星星 etc

[skylee]

People say the Korean series "My love from the stars" is a big hit over here. I have started to "boil' (煲, spend a lot of time to watch it) it and I find it quite enjoyable.
 
Anyways, the Chinese name of the series is 來自星星的你. And it has occurred to me that the word 星星 is quite unusual. It can be singular and plural, and it really means the same as 星.  2x星 does not necessarily mean that it refers to more than one star, although it can. But we don't say 沙沙 to mean sand.
 
Can you think of other nouns like 星星?  猩猩 perhaps? Same pronunciation as 星星, a noun with two identical characters, can be singular or plural. But 猩 cannot be used on its own. 包包 is another, but I am reluctant to agree that it is a real word.
 
Views?

[Lu]

包包 for bag/purse? Don't know if it's in the dictionary, but it's used as a real word.

弟弟，姐姐 etc are perhaps examples?

 

But I agree, 星星 and 猩猩 are strange words. Almost like nobody thought of what the second character should be in time, and then people had already doubled the first and it was too late to make something else of it. You'd rather expect something like 亮星 and 大猩 or 黑猩. After all, nobody says 月月 or 象象.

[skylee]

Yes, 爺爺公公婆婆爸爸媽媽哥哥姐姐弟弟妹妹嬸嬸伯伯叔叔. I have forgotten all of them.

[Kobo-Daishi]

I've been downloading and watching the show ever since I read this February 26, 2014 article titled "Korean TV Show Sparks Chicken and Beer Craze in China" found at Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal newspaper's ChinaRealTime web blog.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/02/26/korean-tv-show-sparks-chicken-and-beer-craze-in-china/

The article says that the show is a hit in China and that people have taken to eating fried chicken with beer because the female lead eats it in the show.

I had noticed in quite a few Korean dramas that they seem to eat an inordinate amount of fried chicken, but, then they also ate KFC in Ariel Lin's It Started With A Kiss. Lotta product placement it seemed to me.  

While watching star, for the longest time I thought that the lead actress reminded me so much of the lead in My Sassy Girl. The way she sounded and the way she looked at times. Then I did a Wikipedia search and it turns out it's the same actress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Love_From_the_Star

I'm watching it in Korean with Chinese subs. I was hoping for a Cantonese dub with Chinese subs, but, I guess it's too new and probably isn't out for the Hong Kong market yet.


 

 

This is the scene where he saves her as a little girl and she asks him "uncle, who are you?"

 

Kobo.

[Michaelyus]

娃娃、宝宝 

 

Noun reduplication is rarer in the various forms of Chinese than in the rest of the East Asian area's languages. But different 方言 have different rates of reduplication.

 

It's very characteristic of cute childish language, whether it's from children themselves or directed at children. E.g. 猪猪、狗狗 are both fairly common. Of course, that leaves the question of why only some persist as "standard" "adult" speech.

 

Here's a study (in Chinese) of some of the noun reduplication forms (including the obvious 人人、天天, as well as AAB/ABB/other reduplicated forms).

[Kobo-Daishi]

奶奶, 爹爹

 

Kobo.

[skylee]

奶 is not the same as 奶奶 (same applies to 寶寶 / 猩猩 / 人人 / 天天), whereas 星 is the same as 星星.

[lingo-ling]

蛋蛋 - slang for testicles

[Kobo-Daishi]

While watching star, for the longest time I thought that the lead actress reminded me so much of the lead in My Sassy Girl. The way she sounded and the way she looked at times. Then I did a Wikipedia search and it turns out it's the same actress.

I was reading Variety (our entertainment industry town newspaper) when I came across this March 20, 2014 article by Patrick Frater, the Asia Bureau Chief.

Korean ‘Star’ Shines in China’s Political, Online Firmaments

Another article on how popular "My love from the stars" is in China, when I came across this.

“Star” has also put Jun ever more in the spotlight. A superstar who rarely makes more than one movie per year, she is a model-turned-actress who has been part to several of Korea’s biggest film hits, including “My Sassy Girl,” “The Thieves,” “The Berlin File.” “Stars” is her first TV drama in 14 years.

Less comfortably, it has also put the spotlight on her ethnicity. It was back in 2007 when she controversially changed her name from the Korean-sounding Jeon Ji-hun to the more Italian-sounding Gianna Jun. But since then it has emerged that both her parents are of Chinese origin, a black mark in Korea even today, and that she was in fact born Wang Ji-hyun.

Jun initially denied having Chinese roots and does not speak much of the language, but she has more recently confirmed her origins. While that represents a stigma in Korea, it could be a big plus in an era where today China is an economic superpower.

A decade ago, Jun’s endorsement of a Chinese mobile phone brand VK gave the company a 40% sales boost. But her star wattage was not enough to help “Snow Flower And The Secret Fan,” the Wayne Wang-directed, Wendi Deng-produced period drama in which she co-starred with Li Bingbing.

I always thought Jeon Ji-hun (now Gianna Jun) was ethnic Han Korean 韓(韩) but it now appears she's ethnic Han Chinese 漢(汉).

Kobo.

[skylee]

The TV series 星星 is phenonmenal, in a way similar to Daejangguem (大長今) and Winter Sonata. I guess the main difference is just that most Chinese audience now watch it on the internet.  It has gone to my head, and I am waiting for it to subside. 

[Kobo-Daishi]

This bit from the Variety article really blew my mind.

 

 

Significantly however, it was not picked up by a conventional broadcaster, but instead was acquired by online video platforms iQiyi and LeTV. They have seen episodes of the show streamed over 14.5 billion times since December.

 

That's 14.5 billion views over 21 episodes. It makes out to about 700 million views each episode.

 

Kobo.