/lit/ - Literature

i hear they're really nice to americans on 2chan.

I've never seen anyone read where I'm from, I've honestly still got to read some myself.

All I've seen is that shi shi shi poem, which put me off of every learning Chinese.

I wouldn't say Asian literature in general is very widespread in the west, but if there are any front-runner it'd probably be Japanese. That's what I see getting the most professional translations in book stores, anyways.

Since we use Chinese Characters for our own language and learn ancient Chinese grammar in our school (as Westerners learn Latin), we usually enjoy their poem reading its original text and translated text at a same time.

｢絶句｣ 杜甫

江碧鳥愈白 (江碧にして鳥愈白く)
山青花欲燃 (山青にして花燃えんと欲す)
今春看又過 (今春又た看すみす過ぐ)
何日是帰年 (何れの日か是れ帰年ならん)

White gleam the gulls across the darkling tide,
On the green hills the red flower seem to burn;
Alas, I see another spring has died.
When will it come the day of my return.

This is the shortest style of conventional Chinese Poem, called 五言絶句. It consists of 5*4=20 syllables, slightly longer than our Haiku, but thanks to Chinese monosyllable vocabulary, it can contain far more implications and stories in it.

>>4531166
Americans in general have a very small and specific Asian canon that we read. Stuff like Tale of Genji, and lots of haiku, or stuff about Buddhism. Unfortunately, in my experience, other than that we mostly just read American or British literature. I wish I had had the chance to read more Asian lit in school. I'm reading it now on my own and it's incredible

>>4531219
>front runner is Japanese

It's ironical. We Japanese had been looked down on our poem and recognized Chinese poem is higher, more sophisticated literature than our own until we met Western culture in 19th century.

I still don't think our Haiku is worth reading at all though. (Waka, 5-7-5-7-7 syllable short poem is relatively alright. )

>>4531238
>as Westerners learn Latin
My balls.

Americlap here. Love Li Bai. Li Bai is my drinking buddy. I can't remember which of his poems I like best, though, because I'm always drunk when I read them.

>>4531246
I see. Our ''canon'' also includes a few famous tragedies of Shakespeare, and representative British and American Literature such as ''Pride and Prejudice'' or ''Moby Dick''. But it seems Chinese Lit is something we don't share in common.

We are supposed to read
''論語 Lun-Yu'', words of Confucian,
''庄子 Zhuang-Zi'' words of Zhuangzi,
''孫子 Sun-zi'' the book of strategy,
''史記 Siqi'', Chinese ancient history book by SimaQian
''唐詩選 Tangshizhuan'', Anthology of poem in Tang Dynasty era.

Those are recognized as a part of canon here.

>>4531278
Totally agreed. Whenever I read Libai's poem I feel like having alcohol. I like to read his 月下独酌(yuexia duzhuo) as drinking Sake.

I'm from Brazil. At least where I live there are a lot of Chinese and Japanese, I live in some sort of Chinatown. Even so, it feels that people barely touch more sophisticated areas of the eastern culture and that, for everyone who doesn't have Chinese or Japanese blood, it is summed up by festivals, anime and food.

I took some Chinese classes, but I quit before I had the chance to articulate myself in the language. But I've read Li Bai, Du Fu and Wang Wei, apart from some others I can't recall. I like it, but not with a full heart. I've read them translated and I feel it just doesn't translate well to Portuguese (or any of the main western languages for that matter). Even though I couldn't make out to read it in original Chinese, I had enough notion to notice how much it is lost in between the languages. The poems are articulated in a way that is just not quite like the original. If I pay attention to certain keywords from each verse, I feel I have a better grasp of its beauty than when I read it in the usual linear form. I believe I was not able to appreciate the poetry to a decent degree, even though I have profound admiration for eastern poetics.

>>4531290
Unfortunately, we get none of that in secondary school. America has a hard time being multi-cultural when it comes to literature. There are lots of great American writers that we read, but it's up to the privately interested individual to either pick up world literature on their own or go on to study it at university. Thank you for the list, though. I hope to read those texts for perspective.

>>4531311
>Education in Latin
We here in the US is lucky if we get an education in Shakespeare, which is actually a pretty good playwright. Latin and Greek are essentially for those WASPs who are really into old and dead historical stuff.

I can see classical Chinese being instrumental to Japan, since the islands were essentially semi-barbarian till the embassies of Tang and Sung Dynasties. It's a sad state of affairs in China today. I spent 11 years in Taiwan and visited China 4 times, and each time I go there, I can see how Mao's Red Guards have permanently altered the country today.

>TL;DR China Today: Plebs. Plebs as far as the eye can see.

>tfw German
>tfw I learned English, French and Latin in school
>tfw I learned Polish in university
>tfw learning Japanese at the moment

That being said, I don't know anything about Chinese literature. A year ago or so I picked up "The Core of Chinese Classical Fiction", an anthology with all kinds of stuff from ancient China until the 16th century. But I'll probably won't have the time to read it until in a few years or so. Too much stuff from German modernist writers I want to read and don't have the time to.

Here's another my favorite Libai's quatrain.

李白乗舟将欲行 (李白舟に乗りて将に行かんと欲す)
忽聞岸上踏歌声 (忽ち聞く岸上踏歌の声)
桃花潭水深千尺 (桃花潭水深さ千尺なるも)
不及王倫送我情 (及ばず王倫我を送るの情に)

Libai gets into a small boat -- he is on the point of starting.
Suddenly he hears footsteps on the bank and the sound of singing.
The Peach-Flower Pool is a thousand feet deep,
Yet it is not deeper than the emotion of Wanglun as he takes leave of me.

It is said that he was always on the journey, and whenever he arrived at a village, he stayed its liquor shop for a while. He was welcomed because he was already well known poet and respected from people.

This poem is made probably impromptu, when he left a village by boat and found the master of liquar shop, Wanglun, singing on the bank to say good bye to him. I can imagine clearly the scene and I really love it.

Hey OP, do you have a goodreads? Have you read Naoya Shiga? Takiji Kobayashi?

I love chinese literature, I just finished reading Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber. Is that required reading in Japan? Im about to start Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh, then maybe I'll read Genji Monogatari.

Li Bai, Du Fu, Tao Yuanming,Bo Yuji and other poets are great. But don't neglect other styles of poetry and poets, like the earliest collection of poetry in the world, the Classic of Poetry. The songs of Chu are good too, look up the poet Qu Yuan. Han Shan is also a good poet, so is Li He and Du Mu.

Then theres the anthologies of japanese poetry; Manyoshu and Kokin Wakashu.

>>4531371
The Chinese are really into Milton so they can't be total plebs.

Why the fuck do asians always fuck up plurals. LEARN ENGLISH PROPERLY

>>4531474
Shut up. Be glad some Asians actually take the time to learn your ugly language.

>>4531484
MIN YAO CHIN PIN NEEYA KIUZUMI DESCHUATE EISU DEJKA PING YONG CHING NAO

>>4531484
Yeah you have to if you want to get anywhere fag

>>4531500
faggot

Everyone needs to speak American!
Reading is for fags. There's this thing called cliff notes and wikipedia
Music from Twilight is better than from Harry Potter

>/lit/ in a nutshell

>>4531516
>Asians going full shitter shoah

>>4531277
Indeed. Classics may remain a field of study at most respected Universities, but secondary teaching is relegated to elite schools such as Eton and the like.

>>4531311
It does depend what high school one goes to again, but in Australia, for comparison, there's a noticeable nationalist push on Australian Literature - most of which I've found to be terrible. Where's our Australian Tao Lin?
That said, I've found that most schools still teach Shakespeare, perhaps due to his famous nature alone. A lot of teachers just opt to show the shitty MTV adaptation of Romeo and Juliet too unfortunately.

I can't see it being feasible to study something like Moby Dick at a high school level, though it's definitely taken up in University programs. At that level of study translation differences are crucial I think so you'd have to speak the language - the number of chinese and japanese speakers are relatively few in the West since the language is English, so it makes sense that classics of japanese/chinese canon aren't studied. The bigger hegemonic cultural force is also by far the West, which makes sense out of the fact that while there's Western Literature in Eastern canon, there is less Eastern canon in Western canon.

That said, the whole project of establishing a great unified canon kind of died after Marxist and post-structuralist perspectives.

>>4531484
This. English people make just as laughable grammatical mistakes in other languages.

>>4531516
>cliffnotes
>not Thug Notes
Do you even peep motifs nigga?

>>4531467
Compared to other Chinese popular novel such as ''Journey to the West'' ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' and ''Water Margin'', 紅楼夢 is much less popular here, and I have never seen someone like that novel around me. To be honest I also stopped reading after just finising the first 3 or 4 chapters. I doubted it's going be more interesting after that.

The earliest collection, Shijing, I just read through it to pertain basic knowledge to understand later Chinese poem. Some of them are able to understand, but frankly most of them are too difficult for me because its each Chinese Character's meaning is already much different from what we know. So the way of understanding is often different in each researchers.

Songs of Chu, which we call 楚辞, is really fantastic. For me it is almost miracle that they had such a great peace already in 3rd century BC. Although it is generally accepted that Chinese poem reached its culmination in 8th century, I have many favorite poem from Han dynasty to Nanbeizhao era. Especially Tao Yuanming !

