Questions tagged [chinese-language]
Questions about literature that was originally written in any of the Chinese languages (including Classical Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese), regardless of where it was published. Please also make sure to use the applicable work and author tag.
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In 《猫城记》 (Cat Country), is 迷叶 an allusion to opium?
I'm re-reading the Chinese novel 《猫城记》 by 老舍. On page 33, referring to the cat people of cat country, it says:
五百年前，他们是种地收粮，不懂什么叫迷叶。忽然有个外国人把它带到猫国来。最初只有上等人吃得起，后来他们把迷树也搬运了来，于是大家全吃入了瘾。不到五十年的工夫，...
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How many languages write their novels in the past tense?
I've noticed that it's a norm to write stories in the past tense in most of European literary traditions. But how frequenly does it appear outside Europe? In Classical Chinese, they always wrote ...
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Yentl and the Butterfly lovers
(Question after the background)
A woman passes as a man in order to study when women aren't supposed to.
She falls in love with another student.
Reveals to him she is female and he also loves her.
But ...
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Has any memoir of the "Cultural Revolution" ever been exposed as a fake?
Yesterday, I asked When was the first time a Holocaust memoir or diary was exposed as a fraud?
The "Cultural Revolution" in China in the years 1966–1976 killed an unknown number of people (...
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What was the intended audience of "Absent, Or Not Absent" by Tsering Woeser?
Tibetan poet and activist Tsering Woeser wrote the poem Absent, or Not Absent in Chinese. (The full text is available from Words Without Borders). I am somewhat curious as to why she chose to write in ...
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Why did Li Hao call himself "foolish"?
Li Hao's poem I Want to Walk Toward the Altar of the Lord contains the following lines:
Lord, I am foolish,
I am suffering, and my body,
like a spoon, here on this earth, sweetly scoops out
my brain.
...
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Is the Ruyi Jingu Bang a sentient weapon?
The question What is the first known work of fantasy to feature a sentient weapon? on Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange has the Ruyi Jingu Bang as an accepted answer, but nothing in the ...
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Why do Chinese novelists sometimes have the same name as their characters?
I've encountered this twice now:
这世界，缺你不可 by 吴大伟 (Google Books) has a character named 大伟 (pinyin: Dàwěi).
谢谢你曾来过我的世界 by 仲尼 (Google Books) has a character named 仲尼 (pinyin: Zhòngní).
I'm puzzled as ...
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Who translated "CEO's Wife So Sweet"?
CEO's Wife So Sweet This seems to be an online novel series originally written in Chinese.
The language in the translated end product seems stilted and unnatural to say the least. I am wondering about ...
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Who wrote/recorded this Chinese parable about a deer trained not to fear wolves?
It was a Chinese writer or philosopher, probably pre-1900.
Basically, a man captures a deer and a wolf and keeps them in his garden/compound. He trains the wolf not to attack the deer. The deer ...
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Original Poems from Notes from the City of the Sun
I am interested in finding the original Chinese poems used in Notes from the City of the Sun by Bonnie S. McDougall. I know the poems are from Bei Dao, and, according to this webpage, the poems used ...
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In what Chinese fairy tale does a painter disappear into his own painting?
The online description of Rüdiger Safranski's book Wieviel Wahrheit braucht der Mensch? begins with the following sentence:
In einem berühmten chinesischen Märchen verschwindet der Maler in seinem ...
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In what way does Sun Tzu square "put your soldiers in desperate straits" with his earlier chapter
I would love your take on a section I am currently reading about, Sun Tzu’s description of grounds.
He says:
Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, ...
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What is the underlying message of the first story of 听你的 ("Up To You")?
I read an (untitled) short story: the first chapter of 《听你的》 (full text is here), and I don't feel I fully understand the plot. Here's my summarization:
The main character "you" (unnamed) ...
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What is the best selling Chinese book?
Which Chinese book is the most sold?
I mean a book written in the Chinese language by a Chinese author.
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Who is "Dao" in this quote from Laozi's Tao Te Ching?
I found the following quote here:
The Dao hides in wordlessness. Only the Dao is well begun and well completed.
-- Laozi, Dàodé Jīng / Tao Te Ching
What is the exact meaning and context of this ...
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Where can I find an English translation of Pan Pingge Searching for Humanity (求仁录)?
