Off the Cliff

Warm September leads to brain melt. Dentist calls with an opening for tomorrow at 11:45, I say ok, half an hour later am unsure if it's 11:45 or 12:45 or surely not 10:45. Tomorrow is also garbage day so hope the trucks come at their usual 9-something and the street is clear by 10:45.

Warm September also makes things hurt, but filled a third bag with seedlings and dragged them all to the front sidewalk.

Finished Weirdstone, am reading Gomrath, finished Charles Lenox 3 and started on 4. Desultorily reading a collection of Chinese cheng'yu, (usually) four character proverbs, idioms, sayings, whatever. These are about plants; I have other volumes for animals etc. Won't remember them but at least I've seen them once. Of course reading them suggests I should start reviewing kanji yet again because of the 'dammit I *know* that one but can't remember its meaning' factor (which is always different in Chinese but-of-course.) But warm September: can't be arsed.

Here in the autumn Ghost Tide I'm taken back almost 60 years to first year uni. I wish I'd kept my Fine Arts textbooks-- and can't think why I'd have abandoned them-- because I'm all kinds of nostalgic for black figure pottery and archaic Greek statuary. Though, when I google, I find several kouroi and korai that hadn't been discovered back in '67. Semper aliquid novum, I suppose.

Made it to the store while the snow was still flurrying, hard enough to make the streets wet but not enough to require boots. Have enough pepsi to get me through-- well, maybe the week. I really have to find a substitute for that. But then the snow continued and now there's maybe an inch out there, and because it's wet snow it limns all the tree branches quite beautifully.

Have a couple of slim volumes for bag reading, started one today: Isherwood's Prater Violet from my parents' library. Why I thought it would be Ronald Firbanky I can't say, but it's not. It's Christopher writing film scripts in Nazi Germany, or against the background of Nazi Germany, and I'm not up for that at all. Into a Wee Free it goes once I get a chance. We're promised a snow dump on Wednesday afternoon, so it may not be any time soon.

And meanwhile I go back to my reread of Phantom Moon B(T)ower.* I started vol. 6, the one I got this year with Hyakki Yakki, and found it much more readable than I remember PMB/T from the past. Finished it, unearthed vol.5 from the shelves, realized I'd never read that one because it was too difficult at the time, and yes, there was much wordtanking involved but then I got into it and finished that one too. So now I'm on vol.4 which I may have read once, but-- the thing is, Ima-sensei does about one of these stories *a year*- two at most- so yeah, vol.4 came out in 2013. She actually has a little atogaki at the end of vol.6, where she's wondering just how long she's been drawing this series- 'three years? four?' and is shocked to realize it's been twenty years!!

*The character 楼 is translated as tower in all my dictionaries. However this place is  not a tower at all, but a building where geisha come to entertain the guests (as opposed to a geisha house proper); the story is set in the 1920s but the Phantom Moon Whatever is older than that. Language was a lot different in early Shouwa, let alone Taishou or Meiji, and classical allusions were more likely to be Chinese. A Chinese friend said that the original meaning of 楼 was more like 'a young lady's quarters, a bower' so I add that. reading.

I have reached those Agatha Christies where I remember whodunnit, alas, even if I remember little else. Still, summer reading is summer reading. I continue with Five Little Pigs and Murder is Easy.

But I did take my new Rainy Willow Store tankoubon to Starbucks today, sure that I could understand it from a few pages read. Mmm, no. Not when we're dealing with Chinese or possibly Buddhist legends. Futzed about with kanji apps for the phone, all of which are memory hogs and none of which had the kanji in question. Came home and looked it up in the Wordtank: it was there, but with no definition or compounds. Finally have it from mandarintools: 穆, meaning 'solemn', also used for the mu of muslim. Who the Rainy Willow's 穆王 is remains unknown.

