/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19409217]

Which Asian language is worth to learn from a /lit/erary perspective? I'm struggling to choose between Chinese and Japanese and it seems like Chinese is more useful economically speaking but Japan has more interesting literature

[Anonymous No.19409237]

japan is the third largest economy, i don't see how it wouldn't be useful economically. just because everyone around here learns japanese to watch quasi-pornographic cartoons doesn't mean there isn't utility in it.

[Anonymous No.19409323]

>>19409237
But Japan’s population is falling like a rock. Same with China, now that I think about it. Is there even a point in learning these languages if no one will be around to speak them?

[Anonymous No.19409332]

>>19409323
neither of those things are true

[Anonymous No.19409343]

>>19409323
>But Japan’s population is falling like a rock
Changing that is the point of learning Japanese

[Anonymous No.19409594]

>>19409323
the CCP is pushing everyone to have up to 4 kids now

[Anonymous No.19409611]

>>19409323
>Is there even a point in learning these languages if no one will be around to speak them?
Do you assume you're going to live like 1000 years or something?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.19409625]

Don’t be ridiculous, while there is a Japanese literary scene and some great authors and poets, the bulk of it is so incredibly tiny when put next to the vastness of Chinese literature, Tang-dynasty alone would be reason enough to choose Chinese over Japanese. Who is the Japanese Han-Yu? Where is the Japanese li-bai, the Japanese Li-he? In terms of poetry Chinese win, in terms of prose authors Chinese win, in terms of religious lit the Japanese are a puddle and the Chinese are an ocean. The only place Japanese win in literature over Chinese is in the question of sentimentality, as the Japanese have always been a sentimental people and this saturates all of their art. Chinese material however is more often coldly perfect but even this is not always the case as the models for Japanese high lit are often again, Chinese in essence.

[Anonymous No.19409634]

>>19409594
that's because, unlike america, no on in their right mind wants to immigrate to china.

[Anonymous No.19410278]

Learning Chinese is difficult but fun. Once you pass HSK3 and grammar rules and all that, it just become a character memorization game

[Anonymous No.19411421]

>>19409634
I do. The sad thing is you can't get a life long visa unless you marry a China girl, but then you can't work.

[Anonymous No.19411496]

>>19409217
Japanese culture was ruined by America in 1950s so that's a nonstarter. China has none. No point in learning either language. That leaves only Korean, as the rest of Asia is 100% third-world shit hole tier.
Korean is the most /lit/ because Korean cinema is 100% unpozzed and kino. I actually have NO interest in speaking to Asians, let alone live among them (why the fuck would you?) and consider most of their works of literature to be inferior. Korean Cinema, however, is like the best of film studied and copied to a good design, like an automobile. As such, it is perfect. And because 2020s Hollywood is filled with homosexuals, quasi-pornography, diversity, and capeshit, it's a complete nonstarter to watch that shit. Korean movies are the only ones worthwhile and it is worth learning the language for even if you never use it to speak to another person.

[Anonymous No.19411514]

>>19411496
>Korean cinema is 100% unpozzed and kino
Bait? South Korean cinema is basically Hollywood 2.0

[Anonymous No.19411577]

>>19411496
>Japanese culture was ruined by America in 1950s so that's a nonstarter
Japan actually has a cultural fetish, it's the only EA nation that didn't have their culture decimated and turned into Westernized plastic garbage
>>19409323
>Japan’s population is falling like a rock
Even if that was true, it has nothing to do with literary merit
China has Classical texts that are foundational, Japan has a rich literary tradition spanning classical, modern, contemporary, and Japanese is much more comfy

[Anonymous No.19411590]

>>19409323
Good argument against learning French, but I don't see what this has to do with Japan and China. They're basically the only two countries on the planet that are even capable of reversing demographic decline. Yes, even Africa is experiencing a demographic decline.

[Anonymous No.19411606]

>>19411590
>reversing demographic decline
There are about 5.5 Billion too many people alive today, it's not a "decline"

[Anonymous No.19411617]

>>19411590
>They're basically the only two countries on the planet that are even capable of reversing demographic decline
How? Korea has a replacement rate below 1

[Anonymous No.19411641]

>>19411617
The Chinese will force a seven-child policy at gunpoint, and the Japs have openly talked about mass fertility campaigns. It's actually one of the reasons for a lot of Jewish consternation over and fussing with the Japanese central bank recently, because the Japanese government is fully willing to suddenly go very, very bad-goy in order to make people have babies.
>but that doesn't mean that they can do it now, just that they have the will and organizational capacity to do it
Precisely my point. Japan and China are the only two countries capable of it. Even if the US wanted to, it couldn't get Americans to make more babies by simple lack of organizational capacity.

