On the Road to Mandalay I
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Posted:Jan 5, 2007 11:14 pm
Last Updated:Jan 8, 2007 7:21 pm 6461 Views
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Bombolay Mandalay
Bom shankar
Are you on the road to Mandalay? Take me too. And I'll take you...
Introduction:
Mandalay, 7 hours by rail fm Rangoon, 2nd largest city of Myanmar, bounded by Ayeyarwady river, on the foot of Mandalay Hill. A former royal capital built in 1860s by the King of the last independent Burmese kingdom on an empty area a/c to a buddhist prophecy. There were moat, pagodas, temples, palaces...a buddhist bible inscribed...all beautiful tings ... until British airforces bombed the Japanese military depot there. Now we have replicas.
Mandalay was the starting point of the arterial Chinese supply route during WWII when Japanese cut off all the materiel supply to China in order to suffocate her.
Mandalay-Lasher-Baoshan-Kunming-Chongqing.
Then in 1942 Japanese captured Mandalay; in 1945 British seized it; in 1970s, it was said to be a terminus of hippies travelling route.
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Volver
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Posted:Jan 5, 2007 12:18 am
Last Updated:Jan 9, 2007 10:19 pm 5826 Views
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Almodovar returned to originality, by volver to his hometown and exploring the death culture, love, communication, transmigration and forgiveness. Almodovar decreased men to dotting props and women dominate the scenes.
The movie evolves in a very sunny bright setting, down to earth, great Spanish color. It can be a comic, or a comic tragedy, a tragedic comic. But in the end, he tells us only love and communication stays alive and beyond death.
Volver, volver, volver...have you seen it?
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Open the Letter - Down & Up
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Posted:Jan 4, 2007 11:57 pm
Last Updated:Jan 9, 2007 10:24 pm 7403 Views
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Winter, when i lie down on the bed in the dark, i am very content to be at the cozy home in warmth; when I get up and see the first sunlight, I want to fly out of the window to travel and wander at somewhere - something turbulent beckoning me.
Is this contradictious? What do you seasoned traveller say? How can have both?
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Happy New Year, Where and How?
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Posted:Jan 2, 2007 8:10 pm
Last Updated:Feb 25, 2007 8:24 pm 5976 Views
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Happy New Year all over the world:
Macau:
I was amid the happy crowd, counting down at Fisherman's Wharf, with a rock'n'roll band stiring up the hot air. 6,5,4,3,2,1. New Year arrived in a uproar, laser lights spurring up to the sky where the sea blended with. Seemed so over-excited all the ppl. What's ahead in the new year?
Bangkok:
You wished Happy New Year to me amid Bangkok blast.
Your last minutes of the last year was watching the police/army ambulances running around the city. You wished a big bomb blast nearby you. To get some experience, you said.
Yangon (Rangoon):
No telecom signal to bid any new year greetings, nor could you receive any. You were in a simple rundown jazz bar. A sudden blackout occured, girls shouted a bit, yet the music went on, except that the electrical instruments did not work. But still, the guitar and drum beat on, and you sipped some wine, thinking about the farfaraway things - some half-forgotten trips and lands and people...
Baghdad:
They taunted Saddam and his pppl. They hurried up to execute him to snap a new year. He went up to the loop. His last word 'Is this manly behavor?' were gibbeted...Bombs and death suffused all over Baghdad, Iraq. Lives are of diffrent values, depending where/who you are.
China:
Chinese now celebrate two new years, the western and Chinese. 3 days holiday stimulates ppl's mood - mood for eating, shopping, having fun. Cars crashed in the tunnel, nobody giving way to nobody...but Chinese way giving way to western way...The bluster for complete westernization is maddening up in the sky.
...
You can add up more...
where and how? Happy New Year.
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Beijing Olympics and Chinese Food Menu II
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Posted:Dec 29, 2006 2:25 am
Last Updated:Jan 17, 2007 12:53 am 6049 Views
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"世界上什麼問題最大？吃的問題最大!” ~毛澤東
"What is the biggest problem in this world? Eating it is!" ~Mao Zedong
So one of the supreme achievements the communists proud of is that they solved the over 1 billion people’s eating problem. In a flash, Beijing is now anticipating its realization of the 2008 Olympics. Now that our country is flourishing, time to resolve the eating problem for the millions of foreign visitors, time to save face by correcting the ridiculous word-to-word chinglish translation menu to be shown to the excited athletes and visitors to Beijing 2008, time to prevent ‘government abuse chicken’ from happening and ‘husband and wife’s lungs’ from appearing on the tables. In a word, it is time to save the nation from swamping into the international sarcasm.
Therefore, Beijing City Government has decided to launch the campaign to Unify English Translation for Chinese Food Menu. They have uploaded several thousands of dishes and drinks on government portal beijingdotgov.cn & beijingenglishdotcomdotcn for food industry and people’s reference. Expatriates and experts are invited to comment on these translated names from Dec. 20 to 29, 2006.