Clearly I need to get an app for the tablet if not the phone, because the Wordtank must be coddled, but reports are varied for Jim Breen's app adaptation, and other hand drawing apps simply don't work for me. This is as good as mandarintools, but argh the wwwjdic layout sucks.

(Oh, OK. 穆王 is Zhou Mu Wang/ King Mu of Zhou, 10th century BC, who went off to visit the Great Western Mother and her peaches.)

A filk from the FFL contains the chorus

We're proud to be Canadian:
Politeness in the face of assholes could be thought a curse.
It's cool in many ways to be Canadian:
We may not be much better; it's just that we're less worse.

Which about nails it.
( Wednesday again )

Reading Sky Above, Great Wind, a translation of the poetry of Ryōkan. Nice enough, but sort of wished the translator had given the texts of at least the Japanese poetry. (Ryōkan also wrote kanshi, all-kanji poetry modelled on classical Chinese verse. Even in translation you can usually tell kanshi poems, because they read exactly like translations of real Chinese poems.)
( Alas, Ryōkan had to have his fun. His calligraphy is unreadable as well )

I do not want my vacation to be over. (My wonderful three-and-a-half days off 'vacation'. But no matter.) I want to sit in my nice house and read Karin with three dictionaries at hand and a notebook to write unknown hanzi in, and watch kewl 敖兄, 'big brother Ao', ie 敖广/Ào Guǎng/ Goukou, aka 青竜 Seiryuu the azure dragon of the east (thank you wikipedia for a way out of the vexed 'is it blue or is it green' question) dealing with Immortals and Jade Emperors and what-all. Yes, the long-standing conflation of Gou Kou (peasanty homespun dragon brother) with Seiryuu, exalted guardian of the East, is alive and well in Karin. No complaints here.

I do wonder how many assistants she had to draw those lovely detailed backgrounds, a major pleasure in Kawasou-sensei's works. And paleaswater, this manga has that 'all bodies of water are connected to the sea king's palace' trope in spades. Would this be where you got it from?

Up: I have seen a Lion Dance, finally. A small lion (2-man) in a small venue (foyer of a downtown library) from a non-optimal location (3rd floor balcony of same) but very satisfying nonetheless. The foyer of course was crowded with small children and their parents and I got to watch toddlers trying to reach the drum, to be pulled back by five year old older brothers, and other toddlers trying to get in under the lion's skirts, to be pulled back by their mothers; and a small 3-year-old by the looks of it, break-dancing to the drum beat. Followed by a kung fu demonstration from a personable young chap who works in a bank by day and bar by night, who demonstrated how to deal with rowdy customers in the latter, if not the former, venue.

Up: And then because I love dumplings and umadoshi had mentioned a place called Mother's Dumplings nearby, I went and gorged myself on pork-and-chive dumplings and beef steamed buns. Takes a Haligonian to direct this Trawntonian to good places, evidently. (I don't doubt that the dumplings there are The Real Thing, but I naturally judge any dumpling by gyoza, which these weren't; and any steamed bun by 7-11 Japan's version of the same, which those weren't either. So as an exercise in nostalgia, it fell a little short, but as uninhibited gluttony it was right on the mark.)

Down: Didn't read library poster carefully enough to realize that because of dumplings I missed an erhu recital and a classical music one.

Down: Bought a book called 'The Tao is Silent,' by a mathematician. No matter that he's a scientist: he uses too many exclamation marks. That makes it read to me half fluffy twee and half snake oil salesman. I am disappoint.

Up: My bought-by-me stocks have ceased losing me money on paper. They may not make me much money this coming year either, but the high of having a positive balance is high indeed.

Down: Had a Thai massage yesterday. Had the occasional Thai massage result of anxiety, wanhope, and dark night of the soul. Had the almost invariable Thai massage result of aching muscles this morning. How will I ever get my shoulders stretched out when my acupuncturist, my chiropractor, and my masseur all comment at every session how tight my shoulder muscles are?