>>4531238
I speak cantonese and know a bit japanese, this thread interests me a lot. Never imagine that chinese poem is a popular subject in japan.

>>4531474
I've already given up using plural properly.
It's too difficult for us Japanese.

>>4531540
How do you use plural in Japanese anyway? Do you put a number in front of things or do you use stuff like たくさん?

>>4531474
I can't speak for anything other than Japan, but they don't have plurals in their language. At least not modifiers, like slapping an "s" to the end of a noun

>>4531474
Keep in mind language shapes your way of thinking. It's the same with English people trying to grasp languages that uses nouns with genders or uses grammatical cases other than just the genetive.

The most popular Chinese poem here in Japan is
杜甫Dufu's ''春望 Chungwang, the Spring View''.

国破山河在 城春草木深
感時花濺涙 恨別鳥心驚
烽火連三月 家書抵萬金
白頭掻更短 渾欲不勝簪

It's great piece indeed, but there's also some specific reason; the first line of this poem, ''The realm is destroyed, yet the mountains and livers abide" touched to old generation of Japanese. Because they literally experienced that scene in 1945.

>>4531558
Japan, do you guys read German literature (translated, I guess)? If yes, what authors do you read over there?

>>4531558
>''The realm is destroyed, yet the mountains and livers abide"
>yet the mountains and livers abide"
>and livers abide"
>livers

>>4531548
Yes we just say number;
''りんご一つ(an apple)’’/’’りんご三つ(three apples)’’

we don't distinguish singular and plural in terms of grammar, so it's a bit hard to pay attention to that. Maybe my operating-system is always Japanese even when I write English.

>>4531524

So you dont have a goodreads account? You should make one and share it here. Im pretty into chinese and japanese literature. Just got first snow on fuji by kawabata, and teach us to outgrow our madness by oe.

Story of the stone was really good, IT IS a bit repetitive at times, but its considered the best of the classics for a reason, its such an autobiographical look into a 18th century aristocratic family, so many details and psychoogical insight, the rituals they go through every day, the parties and festivities they throw, their religious beliefs (the mixing of taoism, confucianism and buddhism, in japan it would be buddhism with shinto). But yea, its not for everybody, its really long and with 200+ characters, it took me a whole month to read.

This is sort of a weird question, would you like to visit china? Language aside, if you were in china, do you think you would feel comfortable? Almost like a second country? So many things in japanese culture are originally chinese. not to detract from the uniquely japanese things. thats why i like both countries so much, theyre similar yet different, theyre interconnected, they both have great history, etc.

>>4531560
Not OP but it immediately reminds me a infamous book call 「超訳ニーチェの言葉」(Super translation of Nietzsche's text?)

>>4531566
I imagine that perhaps the cultural similarities between Japan and China is akin to that of America and England, or England and Europe?

>>4531562
lel
rivers. please understand. I am Japanese.

It's hard to understand how plurality is a hard concept to grasp.

I'm learning French, and it took a moment to be accustomed to grammar, and the memorization of seemingly arbitrarily gender nouns, but we share very similar natures of plurality.

>>4531577
The funny thing is, when your native language uses gender nouns it also affects how your concept of those things are. You subconsciously give all those things male and female qualities.

>>4531566
>goodreads
To be honest I have never heard about ''goodreads''. Today is my first day to come this site.

>visiting China
I'd like to if I have time. And I want to see sceneries described in my favorite Chinese songs and poems. So I hope communist China protect those site as much as possible, though scenery around Baiticheng(白帝城) is already sunk under the dam.

>>4531568
I see that book in seven-eleven next to my apartment. Although I didn't open it, I was quite surprised how many Japanese are cheered up by Nietzche's words.

>>4531586
How did you find 4chan?

>>4531573
I understand. Just poking fun

>>4531582
Well, in the United States, even without gender words, I still do and culturally people still do largely as well. Places and items tend to become largely feminine, but that was a generational thing and now it seems to be losing its prominence.

Personally, I don't see the necessity for une chemise to be feminine, but the French language was one of aristocracy.

Native of Japan, which language would you say, hopefully removing bias, is the most efficient and effective language and the one that should be used?

I believe that oriental languages are horribly structured and have too much clutter, but I am again biased due to my English nature and it doesn't help I quit trying to learn Japanese after just a week.

>>4531572
China-Japan relationship's counterpart in Europe is for example, Rome-England I assume.

Their languages are different, but Japan/England got a lot of vocabulary from China/Rome. There used to be great difference of civilization-level in ancient era, and still Chinese/Roman literature is recognized as cannon in Japan/England.

>>4531166

Hey Japanese person.
I'm looking for Japanese philosophy. I've read Zhuangzi and Laozi, but those are Chinese. What would you suggest?

>>4531572

Its hard to explain, but yea, something like that. examples:

Japanese kimonos are based on hanfus
the game of Go is Weiqi
they use chinese characters (and native writing systems based off chinese characters)
Lots of festivals are chinese, moon viewing, qingming, welcoming the deads spirits, etc
the koto instrument is a guqin/guzhen
Zen buddhism is chan buddhism
bonsai art comes from china
The way the early japanese constructed their cities were based on tang chinese architecture, etc

The connection is deep. The earliest mention of japan in chinese history is from the 200s AD. During the 600s, japan was sending scholars to study in china, also many chinese and koreans came to.japan durimg that time

Not really related to anything, but interesting anyway, one of the last loyal Ming dynasty officials was born in japan to a japanese mother, Koxinga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga

>>4531596
Native english speaker here. While I only have a few months of japanese study under my belt, I've found it far less unwieldy than english. It feels much more streamlined in terms of grammar so far. The only complaint I have is how wordy it is to write out a sentence, but I'm sure that's alleviated with a strong cache of kanji.

>>4531605
I would say that's largely a bad comparison. Ancient Europe was a larger clusterfuck than easily analyzed. England is more dynamic than you think.

>>4531594
In Japan there is several domestic sites which translates and introduces 4chan's posting and comment to Japanese. Usually you Westerners praise Japan a lot and speak ill of Korea and China, at least according to the translated and edited version on that site.

>>4531591
Taiwanese has translated it in Chinese, and apparently it is quite popular in both Japan and Taiwan (or China too).

But don't bother it to read it. 超訳ニーチェの言葉 just took Nietzsche's passage without putting any actual context, and translated them with some weird interpretation that doesn't exist in the original text. I guess that's what 超訳 (Super translation) means.

>>4531610
Still make sense on a basic level. Rome used to be this massive empire that dominated everyone.
Now Italy is a fucking joke.
China kept all its land, so you can compare it more to say... Eastern Europe.

>>4531613
China is to the West now what the USA was to Europe one hundred years ago. A big and scary thing that is admired for it's economic growth. But there's also that thing about censorship, although the USA is also hated for surveilling the whole world and trying to be "world police" despite not actually being a real democracy.

>>4531613
No, that's about right. Though I have started seeing more chinese love recently. Mostly coming in the wake of the Romance of the three kingdoms drama from a few years back.

Are you a 2chan/2ch user? Or was the draw to 4chan simply due to our readily apparent population of japanophiles?

>>4531613
Hahaha
It depends what board you go on; /a/ (anime) are only interested in Japan because of anime, and /jp/ Touhou - the industry isn't really there in Korea and China, so those countries aren't often talked about. /v/ (video games) would be more interested in Korea due to esports, and /mu/ (music) and /sp/ (sports) have some people that love k-pop.

On /lit/ we're pretty western literature and philosophy focused - but it isn't rare to see the odd Eastern literature or philosophy thread now and again. Murakami is by far the most popular Japanese author on here, as well as Soseki.

>>4531613
Very interesting.

From someone who has been on 4chan for seven years, we largely hate Communistic China, while we love Korean and Japanese culture; again I'm summing up from just what I've seen.

>>4531615
England didn't become England until the germanic tribes began moving, during and after the decline of the Roman Empire. It's safer to say that the values of Classical Greece were more culturally impactful, at least to what the original question was: culturally.

It's safe to say that the Church (Roma) was a large cyst, with a few qualities near the time of the Renaissance that are appreciable.

>>4531606

Not him but try Kitaro Nishida, theres also this other guy but i forgot his name, Jun something? Google 20th century japanese philosophy. japan didnt have many philosophers before the meiji era,.if you dont count the founders. of different buddhist sects.

Also, if you guys enjoyed Romance of the three kingdoms, you will enjoy heike monogatari.

>>4531606
I'd say, Dogen (1200-1253AD). He is Buddhist monk who learned Zen in China and came back to Japan to be founder of one of the biggest Zen sect in Japan.

He wrote a beautiful book ''Shobo-Genzo正法眼蔵'' to explain what is ''Satori'', the ultimate destination of Zen.

I don't know it can be categolized as philosophy, strictly speaking, but it is written in very beautiful japanese (I don't know whether he really got satori, but at least I am sure he was genius on literature), and with his outstanding talent of writing and effort, he tried to explain something cannot be explained by words. Although it's very difficult to understand even in Japanese, but I like to read it and enjoy the author's beautiful mind.

>>4531606
Kuki Shuzo
Motoori Norinaga

>>4531635
My ex-gf was a member of that sect.

