Well, Allie and I have stopped arguing....

[alfreda89]

You see, the next thing in the book just seemed ridiculous to me, and she wasn't explaining anything other than to say "This is when I met him" and "But I NEED her!"

"You don't need a Chinese wizard in 1810 New York. There were hardly any Chinese at all in North America at that time!"

"He's a wizard. He's on the run, and he had to save his family by getting them out of China. He teaches me about kudzu root."

Well...I don't want to give away too much, but of course he could get to America -- or London first, in this case -- in this book, and even if he's not a major player in this story, he might figure in. So I went poking around in some research, and lo and behold, China was beginning a horrifying famine in 1810 -- one that, over two, two-year periods, would kill 45 million people.

Yes, you read that correctly. So "Li Sung" (I think all practitioners except Allie's family use pseudonyms, and Esme's real name is not Esme!) has ample reason to be where he is right now.

Then there is the woman who is a cat.

"She may be the transformation teacher, but you don't learn anything about transformation in this book!"

"But she teaches me how to be a spy!'

"And her name can't be Abigail Brown, she must have become a practitioner in self-defense. She doesn't look like an Abigail."

"Her name is XXX."

"So she is Russian, or named for a Russian?"

"No, that's not her real name, either -- "

So now I am reading about Moldavia, and having Kira tell me she's left it all behind, ignore it -- but we all know your past marks you and can bite you when you aren't watching for it. So...I expect more progress on the book this week, now that I know what Allie is trying to tell me.

After the biscuits with teeth, why should anything surprise me?

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

[In two sections, because I'm just that long winded.]

It's not even really a question of getting it right or wrong. There isn't just one way of transliterating Chinese into roman characters. Peking and Beijing can be pronounced the same way. For that matter, there isn't just one way of pronouncing Chinese words, there being a lot of different dialects - and what we call Mandarin is actually a pretty modern creation, though it's strongly based on North-Eastern and especially Beijing speech. (And make no mistake - Mandarin and Cantonese are probably further apart than Italian and French. The written languages are *supposed* to be the same, though they aren't, entirely, either. Before I moved to Cleveland, Shifu would take me to the Four Family Association dinner every year, and we'd both sit there trying to puzzle out what they were saying, both of us speaking Mandarin and only understanding a little Cantonese. She, of course, is a native mandarin speaker, but I used to hang out with the then mostly Cantonese students in the Chinese student association.)

*wry* I try to look at it all as an exercise in non-attachment.

Keep in mind that European concepts of nobility don't really map to China.

The traditional explanations tend to describe it as an ebb and flow - families would work their butts off, accumulate money, manage to get a few members through the imperial examinations, get position, get property... and then over several generations piss it all away, rinse and repeat. The same description was often applied to dynasties - the founders would be very charismatic effective leaders of a rebellion, would set the country to rights, and some number of their successors would be as well. But after enough generations they'd either get caught up in internal politicking, become absorbed in other activities, or otherwise become ineffective and not do the important business of keeping the country running, things would get generally more and more chaotic... and eventually there would be another rebellion.

Of course, that's a simple model with a lot of philosophical biases. And it's not like the basic rule that them that has, gets was circumvented. But throughout all of this, anyone with both the money to educate a son and a bright and hardworking son could aspire to have their kid pass the examinations and get a governmental position, which was a path to power and influence, so a lot of resources were funneled in to that. Meanwhile, once they passed the exams, at least at first, they were usually sent off somewhere else, without much in the way of influence or backup, and often ended up having to rely on the local people with money and power to get anything done. (If you've ever seen Chinese Ghost Story, that's the position the male lead is in setting out - brand spanking new tax collector - yeah, way to make friends and influence people - not!)

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I've heard that I should see Chinese Ghost Story, but I haven't seen it yet. Some good anime uses the same premise -- clearly one with sound historical principals. Turns out that's what happened with Gengis Khan's family -- his sons pissed it all away, his daughters kept things running where they were left in charge, and those nations lasted longer. Sounds like as structured as it was, you had a much better chance of moving up in China than in Europe. In Europe, you always belonged to the class of your father, and that's part of why so few bastards were recognized. And if you married a man of a lower class, you lost most of your own perks, plus your children lost them, too.

Women are better at negotiating and looking ahead, it seems. But now so many play male politics, and that's not getting much done on the long-term needs front.

Have you found a good place to keep up your Mandarin? That's a gift you should not let slip! I knew that the many Chinese dialects are very different, and that the entire country doesn't have a language, in a sense (I sometimes think it's one reason they learn English, it's something they can agree to dislike but use.) I did not realize that Mandarin was that new, in the sense of being a major dialect. Would it have been called just the northeast dialect, centuries ago? And Beijing was a small area, wasn't it? But became powerful, and so the language became powerful? (English all over again.)