WTF?: There's an excellent little coffee shop a slow ten minute walk away from me, with excellent coffee and excellent croissants while-supplies-last, which sadly for me and happily for my weight they tend not to. Has tall, pale, accented, bearded proprietor whom I take for Israeli, since that's what he looks and sounds. Today I'm ordering my latte from one of the regulars when a bunch of people come up the path: owner, his small daughter, another customer only vaguely glimpsed behind them. This last falls on me with glad cries. Turns out to be a woman I worked with thirty years ago at the daycare, though she had to tell me who she was. (I, evidently, am still recognizably me 40 pounds heavier and silver-haired, because this isn't the first such encounter from the 80s.) "And this is my son [name redacted]," she says, putting arm around owner's shoulders. "He uses his middle name now." I would say my jaw dropped to the floor, except that The Rivers of London has made that phrase a touch oogey. But ah er argh er OK, I suppose that's the five year old I knew way back whenever.

She's also still in touch with a number of the old staff from back then which is-- mhh. Something I could have done without being reminded of. And they all have those vaguely defined government jobs that mean nothing to me, involving words like 'liaise' and 'manage' and 'consult'. 'Yes, but what do you *do*?' I always want to ask, and they can't tell me. They liaise between teachers and the Board. They manage a team. They consult on pensions. Must be a kind of learning disability I have; or maybe it's owing to having worked a maximum of fifteen months in an office, many many years ago, and never having discovered what activities match what labels.

飛鳥去不窮，
連山復秋色。
上下華子岡，
惆悵情何極！

Breaking news! Melissa Scott is working on the Points series again. A novella called Point of Knives now, that happens between the two existing books, and a novel called Fairs' Point to follow! Christmas comes early this year.

It's not that I spoke to no one on this long weekend. I had daily conversations with my 90 year old neighbour across from me, and a prolonged gossip about house prices with Prof and Mrs Islamic Studies two doors up; I passed the time of day with the gardening grandmother down the street and saw a ridiculous number of young friends in passing. But in general I was antisocial. Passed up the Sunday morning zazen because my knees hurt-- my knees always hurt too much for zazen-- and decided not to go to the 'pay what you please' Chinese language classes because they require a (refundable, granted) $75 deposit and I'd just splurged on a new boombox; and for the same reason denied myself another Thai massage. And besides my eyes *hurt* and I couldn't *see* and I was feeling ill-used by the world. Zazen and massage might have helped with that; but then again, maybe not.

Nor did I paint the black keys of my stairs. Bought the paint, but my knees hurt and I couldn't *see.*
( What I *did* do... )

My dentist is a nisei or sansei, and has various Japanese objects in her office including a wind chime from some temple with the usual tanka on it. Was examining it the other day, dental ass't asked could I read it, I said yes, pretty much-- all about seeing the willow quietly growing green on the north bank just like-- 'but I don't know this character.' Looked it up when I got home. Kanji dictionaries and Wordtank were adamant it didn't exist. Yes, well, dictionaries and Wordtank were stumped by Angel Sanctuary vocabulary as well. Looked it up in the online hanzi pages, though mandarintools also denied its existence when I searched by radical and bound. nciku of course provided it when I drew it: 泫, weep; cry; shine, glisten; drip. Then looked it up in online Japanese dictionaries, and got-- a bunch of references from Chinese-Japanese dictionaries. Obscure, whoever you are, Mr. Medieval Poet.

...and me not having posted for two weeks.

Let me then link this gossipy page, made up of newspaper columns, I gather; which talks about this and that, including translating Li Bai's warhorse and Li Shangyin's Pipang poem

ETA: Enh? That page renders Li Bai's third line literally as : Single (lonely) / sail / distant / scene / blue / hills / limitless. 空 means 'hills'? How?

華子岡 Huazi Hill

飛鳥去不窮    Flying birds away into endless spaces
連山復秋色    Ranged hills all autumn colours again
上下華子岡    I go up Huatzu Hill and come down-
惆悵情何極    Will my sadness never come to its end?