>>4531623

The monoglots of /lit/ dont actually read, when they do its usually the same thing over and over. sartre, dostoyevsky, dfw, shakespeare, joseph conrad, etc

OP
https://www.goodreads.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/67886-lit-revival-of-the-revival

Nishida used to be very famous and well read among college students, but is seldom read in these days. I also tried his ''善の研究'' once and found it doesn't make sense at all to me. Even Kant, the notorious bad writer, is still much easier and reasonable to me. (if not that much worse as Hegel.)

>>4531560
this is my desk. I took this photo just now.

I like that poet who died in Tuebingen as much as Dufu.

>>4531654
damn man, i feel like i could be your friend and i feel like i would learn so much from you.

tell me, friend, if i am interested in learning chinese, should i pursue it? i would love to harness the appreciation you have for chinese poetry.

>>4531654
Aww, neat! There's one without a translation at all. Can you actually read German or do you just have an untranslated volume there because you like it that much?

Although I have to admit I don't really like Hölderlin. I'm just not into anything written before 1890 or so. ;_;

>>4531654

Favorite Mishima and Tanizaki book?

>>4531657
Chinese poems are generally very practical, always stand on real life. They don't play in fantasy (also there's some exception like QuYuan). So when they express about their cordial pleasure of meeting old friend, or their sadness of saying goodbye, its words really touches to my heart.

But I also sometimes feel like flying in the sky of Greece and smell its aether, which Chinese poet never describe. I like both. And I wish you to enjoy both, friend.

>>4531660
Originally I loved Thomas Mann and, umm, to be honest Nietzche when I was teenager so I took German as my second foreign language in my college. Those german books are bought in those days on the purpose of learning German with my favorite literature.

Although I learned German like that for quite long time, my German is still hard to say fluent.

>>4531667

I recognize Tanizaki is the best author in modern Japanese literature, far better than Natsume.

細雪(Sasame yuki/Makioka Sisters) and 春琴抄(Shunkin sho/A portrait of Shunkin ) are masterpiece of course, but I also like 吉野葛(Yoshino kuzu/Arrowroot)、蓼食う虫(Tade kuu mushi/Some Prefer Nettles)、刺青(Shisei/The Tattooer)、少将滋幹の母(Captain Shigemoto's Mother). I believe those are worth reading. Actually I want to add ''manji'' to here, but I doubt it can be published in Europe.

In contrast I'm not an enthusiastic reader of Mishima. 仮面の告白(confession of a mask) was relatively alright though.

>>4531683
You like landscape and stuff related to that, right? You might want to pick up Jurij Brezan's "Krabat oder die Verwandlung der Welt". The language itself shouldn't be too difficult for you if you were able to read Nietzsche and Mann. The book has some beautiful passages related to the very small piece of Germany where the Sorbes live, a very traditional but nowadays mostly gone folk with its own language and cultures.

>>4531700
Thank you for your information. I've never heard the name of Birezan and I googled now to find his work have never been translated to japanese. It's challenging but feel like trying his book.

>>4531723
I think they weren't even translated to English. But you will probably really enjoy this one (and maybe his other books as well). If I can make a single person happy with one of my favorite but underappreciated authors, I'll be happy, too.

>>4531730
That's good thing of such board. we can share what we like. I hope people here have interest in Chinese literature,too.

This thread made me happy. Thank you OP.

Why dont you like Mishima? What do you think of Kawabata and Oe Kenzaburo?

Good thread, stick around OP, we need more eastern lit discussions. I recommend you check out Gao Xianjiang - Soul Mountain, for a good modern chinese book.

time for bed. Story of the stone/water margin guy, out. Make a goodreads account!

A question for Japanese, Chinese and Korean anons:

Could you recommend some cornerstones of your respective nation's modern literature (as in written after modernization)? I've read a small bit of the very largest names of Japanese literature that are translated to Finnish, i.e. Mishima and Murakami, so obviously I'm a bit of a beginner with the Eastern canon.

Also tfw Asians focus only on the Anglo-Saxon part of the Western canon. Half of it is great and the other half is retarded muh liberty and happiness circlejerk. Classical and continental traditions are the better part.

I don't read translated poetry, but I've read a fair bit of Japanese lit. I'm also learning the language but am not at a point where I can read novels comfortably. Are tankas japanese OP?

I've considered learning classical chinese to read philosophy but I don't about poetry.

>>4532700
If I asked to make a list of representative pieces of modern Japanese literature, without my personal preferences, it will be like this.

・''I am a Cat'' by Natsume Soseki, 1905
・''Botchan'' by Natsume, 1906
・''Kokoro'' by Natsume, 1914
・''Michikusa / Grass on the Wayside'' by Natsume, 1915

・Short Stories including ''Maihime / The Dancing Girl'' of Mori Ougai

・Short Stories including ''Uta-andon / A Song by Lantern Light'' of Izumi Kyouka

・''Shisei / The Tattoer'' by Tanizaki Jun-ichiro, 1910
・''Some prefer Nettles'' by Tanizaki, 1928
・''A portrait of Shunkin'' by Tanizaki, 1933
・"The Makioka Sisters'' by Tanizaki, 1948

・Short Stories including ''The Nose'', ''Rashomon'',''In a Groove'' and ''Hell Screen'' of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke
・''Spinning Gear'' by Akutagawa, 1927

・''Before the Dawn'' by Shimazaki Touson, 1935

・''A Dark Night's Passing'' by Shiga Naoya, 1937

・''The Setting Sun'' by Dazai Osamu, 1947

・''Snow Country'' by Kawabata Yasunari, 1937
・''The Sound of the Mountain'' by Kawabata, 1954
・''The House of Sleeping Beauty'' by Kawabata, 1961

・''Confessions of a Mask'' by Mishima Yukio, 1949

・''The Silent Cry'' bu Oe Kenzaburo, 1967

If I were allowed to reflect my own preference, I'll remove ''Kokoro'', ''A Dark Night Passing'' from there and add Tanizaki and Dazai's some short stories.

Here in the West we mostly read some of the Chinese classics in our world literature courses, mostly Daodejing, Confucius, Art of War. Another popular collection is one called "300 Tang Poems" which I really enjoyed.

Mostly very few people actually read Chinese literature though. I went through a phase in my life where I read a lot of Buddhist literature, so I got into Chinese literature through that. Because of that I really like those collections of Zen stories (koans) like The Gateless Gate and the Blue cliff record. Also poems by Chinese hermit poets like Hanshan. There is a book I really liked called A Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry. This is of course, all in English translation, so I'm sure much is being lost but I liked them.

I've also read some of Dogen's instructions for zazen.

>>4533745
Even 唐诗三百选? Which country do you live in ?

>>4533765
I'm from the states, but that little book is pretty well known. Its easy to teach in world literature courses along with the other short Chinese classics.

>>4533785
To add to this, Chinese and Japanese poetry was kind of influential during the 60s in the United States. The beat poets and other hippie writers got into eastern philosophy and read this kind of stuff - English Language Haiku got popular during the 60s I believe as well as Zen Buddhism (see for example, the references to Chinese and Japanese lit in 'The Dharma Bums').

>>4533801
you could also trace the Western interest with east asian poetry to Pound

>>4533745
Here in Japan, we usually use 战国策, 十八史略,韩非子 for the textbook to learn Ancient Chinese literature.

论语,老子(道德经),孙子,these three belong to the earliest pieces of written Chinese, so their style are still not matured compared to later pieces. Actually it's almost impossible for me to understand their meaning without explanatory notes.

>>4533959
Makes sense I guess, do you actually read this stuff in Classical Chinese in grade school? Or is this in secondary education (universities)?

Just wondering, what are the common Western books you read over there? I guess Shakespeare must be in right? Some of the Russians?

>>4531166
First, I like your dubs

Second, are you female. If yes, can you be my qt 3.14 asian gf?
I'm a 23 going on 24(birthday soon) kissless virgin and i really like oriental asians. Please be with me

>>4534021
please ignore this person

>>4534042
if /mu/ can raid us and ask for qt bookish gfs all the time i can ask a visiting asian to be my qt 3.14, don't hate on me.

>>4534055
>defending /mu/
why

>>4534076
>defending /mu/
Who said i was doing that?
All I am saying is that you guys flock to the threads /mu/ make here, if you can tolerate them what am I compared to them?

>>4533993
We read them in high school. But we don't read them all, just we extract a few articles from them as introduction to classical Chinese.

I entered faculty of Engineering so I don't know what kind of book students who majored literature read in university. When I was first grade I took ''Basic Classical Chinese'' class as general academic subject. and read this text, Lunyu with notes by Zhuxi. This was alright because Zhuxi's explanation is quite clear and straight.

>>4534021
Thanks for first mention and sorry for the second.
I am pretty asian guy.

>>4533993
to be honest there's no ''must read'' western novels in Japan. we used to have it several decades ago, but the concept of canon once shared among most teenagers and students are already about to extinct.

Looking around my friends, although they are supposed to be in relatively well educated layer , I doubt they read more than 4 Shakespeare pieces. We just read what we are interested in. Some of my friend loves Dostoevsky, others like Kafka, while I love Thomas Mann.

>>4533535

Thanks.

床前明月光,疑是地上霜。举头望明月,低头思故乡。

>>4534112
pics?

>>4531623
Mishima is by far the most popular jap author here. Soseki is too patrician for most, and Murakami is shit on by half the posts about him.

