flemmings | More blameless pastimes

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More blameless pastimes

Aka 'I have been a geek, Cynara, in my fashion.'

So, that Goujun picture from Gaiden 3 that has us all hot and bothered? Over in the lower left corner it has one of Minekura's arrgh arrgh headbang pieces of seal script writing. I of course have to know what it says. (Meaning resides in *words*, always, though you'd think with an image like that, that for once I'd make an exception.) What have I spent the evening doing? Looking at characters in Minekura's seal script passage, thinking 'that kind of looks like 'noon', looking up the hanzi for 'noon' (and falcon and several other fruitless guesses) at Mandarintools, and plugging the hanzi I find there into an instant handy-dandy seal script generator I found courtesy of google. To add insult to injury, you have to use simplified hanzi; traditional hanzi only gets you the same hanzi printed in red.

To date, I discover only that Goujun asks 'why' a lot.

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Ahhh. Ah seal script. No, I can't read seal script. I know some Chinese sites on it but you have to type in the everyday equivalent to see the seal script version and how am I supposed to do that if I can't even read it?

I don't think the recurring character is "why" though, even if I see some similarities with the modern day version. Unless we're looking at different characters.

is written

in seal script.

I'll take a wild stab and guess that the first line (extreme right) reads "the gentleman has yet to learn."

(jun1 zi3) means gentleman, in the sense of scholarly and refined; the third character is a bit iffy but I'm taking it to be

(wei 4) which means "has yet to be"; and the last character, as you rightly found, means to study or learn.

Oh wait! There are five characters in the first line. Third character is

, (zhi 1), which means "of". "The *unknown character* learning/philosophy of a gentleman-scholar"!

Worse and worse. That unknown character is so simple- how many three stroke hanzi are there?

Ohhh 焉. 焉! I am ashamed. I knew I'd seen the word before, but for some reason my brain kept supplying "crooked" and I went off searching for all its known synonyms to no avail. 焉 is one of those archaic Chinese filler words that don't really have a lot of meaning in modern Chinese. It survives in a couple of sayings and proverbs; I suppose the best way to explain it is to explain these sayings.

心不在焉 - to be distracted and inattentive. First three characters literally "heart not here"; 焉 in this context doesn't really mean anything.

不入虎穴，焉得虎子 - to gain something worthwhile, one has to take risks. literally: If one does not enter the tiger's lair, how does one get the tiger's cub? 焉 here means "how does one, how do you", only without the pronoun. Damn English and its insistence on pronouns.

So 焉 doesn't really mean why. If anything it probably means how.

This bodes ill. If the thing is in archaic/literary Chinese there's a good chance I won't know what it's saying even if we do find out what the other characters are.

That unknown character is so simple- how many three stroke hanzi are there?

Very few, especially in traditional Chinese. Closest I got was

, cai2, which means talent. "The scholar-gentleman's study/philosophy of talent." Eh, I preferred my first (mis)interpretation.

how do I insert pictures in comments?

Same way you insert pictures anywhere else. <IMG SRC="full image url">

Oh wait 焉 does mean why in literary Chinese, according to zdic.net. It also means how. It also means where, what, and which. It is also an auxiliary word. It is also a kind of bird.

I mean, no wonder they decided to stop teaching literary Chinese.

Waahhh! I love reading about this, and thank you for having a go...I was going to try and find someone who would have been able to translate for me when I get my own copy...who knows when Kino will have it in! Sigh!

Hmm I'll see if the Liang Court one will have it in! Can't wait!

Yes, yes, you do that. S'pore should be getting them soon surely. Me, I coughed up the $35USD for amazon shipping and am hoping for day after tomorrow. I was then going to take it to the daycare and with great trepidation ask Timbits' mother if she can read it. Err- mainland Chinese, a tad puritanical you know, 'look the woman who changes your son's diapers reads books with pictures of naked scaly men'-- I really can't see *that* one going over well. It's a matter of some concern to me that all the HK Chinese seem to have vanished from my city these days...

Oh wait 焉 *does* mean why in literary Chinese, according to zdic.net. It also means how. It also means where, what, and which. It is also an auxiliary word. It is *also* a kind of bird.

