One to look out for

There are three classical Chinese novels that enjoy immense popularity in present-day Japan, having been adapted or parodied into numerous novels, comic books, animation, drama series, and video games. In Mandarin, they are ”Shuihu Zhuan” (水滸傳); “Xiyou Ji” (西遊記）; and “Sanguo Yanyi” (三國演義). So I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that this film starring Andy Lau and Maggie Q has been stirring a buzz of excitement in Japan (as well as China, etc.) and I too will definitely be paying a visit to the cinema, even though I hardly ever go nowadays.

It’s Chinese to me

This American professor of Chinese has penned a monumental (and rather entertaining) rant as to why foreigners find learning Mandarin so difficult. I can relate to a lot of his points, esp. the difficulties arising from the tonal nature of Chinese, but thankfully as a Ribenren I’m spared the ordeal of acquainting myself with the writing system from square one. The writer whines about how Mandarin isn’t as phonetic as English and how learning the characters is a total bummer:

(…) Which means that often you just completely forget how to write a character. Period. If there is no obvious semantic clue in the radical, and no helpful phonetic component somewhere in the character, you’re just sunk. And you’re sunk whether your native language is Chinese or not; contrary to popular myth, Chinese people are not born with the ability to memorize arbitrary squiggles. In fact, one of the most gratifying experiences a foreign student of Chinese can have is to see a native speaker come up a complete blank when called upon to write the characters for some relatively common word. You feel an enormous sense of vindication and relief to see a native speaker experience the exact same difficulty you experience every day.

Read it here.

Nuke threat

So it looks like NK has pulled off the nuke test.

Folks in Japan will have front-row seats to the latest international crisis, though of course you can’t rule out the possibility it’s all a hoax.