OP, among a certain segment of male nerd culture Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Tale of the Heike, and Journey to the West are a big deal, otherwise eastern authors are pretty much ignored, except for a brief period last year when Mo Yan got the nobel

>>4534998
That's Libai's famous poem ''静夜思” of Chinese version, isn't it ?
What we learn in our high school is a bit different;
床前看月光 床前に月光を看る
疑是地上霜 疑うらくは是れ地上の霜かと
挙頭望山月 頭を挙げて山月を望み
低頭思故郷 頭を低れて故郷を思う

>>4531371
>Plebs as far as the eye can see
>11 years in Taiwan
No wonder you're such an ignorant jingoist. Your sympathies lie with the Taiwanese.

I'm not a lover of the CCP, or much of what it's done on the mainland, but to imply that nobody there reads classics is simple ignorance. In fact, their coverage in 1-11 (12 is for 高考) of the classics of their respective canon is much more comprehensive than the coverage in absolute pleb tier American public schools. Oh, you thought the only purpose of standardized central education in China was brainwashing? You've been brainwashed by the Taiwanese.
/rant

>>4537146
You sound like an immensely cool person. Here are my favorite Chinese poems:
One by 王安石:
白船瓜洲

京口瓜洲一水間
鐘山祇隔數重山
春風又綠江南岸
明月何時照我還

And a Dufu
江南逢李亀年

岐王宅裏尋常見
崔九堂前幾度聞
正是江南好風景
落花時節又逢君

Chinese takes a fucking long time to appreciate. I've been studying for five years now and I'm still not where I want to be. Loved Journey to the West (西遊記), and my favorite philosopher was 莊子 (out of 莊子,猛子,老子,孫子,and 孔子)。 I'm so happy that 莊子 is taught as canon in Japan. Most Western readers only read 老子 if they read any Daoists at all.

I've even done a couple translations from Chinese to English (I'm terrible the other way around) that have been published, which is very good practice for learning the history of the region where the writing is set and the literary allusions of the 成語. On that note, do you have something like 成語 in 日本語? They are (usually) 4 kanji idioms that are often a literary allusion or historical reference, but carry the meaning of that in only 4 characters.

>>4537734
wow.

I am really happy to read you reply because indeed, that 江南逢李亀年 is my best, very best favorite poem.

Once I read through an anthology of Dufu's poem in chronological order, and I met this poem last (precisely 4th from the last) of that book. Since I know how the poet's 60 years life was (or almost I lived with him, shared his lament and joy,by reading his poems), this poem, this quiet and beautiful scene of falling flowers and two old men, really touched to me.

he don't speak anything in this poem. but I can see his whole life, told in these 28 syllables. This is real masterpiece, I think.

>>4531166
I don't think Chinese poetry translates well enough to be appreciated much, generally. Ezra Pound might be an exception, but then I IIRC he couldn't actually read Chinese and his are basically whole new poems.

昨夜扁舟雨一蓑,
满江风浪夜如何。
今朝试卷孤篷看,
依旧青山绿树多。

>>4538040
...actually on the subject of translations, there's one that I often see:

The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
Until only the mountain remains.

...which makes it sound like a meditation on death or something. But in the original:

众鸟高飞尽
孤云独去闲
相看两不厌
只有敬亭山

It simply ends with 'there is only Jingting mountain'. I don't think the sense of 'until' is there at all.

>>4538053
>不厌
Exactly
Buyan is the critical phrase here, because it means "not mind/not tire of/dot object to doing something." He is sitting in peace and his self dissolves into the understanding of its place in the whole (a well established concept in Chinese philosophy, most notably in Daoism...and not some stoner's rambling). His identity, "this", blends with the universe, "that", until the distinction is no longer made, until it's as if the distinction never was made. In the West this might seem like a rumination on death, a morbid reflection of what happens to our bodies after we die, but in the Chinese tradition, the existence of life and death, existence and non-existence, are simultaneous, and the only difference is that they're not contemporaneous. So what is the difference if you, which is a specious separation of part from whole anyway, are there or not there? Nothing. And nothing to be sad about either.

I also think "last" as a translation of 孤 (and/or 獨) was a poor choice, as was the translation of "we sit together" for "相看兩". Whoever the translator is parses everything poorly and adjusts the poem too much. Terrible work. 2/10.

>>4538072
>as was the translation of "we sit together" for "相看兩"
Isn't it 相看,两不厌 (face each other, neither of us tiring)? I read all the lines as two characters-three characters (especially obvious in the last line).

Googling for a Chinese explanation, there's one saying 'only the mountain understands me'. But that doesn't feel like it comes from the text. I like your interpretation.

What I felt from this Libai's poem is, self-content of hermit.

First I see a guy's back, sitting on field, facing to a mountain.
Birds flying over high above the mountain, and goes away.
And one lonely clowd comes, and goes away.
Mountain and Libai's back remain in quiet.

His back, somehow makes me feel such message;
"I don't care about human society, it's annoying"
That's what my Libai is likely to say.

>>4538118
Hey man, thank you for making this thread.
'Cultural exchanges' like these are my favorite thing about the internet. As someone who has read absolutely no Chinese literature, I hope you stay around /lit/ because this has been endlessly fascinating.

明月幾時有?
把酒問青天。
不知天上宮闕,
今夕是何年。
我欲乘風歸去,
又恐瓊樓玉宇,
高處不勝寒。
起舞弄清影,
何似在人间。

轉朱閣,低綺戶,照無眠。
不應有恨,何事長向別時圓?

人有悲歡離合,
月有陰晴圓缺,
此事古難全。
但願人長久,千里共嬋娟。

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

>>4531371
Latin was this way. Lamentably, not any longer though.

I literally do not have a clue what is being said 70% of the time in this thread, but it is so god damn interesting!

I really love how many people are indulging themselves in Eastern culture and Literature all the while admiring someone from such places and trying to get as much literal information from them.

TL;DR Best thread I've seen for a while.

>>4538132
>cheesy 80s montage video
>cheesy 80s strings
>cheesy 80s balladeering
>lyrics written a thousand years ago

>>4538040
This thread could use some Pound for the non-Chinese readers, actually. Very much their own thing, but I think they do actually capture something of the spirit of the Chinese poems. Or maybe it's the spirit that western readers read back into the Chinese poems.

The River-Merchant's Wife


While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

>>4538100
Yeah, that's a better parsing. I wasn't considering the English when I did that, because I felt that the "兩" was implicit in the second line, as in "相看兩, [兩]不厌" but yours is better, because you don't need 兩 to tell you that 相看 means "facing one another."

Nice call on the 2,3 every line. Think that's best. Maybe /lit/ should do some translations together and defy the stereotype that none of us actually get published.

>>4538118
I like how you imagine the poem, even if not all of your images are explicitly stated. I kind of want to try translating this one now.

>>4538796
I've a feeling it's always 2,3, actually. Definitely is in >>4531558 and >>4534998. Would be interesting to see if 3,2 exists.

枯藤老树昏鸦,
小桥流水人家。
古道西风瘦马,
夕阳西下,
断肠人在天涯。

>>4538810
I saw that song on the top of this site,which I often visit to when I want to see Chinese annotation, but this song is scarcely known in my country. Is it popular in China ?

>>4538186

I'd be interested to see the opinion of people who can read the chinese, on Pound's translations.

Cathay and his other chinese translations have always been some of my favorite poetry. I love his western translations too like the stuff he did from Rimbaud and Trachiniai

this whole thread really makes me want to read up on eastern literature more

>>4538186
I see, this is Libai's 長干行.

In this translation, I found Chinese land names are pronounced by Japanese style, such as 長干 Chokan, 長風沙 Cho-hu-sa (these are supposed to be read Chang-han, Chang-feng-sha in mandarin).

妾髮初覆額 妾が髮初めて額を覆ふとき
折花門前劇 花を折って門前に劇(たはむ)る
郎騎竹馬來 郎は竹馬に騎って來り
遶床弄青梅 床を遶りて青梅を弄す
同居長干里 同じく長干の里に居り
兩小無嫌猜 兩つながらおさなくして嫌猜無し

十四為君婦 十四 君が婦と為り
羞顏未嘗開 羞顏 未だ嘗て開かず
低頭向暗壁 頭を低れて暗壁に向ひ
千喚不一回 千喚に一も回らさず
十五始展眉 十五 始めて眉を展べ
願同塵與灰 願はくは塵と灰とを同にせん
常存抱柱信 常に抱柱の信を存し
豈上望夫臺 豈に望夫臺に上らんや

十六君遠行 十六 君遠く行く
瞿塘艶豫堆 瞿塘 艶豫堆
五月不可觸 五月 觸るべからず
猿鳴天上哀 猿鳴 天上に哀し
門前遲行跡 門前 遲行の跡
一一生綠苔 一一 綠苔を生ず
苔深不能掃 苔深くして掃ふ能はず
落葉秋風早 落葉 秋風早し

八月蝴蝶來 八月 蝴蝶來り
雙飛西園草 雙び飛ぶ西園の草
感此傷妾心 此に感じて妾が心を傷ましめ
坐愁紅顏老 坐ろに愁ふ紅顏の老ゆるを
早晩下三巴 早晩三巴を下らん
預將書報家 あらかじめ書を將って家に報ぜよ
相迎不道遠 相ひ迎ふるに遠きをいはず
直至長風沙 直ちに至らん長風沙

>>4538827
Not sure... I'm actually English and learnt it in a Chinese class. I think it's quite well-known in China, but it's from the Yuan dynasty so it probably doesn't have the fame value of the Tang masters.

