/lit/ - Literature

>>15584170
Are there any textbooks I should be looking at if I want to learn Chinese? I haven't found any that seem to be consistently recommended

all chinks deserve to fucking die

All Chinese people deserve to fucking live.

Been doing research but got stuck. What are Gu Long's:

1. Ideal short-normal length intro work
2. Most popular work
3. Magnum Opus

>>15584274

Integrated Chinese, and HSK prep textbooks. Just make sure you're focusing on reading, listening, speaking, and writing. All are important, even writing characters.

Textbooks are a tiny part of language acquisition, so if you want to learn chinese here is the learning plan I would recommend. Obviously you have to be self-motivated:

There's no substitute for a teacher, so try to find local classes or tutors. You could audit some university courses, but it's worth the money to pay for instruction. Most of these Mandarin 101 classes start with Integrated Chinese, which is a good textbook to start with. Listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Once you can read some sentences and get a feel for the language, study for the HSK. Exams are a chinese tradition, and official mandarin tests work well to help you learn their language. It holds you accountable and sets a clear milestone in your language proficiency I recommend the peiking university hsk 1 courses on youtube, but again nothing is better than in-person classes.

Work towards passing HSK 1 or 2. Do some rote memorization and buy the flashcard pack on Pleco, which has all the HSK vocab installed by default. Move up to HSK 4 over a few years and try to study and teach english abroad. If you pass HSK 5 or 6, you are in a good position and can claim "fluency" in the language.

There's an app called Hellotalk where you'll find chinese people that are eager to talk to english-speakers -- after you sign up you'll be swarmed by chinese people wanting to talk to you to learn english and it's a great way to practice your chinese. You might even make some friends.

If you're really serious about it, find a way to go to China to learn Chinese. A semester in the country is in my opinion a requirement to actually learn the language. If you're from a one belt one road country, there's tons of great scholarships, otherwise look at the Confucius institute. Just try to find a university on the Project 985 and apply on their website and find Chinese Language Training programs, and aim to take the HSK at the end of the semester.

>>15584393
Thanks for the in-depth answer anon. I lived in China (Shanghai) for a few years as a kid but was a lazy fuck and didn't learn the language, a while later and it's still one of my favourite places I've been to, so going back to China is definitely on my list. My uni seems to have a proper language center with Chinese classes, so I'll sign up for that, hopefully they'll be in person rather than online by the time the next academic year rolls around.

>China is a special case because it was never exposed to the taboo against cannibalism. This is a Western taboo. If your culture dictates that, if you’re an emperor, you’re allowed to eat human body parts, then there’s nothing wrong with that. There are numerous descriptions of emperors and other members of the imperial court enjoying humans as a type of food, prepared in all different ways.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/02/cannibalism-common-natural-history-bill-schutt/

>In his book Shokujin Enseki - Massatsu sareta Chugoku Gendaishi, Cheng I describes in detail how, as a young Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in south China, he witnessed hundreds of children, women and men classified as Counter-revolutionaries killed and eaten by the perpetrators, with such comments as "human meat tastes better when broiled than boiled."

>In the 9th century, towards the end of the Tang dynasty (618-906) a Persian trader reported that human flesh was being sold openly in markets.

>During the 12th century, it was said that 15 jin (1 jin = 1.323lbs) of dried meat was obtained from one human being.

>Towards the turbulent close of Yuan dynasty (1276-1368), it was said that children's meat was best, then women's, and the least were men's.

>The Chinese also believed medicinal benefits could be obtained from eating human flesh, and the benefits are described in their 16th century medicinal book Bencao Ganmu.
http://www.chinasucks.org/cannibalism.htm

>China’s one child policy, baby trafficking, and sex trafficking of North Korean women aren’t the worst human rights violation happening in the country. Aborting innocent and healthy unborn children and eating them to boost one’s stamina and sexual health is.

