撒哈拉的故事 (Stories of the Sahara) by 三毛 (San Mao)

[phills]

撒哈拉的故事 is often recommended for Chinese learners who are just starting to be able to comfortably read native-language materials.  It's a fun story, set in an cool exotic location, the Sahara. Because it's written with in a breezy whimisical style, levened with humor and allusions, parts of it can be deceptively difficult for beginner readers. 

 

I just finished it, so I'm going to post parts of it I found difficult to parse / understand and see if others can help or run into similar difficulties.  I'm continuing a discussion from the General Thread, so I'll repeat the difficulty I posted there, and add a new one.

 

1. The mystery of “天堂鸟”的花, given to them by 马诺林

 

Was 马诺林 trying to romantically pursue 三毛 or 荷西?   马诺林 runs away in embarrassment after being confronted, but it's never stated why (or it went over my head).

 

What is “天堂鸟”的花?  Is it an actual flower? Why is it fiery (天堂鸟在墙角怒放着燃烧着它们自己)?

 

What's the significance of the book 马诺林 gives them at the end (《在亚洲的星空下》)? 

 

2. Verse in 白手成家 (story about her first arriving in the Sahara, and building up her home)

 

There's a verse in there, in which I think she's trying to pump up her own spirits.  Is she alluding to some kind of song lyrics, but then tweaking the words?

 

生命的过程，无论是阳春白雪，青菜豆腐，我都得尝尝是什么滋味，才不枉来走这么一遭啊！（其实，青菜豆腐都尝不到。）

 

没有什么了不起，这世上，能看到— “长河落日圆，大漠荒烟直” 的幸运儿又有几个如我？（没有长河，烟也不是直的。）

 

再想— 古道西风瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯— 这个意境里，是框得上我了。 （也没有瘦马，有瘦驼。）

 

[phills]

From @Woodford's post:

Quote

他生气了，用筷子一夹夹了一个，面部大有壮士一去不复返的悲壮表情，咬了半天，吞下去。 ”事了，是海苔。“ 我跳起来，大叫，”对了，对了，真聪明！“ 又要跳，头上吃了他一记老大爆栗。
 

I understand everything up until the last phrase, 头上吃了他一记老大爆栗。 I don't even know where to go with that.

 

This is from the section in which San Mao was trying to get her husband to taste a Sushi Roll, and he originally thought it was paper.  My interpretation was:

 

He gets angry, uses a chopstick to pick up a piece, making some kind of face while doing so.  He chews it for half a day, swallows it, and says "It's Seaweed"  San Mao jumps up, in joy, "Right, right, you're cleverer than you look." 

 

Then she rushes to make him eat a bunch of "boss"-level (aka awesome?) roasted chestnuts too.

 

[Presumably the chestnuts were also on the table, and this completes the Asian portion of the meal.  Cause the next sentence says: "中国东西快吃完了，我的“中国饭店”也舍不得出菜了，西菜又开始上桌."]

 

Good guess?

[Lu]

On 9/30/2021 at 8:05 AM, phills said:

What is “天堂鸟”的花?  Is it an actual flower?

天堂鸟 is a flower, Wikipedia says its English name is 'crane flower' or 'bird of paradise'. Do a Google Image search and you will see why she calls it fiery. Manolín is in love with Sanmao (not with José), that's why he keeps giving her flowers. It's in the text too, when she says '「畢葛（我叫他的姓），你沒有侵犯我，你給了一個女人很大的讚美和鼓勵」. He is ashamed of his feelings because she is his good friend's wife, a good friend who welcomed him into their home. If I recall correctly,《在亚洲的星空下》 is a Spanish book featuring a Western man falling in love with an Asian woman. So Manolín is kind of projecting this onto Sanmao.

 

On 9/30/2021 at 8:05 AM, phills said:

生命的过程，无论是阳春白雪，青菜豆腐，我都得尝尝是什么滋味，才不枉来走这么一遭啊！（其实，青菜豆腐都尝不到。）

没有什么了不起，这世上，能看到— “长河落日圆，大漠荒烟直” 的幸运儿又有几个如我？（没有长河，烟也不是直的。）

再想— 古道西风瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯— 这个意境里，是框得上我了。 （也没有瘦马，有瘦驼。）

The first one is made up, or perhaps a saying. It's not from a classical poem as far as I could find.