I've got the choice of learning either Korean or Cantonese next year. I'm more into music than literature to be honest but as far as languages go I find poetry etc incredibly useful.

Which language has the most/best literature resources to draw from?

>mfw when I just finished reading the essential analects
>mfw when I came on her to star a thread about it and see this

hell ya!

>>4531619
Not really. It's simply incredibly unlikely that China is going to be able to follow the US in achieving world hegemony. For one, USA and Europe were extremely similar in many respects, down to sharing the same blood. China is inherently foreign and "other," so its rule will not be accepted so easily. For another, China has limited soft power and cultural reach, and even militarily isn't able to dominate and have free reign over its own "backyard" so to speak, the way USA was able to intervene at will in South America for most of its history. And unless China or a very culturally similar power (an analogue to the British Empire) colonizes a quarter of the world and imposes its own legal and cultural frameworks, there simply won't be sufficient groundwork for transition to Chinese rule.

And, of course, unless the equivalent of the two World Wars happens and plunges all of China's rivals into ruin and poverty, they won't be able to take power like the US did.

Really, the repeat of the extremely fortuitous and complex confluence of circumstances which lead to the current globe-spanning American Empire is unlikely to be repeated.


>despite not actually being a real democracy.

Please stop. It is a real democracy, insofar as democracy is actually possible (which it isn't). Don't complain about the dish you ordered.

>>4538879
Learning Cantonese would almost certainly mean reading Chinese (same characters, different pronunciation). I can't see a course focusing on just reading the few distinctively Cantonese characters. On the other hand, if it's only a year-long course they might well avoid characters because it does take time to learn them.

Assuming it does involve learning written Chinese, though, it would have to win. Even old Korean literature is written in Chinese, after all. I'm sure learning to read modern Korean is easier, mind.

>>4538879
I'm not sure about Kantonese, but at least I don't find any prominent work in literature field in Korea.

I can read Korean to some extent, so I can tell their history novels written by contemporary authors are interesting as entertainment though, to enjoy them you need to have some background knowledge about the history of that nation. And those may be not like pure ''literature''.

>>4538910
>>4538912
Thank you very much for your help
The course can last up to 4 years depending on how well I do and how long I spend in town. I didn't realise Cantonese and Mandarin use the same alphabet.

Is there a lot of overlap between the languages? For instance if I were fluent in Cantonese would I understand a lot of Chinese?

>>4538932
On the contrary, learning Cantonese would make it much more difficult to learn Mandarin, and vice versa.

>>4538938
really? That's bizarre. I'm studying Spanish and Portuguese at the moment and my Spanish is making Portuguese much much easier. That is properly weird.

ohayou

mfw I'm born in China, ethnically Chinese but educated in English and in a mostly English culture, and haven't read any of the Chinese classics that all these non-Chinese people have read

Dammit where is my national pride

>>4538967
It's a pity you don't enjoy what your Chinese ancestors left for you, one of the richest literature of the world. I also envy native Chinese speaker because they can appreciate rythm and rhyme of Chinese poem which we foreigners are difficult to get.

>>4538932
>>4538949
>Is there a lot of overlap between the languages? For instance if I were fluent in Cantonese would I understand a lot of Chinese?
You would understand written Chinese perfectly. It's not an 'alphabet'- each character (or combination of 2+ characters) is a word- it's just that the Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese pronunciations of those words are different. I think Cantonese does do some things different grammatically, but basically on seeing Chinese text you'd be able to understand it and read it out in Cantonese.

As for spoken Mandarin... not much. You could make educated guesses, but a lot of stuff sounds really, really different.

I think what >>4538938 means is that once you've leant that a character is pronounced one way, it probably confuses your brain to have a whole other way. In my experience Cantonese-speakers learning Mandarin do sound... weird, and I'm sure the opposite is also true. But there are plenty of Chinese people who speak both. I'd think on average it would make it easier just because you can relate what you're learning to speak to the writing you already know.

>>4538967
You're missing out, but IMO it's not a question of national pride. Just some great poems and novels you could be reading.

>>4539022
this makes a sense a lot of sense, cheers.

This thread is awesome

>>4538855
>I found Chinese land names are pronounced by Japanese style
Yeah, IIRC Ezra Pound couldn't actually read Chinese. He was working with a Japanese translator, so I guess the translator was explaining the literal meaning and Pound was versifying it. The results are... very nice.

>>4539226
....ah, here we are, here's the actual story:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/01/ezra-pound-lament-of-the-frontier-guard/303714/

>>4531238
source? I'm completely ignorant about chinese poetry and stuff

>>4539646
The poet is Du Fu. Usually called the greatest Chinese poet, along with Li Bai.

>>4531219
>All I've seen is that shi shi shi poem
Pretty sure that's just a tongue-twister, brah.

>>4539678
"Shi shi" is a story, written only with Chinese characters that has "shi" sound.

When we foreigners learn Chinese, some teacher show this to inform how "tone" is important in that language.

>>4539843
Ugh. Yeah, I think that's more likely to be off-putting than anything.

>>4539843
How do you feel about Modernism and Post-Modernism as an outsider to that literary tradition? And can you explain why Ulysses has become so popular in China?

Cantonese and mandarin are separate languages, so is wu chinese. No matter how much the goverment says theyre all dialects. They all belong to the chinese language group, but they diverted centuries ago.

>>4539843
>>4539898

I dont think the average chinese can read that and understand it. I think its written in classical chinese, so it wouldnt make sense if you read it in mandarin. Correct me if im wrong

Have you guys heard reconstructed old/ancient chinese? (What they spoke pre-imperial era/han). It sounds nothing like mandarin or cantonese, it doesnt even have tones.

Could you guys recommend me a book for learning characters? Just as a hobby, i want to learn mandarin some day, wouldnt hurt learning characters.

>>4539980
>And can you explain why Ulysses has become so popular in China?
Not that anon (and that anon doesen't seem to be Chinese), but the modernist era is seen as a classic one for Chinese literature (more so than in the west, because in China the war and then the CCP shut that shit down), so I can see a lot of interest in western modernism. Also the classic modern Chinese writers were very much in dialogue with what was going on in the west (although I don't recall seeing any references to Joyce... it was more Russian-style realism).

Finally, and more speculatively, something about the way Ulysses chimes with a massive amount of literary tradition could go down well. You can't really write in Chinese without being aware of something like 3000 years of literature looming in the background, and references to those traditions are everywhere even in common speech. Ulysses could seem like a western equivalent

>>4539985

Also, has anyone here read:

Three Kingdoms
Water Margin
Journey to the west
Creation of the Gods
The Scholars
Jing Ping Mei
Dream of the red chamber
Records from the taiping era
Feng Menglong
Lu Xun
Mo Yan
Gao Xianjiang


Ive read dream of the red chamber and three kingdoms, bought water margin, and im buying the scholars soon. The other books are expensive as fuck, or abridged translations. First volumr if jing ping mei costs over 20 bucks, and the first of creation of the gods costs 40 bucks.

Anyone here has goodreads? Sinophiles friend up.

>>4539985
>I dont think the average chinese can read that and understand it
They should be able to. Although it is in a classical style, there aren't really any characters in there that have fallen out of use or changed radically (except maybe 是, but I think with a minimal bit of education people will be aware that it can mean 'this'). I reckon most of it should be guessable even to a very badly educated person.

>Have you guys heard reconstructed old/ancient chinese?
There are poems on youtube. Sounds wack as hell and slightly scary, IIRC.

>>4539898
Agreed, it's just for threatening students (or people who insist China should abolish Chinese Characters). I don't think ordinary Chinese can understand this story only by its sound.

>>4539980
as >>4539999 mentioned I'm not Chinese but Japanese, and I have never thought about what kind of western literature is popular in contemporary China. But what >>4539999 said totally make sense to me. Chinese literature often try to imply more than what is written, by inspiring readers to recall their knowledge of canon in each era.

>>4539985
>reconstructed ancient chinese

as you said, I also heard that ancient Chinese spoken before Han dynasty (what we call 上古音) didn't have tone. I am not sure whether this hypothesis are correct though, if so, Chinese acquired tone after that by 5th century when recognized there were 4 different tones in their language (this is different from current Mandarine's).

Chinese pronunciation have been changed in each period. in youtube there are some movies reading poems by reconstructed ancient pronunciation. it sounds quite different from Mandarine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sr0bLg4fiQ

CHING CHONG WING WONG

>>4540102

Ive heard that japanese onmyo (that the word) chinese pronounciation of characters preserves what they sounded like when the japanese adopted them during the Nara and Asuka periods.

>>4540112
Yes, our pronunciation of Chinese Characters preserve some features of ancient Chinese which is already lost in Mandarin.

for example 国, whose pronunciation in Mandarin is /guo/, in Japanese /koku/ (and in Korean /guk/ btw). and in ancient Chinese it is assumed to be pronounced /guok/ or something like that. If you only know Mandarin you cannot recognize that 国 used to have /k/ consonant in the end of word. There are many such cases.