>South Korean customs officials recently seized thousands of pills filled with powdered human baby flesh arriving from China. Since August 2011, South Korean officials have intercepted more than 17000 pills smuggled from China.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/chinese-cannibalism-infant-flesh-outrages-world/

>In ancient times, cannibalism was often practiced in China as a type of culinary appreciation.
>As late as the 19th century, it was still not unusual for Chinese executioners to eat the hearts and brains of the criminals they dispatched. As well as eating some of the flesh for health reasons, they sold what was left for a profit.
>In 2004, The Sydney Morning Herald reported a Chinese man in Beijing who was arrested on suspicion of stealing 30 corpses from local graveyards, cooking their flesh in soups, and crushing the bones to heal his sick wife.
>In 2003, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau sought to block reports that some restaurants in the southern province had cooked dead babies in soups and sold the food ... In the nineties, also in Guangdong, it was discovered that foetuses were being trafficked and boiled to make soups marketed as beauty treatments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yssk3bmSvzs

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/yulin-dog-meat-festival-video-china-blow-torch-animal-cruelty-a8969361.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_That_Are_Dark

>>15584393
How hard is learning Traditional Characters after you've learned Simplified (or "enough" Simplified)?

>>15585012
Impossible. Can't be done. Traditional characters' true meanings have been lost to time. All studies done on them are guesswork at best, with unsustainable amounts of contradiction and disagreement.

>>15584929
Wow people used to be so racist, crazy to think how people wrote so many of those sort of books in the past

>>15585095
work on your english

>>15584170
>Call to Arms 呐喊 - 1923 modern collection of 14 essays by Lu Xun

no it's not... but it's very good

>>15584170
Complete english translation of the mahāyāna tripiṭaka when?

>>15585012
not that hard, anon. not all simplified characters had an alternative trad form, just try reading text using traditional characters and start noting the ones you don't recognize

>>15587179
a least a few more hundred years, BDK have been working on it: https://www.bdkamerica.org/catalog-tripitaka

>>15584274
It's not a zero point, but the Routledge Grammar workbook is good.

>>15587196
Yes I'm aware of BDK.

Why don't they hire more translators (or use volunteers) and get it done sooner? Why don't they have fundraisers? It seem ridiculous to me that the tripiṭaka isn't even translated into english fully yet. What could be more important to buddhists?

I would volunteer to do some translating for them.

>>15587230
you should try, i'm currently translating a buddhist text just now (not saying which one), it's taking a long time, lots to be considered in terms of wording, lots of reading of the commentaries too, which is sometimes more difficult to parse than the text itself

>>15587240
Do you think BDK is hiring?

>>15587265
i can't see any mention of it on their website, but i guess you could contact one of their local outlets and ask... i doubt it's a paid for project tho, i've zero qualifications in translation so i'm just working at it on my own, the fruits of my work will be my qualification

What level of English I need for romance three kingdoms?

>>15588015
It's written in chinese though.

There's many translations including children's books for it.

I'm starting to translate Chapter 11.7 (The Black Challenge) of Wang Huning's America Against America... the first paragraph is already a wild ride:

“黑色挑战”,或称“黑色风暴”,我指的是黑人问题。黑人引起的社会和政治问题,成为一个令人头痛的问题,也构成对社会的严重挑战。有的人把黑人问题比喻成最大的社会难题,说这个问题最终将成为致命问题。在美国,可以深深感觉到,这个说法有一定的道理。

When talking about the “Black Challenge” or “Black Storm”, I am referring to the problems of black people (lit. "black people problem"). The social and political problems caused by black people have become a headache and are a serious challenge to society. Some people liken the black problem to the biggest problem in society, and say that it will become a fatal problem. In the US, it can be deeply felt that there is some truth to this statement.

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

>>15588015
if you can read classics like Moby Dick and War and Peace, you can read Three Kingdoms

>>15584170
Wumao

>>15589466
Is it really that complex? I've heard others say it's just "opponent comes with spear, is blocked by shield" times a million

>>15589531
just try it out

>>15584170
BASED
I only have read Journey to the West and a handful of chinese scifi, so thanks
>>15584910
>>15584929
Wtf I love china even more!

>>15589531
No, that's the Iliad. Chinese literary works are much more complex and subtle.

>>15587230
because buddhism is a religion of unattached, unmaterialistic nerds who can barely commit to any difficult task besides lower tier variations like suicide. they aren't unmaterialistic due to the derivation of wisdom, but because their weaknesses and lack of material power shaped their world view, which they formed after the fact.

>>15589531
They made a tv show not too long ago (2010). You can find it on youtube subbed in English too, and it's supposed to be one of the more textually faithful adaptations.