The second is from 《使至塞上》 by 王维.

The third is from 《秋思》 by 马致远.

Poems are quite easily googled, you simply google one or two lines and the name of the author is then in the first few results. You can then continue to try and find an English translation, because classical Chinese poems are usually not that easy to understand. (Or you can just conclude, OK, probably a poem, it's going over my head, I'll just read on.)

[phills]

Thank you!

 

1. Aha.  "天堂鸟", the "quotes" around it screwed with me, as I thought it might also be a metaphor.  (thought in my head -- could it be something lewd? or symbolic?)

 

 

Then assuming it was flowers, since he was giving flowers to Jose, I thought he was pursuing Jose.  Looking through the text, maybe I didn't register "转给" strongly enough. 

 

这花都是转给荷西带回来的 must mean that it's originally intended for Sanmao, not merely that it was Jose passing it on.  In my mind, I confuse it with the similar "传给" -- 这花都是荷西传给我的, or "专给" -- 这花都是专给荷西带回来的.

 

I wasn't sure Manolin was a guy, although I did see a 他 (could it be a OCR typo?).  I interpreted 讚美和鼓勵 as just "support" and thought it might have been support in the past; it was neutral enough I didn't necessarily register it as romantic. 

 

The whole thing didn't fit together, and I knew the book 《在亚洲的星空下》 would be the clue to resolve it but didn't know what the book was about.

 

What you say makes much better sense.  I guess I'm clueless like Jose (荷西，他的书籍大致都是平原大野、深海、星空的介绍，他不[认识]人内心的问题)

 

2. I tried to google all 3 lines as a unit, didn't expect them to be from 3 different poems.  As you say, poems are not that easy to understand.  Does seem like a read on for now.

[Lu]

On 9/30/2021 at 11:12 AM, phills said:

I tried to google all 3 lines as a unit, didn't expect them to be from 3 different poems.

I usually google a smaller bit, just one or two lines. In case the author made a mistake, or an intentional change, or left something out, or it's not an existing poem at all and no poem will show up in the results... And if it doesn't work, you can try googling an even smaller bit and see if that helps.

[Publius]

On 9/30/2021 at 2:13 PM, phills said:

Then she rushes to make him eat a bunch of "boss"-level (aka awesome?) roasted chestnuts too.

 

[Presumably the chestnuts were also on the table, and this completes the Asian portion of the meal.  Cause the next sentence says: "中国东西快吃完了，我的“中国饭店”也舍不得出菜了，西菜又开始上桌."]

 

Good guess?

No, it just means she got knocked on the head by Jose (presumably with knuckle). Try search 爆栗 on Baidu.

[Woodford]

Ah, I understand it now. 头上吃了他一记老大爆栗.

 

头上 just literally means "on the head." I originally thought it was something more abstract, like "above," "overhead," etc.

 

吃, as I suspected, has the more precise meaning of "absorb" or "suffer," rather than just "eat."

 

The most surprising thing I learned here is that 记 can be a measure word for "blows, kicks, and shots" (according to my Chinese dictionary).

 

老大, I'm guessing, must mean "really big."

 

爆栗 is really slangy and doesn't have any entries in my Pleco dictionaries (surprisingly), but as Publius suggested, I looked it up on Baidu. I guess it's a 拟声词 that describes a crack/strike/blow.

 

"On (my) head I suffered (from) him a large blow" (it's kinda difficult to translate it to English).

[Guest realmayo]

On 9/30/2021 at 8:19 PM, Woodford said:

The most surprising thing I learned here is that 记 can be a measure word for "blows, kicks, and shots" (according to my Chinese dictionary).

 

Checking a dictionary to discover that a stray character is actually an unknown (for me) measure word has given me a lot of "ah-ha!" moments....

 

[Woodford]

On 10/1/2021 at 2:53 AM, realmayo said:

Checking a dictionary to discover that a stray character is actually an unknown (for me) measure word has given me a lot of "ah-ha!" moments....

Sometimes, the true culprits are the super-common words that take on different meanings in different contexts. 好 is a good example. It's one of the very first Chinese words we learn, and yet it's used in so many nuanced ways, and sometimes is pronounced with a 4th tone rather than a 3rd tone. I still don't think I've exhausted all its different uses.

 

That use of 记 seems so random to me. I usually associate the word with "record" or "memory."