忏悔日 Confession Day by 林笛 Lín Dí

[pho50]

So it took a Chinese song to teach me what Shrove Tuesday is... keke.

Wiki says it's the term used in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Australia for Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday.  "Shrove is the past tense for "shrive" - which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by confessing and doing penance.  Shrove Tuesday gets its name for the shriving (

Comments

[dustthouart]

Repentance Day is a dumb translation, no offense to Lin Di, because in chanhui in Chinese, in the context she's using it, refers to what in English we exclusively call "confession", not repentance. Chanhui Ri is a Catholic term. The whole idea is that it's the last day of carnival... after all that exuberance, you're going to need to confess, lol.

I went to confession when I lived in Taiwan and everytime I went into the church, I would say to the receptionist, "Shenfu ke bu ke yi ting wo de chanhui? (Can a priest hear my confession?)" (Because I was never good at remembering the schedule lol.) And then when I got into the confessional I would say "Wo chanhui shuo Yingwen keyi ma? (Is it alright if I confess in English?)" and I always got the response "Of course". (Most of the priests were actually Europeans, and they could all of them speak English very well.)

Ah, memories.

The whole Mardi Gras thing is kind of curious because the whole idea of Fat Tuesday was supposed to be... we used up all of our fat and sugar, and then we go on a spiritual and physical diet for 40 days. Nowadays, people eat the donuts, and skip the fast!

[pho50]

Haha, if I had to confess in Chinese it would be a very short confession. ...uh.. dou shi wode cuo amen.

I have a Catholic friend known for her awesome baking skills who gives up sweets for Lent each year... but she still manages to bake goodies for me. That's pretty much my memories of Lent.

Thanks for clarifying Chanhui Ri. I had a feeling Repentance Day didn't quite do it. I haven't really checked the rest of the song translation...

[pho50]

Hey, can I ask you a translation question? I hope so, 'cause here goes. Is "If I could see hell, then I wouldn't fear the devil" an accurate translation of 如果看见地狱，我就不怕魔鬼? or better to say, "If I see hell, I won't fear the devil"? or maybe they're both wrong?
(btw, it's name of Tizzy Bac's new cd.)

[dustthouart]

The latter, but it's complex to explain why. "If I see hell, I won't fear the devil."
Breaking it down for you:
Ru - guo - kan - jian - di - yu, wo - jiu - bu - pa - mo - gui.
suppose - case - look - see - earth - prison, I - then immediately - not - fear - demon - ghost.
In the case where I complete the action of seeing hell, I will then not fear the devil.
If I see hell, I won't fear the devil.
:3
I'm not exactly sure why I feel so strongly in my gut that it's all very future tense and not past tense, but... Chinese isn't a very past tense language in the first place, y'know? Trying to do conditional past when you want to do it is like pulling teeth. I remember trying to express the concept "If I had known you didn't have work, I would have asked you out to lunch". I was in agony lol. I had to time mark everything. "Ruguo wo na yi tian zaoshang..."

[pho50]

Ah okay, thank you!