That had me ROFL. Why do people insist Japanese and Chinese are entirely different languages? (Yes, yes, pot kettle: in Japan I found a thick hardcover book devoted entirely to the English word 'get.') But it confirms my belief that classical Chinese, what little I know and that from poetry, is not a language but a Rorshach test. 'What does this inkblot say to *you*?'

焉 LOL! This completely made my day! And a rather trying day it was, aside from this. Thank you!!!

In this case, 焉 is best thought of as 'during' or 'when'. But I'm aided by the advantage of hindsight, or perhaps that should be text sight.

how do I insert pictures in comments?

Same way you insert pictures anywhere else.

Durr. And I knew *that*. lj, instituted for the mutual exchange of knowledge we already possess.

And I suppose, she asks despondently, that all those sites that give you classical Chinese hanzi and their meanings are in Chinese? (defensively- Well, there *are* sites for classical Japanese in English. Few, but they exist.)

all those sites that give you classical Chinese hanzi and their meanings are in Chinese?

Yes but I've never tried looking for English ones. There might be, but since I automatically try to translate back to Chinese it's self-defeating so I don't look for them.

Argh, erased my own reply. I'm seeing 焉 yan1, yi2, whose seal script looks like this (http://mjj.laleeloo.com/alhambra/why.bmp) (how do I insert pictures in comments?) which seems close to what's in Minekura. No loopy things in the middle, at any rate.

'This gentleman has yet to learn' sounds very likely and very promising: and I wnat to know what it is he has yet to learn, in Minekura's opinion.

Ahahaha! that pic ...you were the first person I thought of! ^___^

I swear I had Goujun dreams last night - at least I remember thinking a lot about it as I closed my eyes and the thoughts kept tumbling around in my head and not dreaming as dreaming really, if that makes any sense - and slept through my hubby's alarm and him getting ready for work, and that man does not sneak around, and in fact the world could have ended I would still be blissfully inf Goujun land - eh what a way to go! *sigh*

In fact my girl had to wake me up saying 'I'm going to be late for school Mama!" The star that she is, she made breakfast for herself and her brother, (its nothing difficult of course, jam sanwiges*, cereal and milk - still it was very good of her!)

I love reading your language posts!

Ha! You done right raising that kid. Next step- breakfast for herself, her brother, and you. Served to you in bed, of course.

Sanwiges is just fine by me. Sanwiges is how it's said by people who trouble themselves to enunciate. *Sammiches* is what drives me up a wall.

I envy you your state of unconscious Goujun bliss. Could have done with it myself but no- awake as soon as the light came in, six hours after going to bed. How I very much do not like summer. Any reasonable season is pitch black at 7 am.

If you find yourself truly stuck, I will beg my mother to ask her cousin, who has a degree in classical Chinese. Personally, I think it is more fun to puzzle it out.

Not quite yet, but personally I'll be truly stuck soon. Good to know, thanks.

This is fun, right? *geek*

Definitely fun. Geeky fun!

*squints* Okay, quick one before I really need to leave:

first character in extreme left line: top radical definitely "white", bai2,

; no idea what blobby thing below (which seems to be in the first character of the second line as well) might be.

Third character in extreme left line: right part of the word seems to be fu3, which means the incubate as in an egg; but I can't see enough to tell what the radical on the left might be. COuld be any of the following:

I'm for the last one, water radical, which means "float" or "drift".

I really need a higher resolution picture. Maybe I'll pop by Kino to see if they have it. *shifty eyes*

k really gotta go now. MORE LATER.

Err, yes. Much higher resolution definitely needed here. But float looks likely. 浮焉 Floats where? Floats how? Floats... oh I give up.

But fuin! Yes fun! Geekily geeky good fun!

no idea what blobby thing below

Horrid thought- 也 or

Yet another classic finalizer. Messing about with google and 君子之学 gets me a lot of quotes from Confucius, by the look of it, but nothing says Minekura has her Confucian quotes correct.