Wang Wei
tr Robinson

(For once I find the simplified just plug ugly: 飞鸟去不穷，连山复秋色。上下华子岗，惆怅情何极!)

There's a not very good reproduction of a scroll painting of Huazi Hill (click on the small illo and maybe it will load the larger version), and an erhu composition composed after the poem.

Blue blue windows behind the stars
Yellow moon on the rise
Big birds flying across the sky
Throwing shadows on our eyes
Leave us
Helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless...


早寒江上有怀   Memories in Early Winter by Meng Haoran

木落雁南渡    South go the wild geese, for leaves are now falling,
北风江上寒    And the water is cold with a wind from the north
我家襄水曲    I remember my home; but the Xiang River's curves
遥隔楚云端    Are walled by the clouds of this southern country
乡泪客中尽    I go forward. I weep till my tears are spent.
孤帆天际看    I see a sail in the far sky
迷津欲有问    Where is the ferry? Will somebody tell me?
平海夕漫漫    It's growing rough. It's growing dark.

( Trad hanzi, for me, and more literal translation )

I never got a handle on the whys and wherefores of hanzi/ kanji simplification, but I assumed it had to do with general standardization and, possibly, the promotion of universal literacy. Now I find my 1971 author blandly declaring that the Chinese government effected both simplification and pinyin as preliminary steps in the *abolition* of hanzi, and a move to a phonic western-alphabet-based writing system. (Which 1971 guy thinks is long overdue.) Was he totally on crack, as my reflexes say he must be, or is there something to this?

And I have to say, I do not get the character-hatred. The idea of reading Chinese in pinyin, even with tone markings, gives me the horrors. This is because I've read all hiragana Japanese and it's horrible. Horrible for the foreign reader, certainly; a native speaker might provide meaning and context by ear, but god knows I can't. So pace almost everyone I've read, dispensing with characters will *not* make reading easier for foreigners at all at all at all.

Also watched an hour of an NHK special on tea caravans that travel through Tibet. May rethink this taking ikkyuu business because dear god my ear (and my vocabulary) is so baaaad.

As exercises in futility go, watching a Chinese travelogue with no subtitles about Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong must rank near the top. (Lent by a friend at work who knows of my interests.) I thought maybe it would accustom my ear to those various unEnglish sounds that defeat my tongue, but my ear is past hope. As witness the word I kept hearing that sounded like pu-puu, a vaguely birdlike call. Fortunately there are chapter headings that informed me it's pu *bu*-- 瀑布-- meaning waterfall.

mvrdrk, your book came! To my experienced eye, it was delayed at the border by customs ie the wrapping paper was slit open. You'd be amazed how many drugs are shipped through under the guise of Christmas presents that look like weighty tomes. (/sarcasm)

Have just spent a pleasant hour working through I won't tell you how few pages of The Book of Poetry section, alternately reading his analysis and looking up unknown hanzi in that dictionary you gave me so long ago. No, I don't know why I do that when there's a webpage that does it for me. Orneriness. Eventually I'll stop and just read the text, though I'm beginning to see what you mean about needing a dictionary even for that. Chiasmatic, anadiplosis, metonymy... dear god. I mean yes, he explains the terms mostly, but still. Fortunately there's another webpage that will do it for you.

Even so, the Shi Jing has its headscratchy moments. The second line of

隰桑有阿
其葉有難

to me reads only as 'its leaves are difficult.' Where people get 'flourishing' or 'lovely' from that is a mystery, though of course I could supply examples of pejorative drift in English that are much more recent than the Odes' Chinese. The Old English selig, meaning holy, that gives us modern-day silly, or (not so far a jump) dysig, foolish, that became dizzy.

I foresee hours of endless fun with this one. Thank you very much!

Y'day's kanji study led me to this fabulous derivation.