I agree with you that (South) Korea is absolutely fucked, however. The two competing ideologies, Evangelicalism and LGBTBBQ+, are both super-gay and would rather import truckloads of rubberlips than engage in demographic politics. I am fully willing to reverse my position if SK and NK merge, however.

[Anonymous No.19411663]

>>19411496
>nonstarter, nonstarter, it's a heckin nonstarterino nonstarter
ok

[Anonymous No.19411703]

I learnt Japanese for three reasons:
>it's got authors I actually want to read in their original language (mishima)
>it's got anime/manga
>it sounds waaay better than chinese

[Anonymous No.19411710]

Edward Seidensticker, a famous Japanese translator, whose "landmark translations of novels by Kawabata, in particular Snow Country (1956) and Thousand Cranes (1958), led, in part, to Kawabata being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968" doesn't seem to think learning Japanese is really worth the effort:

"Were America to come to me and ask if it should learn Japanese, I would be tempted to reply: "America, if you have all that spare time, go learn French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian instead. You could learn them all in about the time it would take you to learn Japanese, and you would find richer rewards waiting at the end of the struggle than you would find after your conquest of Japanese". ("This country, Japan", p.322).

[Anonymous No.19411825]

>>19411663
Japanese
>nonstarter
Chinese
>nonstarter
My vehicle
>nonstarter
Simple as.

[Anonymous No.19411855]

I learned Japanese for economic reasons and it has been very profitable. The literature is dismal imo. Nothing that I read in translation was improved by rereading in the original. Everything of merit has been translated, and what remains is juvenile, if not merely dull. The only upside is that there is a direct line from Japanese to Classical Chinese, without having to learn modern Chinese, which gives me access to the classics that >>19409625 talks about. Those are indeed the only literature of value in East Asia.

[Anonymous No.19412172]

>>19411855

Happy for you that you've been able to monetize your J. I haven't. As for J lit it's generally meh but it has its moments (Soseki, Mishima). But the real shitshow happens when you read J non-fiction. It's really poorly written, like college freshman, sophomore level.

[Anonymous No.19412380]

>>19411855
You evidently have not learned Japanese, nor have you browsed Japanese literature beyond /lit/ shills.

>>19411825
>>19411663
>>19411496
Imagine being this much contrarian faggots.

[Anonymous No.19412478]

You should learn Japanese because you'll make 10x more money working in Japan than in China

[Anonymous No.19412483]

>>19411855
Have you read Kawabata? Nakajima? Abe? Oe? Poets like Nakahara, Miyazawa? Everything is improved when you read in japanese.

[Anonymous No.19412503]

>>19412478
10x more of nothing is still nothing

[Anonymous No.19412511]

>>19409217
I'd say Japan, seems to have the best literature old and modern. Japanese is a most beautiful sounding language in Asia and if you could enjoy Japan as a tourist much more knowing the language. Knowing Mandarin could be better for business, I'd rather do business with the Japanese.

[Anonymous No.19412514]

>>19412511
I'd say Japanese*

[Anonymous No.19412529]

>>19409217
Chinese literary canon is far larger and far more diverse than Japanese literature. Also, most Chinese literature is untranslated while the massive international cultural interest in Japan has resulted in frequent translations of esoteric texts.

[Anonymous No.19412557]

>>19412511
And Japanese cinema too, I forgot about that. China was a cultural black hole for a while Japan was making movies Americans made their own versions of.

[Anonymous No.19412563]

>>19411496
>he doesn't know the hallyu is a psyop
>he doesn't know China named it
>he doesn't know it's based on the same policy that the US used to neuter Japan in the fifties
>>19409217
>Asian
Sanskrit. Otherwise just learn kanji/hanja/whatever you want to called Chinese characters, and phonetics.
From a socio-economic standpoint, spoken Hokkien.

[Anonymous No.19412590]

>>19409217
Learn Japanese so you don't spend a career rubbing shoulders with the Chinese