He Sounds Like Hes Making Shit Up On The Spot……..absolute Himbo

青 is a great color! It can mean anything you want it to mean! 😝

Speaking of “Qing”, I highly recommended “Why isn’t the sky blue” by Radiolab. You can also read the Transcript, if you prefer.

青, or the most confusing colour word in old Chinese ever.

This is because while there is a modern distinction between 綠 green and 藍 blue, in the past we had 青 / qing for ‘nature’s colour’. In any old text (and old words still used) it could mean, depending on context:

blue

youthful / young

pale yellow.

green / verdant

the band of colour just above blue in the rainbow (紅橙黃綠青藍紫, which puts 青 in between green and blue）if you’re a kid but when you get to form 1, you get that the rainbow is actually 紅橙黃綠藍靛紫, so the blue-green we thought was blue green is now blue.

The blue of blue white porcelain (青花瓷）

clear sky blue - 青天.

indigo blue (青出於藍而勝於藍 / qing comes out of the indigo plant and yet it is more vibrant than indigo)

black.

Also, 青衫 may read “green clothes,” but together and describing historical / mythical figures it just means “scholar’s robes,” where the word 青 means ‘young’ and the robes could be any colour. It describes the style, not the colour.

A line from Peach Blossom Debt: 青衫公子站起身，本仙君驚且喜，恍若東風拂過，三千桃樹，花開爛漫。 The young noble clad in scholar’s robes stands, and this immortal one is pleasantly surprised, as though the east wind chanced by and every brilliant flower on three thousand peach trees blossom.

So, a very important question — what colour are Kunlun’s robes? Chapter 68:

Keep reading

Do you all know 杨可爱Yang Ke’ai yet?

She does lots of popular covers and mash-ups and “how to memorize 5-50 Chinese poems via music” songs in a Classical Chinese style (chinoiserie?) with a UKULELE. If you’re not watching her beautiful videos of her singing and playing music in full hanfu, you’d think she was playing a Pipa or a Guzheng or even a Guqin, but, no — that’s a Ukulele.

Anyway, have you all heard her Mo Dao Zu Shi mashup yet? 14 songs from Audio Drama, Donghua, and Fan Music (a lot of the creators of which were also part of the Audio Drama and Donghua).

It’s awesome and deserves many many views. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/plf5KFqvUhg

I’m annotating the Official Translation of MDZS before I lend it out to non-Chinese friends, and as I was reading I realized that the Chapters are different! Paper Book ch 1 = online book ch 1-4!

Which is ok, fine, sure…but that also means that there are no incredibly cute chapter titles to make the relationship between author and reader feel more intimate. I love MXTX as much as I do partially because every few chapter titles felt like it was a charming little inside joke that she wrote just for me (and her other millions of readers).

Here is a screenshot and link to Awesome Charming Cute Chapter Titles:

Here are the English Translations, courtesy of the MDZS wiki ❤️:

So my questions now:

do I just Pencil In the Cute Chapter Titles in the paper novel where they would/should appear?

Do they matter as much when it’s so difficult to translate the completely different style that they are written in — cutesy slang — vs. the writing style of the novel — proper “period” XianXia? I mean, of all the LWJ references in the chapter titles, she only writes his actual name Lan Wangji “properly” twice. Twice, in over 100 chapters. I learned how to read slang in Chinese because of these chapter titles! (And the end-chapter notes, and some of the comments :)

What’s the best way to introduce this story to a non-Chinese, non-XianXia, non-BL-reader?!?!?

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Volume 3, Notes 2/5, Pages 97 - 151

This was actually a really easy read, maybe because it's been almost a year since I last read this in Chinese and so I am not remembering awesome idioms every page; but, anyway! Here we continue <3

In case you don't already know， a huli jing 狐狸精 is a fox spirit. Famous for being super sexy.

In the online Chinese version I read, there was no actual mention of Gu Yun's movements, but more his mindset: 失魂落魄地走了 = "walked off in a daze". Because of the steel plates and all his injuries, I guess it was not a smooth "walking off" so much as a forlorn stumbling, but I don't like the word "hobbled" used on Gu Yun.

Chinese: "整日里便是在我耳边嘀咕." The meaning is the same as "yakking my year off," but it sounds much more elegant in Chinese, of course: "All day, is at the side of my ear, muttering / whispering / chatting quietly...”