>>15589390
>liken the black problem to
I can't Mandarin for shit, but this 'liken to' is definitely incoherent English. Pleco has 喻 as "draw an analogy to", but I assume the meaning here is more like "can be explained as", or, together with 成 "is coming to be seen as"?

actually we hate china. we support a free tibet

Want to read journey to the west and romance of the three kingdoms but tempted to read the abridged versions. Does anyone know if Ill be missing much?

>>15589620
Pretty sure in this case 比喻 is the word and wouldn't be broken down more to 喻 alone, which according to my research is mostly used in chengyu and fixed expressions.

I changed that right before posting from what I felt was a more natural translation of "Some people consider the black problem to be the largest problem in society" but the 比喻 threw me off since it specifically means a metaphor or analogy. Some other examples in pleco of this usage are things like 可以把路数比喻成氧气工厂 (Can compare greenery to an oxygen factory) or in chinese dictionary definitions of symbolic words like 巨星 referring to an astonomical giant star or or a celebrity 'superstar' (比喻成为有用的人).

Maybe it's referring to how some people consider the black struggle an analogy or metaphor for society's largest problems? I'm not keen on sending this text to any chinese friends or coworkers so maybe a native speaker could chime in.

>>15589719
jttw abridged loses a lot of funny adventures, but is more okay than rottk abridged, which loses a lot of interesting characterizations and lore.

>>15589719
Those are both truly folk tales, so it's more important to understand basic characters and stories. So as long as you know people like the clever Cao Cao, the humane Liu Bei, the cruel Dong Zhuo, the bearded Zhang Fei, the beautiful Diaochan, etc and know about stories like the peach garden oath, stealing arrows with straw boats, battle of red cliff etc, you'll have a good understanding of some fundamental chinese folk tales. This is at least what I'd recommend trying to get from these tales.

>>15589799
>>15589802
I'll read the unabridged then. Just never read anything that long before, fairly new to reading.

>>15589826
If you don't want to read it, there's a podcast linked in the OP which is an audio story retold by someone who speaks both mandarin and english, and grew up with the novel himself. These tales were traditionally shared through bedtime stories, tv shows, radio, etc. so it's worth checking out other forms of media besides books. I'd also recommend the 1994 and 2010 tv shows.

>>15589768
not a native speaker but "consider... to be", or "regard .... as" are fine

>>15589802
>bearded Zhang Fei
>not bearded guan yu
has the 2010 tv series been lying to me?

>>15584170
Sinoboo*

>>15590003
This was an error, meant to type Guan Yu.

>>15589637
freedom is overrated, better to live on a more developed country's gibs and preserve your culture and land than to struggle to maintain freedom
t. dalai lama

>>15590084
Then what is Zhang's best attribute?

>>15590444
Either his constitution or quick temper

>>15590444
shout

>>15584299
based dubs
>>15584287
cringe single digits

>>15590873
>>15590787
his shouts make him memorable but its not his only thing
his temper is a good choice. zhang fei the fierce has a nice ring to it, but guan yu is the real fierce one among them.

i'm going to settle for zhang fei the cultured brute, because he's more than just a brute.

Translated 11.7:

11.7 The Black Challenge
When talking about the “Black Challenge” or “Black Storm”, I am referring to black people problems. The social and political problems caused by black people have become a headache and are a serious challenge to society. Some people consider the black problem as the largest societal problem, and say that it will become a fatal problem. In the US, it can be deeply felt that there is some truth to this statement.
The Martin Luther King Center is located in Atlanta. I went to visit this center. Compared to the Carter Cneter, the MLK Center is small and shabby, likely because of its early establishment. Martin Luther King is a famous black civil rights leader. In the 1960s, black people’s problems and racial descrimination against them were still very serious. At that time, there were schools only for white people, vehicles that only whites could ride in, hotels only for white people, areas with only white people, and black people had no status or money. In that era, in order to break this kind of apartheid, there were large riots and violent actions, and the federal government had to send out troops to protect black students and white schools. Even though the court ruled that racial segregation is unconstiuttional, it still persists in real life. It has been 20 years since then, and although black people’s living conditions have improved, their problems have grown more and more serious.
A Chinese student at Emory University told me that “In the south, black liberation after the civil war, the status of black people in society is still very low.” The cause of the civil war was the abolition or preservation of slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicts the status of black people in society at this time. One of President Lincoln’s achievements was to liberate black slaves. More than 100 years later, black people still aren’t slaves, but they do not have the same social status that white people enjoy.
He said there was a county near Atlanta where racial descrimination was especially serious -- the county is still opposed to black people living there. Any black person that lives there will be squeezed out. Anti-racist groups have repeatedly supported brave black residents and have been beaten. Last year, a anti-racist group organized a march in the county against this attitude, only to be beaten up by the residents. Later a newspaper reported this story, which aroused the anger of people all around the country, and people from all corners of the US to support the organization and participate in the parade which made the police station very nervous. People in this county saw these people opposing them, but did not dare to fight as they were outnumbered. But in the end, the anti-racist groups just marched around and didn’t get any long-lasting results. To this day, the county still discriminates against black people.

