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Apr. 6th, 2005 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikMy heavens. Even though I walk by it at least once a week, it's been a long time since I have been to Kinokuniya. Mostly time, partly pride (my upbringing being what it was, I tend to be a little sensitive about being seen as trying to be Chinese) and that the last time I was there the selection was not very good. I went in just looking for something, anything to read.
What a feast! Almost by accident I stumbled into a copy of Lu Xun's "Call to Arms" in both Chinese (jiantizi) and English. As I ate dinner, I was reading the first story mostly in Chinese, but it feels almost sinfully decadent to have the English to refer to. Ten years ago I translated most of "Medicine" for a project (well, mostly for fun, I could have used someone else's translation).... oh, and as Lu Xun writes in a very literate style, even in the venacular (well, he was writing in the twenties, after all) I would have had a much easier time of it then had I the background in classical that I do now. But, more to the point, Lu Xun isn't particularly easy going, but it is within my grasp. (Well, as long as I have a good dictionary in my other hand.)
This feels so freeing. At some level I guess I thought it inevitable that when I finished the Chinese degree this quarter, and focused my efforts entirely on the biomedical sphere, I would lose what Chinese I have. Again.
Oh! And the children's books they have! And the graphic novels! An excuse to indulge my taste for low fiction. (I am looking for recommendations, guys. What's good?)
What a feast! Almost by accident I stumbled into a copy of Lu Xun's "Call to Arms" in both Chinese (jiantizi) and English. As I ate dinner, I was reading the first story mostly in Chinese, but it feels almost sinfully decadent to have the English to refer to. Ten years ago I translated most of "Medicine" for a project (well, mostly for fun, I could have used someone else's translation).... oh, and as Lu Xun writes in a very literate style, even in the venacular (well, he was writing in the twenties, after all) I would have had a much easier time of it then had I the background in classical that I do now. But, more to the point, Lu Xun isn't particularly easy going, but it is within my grasp. (Well, as long as I have a good dictionary in my other hand.)
This feels so freeing. At some level I guess I thought it inevitable that when I finished the Chinese degree this quarter, and focused my efforts entirely on the biomedical sphere, I would lose what Chinese I have. Again.
Oh! And the children's books they have! And the graphic novels! An excuse to indulge my taste for low fiction. (I am looking for recommendations, guys. What's good?)