Top: again, it just sounds better in Chinese. English is "like a house on fire," Chinese is "投缘" = "kindred spirits" or, broken apart, "thrown, fate."

Bottom: many official ceremonies are carried out with official, kneeling, head-to-floor bows. In this case, it will be an official ceremony to celebrate Ge Chen becoming Zhang Fenghan's adopted son.

(I love how Chang Geng never actually says "So! Ge Chen wants you to adopt him," but instead says a bunch of nice things to Master Fenghan, and Master Fenghan says some nice things back, and then Chang Geng concludes with "We'll call you with the date of the Adoption Ceremony. Bye!")

I love names in Chinese!

So, Du Wanquan is 杜万全， where

Wan 万 = 10,000 ("a very large number") and

Quan 全 = "complete, all", and

the two words together 万全 = absolutely safe / surefire / thorough （mdbg.net).

Good name for the God of Wealth, yah?

In case you don't remember, Zhong-lao is Old Master Zhong / General Zhong, who came out of retirement to help lead the forces in the South. He trained up both Gu Yun and, much later, Chang Geng.

"Speak of the Devil" in Chinese is "说曹操曹操就到."

曹操 Cao Cao was the king of Wei during the 3 Kingdoms Period (the very very beginnings of the 3 Kingdoms period).

Though I think in the actual story, Cao Cao actually saved a fellow ruler who had been thinking of asking him for help against an attack; but before the fellow could send out his messenger with the request, Cao Cao and his army suddenly appeared and crushed the attackers.

The translation is fine. I just feel like in the phrase 朝廷挤出点口粮实在不容易, using "must have" for the English just feels better.

"When a person hid their wounds WITH THEIR TWO HANDS so that none could see, no one had the right to pry AWAY their hands."

It all makes sense once you realize that the verb used here is 捂 wǔ = "to enclose / to cover with the hand (mdbg.net)."

脏癖 dirty habits/inclinations (because Liao Ran didn't like bathing）

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

So during my second time watching Jiang Cheng walk across what I now know is a random mountain to meet Wen Qing, all I could think about was Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning’s plan and the fact that they must have been following him, like:

Wen Qing: should he really be walking across that field?

Wei Wuxian: I don’t know, I thought he would follow the path

Wen Ning: should we stop it now so he doesn’t trip and fall?

Wei Wuxian: naw let’s wait a bit, he needs to think it’s difficult

Wen Ning: is this a good place? can I ring the gong now?

Wei Wuxian: I think it’s good. wen qing?

Wen Qing: yeah yeah it’s fine. ring the stupid gong - I’ll lead him to a better spot

Wen Qing: I’m not going to wear the hat

Wei Wuxian: c’mon, you need to wear the hat

Wen Ning: yeah, wear the hat, a-jie

Wen Qing: he’s wearing a blindfold! he won’t be able to see my face anyway

Wei Wuxian: but what if he takes off the blindfold? what then, hmm? the hat is key

Wen Ning: yeah a-jie, the hat is key

Wen Qing: uuuuugh fine I’ll wear the hat

MDZS Vol 3 Annotations, part 1

Here is Part 1 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 3, pages 1-90. I hope it helps improve your reading experience!

(It's mostly cultural annotations and reminders of appropriately-untranslated words, with a few re-translations of really thorny sentences that I admit have no good translation.) (And a few places I re-translated to take out the fanciness. WWX, especially, usually speaks in a very simple, colloquial manner.)

Hi! I just wanna say I think that your sharing notes on mdzs books are absolutely freaking cool!!!!! When I'll finally get my hands on the books can I copy your notes, please??

(Ps sorry for my english)

Please copy them! That’s what they’re for ♥️

MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 5

Here is Part 5 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 2, pages 280 - 318.

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 5

Part 5 of 6, pages 343 - 375

Helllo again! I love these Extras.

Here are a few places where I got tripped up in my reading — all minor adjustments to vocabulary or word order or dumb clarification for my sake because something felt ambiguous in English:

They’re just melting it.

More under the cut.

Not that you need to learn more Chinese time-system / ordinal-ranking stuff, but here it is if you’re interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Stems

When I first read “bodies strewn across the ground” I freaked out thinking that I had somehow missed a MDZS Extra about some terrible massacre; then I realized that in Chinese, there is a nice distinction between flesh bodies that are probably living, 肉体, and corpses 尸体; whereas in English it’s all just “bodies.” 🙁

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.