flemmings | Sleeping on sticks and tasting gall: 卧薪尝胆

paleaswater introduced me to Woxin changdan, an historical television series about an event from China's Spring and Autumn period. 5th century BC, buncha warring kingdoms (that preceded the actual Warring States period and half a millennium before the equally head-spinny Three Kingdoms period.)

Unlike the latter two and their 'can't tell the players without a scorecard and the names in both traditional and simplified hanzi and possibly Japanese readings as well' (I *said* Three Kingdoms is my bête noire and I meant it), the tale that gives rise to the proverb about sleeping on brushwood etc is fairly straightforward.

See here for the cut and dried of it. But I shall quote

paleaswater's version, as being the more colourful:

The story itself is known to every school child in China -- the King of Yue was defeated and enslaved by the King of Wu. He waited on the King of Wu hand and foot, and proved himself such a loyal and devoted slave that the King of Wu eventually freed him to return to his country. The King of Yue spent the next twenty years effecting his revenge, sleeping on a mattress of thorn and tasting gall so he would never forget the bitterness of his humiliation, until he conquered the Kingdom of Wu, and forced its king to his death.

As she says, "normally any tv series based on this would fall under the catagory of boring old men with beards." Or be a HK thing about the raving beauty that Yue later sent to undo Wu, full of song and dance and- oh right, that's Bollywood.

But here? Here we have someone's montage of Greatest Hits of Woxin ("the slashiest bits, set to music") and the King of Yue reciting a poem in praise of his enemy and current master, and umm... there's something else going on in this one, very much so.

Now

rasetsunyo has fallen under the spell and is happily squeeing over in her lj, which she's unlocked for those entries. And it seems there's more, very much more, than the tantalizing undefinable je ne sais quoi going on between Goujian the slave king of Yue and Fuchai the evil seme of Wu. I'll quote a couple of instances from this thread:

Supreme General 石買 Shi Mai is convinced that small weak Yue must appease Wu at all costs or Wu will crush Yue out of existance; while Crown Prince Gou Jian, Regent for the ailing King, believes that there are insults not to be countenenced and that one must sometimes fight. Shi Mai has the ear of the old King; old King agrees, removes title of Crown Prince from Gou Jian, and prepares to abdicate in favour of his 10 year old son (Gou Jian's half brother) with Shi Mai as Regent. An official, maternal uncle to 10 year old son, believes this to be a power grab by Shi Mai and the doom of the kingdom; after weeping and apologising at the altar of his fathers, he engages someone to assassinate the child. He then commits suicide, having shamed his family by killing his nephew, child of royal blood. Final words: "Ji Kuai (kid's name), Uncle has let you down, but I have not let Yue down."

An impetuous young general loyal to Shi Mai thinks Gou Jian bloodthirsty and warmongering, likely to lead Yue to ruin. He begs Shi Mai to seize the throne. Shi Mai immediately and angrily rebukes him. (many machinations later:) Later in private Shi Mai tells this young general; "You are the orphan of one of my trusted generals. I watched you grow up, you are as a son to me. The day Gou Jian ascends to the throne will be the day he kills us; go first to the Yellow Springs, I will follow soon after." And gives him a flagon of poisoned wine. "You are as a father to me. All these twenty years I have followed you; my life is yours. I will die because you ask it. But you have disappointed me, and my devotion to you." And takes the poison.

Yes yes- Confucianist and soul-crushing and depressing. But hot. Very hot. Couldn't think why for the longest time, but remembered eventually that I have a particular kink for betrayals prompted by noble motives. Iago does nothing for me but Deth the Harper, luring his king into the castle of the king's worst enemy, does. The offical murdering his child nephew, Shi Mai poisoning his son in the spirit, manage to hit the right note where Sugawara and The Secrets of Calligraphy, the kabuki play where a retainer passes his own son's head off as that of the child his master has ordered him to kill, doesn't.

Possibly this is because kabuki is just so ugly in all its particulars, possibly it has something to do with the umm essential unnaturalness of confucianism in a Japanese setting. I dunno. Japanese forms of Confucianism are repellent to me, reeking of Tokugawa prissiness and constipation. Possibly I'd find Chinese Confucianism just as unsymapthetic if set at a later date, but put it back in good ol' BC and it's archaic and noble and hot. Did I mention hot? It's hot.

As for what's up between our two kings... well, I wait for further viewing notes to find out where the unpindown-able erotesis of that comes in. Not where I expect, no doubt. Erotesis rarely lies where a society's erotic defaults say hotness is to be found. ('Black stockings and lace garters are HOT!!' No they aren't.) In fact the erotic defaults usually don't recognize the 'erotesis' phenomenon at all, because sexual and erotic are all about generating a specific physical response, and the other thing isn't nearly as definite as that.

I call the other thing erotesis for lack of any other word: the vague amorphous erotic feeling of something that, often as not, has nothing at all to do with sex. Slashiness that doesn't move into the physical. My opinion let-me-show-you-it is that slash-the-product has a distressing tendency to betray slashiness-the-phenomenon. Either it simply makes the relationship overtly sexual (because it's easier to write sex than present an intimate but nonsexual connection); or it gives you pages of tedious, obvious, and repetitive explication of the gossamer-fine emotions present, chock full of internal monologue and characters analyzing their own unnamed emotions. With the latter the exasperated reader eventually yells 'Alright already, we know you Feel something for this guy, now go and screw.'

