Posts by Chris Waugh
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It just occured to me that taniwha may be a better translation for 龙 than dragon, as both taniwha and 龙 seem to be associated with water and authority, while those anglo-saxon dragons are all about evil. But I'm supposed to be translating poorly written policy... what a holiday. Back to work.
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I'm an earth dragon. My wife insists I'm an absolutely typical dragon and taurus. I say superstitious nonsense. She says, see! Typical stubborn bastard taurus! Can't win.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
isn’t it more specifically the Year of the Black Dragon?
All I know is that, starting my second Dragon Year in China, I've now gone through the full cycle of the animals. I have no idea what element it's supposed to be, I've heard Water, I've also heard Metal - but then again, this wouldn't be the first time in recent years people have apparently decided to ignore the calendar in favour of a better sounding element.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to JacksonP,
Happy New Year (I know how to say it in Mandarin, but not write it)
Taking a break from a translation job to translate: 新年快乐, if you were wondering how to write it. Dragon is 龙, so Dragon Year is 龙年. Those are all simplified characters, so friends from Hong Kong or Taiwan might disagree.
Somebody else'll have to supply any firework photos, I'll be too busy lighting them, being the only one in the family dumb enough to get close to explosives of doubtful provenance with a naked flame.
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Our decorations are up, off to the in laws' village later this afternoon, tomorrow is New Years Eve, there will be much fireworks and firewater.
The photo is a papercut 福(fú, good fortune) character and dragon on our bedroom window, looking out onto our balcony. The balcony windows are opaque because they're covered in a thick layer of ice on the inside of the window panes. Well, that's where we hang our washing, so it gets humid there, and a norwester came through last night. That means cleaner air, but much lower temperatures. Sorry, another frigid photo.
Happy Dragon Year, everybody!
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Islander,
And to you and yours too.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Islander,
Yeah, I'm a big fan of being well informed, makes it much easier to deal with things. It's no good when you're left with your mind racing through possibilities, some of which, knowing the area, are really best left uncontemplated.
But we're four days short of the new year, let's get back to the happy stuff.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Jackie Clark,
My wife got home from the supermarket one day babbling about this supercute puppy she'd seen and dragged me outside to see. Some people who evidently worked the dog markets (pets! don't worry, this isn't either south China or the largely Korean areas of the northeast) had a vanload of puppies they hadn't been able to sell at the dog market around the corner from where we lived at the time. She showed me this tiny cocker spaniel and we instantly bonded - y'know how sometimes you see a dog and instinctively know "this one's special"? He was absolutely filthy! But fortunately there was a vet up the road. We got him his shots and cleaned him up then smuggled him around the Beijing subway and onto two buses (this was years before we could afford a car) out to my wife's home village. We never did persuade him to clean up and we were forever picking foliage and thorns and seeds out of his dreadlocks. He was hopeless as a guard dog, he just smothered everybody in love. I do still miss my Zaizai. Ever since he vanished, we've hoped he was invited into a car by some city slicker tourists and is well cared for. It ain't much of a photo, but after a computer crash that stole a lot of my photos, it's all I've got left.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Ah, beautiful. Reminds me of my dog, who loved a good run around (I think he defined exuberant), but never got to run along the beach before he vanished. He did enjoy running down village lanes, and even followed me up the mountains back in the days I was allowed to climb the mountains (the mountains up the back of our village are being reforested and so are a forest fire prevention zone, and my wife and her parents have been terrified I'll get bit by a snake ever since they heard a strange and clearly exaggerated rumour of a man from a nearby village dying after being bitten by a giant poisonous snake. To be fair, some of the snakes around here are poisonous, but if you don't bother them, they won't bother you). We kept him up at my parents in law's place rather than cramped in our city apartment and he loved the space and freedom of the countryside. He was also a very friendly dog, which may explain his disappearance, in that he may have accepted a ride in some tourist's car and then been kidnapped. But, damn, he would've loved a run along the beach like your dogs.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
Ah, 《我的父亲母亲》(ETA: the Chinese name literally translates as "My father and mother"), one of Zhang Yimou’s better films from that period before he started doing silly martial arts flicks that make the government happy. Zhang Ziyi’s debut, and one in which she actually managed a decent job of acting – she’s a much better dancer than actress.
The mountains I have to cross are much steeper than those in the film, though, and the mountain section of the expressway is overpopulated with heavy trucks most likely grossly overloaded, poorly maintained and whose drivers have probably been fiddling their logbooks and not taking their rest breaks, so hopefully I won’t have any snow to deal with.
