What are you reading?

ok, so I finished 【蓝血人】。。。and so what the hey, I was wondering why it looked like this story couldn't be finished in a mere 220 pages, and look what it ends up saying here on the last page: 未完，请看【蓝血人】续集 【回归悲剧】**(don't click link to avoid spoiler)

note to whomever buys this book, buy the next one too if you want a satisfying ending grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Ok, so I guess that means I have to reach for something else in my book stash~ I think is going to be this one:

匆匆那年

____________________________

**PS. now I'm super PO'd b/c I think this link semi ruined the next book for me...^&*^&*(*

I've decided to take on 鹿鼎記 by 金庸, which seems pretty interesting so far. It isn't as hard as I expected it to be: I can read it without using a dictionary which is very satisfying, feels like my hard work cramming idioms and characters finally paid off.

I've just finished 张爱玲's 倾城之恋. It was moderately challenging in terms of style and vocabulary, but not too bad.

I enjoyed the style, I'll be reading some more of her short stories in the future.

I came across what claims to be a French translation of a Chinese play supposedly very much akin to Plautus' "Pot of Gold". It does seem hilarious, so the question is "who wrote it, what's it called"? I'm leaning towards a 元雜劇 by 关汉卿 , but someone who knows their stuff might be able to recognize it ,

The whole passage is in French, and I can't do justice to the outrageous fun it is by translating.

here are the clues in English:

-main protagonist unexplainedly goes from rags to riches, becomes a 院外:his name is romanized as Kou-Jin. He is really stingy.

-has a servant romanized as Tchinn

-adopts a flunked-out scholar's kid named Tcheou

-Kou-Jin contracts a grave illness caused by extreme iration after he fell asleep and a dog licked some sauce off his finger which he was saving for later! In the last act he's on his deathbed and entrusts his son to bury him not in a pricey pine coffin but instead in the beatdown horse manger they have lying around the backyard (and chop up his corpse to make it fit in, but don't use our nice new axe, borrow the neighbour's).And his dying words are "don't forget to get back the 5 copper change from the congee merchant"

There is the odd chance that it's a fake: I don't think this is the case here, but can't be sure until I find the original Chinese source!

I've got surprisingly not far in my enquiry, which prompts me to ask "is there a single most prominent textbook on classical litterature that is used in Chinese 中学"? Sorry if slightly off-topic, but if we identify the play, I 发誓 I'll read it.

Just finished a book about a guy with a 1277 point to do-list. He actually does all those things. It made me feel a bit better about my own list.

I'm reading 三国演义, the bilingual edition in 5 volumes (大中华文库 Series). It's so absorbing and I admire all the hundreds of characters in it, who had to deal with intrigues and betrayals almost at every blink of their eyes !

I'm now at the most exciting place where 诸葛亮 is introduced in the story for the first time. I've heard of his name for a long time and just want to see if he's as good as he made out to be .

The Chinese version is in the original language by the author, written many centuries ago, so I dip into it only occasionally and rely mainly on the English for the story, but I've promised myself to come back and read it in Chinese once my first read has finished .

Hong XQ, first, 院外 (X), 員外 (O).

The play looks like this one -> 《看錢奴》 by 鄭廷玉 (Yuan Dynasty)

PS - Read about the story (in English) on pages 22-30 -> http://www.archive.org/stream/dramaitshistoryl03lond#page/22/mode/1up

I'm now at the most exciting place where 诸葛亮 is introduced in the story for the first time. I've heard of his name for a long time and just want to see if he's as good as he made out to be .

Oh 诸葛亮 is a fun guy. Keep reading, you'll see why I say that.

Thanks for the tip, Meng Lelan, I'm looking forward to it. My main problem is in fact how to put the book down and do some work

Amazing skylee, thanks . You are spot-on, it is definitely 看錢奴 by 鄭廷玉.

Going through the text was a breeze, and introduced me to a few turns of sentence which seem specifically old to me like this 俺.

So the miser is called 賈仁, and the bit about the axe, which I found particularly excessive , is this (after aggressive machine 简体-ization):

〔贾仁云〕我儿。我这病覰天远。入地近。多分是死的人了。我儿。你可怎么发送我。

〔小末云〕若父亲有些好歹呵。您孩儿买一个好杉木棺材与父亲。

〔贾仁云〕我的儿。不要买。杉木价高。我左右是死的人。晓的甚麽杉木柳木。我后门头不有那一个喂马槽。尽好发送了。

〔小末云〕那喂马槽短。你偌大一个身子。装不下。

〔贾仁云〕哦。槽可短。要我这身子短。可也容易。拏斧子来把我这身子拦腰刴做两段。折叠着。可不装下也。我儿也。我嘱咐你。那时节不要喒家的斧子。借别人家的斧子刴。

〔小末云〕父亲。俺家裏有斧子。可怎么问人家借。

〔贾仁云〕你那裏知道。我的骨头硬。若使我家斧子刴卷了刀。又得几文钱钢。

〔小末云〕直是这等。

-I wonder whether the bit in bold should simply be 什么.