>>15591461

Today, most places don’t have a clear policy of discrimination against black people. It’s actually the opposite -- Government agencies must hire black people. Some white people think this is reverse discrimination, because sometimes white people are more qualified for a job, but because of these rules requiring the hiring of black people, white people are in an unfair competitive position.
However, it’s only a surface phenomenon. In the minds of many white people, they really hate black people. For example in some white residential areas, if black people move in, many white people will move out. When black people live somewhere, housing prices will fall because white people don’t want to live there. The result of this is that white and black people live in different areas. Every big city has black areas, which are usually dirty, messy, and have fallen behind other areas. Some black people with millions of dollars can’t make it into the white upper class. On the surface, America is very beautiful and there isn’t racial discrimination, but in reality it is a deeply-rooted problem.
Black people have a lower social status, lower level of education, and worse economic situation. On the street, people will meet many poor people who want money, most of them black. Cities like Washington DC have an astonishing amount, which is not in harmony with such a bustling city. In city squares, you can see a lot of entertainers, mostly black. You can see a line stretching from employment and relief offices, most of them black. Most of the homeless on the street are black, and most of the most people with shabby and torn clothes are black. Of course, white people also have these kinds of people, but the number is comparatively small. Tourists seeing this would be frightened.
The black community is a reflection of the black struggle. I’ve been to black neighborhoods in San Francisco, New York, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Atlanta, and its left a terrible impression. It’s generally worse than the areas where white people live, and you can see at a glance it is a poor area. In front of many houses, there are some idle black people. Young people stand in small groups around the street, causing one’s heart to race. New York’s black neighborhoods are particularly bad, with a high crime rate. A friend told me that an American took him to visit a black area in New York. Halfway there, a police car stopped him. They thought they had broken traffic rules, but the police asked them if they knew what was ahead, and they said they knew. The policeman told them to be careful. The two of them only dared to drive through the ghetto quickly and didn’t dare to leave the car. He said if the car broke down, he would not know what he would have done.

>>15591472

The living conditions of black people are very poor, and many take the road of crime after they have no way out. The crime situation in America can be ranked among the top in the world, especially among black people. I have heard a lot of stories about black people robbing chinese people. A friend once said he went with a colleague to a restaurant and happened across two black people on the stairs with knives, asking for money. A Chinese student told me crime was rampant on 42nd street in New York City, which was the same street as the Chinese Consulate, and that thieves specifically targeted Chinese people to steal their money. The New York police department had to station mounted police in front of the consulate. The general police were not enough (I didn’t see any cavalry police in front of the consulate in New York. This is all in broad daylight.
Prominent black people constantly frequently emerge, and have become idols of social worship: Track and field athletes, personalities, basketball players, softball players,boxers, and football players. But the overall status of black people has not changed.
The problems of black people have become a cycle which is hard to solve. The overall culture of black people is low, economic status is poor, and there is no control over fertility. The welfare system stipulates that children can receive government relief. Black people have a higher fertility rate than white people. Black children do not get a good living environment and education. Because the previous education never received a good education, they do not receive a sense of worth, and children naturally do not get education and nurturing. Growing up in the environment of a black area unconsciously influences character and causes psychological imbalance. Generations of black people have grown up without good skills and education, so they can’t hold positions with high technical requirements.