君子之于学 is the first line

From that line, you can find the rest of the text. :-) I won't spoil it for you. It's funny that she left off the first word of the saying and you'll have to remember that 也 is indeed the phrase ending. Let me know if you want spoilers, although the Legge translation I found is seriously wanting.

The Legge translation also only exists in formats I don't read (god I hate pdf documents) and babelfish gives lolarious results. I get the gist from word-by-wording with the dictionary except for wondering how 于 fits in there. I assume it must have a different meaning in classical Chinese. But anyway- yeah, what does it mean?

You might try 於 instead of 于 in your dictionary searches. (Per the comprehensive dictionary, they are classically interchangeable.)

Also think of 之于 as a compound, not individual words.

I can't give you a definition, it's not that clear in my own head and I can't find my dictionary (it wanders about the house on it's own). The odd thing is I think the compound in common modern usage. I think I would use "concerning" or "relationship" so you end up with something like: regarding gentlemen [and their] relationship to scholarship/learning ...

The traditional character quote use 遊 instead of 游, which pushes the meaning towards traveling rather than playing. Using that character would affect the 息, changing it to a contrast between staying put and traveling rather than resting vs playing.

I have to think about 藏. I think the concealing/hiding definition and the storing definition need to be taken into consideration. 修 is most likely the practice or use definition rather than the rest definition. That pair would then make sense as when not using/when using.

Thinking out loud, I think I get:
regarding gentlemen [and their] relationship to scholarship/learning, it's present when they are not learning, it's present when they are learning, it's present when they rest, it's present when they play

於? Sheesh. You need a comprehensive Chinese dictionary in Chinese to tell you 於 = 于? That should be part of any entry for 于 grumble grumble. OK, even I can make sense of that.

The other considerations however are losing me again. I will take your word for it. (It's a storehouse. That means 'use'. Naturally. Rorshach, I say, Rorshach ink blots, that's all it is...)

It's a storehouse, it also means store or hide. Store => put away => not use, at least to me.

Ahhh. I was close! (close enough for someone who dozed through all her Chinese culture immersion classes!)

君子之于学也，藏焉修焉，息焉游焉 (simplified chinese)

(jun1 zi3 zhi1 yu3 xue2 ye3, cang2 yan1 xiu1 yan1, xi1 yan1 you2 yan1)

It's from 《学记》(traditional 學記)，which is a part of《礼记》(traditional 禮記); Record on the Subject of Education from the Classic of Rites. [wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Rites)]

Thank you

mvrdrk!

Google I love you. Minekura I hate you. Who the fuck puts 也 in the beginning of a sentence?? Although to be fair I don't think seal carvers ever had much regard for punctuation or line breaks. Did they?

So it was a "self" radical rather than "white" in the first character of the third line (two strokes instead of one in the middle). And I got the water radical and child radical in the third character! Close!

Sorry left off the first word: 故君子之于学也，藏焉，修焉，息焉，游焉。Although people do seem to quote the saying without the first word, which in this context seems to mean "regarding" or "pertaining to".

Or maybe "therefore", even. Who knows, with literary Chinese. This be why I did not do Chinese Literature in high school. In any case it seems to be acceptable to drop 故 (gu2) when quoting the saying.

故 almost always makes sense to me if I think of it as 'historically' which transmutes into 'about or regarding'

Yeah, that scan was squint-squint. And amazon tells me last night that hey we just shipped your order 48 hours after you ordered these two **new releases** so don't expect them until Monday, pout sulk Fu Manchu (=不満中) I wanted them on the weekend. However, bar the little problem of 于 that still irks my geeky soul, I feel better; and better about the fact that English only has Beowulf to boast of for antique literature.

(It's also a little less enlightening than I'd hoped for. Us westerners, we like things obvious with diagrams, not pale as water hints about a man's character that may be taken as you will. Bref: this tells me nothing about Goujun that I couldn't already have guessed.)