-Apparently 骨头硬 is used to describe character as well - I guess Yuan theater was a fun place to go!

-The 中国都市芸能研究会 link has an amazing collection of Yuan dynasty plays!

Thanks also for correcting my mistakes everytime Before I'd look up pinyin in the dictionary, now I use the IME too blilndly!

Thanks also for correcting my mistakes everytime Before I'd look up pinyin in the dictionary, now I use the IME too blilndly!

Ah, a mistake to be corrected, blilndly should be spelled "blindly".

Which reminds me, what I am reading now is Foundations of Braille Literacy. It's in English. Not available in Chinese, unfortunately.

W00t!

I've finished a short story by 张爱玲 (will look up the title when I'm home). The one about Yao xiansheng and his 7 beautiful daughters. A really cool little story, really recommended.

But the main report is that I've finished reading 乱马 1/2 in Chinese translation, all 7000 pages of it.

I started about a year and a half ago and kept reading it as a pastime, when I wasn't in the mood for more serious stuff. It was really helpful during the time when I was really getting to grips with reading Chinese and wasn't able to read more complex stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, as it has kung fu, pretty girls and people turning into animals. What more can you ask for?

Order it here or read online here (seems to be broken at the moment, but usually works).

EDIT: Back to reading 巴金's 秋. The short break was very useful, I'm enjoying it again, and will try to finish it in the coming couple of months.

New Concept Chinese for Children Volume 7

After exactly 98 poems (almost all 4-liners), here is the first "story". May I share it?

中国的牛

在旧金山的一所中文学校里, 老师对各位学生说: "其实中文并不难学, 在汉字中有许多象形字, 例如, 山羊的 '羊' 字, 不就有两只角吗?"

"是的, 老师!" 学生回答.

"那么, 我们再来认这个 '牛' 字."

"我不明白," 一个学生立即问道, "为什么中国的牛只有一只角呢?"

Currently enjoying the first volume of 盗墓笔记

So I kind of didn't make much progress w/ my other books I started a month or two ago b/c I've been super busy w/ other things....yet there was a solution:

I'm reading this book now 树上的悬崖 which is basically a collection of short suspense stories!~ and indeed "结局次次出人意料"

I like the writing style of this author, it's fun and makes for enjoyable reading, which is making me not want to put it down b/c I want to find out what the heck is going on w/ these crazy characters...but then again these are short stories, so you can finish one, set the book down for a while and pick it up later w/o completely forgetting what was going on in the story.

I am reading Dan Brown's "Angel and Demons" and I find it unexpectedly enjoyable.

I've finished "Angel and Demons" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic". I also started reading "Time Traveller's Wife" in Doha airport (what else could one do in Doha airport). These fat/easy books are essential reading when one takes long-haul flights with poor connection.

I'm about six pages away from finishing 宾克的魔法, which is a translation of Spell for Chameleon, the first in a long series of "Xanth" fantasy novels. At 270 pages with a fairly straightforward story, it fit well as my second book in Chinese. It is certainly not high literature, and is quite juvenile, but I found it quite entertaining in a Lord of the Rings Lite type of way.

Next, I plan to try 小王子, which has been mentioned a few times as a good starter book.

I am reading The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China.

I always had a fascination with the Song Dynasty because China became a modern society during that time compared with its global peers in the same timeframe; symbolized by the growth of urban centers, a vibrant entrepreneurial class, artistic achievements, technological and scientific advances, and the ability of scholar-officials to engage in intellectual debate without intervention from the emperor.

I read a lot of Chinese historical novels, particularly the long complicated ones with hundreds of characters.

Has anyone compared Romance of the Three Kingdoms with All Men Are Brothers? (both English editions, mind you!!).

I've read and loved RTK many times and really think it's one of the best stories ever. I'm a 1/4 through all men are brothers (shui hu zhuan I think it is in ping yin), but I dont know if I like it.

The English forward to shui hu zhuan said that it was one of the five classics in Chinese literature, which had also pushed RTK out of the top five, and yet I think RTK (so far) is a much more compelling tale.

Anyone agree?