In Japan we gave 2 series of pronunciation to each Chinese Characters; ''On-yomi'' and ''Kun-yomi''.

''On'' (the sound) is what we recognized as original Chinese pronunciation (although it is distorted under Japanese phoneme system).
''Kun'' (the meaning) is Japanese word that has same meaning as the Chinese Character.

Since we learned Chinese Characters first from ancient Korean and later from Chinese of Tang dynasty, so among ''On'', there are at least 2 types of pronunciation.

for example; 人 (/ren2/ in Mandarin) is pronounced in Japan as
/nin/, On-yomi from ancient Korea(Go-on).
/jin/, On-yomi from Tang China(Kan-on).
/hito/, Kun-yomi.

>>4540249

Yep, I find that very interesting, that era was very interesting. There is so much going on in China, Korea and Japan in the 600s. The Sui-Tang wars in Korea, the trasmission of ideas and buddhism via Korea from China to Japan, etc

. There were 2 factions in Japan during that time, one was pro buddhist while the other did not wany buddhism to take hold and destroy shinto.

There is this 7-edged sword that was sent from Korea, I think. Its a japanese national treasure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-Branched_Sword

Speaking if swords, there is this ancient chinese sword that was excavated a few decades ago and it was found in great condition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian


Im glad you stayed around, you still need to make a goodreads account and join our group!

>>4531238
Japanese anon are you still here? Just wondering, when you read Chinese poems like this do you use the Chinese pronunciation, the on'yomi reading of each chinese character, or do you just read the Japanese translation?

>>4540004
I'm this >>4537734
anon.

I've read Journey to the West, and wrote a 60-page paper on the motherfucker, actually. 'Twas a hell of a ride. I've also read Water Margin. That's it for the 四大名著。I've also read a bit of modern Chinese lit, and done some translations which have been published.

Just nut up and buy the books. You're unlikely to get away with being cheap, especially if you want a good translation. I did find a set of JTW at an estate sale once, but it was the Waley translation and I almost barfed. Also, you can go on the subdivision of Taobao or Amazon.cn and buy books there, sometimes in English. Prices are cheap, but shipping is expensive. Either way, you can't be cheap with this if you're serious about the pursuit.

>>4539226
>>4539232
My issue with Pound's translations is that he didn't try at all to preserve the lyricism or meter of the Chinese poetry. It can be done with creative word choice. After I've done another year or so of classical, I'm gonna submit some of my translations and see if I can beat the motherfucker.

>>4539843
>>4539985
It's not classical. 是 wasn't even really the word for "is" back then.
Reconstructed ancient/classical Chinese is still pretty inaccurate, because there is a lot of speculation in the phonology.

Your best bet for learning characters is to get a Chinese textbook, and start copying characters. To be honest, Mando is a language for which Rosetta Stone and anything relying on audial immersion falls totally flat. Sure, you can pick up some colloquial speech, but you'll never understand the logic of character phonetics, or any of the literary references, or chengyu (成語) unless you learn the characters old school: by rote.

I studied Mando for four years formally. Even now, I sit and copy large blocks of text to keep my skills up. As a start, learn about stroke order, which will help you understand how characters are broken down, and how they are properly written, and then practice. Alternatively, you can look up HSK test word lists on nciku.com (the best online Chinese dictionary for learning), and practice writing those characters. Most textbooks are structured around learning to the HSK character test, anyway.

For each character, sit and write it at least twenty times. It takes forever, and it's agonizing, but it should be a labor of love, because that's the only way for westerners to really retain what you learn. No practice = no memory.

Why you should learn stroke order before you even start learning characters is that it matters in how you write a word. Imagine I wrote the word "Chinese" in the order:
e, s, C, i, e, h, n
At the end, the product would be the same, but it is illogical to write it that way. Same with stroke order. Also, if your stroke order is wrong, you won't be able to write characters properly on a touchpad or tablet (often necessary for looking up obscure words...

>>4540379
...unless you want to search a dictionary by radical, which takes much longer).

Finally, you won't be able to do semi-cursive or cursive calligraphy unless you know the correct stroke order, because when you do those styles, you really don't take the brush up off the page, so if you're writing in the wrong order, the character won't look right when you've finished writing it.

Don't be offput. Chinese is extremely valuable to learn. I wouldnt trade the time that I have invested into it for any other experience. But I'm being a realist. It's really fucking hard (even if you have a flair for language learning), and you won't get good at it unless you are dedicated and disciplined.

That said, learning characters is not really something that you just dabble in...

>>4540112
Apparently classical Chinese was more similar to modern Cantonese than it is to Mandarin, which is why a lot of Japanese on'yomi readings actually sound very similar to Cantonese.

>>4531166
Chinese poetry is not really common in America, unless you're specifically studying stuff from that culture. There are some stories that I find have made it into American culture somehow, in some children's books. Nothing huge, just stuff like 成语故事, but without any kind of idiom to take away from them.

>>4540379

Thanks for the reply. Ive been into chinese (and japanese) culture/history ever since I was a kid, Ive spent countless hours reading about history/clure and what not. Dedication and lack of love wont be a factor. So you havent read Red Chamber? Its really good, you should read it some day.

I like the saying that goes kids shouldnt read water margin, and old men shouldnt read three kingdoms'. Or something like that.

Could i bother you with 2 questions?

How exactly do yu pronounce the R? Or rather the sound that the R letter represents in pinyin.

Tips on the position of the mouth/tonguewhen youre saying ch/sh/zh/s/x? (And how exactly is X pronounced? I hear westerners saying it as a sh sound, but then i hear it also as an S sound ("'see", as in sight)

what's your deal, OP?
https://www.osha.gov/chemicaldata/

>>4540400
Let's start with R, since it's hardest.
R
This is one case in which I can see the logic of Wade-Giles transliteration (R was transliterated as J in that system). What I do is open my lips, put my two rows of teeth almost together (not quite touching), and then put my tongue just behind that wall of teeth (again, not touching), and then aspirate (i.e. blow air) from the throat. The sound of the consonant R should sound buzzy and not staccato. How you move your moth from there differs depending on the succeeding vowel sound. If it's ri4 (as in 日, day), then you don't really move your mouth, just make the right vowel sound. If it's ran2 (as in 燃, burned/roasted), then you have to open your lips a bit and finish the word saying the -AN sound, (pronounced like the end of "flan" if you know Spanish). R is def the hardest. Listen to some recordings. I'd recommend searching mdbg.com for those two words I gave above, and listening to their pronunciation. It's okay, but they don't buzz enough. All of the Chinese folks that I know make that consonant sound buzzy.

X
It should sound somewhere in between an sh- and an s- in English. However, you don't position your tongue the same way. To make the X sound properly, push your tongue against the back of your bottom row of teeth, and try to say the letter s. You'll notice that the sound will come out a bit buzzy, as with R. That's what you're going for. It's awk at first because we never position our tongue that way in English, but you'll get used to it.

CH
Not much different from the English consonant, really. For instance, the word 吃 (chi4, to eat) sounds very much like "chirp" without the "p."

SH
Again, similar to the English equivalent, but a little sharper. Instead of protracting the buzzing, make it short. Also, in English, when you make that sound, your tongue is almost parallel to the bottom of your mouth, fully extended against the back of the teeth, but in Mando, the back of your tongue should curl up a bit (and thus the tip point down a bit), but you still try to make the sound of "SH" (as opposed to X, when you try to make an English sibilant "s").

ZH
Sound like the "j" in "conjure."

S
A sibilant s, very similar to English.

Honestly, the distinction between CH, SH, and ZH is not the hardest. It's the distinction between J, Q, and X in pinyin.

You'll also have to work on vowel sounds, the most difficult for native English speakers usually being "Ü", "UO", and "UE".

>>4540438
To elaborate, the R shouldn't sound rhotic, tapped, flapped, trilled, uvular, or alveolar. It's a weird case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_consonant

>>4540448
>>4540438

Thank you sir. If I could bother you with the Q sound? Do you also.know cantonese or Wu? I believe wu is much closer to mandarim than canto by the sound of it, correct?

One thing I dont understsnd about wade-giles is how much it differs from pinyin sometimes. like say, 'bei' would be 'pei' in the older version but 'bei'. in pinyin, or "chong"/"zhong", how is that possible? Pinyim should have kept the Ts instead of using the Cs for that sound. this is all coming from a sinophile with no training though. How do you go from peking to beijing?

I know spanish, so all the vowels and stuff is easier, I see the problem that people who only speak english have with them, elongating the Os, etc. because of that knowledge, japanese is really easy to read and pronounce for most people that know spanish.

>>4540592

*The Ts' for the 'C' sound. (tsao tsao/cao cao)

Traditionally we have two ways for reading Chinese poem; one is direct reading with ''On-yomi'', the other is by using some specific scheme called ''Kun-doku method(訓読法)''.

Kun-doku is a kind of direct translation with little flexibility. Convert the word order of original text into Japanese Subject-Object-Verb order, and allocate ''On'' or ''Kun'' pronunciation,which I explained above, to each Chinese Characters of original text. You cannot add or omit any words except postpositional particles.

for example;
夕陽 無限 好 /seki-you mu-gen kou/ (direct reading)
->夕陽 無限に 好し /sekiyou mugen-ni yoshi/ (kundoku)

只是近黄昏 /tan-ze kin kou-kon/ (direct reading)
->只だ是れ 黄昏に 近し /tada kore koukon-ni chikashi/ (kundoku)

Thus we convert Chinese verse into Japanese prouse poem. It's different from ordinary translation applied to other language, because its process is systematic and have little flexibility. So you can reconstruct the original text from Japanese precisely.