Though maybe I need to take that passage in the context of its picture...? Damn, forgot the visuals again, my bad habit. Stark naked Goujun who even when stark naked 'constantly studies as he breathes and disports himself' um maybe I should wait for a proper translation

*grin* Well if you want Legges there's a html version here (http://www.100jia.net/texte/liji/liki2/liki216.htm). Relevant passage is 7, I think. But this is what I got from a literary Chinese --> modern Chinese site (http://www.dfg.cn/gb/chtwh/ljxj/1-ljxjbhj.htm):

"Thus, in learning, a gentleman-scholar should conceal/safeguard [knowledge] in his heart, and present it [in his actions]; even when resting or enjoying himself, he should never forget [to learn]."

Since this is essentially a double translation I make no guarantees as to its accuracy. Also I think 于 is yet another one of those literary Chinese things. Sigh. I can't make sense of it even with a bunch of dictionry meanings to work with...

Who the fuck puts 也 in the beginning of a sentence??

Ah ha ha!! I am crying here, this is so funny! And true! The only seals I know are name seals, and you can bet they care about line breaks there.

Here's another very interesting link for classical Chinese works with English http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php?l=bienvenue

也 in the above quote does not have real meaning, only serving as an interjection.

Yes, I know that. But it still doesn't belong at the beginning of the sentence. LOL!!!

As a low- tech girl, I figured this would be a safe method of contacting you. Zan and me have been sending ditch on a mission to find Minekura- senseis address. Thanks to you, we have something substantial to work with. If you are interested in our project, check my lj for updates.
Now I'm dissapearing again.

On the subject of translations, I thought you might know the kanji for Gojun's name? I've found the 'jun' portion easy enough in an online kanji dictionary, but the 'go~' part eludes me - I can't figure out what the radical is! I want to find the meaning of the kanji, and thus the meaning of Gojun's name. Please forgive me if you've posted this already somewhere - I can't seem to find it, even though I'm certain I've seen it somewhere!!!

The Chinese use 敖闰, Minekura uses 敖润

Really? In a scan of the raw manga, the kanji used for the 'jun' portion is 潤 (めぐみジュン, うるお.う, うるお.す, うる.む = wet, be watered, profit by, receive benefits, favor, charm, steep.) Thanks for the first part, though - the radical is 'earth', yes?

Oh right. Sorry, my bad; same character, Simplified Chinese rather than trad. (the trad chinese character happens to be the same as the kanji in this case)

I don't know the names of these radicals, but I thought earth was 土?

Duh that means 敖閏 and 敖潤 respectively. Sorry brain not really working today.

So I'm on the traditional chinese version? I'm presuming it's the same in chinese as in japanese - the scans I'm referencing are in japanese. Earth is 土, but I still can't find the kanji - what does it mean?

No, I haven't got Japanese input so I've got to use Chinese. But in this case the Traditional Chinese characters = Japanese kanji, so no difference. As far as I know the first character doesn't have a meaning, it's just a really uncommon Chinese surname.

The first part of gojun's name has no meaning?!? O_o Oh well, I guess my workmate was just teasing when he said it had a meaning but he wouldn't tell me... thanks for putting me out of my misery! ♥

flemmings will know more about Japanese usage than I, but in common Chinese usage it doesn't have any particular meaning; the ones listed, like "travel" and "boil", have been replaced in the modern language by similar characters with additional radicals (遨 for travel, 熬 for boil). All three characters are homophones in Mandarin, "ao".

And you're welcome. ♥

The names Minekura uses come from the Japanese translation of The Journey to the West, where the names are probably written in Japanese characters rather than the traditional Chines eones.

The gou kanji is given in two of my three kanji dictionaries, with the alternate meanings 'play' or 'be proud.' But there are no compounds with it, a sure sign of an obscure kanji. As in Chinese, both its meanings are usually expressed in Japanese by other kanji entirely.

If you take the kanji apart, 敖 is earth over direction on the left, and the radical is 'to strike' or 'a blow' on the right.

paleaswater told me it's a kind of peasanty/ common people name. These dragons are folk characters from folk tales, and quite different from the blue dragon (青龍） who appears as the guardian of the east in Daoism.

Ah, I see! Thanks for the help guys - I was going crazy trying to figure it out for myself! ♥

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More blameless pastimes

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*feels like a cat sitting in the sun*

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Ahem, sorry for disturbing

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feels like a cat sitting in the sun