I sympathize with the dilemma. Getting it right is so hard in words and so easy in a visual medium, where the unspoken elements can have their full play. After all, would this woxin be as hot if Goujian (him on the left) was played Chow Yun Fat and not Cheng Daoming? Cheekbones. Cheekbones do it every time.

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Oh WAIT that slashy clip reminds me they HAVE met. But not as enemies, and not as kings; Gou Jian was at the time still Crown Prince and Reagent, Fu Chai an unfavoured younder son of the old King of Wu. Gou Jian's sister, married off to the Crown Prince of Wu, flees home and sparks off a major diplomatic incident; Fu Chai requests to be the one to go to Yue and negotiate her return. All the same their first meeting was full of this erotesis of which you speak; if I remembered the episode I'd go back to watch it and figure out why.

unfavoured younger son. Damn free account and non-editing-ness.

If you ever figure it, tell me.

And of course there's something about kings in cangues, you should pardon the pun, especially when they look all fragile and put-upon and christ-like and ukeish. But what really does it is knowing that Mr. Fragile Christ-like will come back like gangbusters ten years later and bring his invincible army with him.

King Fragile-and-Ukeish is pretty damn scary. I fear for his officials.

That's a brilliant word, erotesis. I will be using it everywhere now. It's what I meant when I was talking about the X-Man movie, and a host of other things, and of course, the one and only Chen Dao-ming. He has it even when he's bald-headed and playing Chiang Kai-shek.

There has to be a proper word for it but I've never come across one. The best thing about erotesis is the way it defies analysis as to *why* the particular scene or trope or person conveys an erotic feeling. It's there, apprehended by the mind as much as the body: I've always experienced it as the same sensation as sinking into a hot bath or catching the whiff of some French perfume. Sensuous and strongly evocative of something just beyond one's memory or grasp. You can't define it, it makes no logical sense, you just know it when you see it. (And frequently IME it can be undone by finding out exactly what's happening, or just by a second rereading, like the slashy subtext in Death of the Necromancer.)

The Feather Recitation is my favourite example. Hot as the hinges of hell, and I have no idea why.

Ooh, I remember the gall part of the proverb well. I repeated it to self during one or two difficult periods of life. But /sigh/, as pictures show, not bishie enough. Mr. Chen ok, but not Mr. Hu =(

Funny, in RL Mr. Hu looks just fine to me. But here- well, maybe he moves better than he stills.

I am partial to cheekbones (static or otherwise) =P
I think this is quite the norm when considering that most Southern chinese are stocky and round-faced (ergo lower cheekbones ala Mr. Hu). Thus people with higher cheekbones and sharper features like Mr. Chen look more exotic and attractive to us.

Mh- but in the publicity pics on the official woxin site (http://yule.sohu.com/s2006/wxcd/) Fu in modern clothes has quite a nice face, just maybe not for playing badnasties.

I broke down and ordered the woxin dvds. The box set comes out in January with English /Simplifed Chinese/Traditional Chinese subtitles.

=O Then I ought to label for spoilers, yes? Sorry.

Except everyone already knows what's going to happen, in a general fashion.

ENGLISH SUBS. I'm rather curious about the English subs. :D

Where? Where? Where can I order??!!

YesAsia, it seems.

http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code-c/version-all/section-videos/did-106/pid-1005162627/

Released on my birthday, by happy coincidence. I go to pre-order.

Aaaahh! I've been so enjoying this thread, and have not ventured comment, but...but ...but maaybe, just maybe I will seek it out sometime next year!

Hahahaha oops. 8D

If you do try local retailers be careful not to get the TS (Malaysian) release, that one only has Mandarin audio and traditional Chinese subs.

thanks dear,will bear that in mind! SOme of these things actually have Malay subs, so that isn;t too bad.

Even if my Malay is kind of Half past six, at least I will get the gist of it, although sometimes the Malay subs (from the English) leave me in fits and giggles, or despair. or all three at once! ^__~

Although the one I have of "Yamada Taro monogatari) with subs in Malay is not too bad at all! Between what I know of Japanese and what I know of Malay, that seems to work fine! ^__^

Oh no, didn't you get the woxin dvd's I sent you, along with the twelve kingdom books I was returning? I just kind of assumed that they got to you, and never checked with you.

Oh I did get it!!! I'm just soooo far behind in watching it, so I'm ordering my own copy.

Oh, np. I don't need the series back. That's the pirated version, and the series' beautiful enough that I went and bought the licensed version so I can enjoy the beautiful sets and costumes. I do want to see how the English translations are though. The original script is really quite brilliant and very very subtle, so I do fear how much of it will come through in English.

so I do fear how much of it will come through in English

You and me both, mate. I foresee some fearsome squinting at subtitles in my future- for all the good it will do.

Sleeping on sticks and tasting gall: 卧薪尝胆

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