knowledge you already have.

In my view, learning a language by an adult should be basically different from the mastering of mother longue by a native child.

The idea that one should learn a language the way a child learn his/her mother tongue is totally a misleading one.

Extra suggestion for those who are particularly fond of the story:

Do read romance books by Qiong Yao (A lady in Taiwan who wrote many love stories that earned a lot of tears from teenage girls all over the Chinese circle) which should be more formal in grammer and with less mistakes there, thus more helpful to your Chinese.