I'm interested in reading works by the Chinese philosopher Pan Pingge. His work entitled Searching for Humanity or 求仁录 appears, from secondary sources, to be a good place to start. However, I cannot ...
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What novel is Yehsao Paoyen?
In the chapter "Ideals of Life" of My Country and My People, Lin Yutang briefly discusses the novel Yehsao Paoyen,
an out-and-out Confucianist novel, which takes special delight in exposing the ...
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In Yuan Zhen's story ‘ Passion’, what does 14 February refer to?
Lin Yutang's collection Famous Chinese Short Stories contains a story by Yuan Zhen that is not simply a translation but a retelling. Lin Yutang follows Yuan Zhen's story until a certain point and then ...
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Did Yuan Zhen really write a text disproving the existence of ghosts
The book Famous Chinese Short Stories (John Day, 1948) contains a selection of stories, most from the Tang and Song dynasties, translated by Lin Yutang (1895 – 1976). One of the later stories in the ...
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Is A Supplement to the Journey to the West from the 17th century the oldest Chinese work of literature involving time travel?
A Supplement to the Journey to the West is a Chinese novel from around 1640 that was written as a type of addendum to the great classic novel Journey to the West. Journey to the West is set during the ...
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Why did Arthur Waley change the title in his translation of Journey to the West?
Journey to the West is a 16th-century Chinese novel whose original title 西遊記 means (according to Wikipedia) "West-Wandering Chronicles". In Arthur Waley's well-known 1942 English translation, he ...
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Did George R. R. Martin read Romance of The Three Kingdoms?
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't need an introduction. It is also widely known among fans that Martin drew a lot of inspiration from history, for example the War of the Roses in ...
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Where is the wordplay in the names Zhao Guiweng and Gu Jiu?
In the Wikisource version (in both Chinese and English) of Lu Xun's short story "A Madman's Diary" from his collection Call to Arms, the following footnotes are made about character names:
Zhao ...
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How did Lu Xun choose his pen name?
Lu Xun was the pen name of Zhou Zhangshou (birth name) or Zhou Yushan (courtesy name) or Zhou Yucai (courtesy name 2.0) or Zhou Shuren (the name he chose in 1898).
The "Lu" (魯 / 鲁) in his pen name ...
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Source of comment that Ah Qs are now running China (Lu Xun, 1930s)
The American journalist Edgar Snow, who is best known for his book Red Star Over China (1937), apparently managed to interview Lu Xun (1881 - 1936). According to Helmut Martin, who wrote an afterword ...
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Zhuangzi translation in The Lathe of Heaven
In The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula Le Guin uses an epigraph before the start of each chapter. The author most frequently quoted in these epigraphs is the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi or Chuang Tzu. ...
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Which book is the maxim 大道無門 from?
From which book is the maxim
大道無門
Zen kōan だいどうむもん "Daidō mumon"
"to achieve great understanding there is no single but thousands of ways".
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Difference between translations of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"?
I am planning to buy "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu (in English translation) but I've found versions of 90 pages, 170 pages and 200 pages. What is the difference between these versions? Is there a ...
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How did Ursula Le Guin translate the Tao Te Ching / Dao De Jing?
In 1998, Shambhala Publications published a translation of the Tao Te Ching (in pinyin: Daodejing and Dao De Jing) by Ursula Le Guin. The Dao De Jing was written in Classical Chinese, so it takes much ...
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What narrative techniques and literary devices in The Three-Body Problem required or justified adjustment in the English translation?
In a postscript to the English translation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, Ken Liu drew attention to his approach to the translation work. Ken Liu writes that "differences in linguistic ...
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Is it Zhan Zheng Xi, Zhan Zhengxi, or Zhan Xixi?
One of the protagonist of 19 Days - One Day is called Zhan Zheng Xi. Or Zhan Xixi. I'm not sure, because he's been called all three:
Zhan Zhengxi
Zhan Zheng Xi
Zhan Xixi
The first two I can ...
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Why does Zhan Xixi call Jian Yi an idiot?
I've been re-reading 19 Days - One Day1, a webcomic2 by the Chinese author Old Xian. One of the first chapters has me wondering, though:
Click for full resolution
What does Zhan Xixi mean when he ...
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When and where was 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu first adopted outside of China?
While of ancient origin and being still relevant today, much is speculation about the military classic 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu. Even the existence of the author is disputed. He allegedly served ...
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