The Longest Distance in the World (1/1)

[weird_number]

Title: The Longest Distance in the World (1/1)
Author: Unknown; Translator: Me
Genre: Uh, historical?
Characters, Pairings: Beijing/Shanghai, various other cities (in China) and countries mentioned
Summary: Beijing supposed that he'd always harbored a special sort of feeling towards Shanghai

Comments

[luthien13]

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to translate this! I really enjoyed it, and am probably going to stalk this journal ad aeternam in the hope of other such gems. :D

[weird_number]

Thanks! ;) I'm hoping to translate more Chinese province/city stuff, actually...there's just so much and they're all fun to read.

[darkfireburning]

I'm sitting here just sort of grinning at the computer screen which doesn't fit the fic at all but ignore that because you're awesome for translating this and I'm really looking forward to more in the future =D

Also yes yes yes if you write something about 'Shanghainese' (does it have a proper name? XD) vs. Mandarin I would love you forever. I personally can't speak it, but I understand it well enough in everyday conversation since most of my relatives still speak it.

[weird_number]

Yay, thanks! :D I itch to do more...it's kind of odd I never found myself this excited while reading about U.S. states that weren't near my place of residence.

Woah, awesome, you know Shanghainese too! ;D (I think it's called that on Wikipedia, so it probably is right) I can somewhat speak it, but I also understand it due to listening to relatives. I have a certain fascination with Chinese "dialects"...haha.

[darkfireburning]

I admit to not caring much for provinces other than Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia in fic, so I think we're in the same situation XD

Is Shanghai your hometown? :3 Oooh, that's cool. Can you speak/understand any others?

[weird_number]

Did you once live in British Columbia then? :D

Actually, not really, my hometown is more in the nearby city of Nanjing. It's just that most of my grandparents are from Shanghai and I still have a bunch of relatives there. ;) Unfortunately, nope. I'm hoping to learn Cantonese though...since that's all I ever hear around here!

[zedille]

It's official, ILU, can I marry you? xD

Thank you for translating this, I really enjoyed reading it. And I really liked the idea of this, and I'd love to see more [you should translate more, not "you should write this", I guess?] stuff about Shanghai. Now that I think about it, the city really did have a lot of ups and downs... hmm. Food for thought! (I love the idea of Shanghai/everyone before Communism, though I'm not entirely sure why Beijing and Tianjin would be together... /is not good at Chinese history) And I loved the relationship dynamics between Shanghai and Beijing. I mean, that one line He chose to pretend he hadn't heard a word, crushing the last hopes of the man behind him. Wow. :/

(And rereading this - that first scene packed a punch too - and Beijing had Character Development through this too, didn't he?)

And while we're on the topic of city pairings, I maintain that Paris/Rome is definitely a ship xD (Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris) what do you mean, "exclusive twinning relationship, you

[fluffcloud]

Hehe, I bet this was written by a Shanghainese XD I am sad that no one is writing a fic about "my" admittedly insignificant city :( I note the the original text is full of tricks to elude the censor, no doubt due to "sensitive words".

As for Beijing and Tianjin: If I remember right, Tianjin is the nearest northern port city to Beijing but it's kind of underdeveloped so there's been talk of integrating the area near Beijing so they would be an economically powerful region like the area near Shanghai.

[weird_number]

Maybe. ;D (I think most writers of the Beijing/Shanghai pairing are from one of the two cities, haha)

I might be able to find one! Browsing through their forums takes a while though. And yeah, they have a giant rules post explaining how nation names and place names have to be properly censored, for fear of reprisal... Although the original version of this post was in traditional, so I don't know if it's actually a mainland-only issue.

[weird_number]

Thanks! ;D

Haha, of course you can. ;D

Yep, I really want to translate more! Although I might actually write some myself about the marginalizing of various dialects (I'll probably stick to Shanghainese and Cantonese for simplicity's sake). I think fluffcloud's got it with the Tianjin-Beijing explanation. Afaik, the Chinese fandom says Tianjin was "raised as a child to be a bride to Beijing".

LOL. Niiice. That second link is utterly hilarious. Oh Paris, oh Rome. :D Btw, have you seen the New York/London comics (and various other cities) on nationslash?

Thank you, hehe, the translation process was actually pretty fun. ;)