司 SHI, tsukasa(doru), ADMINISTER, OFFICIAL

Once written (picture of early form) being a mirror image of anus 后 ie an opening 口 under buttocks 尸. It is not known how this character came to mean administer, official. Some scholars feel it results from borrowing or confusion with chronicler 史, but in view of the fact that buttocks in building 官 came to mean sedentary work and hence government/ official, it is not impossible that anus/ posterior similarly came to symbolise sedentary work and hence official.

Thus: the Chinese character for bureaucrat is the picture of an asshole. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as *my* ancestral wisdom has it.

Ah. Evil Crochet. Yes indeed. Non-craftsy me only just managed to crochet a remarkably unfunctional afghan (= does not keep me warm in winter on the living room sofa, but then nothing does except hanten.) But I've always known that serious craftspeople knit things, following those cuneiform knitting instructions as they do it; just as serious East Asian aficionados read Chinese and not that '2000 characters and two phonic-syllabery crutches' Japanese. I so fail at life.
( Cut for a lament to an old lover. 'I never had much going, but at least I had you' )

So, about those vanishing texts.
I try to persuade myself that it's just me remembering incorrectly what book the thing I'm looking for is in. In the one case where I finally found the missing text, that's what happened. The story of a wastrel son that I remembered being in Tales from a Ming Collection was actually in An Anthology of Chinese Literature. I've never succeeded in finding the story of the girl who elopes but leaves herself at home, that I remember being in the same Tales.

It is, in fact, in Black Water 2, a copy of which I picked up off someone's lawn ten days ago and opened today, because starting Charles Williams' All Hallow's Eve made me wonder if BW2 had the short story by him that I remember as being in one of the Black Water collections. It doesn't. Must be one of the others, unless it's in 'The New Yorker Book of Short Stories' or something.

Still, I'm cheered. At this rate I may eventually find my disappearing Chinese poem about the east wind, with Chinese text and notes.

( Cut for brief gripe )

Armor of Light and 3K are being even less rivetting than usual. Or maybe that's yesterday's heat and teeth-grit near-migraine talking. 3K is at the battle of Red Cliff and I, frankly, am not impressed by anyone's behaviour there. Even ascribing most of it to authorial bias, Zhou Yu's 'look he's gonna win the battle for us kill him now' attitude stretches my belief oh, just a tad.

But Karin 1 was sitting by my bedside and I read a few pages of that instead until compelled, by the sudden appearance of the Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean, to go look up his name hanzi. The manga has them furigana'd in as close to Chinese as katakana can get and I was wondering how close that was.
( Cut for blameless pastimes )

I continue to be entranced by the worlds that open when you know a little-- a very little-- Chinese. The beginning of Heike Monogatari, say, which incandescens happily reminds me of.

祇園精舎の鐘の聲、
諸行無常の響あり。
娑羅雙樹の花の色、
盛者必衰のことわりをあらはす。
おごれる人も久しからず、
唯春の夜の夢のごとし。
たけき者も遂にほろびぬ、
偏に風の前の塵に同じ。

As expounded here.
( Now it begins to make more sense )

(Can you? It's as bad as Nietzsche AFAIC.)

OK, so we all know about furniture porn, yes? Especially the lawn chairs. The lawn chairs fill me with gladness.
( I admit I'm a little odd )

Discover, in a slightly pleased way, that what makes Three Kingdoms marginally less anxiety-triggering and marginally more readable is six weeks of hanzi study. I may have the wrong Zhuo hanzi for that particular personage-- in fact it's certain I have the wrong Zhuo hanzi for that particular personage-- but at least I have a hanzi I can associate the word Zhuo with. Mr. Filthy (濁) or Mr. Clean (濯) as per choice. This helps immeasurably in keeping people separate, especially when faced with five different Zhangs in the same chapter, only three of whom are brothers.
( Mr Long, Mr Stretch, Mr Bill, Mr Swell, and Mr Rise-in-prices )