>>4540609
and personally, I used to read only by Kundoku method like most of Japanese. After I learned Mandarin I also read directly by current Chinese pronunciation.
when I see 朝辞白帝彩雲間, first I read directly like ''zhao ci bei di cai yun jian'', and then apply Kundoku method to this, to be like ''朝に辞す白帝彩雲の間(ashita-ni ji-su hakutei saiun-no kan)''.

>>4540592
O sin duda. I've just started taking Japanese classes casually and not only are the phonetics a piece of cake, I already know all of the kanji that we've been exposed to and more. Benefits of common history in the writing.

The "TS" consonant from Wade-Giles is actually not an inaccurate rendering of the "C" of pinyin. That "C" sound very much like the "ts" at the end of "cats". Now, growing accustomed to using that consonant at the beginning of words, instead of at the end, is what will give you fits at first. But that's how Chinese goes.

This is a good look. It explains some of the changes in Chinese phonetics in the past 200-300 years and speculates why some of the old transliterations were different (and seem to us so terrible).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology

Modern Mandarin, being a standardization of Beijing kouyin and amalgamation of elements from dialects elsewhere, is a synthetic hodgepodge, and accordingly doesn't always reflect pronunciation depending on the region of the country that you visit. But standard education has been a fixture of mainland life for so long now that you rarely, outside of very remote areas, encounter folks who can't understand your schoolbook mandarin, because even if they speak dialect, they learned a similar Mandarin in school.

That said, I still think Wade-Giles is shit. I mean, come on. Wade was a Brit soldier who literally was part of an invasion in China. Even if he didn't have a jingoist attitude, which I surmise from what little of his writings i have read that he did, then I don't think that he was the most qualified to put out a good transliteration system. And in fact, he didn't, which was why Giles had to edit it so much. Even so, it is undoubtedly inferior to pinyin. Pinyin simply makes more sense in its understanding of English phonetics, let alone Chinese.

Haven't studied Wu, and if I'm realistic with myself, I likely won't. I've taken two years of Cantonese courses targeted to people who already speak Mandarin, but the focus there was on colloquial Canto. To be honest, that's more what I want out of Cantonese, anyway. It's such a chatty language. Mandarin is undoubtedly the better language to focus on for literature and classical studies, because, though the phonetics may be different, the meaning of characters and the literary tradition are much more closely related to classical Chinese in Mandarin than they are in any of the other languages in the sub-family.

Oh, and the Q
Q
Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth (it's an alveolo-palatal consonant) and blow air from your mouth (not your throat). Should sound like a VERY light "ch" of sorts. That's another one for which you should seek out recordings. Again, I'll refer you to MDBG.

MDBG
Better dictionary for looking up chengyu, and classical meanings of characters alongside modern meanings. Also parses phrases for you properly so you can put in a block of text and it will put...

>>4540635
the words into bi-character, tetra-character, mono-character blocks as they are supposed to be split in the sentence...with some exceptions.
NCIKU
Better dictionary for looking up examples of the word used in a sentence (if you need examples of how a word is used in a pattern, for instance), and has a more comprehensive coverage of places that the word is used since it draws examples from the web. Also, if you don't have a touchpad programmed for character input, or a tablet, it has character drawing which, albeit slow, is still good at recognizing the character you're trying to draw, and even better for beginners, doesn't require you to get the stroke order right for it to read out the proper character. It just analyzes the image as a vectored outline and reads out a series of 9 characters which it could be. Cool tech. Also has stroke-order animations for simplified characters. I'd recommend switching to traditional as quickly as you can, though...but that's a subject for a longer post.

>>4540004
I've read 三国志(Romance of Three Kingodoms),水滸伝(Water Margin),西遊記(Journey to the West) and 封神演義(Creation of the Gods) when I was teenager. They are very popular in Japan and we have a bunch of novels and cartoons adopted or inspired from them.

魯迅(Luxun) is also popular and I read one of his short story in our middle school textbook. I think I've read most of his main works. And recently I tried 金瓶梅(Jing ping mei) and surprised its sensual description. At least it's more obscene than Lady Chatterley's Lover and therefore I like it.

>>4540673
The Ming dynasty was a pretty obscene time. There are a bunch of man-on-man sexytimes novels from that period too- although I imagine they were sold on the black market.

hey op have you read based tao lin?

modern Chinese literature is shit
after all they are commies
no good literature comes out from commies

>>4540673
>>4540635

Thank you sir, very helpful.

This thread has been great, can /lit/ threads be archived? it should be.

Japanese guy, have you conversed with a chinese person before? Are chinatowns and chines food very popular there? whos your favorite japanese poet? Have you read the tales of ise?

Ive read that Tanizaki worked on the tale of genji and reworked it into modern japanese.what is different in the original that japanese cant read it unaided, the grammar? Has spoken old and middle japanese been recostructed?

>>4541953
Chinese are everywhere in my country, so naturally I have daily opportunities to converse with them including my colleague, my cliant, my neighbor. You can find Chinese restaurant everywhere, too, and famous China towns are in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki.

My favorite Japanese poet is Miyazawa Kenji(宮沢賢治). He's well known as juvenile author and his juvenile works are indeed alright, but his genius is shown better in prose poetry field I believe. Added to that among Japanese traditional verse, I prefer Aizu Yaichi(会津八一), who often described scenery of Nara or Kyoto and its old temples, because I used to live in there and loved to walk around to see temples. But in terms of verse, I must admit Japanese appears in ancient anthologies such as Manyoshu(万葉集) or Kokinshu(古今集) are far better than contemporary, although I like Aizu.

>>4541953
And most of us read ''the tales of Ise'' in our middle school as text book of classical Japanese. Classical Japanese, used in ancient literature written in 1000 years ago is different from modern Japanese in terms of both vocabulary and grammar (a little -- not that much as the difference between OE and PdE), so we need to study them to read original text.

That's why Tanizaki and many other people have translated ''Tale of Genji'' to modern Japanese. I believe most of Japanese who read Genji are by translated version. But Tanizaki's translation was not that good, to be frank. Of course his sense of words are outstanding, but his translation was too loyal to the original text. The problem is, the original text of Genji omits most of Subjects and Objects. The author often doesn't describe who said that words to whom, because at least her contemporary thought it is obvious, showing it is too verbose. And that makes reading quite difficult. So usually translator note them to help reader's comprehension, but Tanizaki didn't. Therefore, for me, ironically, original text with note is easier to read than Tanizaki's translation.

Amazing thread.
And I got some new books on my to-read list.

Btw, I'm really into chinese history in the last time, so are there any notable books about epic ancient chinese conflicts other then RoTK?

>>4531166
I studied it in college a bit. It was interesting but I could never shake the feeling that it had lost so much in the translation.

For instance I'm quite partial to Li He, but I can only imagine how much better it reads in the original Chinese.

I assume the japanophiles here know about Donald Keene and Donald Richie? Richie died last year, the man had an incredibly awesome life, pretty much my dream.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Richie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Keene

If Japan guy is still here I want to ask (albeit controversially), as a person from the SEA region, what is your view on WW2?

My country has a history of being taken over due to militarism and for our history classes we've been constantly barraged by the numbers of Japanese atrocities committed towards the Chinese (e.g. Sook Ching etc...). Also there's the whole issues of things like Abe and the Yasukuni shrine visits in Japan. Of course I've also read postwar Japanese literature such as Almost Transparent Blue and read up on things like the gekiga movement and postwar depression so I know that each nation has their own perspective on the event.

I'm not judging your race for past actions (being on 4chan I'm also a fan of Japanese things) but rather I just want to get a different perspective as opposed to the constant flow I receive.

>>4541953
The thread's been archived here
>>>/lit/thread/S4531166#p4531436
Already bookmarked

Still here, and in real world I'm in Tokyo Disney Sea waiting for the time of parrade. And I'm a bit drunken already.

Issues about WW2 may not be appropriate to argue in /lit/, so I recommend you to ask Japanese in /int/ if you wanna get response from Japanese in general. But if you want to know my own standpoint I'm alright to talk it after I go back my home. See you later.

>>4544079
Hey man, sorry if you've answered this somewhere, but can I ask what education you've received?
You're incredibly knowledgable, what did you study at university?

>>4544079
/int/ on those issues sounds like /pol/ on the Holocaust so I think this place is a better and more controlled environment for some thoughts.

>>4544069
i don't get this type of question
it's like a japanese person asking an american what they think of dropping the atomic bomb -- does it matter what they say at all?

>>4544091
I'm not asking it in the sense of a 'feel-bad-about-it' manner but rather just out of historical interest. Also I'm more interested in getting a general response on the thoughts about the political climate, ideology, social and historical impact, aftermath, from a different perspective rather than a direct response on the atrocity issue. What I want to know is the formation of the worldview that encapsulates those events in order to understand it; since acknowledging those different disparate ideas is one of the goals of Literature and Philosophy.

