你会说中文吗?

The language and ancient culture of China includes not just the world's most enormous country but spreads across various countries of Asia - and increasingly, well beyond. Here we explore all aspects of that culture.

Here, too, is your spot for asking questions, finding resources, and/or just hanging out & chatting in Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but Cantonese and others welcome, too!).

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Chinese Opera: Compelling, Fascinating - but Definitely an Acquired Taste

Hung Chung Chih When I first witnessed a performance of Peking opera (the best-known form of Chinese opera, with Peking by the way being the traditional English spelling of Beijing) years ago in Beijing’s ornate, early-19th-century Huguang Guild Hall, I admit I was mesmerized by the gestalt of this elaborate art form. Unlike Western opera, it’s even more stylized, with exaggerated gestures, vocalisations, and heavily symbolic costume and makeup (and in some cases obviously extremely fakey…

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Using Chinese astrology for travel guidance

  RootOfAllLight Lunar New Year 2024 has just ended, landing us in the year of the Dragon, and it got me to thinking: there´s quite a bit out there on where/how to travel according to Western star signs, aligning destinations with your astrological characteristics, but you don´t hear much of anything on the subject when it comes to Chinese astrology. As someone who´s studied Chinese and Sinic culture, I looked into it a bit, and here´s what I came up with, with a couple of destination…

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How they celebrate New Year's in China

  You might wonder why this is even a question. But in fact, the Chinese-speaking world has its own big Lunar New Year celebration (in 2021, it's 12 February), and so while much of the rest of the planet makes a big deal out of New Year's Eve tonight, for many of the nearly 1½ billion inhabitants of this vast country, it simply isn't all that much of a thing. There are of course exceptions, and that's what I'm here to talk about. read post

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  • The Discussion module certainly makes it easier to stay on topic; whether or not a thread is created in the way that you're thinking, I'm not sure. I will look into it!
  • Re: Buddha riddle: Yes, I knew it sounded strange. Actually, that line is the key to the whole thing. Still not entirely satisfied, but your rendition definitely works better than mine!
    BTW, would the creation of threads be facilitated by use of the "start a discussion" module that appears above? It only just occurred to me now!
  • Re: the Buddha riddle, I agree, Bernie, it should be "the past, the present and the future." I also think "They can only have four times" sounds a wee bit off, so how about "It's only possible four times?"

    And you thought translating legal documents was hard!
  • Ah, OK, I didn't know. Now I know! So here's the other one (S.H.E.'s cover:)
    - YouTube
    Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
  • Hey Bernie,

    Thanks for the song, it's beautiful as music and as poetry. You can embed the YouTube video right on the comment here, you know: just copy the code where it says "Embed" to the right of the video on YouTube, and paste it here in the comment. The result:

  • And here is the music video of S.H.E.'s version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKjTyAt-zRU&feature=related

    Not bad, but I'm a purist. I still prefer the original!
    - YouTube
    Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
  • So yesterday, I was idly browsing YouTube (what did we DO before YouTube?) and found one of my favorite songs from my time in Taiwan in the 1980s. The title is 夢田 (Dream Field, or Field of Dreams), and it comes from an album titled 回聲 (Echo), a collaboration that set poems by Echo Chan (pen-name 三毛, who died tragically in the early 1990s) to music, and joined the pop/folk vocal talents of 齊豫 and 潘越雲. It was a huge hit at the time, and I still enjoy both the lyrics and the music to this day. I understand that the song has been recorded again recently by a new pop trio called "S.H.E." Here is the original version with the best quality audio I could find on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUIMsMifbTc

    The Chinese lyrics follow. When I have time, I'll attempt a translation, but it's poetry--REALLY difficult!

    夢田

    每個人心裡一畝 一畝田
    每個人心裡一個一個夢
    一顆啊一顆種子
    是我心裡的一畝田

    用它來種什麼
    用它來種什麼
    種桃種李種春風
    開盡梨花春又來
    那是我心裡一畝一畝田
    那是我心裡一個 不醒的夢
  • The only way to edit your past comment, I believe, is to copy it, paste it into a new comment, modify it, then go back and delete the old comment........... so the answer is: not too easily!!
  • Hehehe--time zones never occurred to me!
  • 4 times - Eastern Time, Mountian Time, Pacific Standard Time and Central Time... hahah..

    3 times needs to be fixed somehow. Or it will become one time yesterday, or one time in the past, but that doesn't reflect it..

    But you guys are great..
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