Recently I was reading a discussion about learning to read Mandarin and someone suggested a book. I was interested because the story was supposed to be at a level for people who've learned about 300 characters. I think I know more than that, but this seemed like a good way to see how I do reading an actual story.

Dream of the Red Chamber doesn't ( Read more... )

I started reading The Red Chamber by Pauline Chen, a "reimagining" of Dream of the Red Chamber. I was curious what kind of story would come out of that. I'm about halfway through... and bored.

( I suppose I should make a spoiler wall... )

I was saying that Dream of the Red Chamber is filled with the details of daily life, and this is true. It feels like something written by an author who actually lived there (and he did, sort of). Apparently many of the characters are reminiscent of people he knew.

But there's a lot going on underneath the events and conversations, the mending of ( Read more... )

This story is very detailed. A lot of modern readers might think it's too much detail, but you're immersed, thrown into life in a society over 250 years away. But it's not about the sorts of things usually written down in histories: what the King is doing, what the Chancellor is doing, what war is about to start and who the generals are ( Read more... )

There are a lot of young people living in the Garden now. A bunch of female cousins, and Baoyu, and all their servants. Last night I was reading a scene in which they did this sort of linked verse composition, people taking turns coming up with two lines of poetry each before moving on.

Tingting and I were talking about this part of the story today ( Read more... )

This evening I watched episode 17, because I wanted to compare Xifeng's party as portrayed in the show with what I just read. There are scenes from several chapters in that episode, actually, including 36 and 44 (iirc). It's amazing, though, to watch this after just reading some of these scenes. They're so close, even to the point of characters ( Read more... )

The mood keeps changing in Chapter 44. Xifeng's birthday party is a huge affair, and people seem to be having a good time. They keep pushing drinks on her ("drink one with me" ... "okay now you have to drink one with me too") until she decides to go home and lie down for a bit. Servants on lookout make her suspicious. Naturally her husband Jia Lian ( Read more... )

The last few chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber have reminded me of this part of the show. Young nobles pass the days and months in their garden, chasing butterflies or sleeping among the flowers, writing poetry together, or enjoying drinking games while music plays.

They have a lot of fun toying with Granny Liu and her rural ignorance or their ( Read more... )

Beta testing this weekend, so I don't know when I'll get to anything. There are two King 2 Hearts episodes to watch, and I've got six more episodes of Smiling Proud Wanderer, and approximately 43,298 episodes of Iron Empress left to go.

Also doing a bit of random rewatching here and there. Last weekend it was LOCH and Red Chamber.

After I finish SPW ( Read more... )

I was suddenly in the mood to watch Dream of the Red Chamber again, and it turned into a bit of a marathon. I think I've watched six episodes in a row. Yuanyang refusing a marriage (still one of my favorite episodes), Qingwen mending the peacock feather cape, group poetry and song, Baochai getting bird's nest soup for Daiyu, and (going back) Daiyu ( Read more... )