I’ve visited their websites. Thousands of names listed in Chinese/English are displayed there for free view and comment, divided into categories like Seafood (aha, mostly Cantonese Food), Poultry, Pork, Beef, Vegetable, Mushroom, Staple and Snacks, Desert, Chinese Wine, and Foreign Wine. I was astonished reading, it was like taking them all. I saw them and smelled them, watering.
But discussion goes there, what will be good translation of the Chinese food menu? The translation,usually depicting the ingredients and cooking way, just cannot pass on all the meaning and cultural notes as they carry in their Chinese name ‒ and usually a concise Chinese dish name is deconstructed into a tedious English name.
What’s the way out? Some suggest put the Mandarin transliteration as the main name, annotated with English names. This offers foreigners the opportunity a direct feel and touch into Chinese language and a better way to communicate/interact with local people if they can pronounce the Mandarin name. I agree.
Chinese food indeed is part of Chinese Culture. There are so many legends and stories behind our food. Only literal or long explanation translation cannot work out the whole picture. One dish is connected with historical or folk stories, with politician, poet and scholar, even with the fate of the whole country and people. Do you have some examples?
I’ll give you two or three next time. How comes the name gong bao ji ding, dongpo pork and fu qi fei pian?
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Food and Humanity I
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Posted:Dec 22, 2006 7:58 pm
Last Updated:Jan 7, 2007 10:44 pm 6963 Views
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If one is demanding on food and pursue the unified perfection of its taste, smell, color and presence in order to please his own sensory system by putting tireless effort preparing food with artistic enthusiasm, what that reflects?
If one has detest for food, his eating is for survival only, he never likes cooking, what that reflects?
If one is a gourmand and can take lots of food but never feels full, what that reflects?
If one is a gourmet, in the sense that he likes trying food made from ‘special’ ‘rare-seen’ materials, what that means?
If one particularly enjoys very sweet food/beverage, what that means?
If one specially goes for very chilly and strong flavor food, what that means? And who vote for plain food?
If one prefers fish, meat, or veg, what that respectively reflects?
How about the difference btw grass-eaters and meat-eaters?
You, food-lover or hater, humane eater or greedy eater, please reveal.
Next time, I will show you how Beijing Olympic is related with the Chinese Food Menu.
p.s. Happy Holidays and Enjoy Food! For a consecutive two nights, I had great food with great friends. But crazily, 1st night we started cooking fm 9:30pm and food ready at midnight. So when ppl were sleeping, we were having an orchestra in kitchen. Last night, we started to toast and eat at 7:30pm, and finished the last drop of wine at 2:30am. Surely, there was always good music, hot pot bubbling, waters spraying (active discussion) and some other accompaniments. Is the eating-themed party such a pleasure? Even I wonder.
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由黑夜游走进日光
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Posted:Dec 17, 2006 7:26 pm
Last Updated:Jan 9, 2007 2:15 am 6301 Views
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很冷, 来一些阳光吧.
15个小时不眠的夜游记录.
(有人要看才待续, 嘻嘻
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Travel Through the Night into the Day
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Posted:Dec 17, 2006 7:04 pm
Last Updated:Feb 14, 2007 12:34 am 6338 Views
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So cold here, have some sunshine...
15 hours non-stop, travel through the night into the day.
We passed by night food streets - Chinese ppl eating hot pot happily under big trees - some flocked together in breathless gambling; checked around bar streets - dull though with glamorous lights and pounding music, an accompanying girl/boy for singing Karaoke costs several hundred per night; we flinged the bustle away and walked out to lean on seaside, a staggering girl in the middle of road waving for taxi, suddently stepped back to us and asked for a cigarette; the hot-aired disco, the hoarsened DJ, the ground-moving teens, youth, mid-aged and sentiment-provoking lyric Mandarin singing-cry; a boy who danced well in his sleeveless top toasted me, maybe because he liked my dance also - kick/flick to full extent; 24hours on-service masseurs/masseuses promised a relaxation to night dwellers' tight muscle; in dawn, we immerged inside the alleys, breakfast stalls, floor-laid pork sellers, ordinary ppl already prepared for their day, a young man eating a steaming noodle in a rush - an inexpressive face, all grabbing for a living.
Behide glittery skyscrapers is the shabbiness; behide our meretricious quest is some other ppl's life struggling...
The night was cold but I was sober. Finally, we travelled through the night into the day. We embraced the sun rising up on the sea. And the sunshine embraced us, along with the lawn.
So cold here, have some sunshine.
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人生如小说
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Posted:Dec 6, 2006 10:36 pm
Last Updated:Dec 15, 2006 4:57 am 6530 Views
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人生如小说.
我正在阅读, 翻译, 并且
诠写着一篇.
梦里我听见自己高声大笑, 而不是哭.
很好!
小说没有好坏之分, 只是充满了偶然和巧合.
村上春树对认为，唯有在偶然性的迷宫里，才能找到更加真实的小说人生.
谁看过村上的"东京奇谭集"?
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