Comments on: Reasons I'm glad not to be a farmer in late Ming-dynasty Shaanxi, #603

By: Soong Li

Soong Li — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 10:22:46 +0000

@W Hamilton — Of course, there are some traditional characters that can’t be simplified — but show me one example of a character in this post whose simplified form causes misunderstanding.

By: W Hamilton

W Hamilton — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:48:32 +0000

Wow. Classical Chinese is simplified characters. Surreal.

By: Nic

Nic — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:07:44 +0000

is 黎民 not 黎明……
我这个别字大王……

By: Nic

Nic — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:06:35 +0000

in chinese, 黎 means “common and many”. i always have a feeling that when the governers saying “黎明”is like human beings talking about ants. they are both poor weak animals.

and Bevan, i really want to read your project about cannibalism! that must be very interesting, well, not cannibalism itself, but your writing (hope i made myself clear).

By: Bevan

Bevan — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:24:08 +0000

Great to see someone else covering this subject. I wrote on this subject of cannibalism for my BA Chinese.

By: J B

J B — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:05:33 +0000

Hi Brendan,

Nice translation. I just wanted to say, and this might sound strange coming from one american to another, your english is really good (your chinese blog is just awesome, but I don’t need to say that). I like to read your chinese blog as well as your english one, I think you really got a writer’s talent. I know how much 退步 your english can have while in china, so to be able to write such amazing english is no small feat. In fact, I am now looking to 恢复 my english a little bit, haha.

Keep up the good work yo!

By: Maryam in Marrakesh

Maryam in Marrakesh — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:07:37 +0000

Beyond sobering.

By: JamesP

JamesP — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:14:55 +0000

Carries on a long time, too. I’ve been reading (slowly, since my Chinese is shite) Wu Han’s biography of Zhu Yuanzhang, and the tropes are very evident there in his description of the famine in Zhu’s childhood village. (Though again, I suspect they’re partially drawn from personal experience of the GLF famine.)

By: 花崗齋之愚公

花崗齋之愚公 — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 16:15:33 +0000

James,

I agree. Currently, I’m reading a lot of memorials describing urban riots in the late Qing and there are definitely tropes that you see repeated again and again. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same were true of other memorials reporting bad news, such as famine.

By: JamesP

JamesP — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 15:50:31 +0000

There’s a certain formula in Chinese descriptions of famines, don’t you think? Stripping the bark from the trees always comes up, for instance, and so does cannibalism. I mean, of course it’s partially because that’s what tended to happen, I’m sure, but I wonder if there isn’t almost a literary pattern that’s being followed as well.