>>4544097
so you mean: "why does it make sense that japanese soldiers behaved barbarically when invading asia, and why were japanese soldiers given orders to invade?, also why has japan elected a man that seems hell-bent on racking up the high score for number of disdainful foreign editorials?"

>>4544109
There's a preface from Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka (based in colonial Africa) which states how the events of his play are not meant to be seen as a general 'clash-of-cultures' but in a greater sense related to the metaphysical beliefs of the Yoruban tribesman. The play itself provides too a backdrop of a uniquely metaphysical perspective linked to Yoruban cosmology where though the play itself represents a tragedy of colonialism also acts as a mirror to a cosmic system far above the standard actions of human activity.

In a sense yes I am asking that question but also I am asking more than that question. More about the amalgamation of ideologies and metaphysics that led to the events. If you ask Baudrillard about the 9/11 incidents he'll relate it to his postmodern philosophy of the simulacra and negate the existence of the incident.

>>4538100
>>4538072
>>4538053
Not sure if you guys are still in the thread, but if you see this, how would you translate the whole poem?

This is my impression. Please correct me if you disagree. But I feel that Dufu and Libai are both people that see life as being very bleak and hopeless. But unlike Libai who sees this awfulness and surrenders to hedonism, Dufu takes that despair and uses it as motivation to keep going. He doesn't compose poetry to amuse himself, he does it to consecrate what he sees as important in life as a rebellion against the dismal tide.

OP, why is your detective fiction so good? I can not stop reading 岡本綺堂.

Also, where can I find the best (most original and vulgar) versions of 怪談 and 昔話. Much is reflected in modern work and children's versions of stories, but because I come from a place with its own folklore and oral tradition, I like knowing what the original version is first.

There's this play showing in my country by the famous Taiwanese playwright Stan Lai that lasts for 7 hours based around dreams within dreams and Buddhist conceptions on life. I couldn't see it because the tickets sold out but a friend of mine told me it was a completely amazing experience.

The stage is a 'Lotus Pond' where the audience sit in the center on revolving chairs and the action takes place 360 degrees around them. The title (A Dream Like a Dream) is based off the single fragment of an obscure Chinese poet.

浮生若夢,若夢非夢,浮生何如,如夢之夢

The prelude to the play explaining the origin of the title is here (in Chinese)

http://www.ylib.com/Search/qus_show.asp?BookNo=K3104

These are the sort of things that makes me want to brush up on my long neglected Chinese.

>>4544184
众鸟高飞尽
孤云独去闲
相看两不厌
只有敬亭山

Now all the birds have flown, high and far
And a single cloud so leisurely slipped away
We face each other, no grudge between us
And all there is is Jingting peak

Eh, I tried...

>>4544547
Damn, I have to see more Chinese plays. I loved the filmed version of one which I think was by Stan Lai, in which two theatre troupes are rehearsing for different plays (a Chinese opera and a modern story of love and regret) on the same stage.

I suspect that that play at least references the most famous old Chinese play, The Peony Pavilion, which has a section called 'seeking the dream'.

This floating life, how like a dream
Like a dream, yet not a dream
What can it be, this floating life?
How like the dream the dream dreams.

Ooooh, I'm feeling that semantic satiation.

>>4531166
1. How do you guys translate western poems (mainly the ones that rhyme) into japanese?
Do you try to make it rhyme too, or is it just like whatever?

2. Are there any native japanese poems with rhyme?

>>4544759
That's his most famous work, Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring. The only one of his I've watched so far though is The Village; about the life of people living in a village in between the Chinese revolution and showing how the distant historical events affect them while mainly focusing on their individual moods and feelings. I liked it a lot.

>>4544083
Don't overestimate me. I just have basic knowledge of what I like and that's all. In my univ I was in faculty of engineering and majored material science.

>>4545017
1. there's a standard method
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanbun
japanese kids learn it in schools (at least good private schools)

What's your opinion on Masaoka Shiki? I never see as much discussion for him as I do for Basho, Issa, or Buson.

>>4544530
We had several anthologies of such mysterial stories amd folklores since ancient era, and they are often used as source of materials by midern Japanese authors. Representative anthology is "Konjaku mongatari shu(今昔物語集, anthology of stories of the past)". It contains almost 1000 stories known in 12th century in Japan.

If you have read Akutagawa Ryunosuken's short stories, you might remember stories of Heian-era, ancient Japan, such as "the nose","rashomon", or "in the groove". Or you might have heard of Aramata Hiroshi, contemporary popular novelist's "Onmyo-ji" series.

These are adopted from episodes in "Konjaku" -- and actually original story is often better than adopted one.

>>4545721
Many of those stories come from china too, i remember the story of the dragon that lives in the lake, a man posts a sign by the lake saying that a dragon will appear on a specific day, he thinks hes going to have a laugh and trick everyone, but then the day comes and a dragon does rise from the lake.

In my opnion, akutagawas best story is hellscreen.

What about classical women's literature? Is that studied in Japan as well?

>>4548044
>women
>literature

top lel

It's surprising that this thread is still alive.

>>4544069
Are you still here?
>history of being taken over due to militarism
Malaya?

Any recommendations on Japanese horror or genre lit that is generally overlooked by outsiders? Perhaps also violent noir fiction?

>>4548044
isnt tale of genji the most famous japanese novel

>>4549203
Good old amateur horror and urban legends have some gems.
https://www.1101.com/fear/
http://kowai.antenam.biz/

>>4545982
in fact many Chinese stories are also comprised in Konjaku.

added to that, I shouldn't have forget the name of another popular source of modern mysterious stories, Tohno Monogatari by Yanagida Kunio.

>>4549638
May I ask what your favourite pre-Meiji Japanese books are?
I'll be visiting Japan in a month or two, and I intend to load up on books and art prints while I'm there, stuff that's hard to find in the West, so I could use some tips.

>>4548140
Har har. There's a lot of important women writers in China. Are they important in Japan? I don't know. The problem is that almost all of them wrote poetry so its difficult for Westerners to appreciate. If you want more contemporary, palatable writers I'd recommend Qiu Jin, who wrote quite a bit of inflammatory anti-western, anti-Qing stuff and Eileen Chang who wrote Lust, Caution. They're both comparatively modern and write about a period that's tremendously fascinating to me.

>>4550039
At least in Japan, there was tradition of court-ladies' literature, which we call 女房文学(nyobo bungaku) from 10th to 13th century. Their works such as ''Tale of Genji'', ''The Pillow Book'', or ''Tohazu-Gatari'' are recognized as culmination of Japanese classical literature. Compared to them, men's contribution on national literature were not that much great in general, because they put more effort on writing Chinese than Japanese.

>>4549766
日本書紀(Nihon Shoki), 古事記(Kojiki), 万葉集(Man'yo shu), 古今和歌集(Kokin Waka Shu), 伊勢物語(Ise Monogatari), 源氏物語(Genji Monogatari/The Tale of Genji), 枕草子(Makura no Soshi/The Pillow Book), 方丈記(Hojoki), 平家物語(Heike Monogatari), 新古今和歌集(Shin Kokin Waka Shu), 歎異抄(Tanni Sho), 徒然草(Tsurezure Gusa), 風姿花伝(Fushi Kaden), 奥の細道(Oku no Hosomichi); those are generally recognized as basic canon of classical Japanese literature (including philosophy and non-fiction).

And my favourite pieces out of that list are 万葉集(Man'yo-shu), 古今和歌集(Kokin Waka Shu), and 源氏物語(Tale of Genji). And added to them, I like とはずがたり(Tohazu Gatari), 正法眼蔵(Shobo Genzo), and some anthology of Noh(能)-scripts.

I believe ''the Tale of Genji'' is the all time best of Japanese classical literature. And ''Tohazu Gatari'' should be the second place. It's autobiography of a court lady, mostly love-affairs of the author. Shobo Genzo is philosophical work on Zen Buddhism and its Satori, written by Dogen, one of the greatest monks in Japanese history.

>>4550107
Excellent, thank you!

no fear
lit threads are automatically archived

http://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/

>>4531298
It isn't just a barrier of language. A lot of poets' work, I'll just use Tao Yuanming for example, require a fairly knowledgeable understanding of preceding Chinese literature to comprehend fully as there is quite a bit of subtle referencing. That's why any study of Chinese literature should start from the very beginning. Also, knowing Chinese helps a lot.

I love the Hojoki, its such a short and sweet work.

Ive been meaning to read the other works that deal with the wars preceding the heike war, hogen and the other 2. I loved the heike, if youve ever read romance of the three kingdoms, youll love it, it sort of has that same feeling of blending in drama, poetry and war.and the opening is one of the best openings ever.

>>4550107
This thread is excellent, thanks op.

>>4531290
For what it's worth, all of those are widely read and acknowledged by non-scholars in the West, except the Tang poetry (probably understandably). Sima Qian maybe less so, but that's only because no one reads history in general - if you're remotely so inclined, you know who he is.

>>4531238
>tuff like Tale of Genji, and lots of haiku, or stuff about Buddhism.

>Westerns learn Latin

>>4544235
I think at least Dufu knew his talent was outstanding and exceptional. I believe he wrote his poems to remain in the world for ever, although his contemporary (except Libai) ignored him. If not, I don't think it is possible more than 1400 of his poems remain now.

I am sure he ordered his children to keep and hand his works down to posterity.