>>15591484
Many children have no parents or only one parent, often just a mother. Many children’s mothers are “child mothers,” who are pregnant at 14 or 15 and have children. How can such children get good education? This situation is not uncommon in black society. When they grow up, they can only get a lower-level job and not achieve a high level of compensation. A small number of people escape this through struggle, but it is difficult to be accepted by white society. This has been passed down for generations, making the snowball of black problems get larger and larger.
The challenges of black people are threatening society and institutions. So far, the system is weak and powerless to this problem. Because of the inaction of this system, anti-black thinking is rising and the neoconservative idea of “reverse discrimination” is taking on this meaning. Racial segregation has already become history, but challenges for black people continue to grow. The era of the Ku Klux Klan’s rampage has passed, but it is not gone yet. If society cannot find how to fundamentally improve the situation of black people, the final outcome is likely to be more violent anti-black actions. This is the humanity’s weakness - when a problem cannot be solved, the easiest choice is to strongly oppose it.
Almost every society has similar problems and have people regarded as inferior. But there may be different reasons for these kinds of problems, such as arising from cultural differences, historical origins, customs, and institutions. In the case of the United States, the main reason lies within the system, so the black problem is a challenge to the social system.
There's a lot of problems with this translation, but I'm adding comments to the most tricky and clumsy parts with the original chinese so a native reader could answer questions when the time comes.

>>15591494
This seems like it was written in the 1980s? Is that the case? When was America against America written?

>>15591461
https://youtu.be/D2vuMLg6BHE

>>15584170
What a random assortment of choices.

>>15589637
Han people have been living in Tibet for 800 years. You might as well argue that Texas should be returned to Mexico

>>15593725
Not the same at all. The sinicization of Tibet is not a territorial issue, it's the Chinese government violating international law and committing human rights abuses by forcibly homogenizing the Tibetan people, for example by erasing their indigenous language and culture.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2012/11/424662-china-must-urgently-address-rights-violations-tibet-un-senior-official

"The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said she was disturbed by “continuing allegations of violence against Tibetans seeking to exercise their fundamental human rights of freedom of expression, association and religion,” and pointed to “reports of detentions and disappearances, of excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators, and curbs on the cultural rights of Tibetans.”

Ms. Pillay, who has had several exchanges with the Chinese Government on these issues, according to a news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said authorities need to do more to protect human rights and prevent violations.

“I call on the Government to respect the rights to peaceful assembly and expression, and to release all individuals detained for merely exercising these universal rights,” she said.

Among the cases reported is that of a 17-year-old girl who was severely beaten and sentenced to three years in prison for distributing flyers calling for Tibet’s freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama. Others have been sentenced to up to seven years in prison for writing essays, making films or distributing photos of events in Tibet outside of China. Serious concerns have also been raised about fair trial standards, and the torture and ill-treatment of detainees."

>>15589637
Isn't the Dalai Lama against an independent Tibet and just wants them to be an autonomous region?

>>15593775
There are countless Chinese minority groups that have been wholesale exterminated throughout China's 3000 year internal power struggles, as depressing as that is. You just happen to live in a time when its only happening to two of them (Tibetans and Ughyurs). I'm not saying that makes it ok but have some context on the situation, especially considering the US and Great Britain have done much worse. And no I'm not a wumao. Westerners caring about Tibet is virtue-signalling

>>15594456
the US and the UK have not done "far worse" Zhang. Europeans defending their Tibetan cousins from rice eating sludge is not "virtue signaling"

>>15589637
>tibetans are gross muttoids who like western culture
welp

>>15594456
I hear you, but there is a risk that we end up relativising all current events under the label of virtue signalling.

In a more general sense, complaining that e.g. there was historical slaughter of aborigines in the US seems to me largely irrelevant. It is historically interesting, if only that it shows how all nations are, of necessity, founded on violence. Ir does not automatically justify all violence pursued in order to form a nation.

What people react against is the situation in China, and previously in the USSR, where a regime that is in the process of oppressing a minority violently, looks to defend itself by making a comparison to lesser abuses abroad. The Russians were also big fans of pointing out that the US bus system was racist while the KGB was busy disappearing dissenting activists of their own.