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awanderingbardGracious me! I keep meaning to post and keep putting it off. But I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to the Yanks, so I figured I'd take the time to do a proper post while I'm here. Happy Thanksgiving, Yanks!
I feel like both a lot of stuff has been going on and yet nothing's really happened, which is weird. It's more, there's a lot of activity but not a lot of progress, I guess. I have my new mattress and a new fan, and we got my old bed out of my room. Unfortunately, my new bed did not work out. Flat pack furniture is always hit and miss and the central support of this one was flimsy and poorly made. I had two nights before it gave out, thankfully not while I was in it. Much drama was had, but we think we can salvage parts of it to make a new set up. We got it on very good sale, so if we can get anything out of it, the money won't be wasted. Right now my mattress is on the floor, but I'm having my best sleep in months, possibly years down there, so we're thinking we might see if we can rig something lower for me. I feel like my room is a doomed venture; every time I try to work on it, something goes awry. But I am always grateful that I at least have a place to sleep and that we have the means to experiment.
We also had a family friend pass away. My sister-in-law's aunt, Barb, died a few weeks ago. My SIL's family has always been kind enough to include us in their gatherings, so we spend quite a bit of time with her, despite the distant connection. She was developmentally delayed and lived in a care home, and was such a bright, happy spirit, always very fun to be around. She was seventy-two and lived a good, adventurous life. She even went to the Special Olympics as a swimmer, which we didn't know until the memorial service. She will be missed.
Mum's health has improved; she went to the doctor and got some extra meds and is feeling a lot better on them. My stones have been pretty good, but the weather has made me migrainey. Any fellow migraineurs get deja vu or presque vu with their auras? I've had some weird bouts of that lately that I think are related.
Also, Paxie had graduated from the kitchen at last! We still put him in there at night and when none of us are home, but otherwise, he's allowed to wander as he pleases during the day, except in the bedrooms. Mostly because they're messy and full of temptation, which is our fault not his.
I've been watching a show on CBC Gem called "Miss S". It's a Chinese version of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", which Mum and I watched all of and loved. "Miss S" is set in 1930s Shanghai instead of Australia, but otherwise the characters and stories are mostly the same, just localized. It's been just long enough since I watched Miss Fisher for me to forget who the culprit is, so I don't mind the stories repeating, and I find the changes they make to suit the culture really interesting. The actors are really great and the leads are adorable and have great chemistry. There's a bit of a cultural gap on my part, not so much within the show, but the differences between Chinese and western media. Like, whenever a character comes on screen for the first time, their name pops up next to them to tell you who they are, and one scene had the lyrics of the song being played on the screen. I had to figure that out by screenshotting and running the picture through Google Translate, because the subtitles were not giving me the names or the lyrics and I didn't know what was happening at first. The subtitles are a little hit or miss, mostly just in that they are awkward sometimes. 'That's very sorry' instead of 'that's very unfortunate' and inadvertently making me laugh when a character describes his brother being murdered in a somewhat brutal fashion and follows it up with 'it really gets me down', to which Miss S agrees 'yes, it gets me down, too'. I feel like there was probably a more appropriate way to translate that sentiment than something akin to 'what a bummer, dude'. There also seems to be a trope that if anything romantic is happening it turns to slo-mo and soap opera-like music plays. They only made one season, apparently, but there are 30 episodes (15 stories of two episodes each), so lots to watch, and I've enjoyed what I've seen so far. CBC Gem is region locked, but it looks like it's on Prime, Apple, and Max, so if you have any of those, you can check it out. It's a lot of fun, not too too violent, and the recurring actors are all adorable and have great chemistry together.
Anyway, hope all are doing well in these continually crazy times. Enjoy your festivities if you are festiviting and take care of yourselves!
I feel like both a lot of stuff has been going on and yet nothing's really happened, which is weird. It's more, there's a lot of activity but not a lot of progress, I guess. I have my new mattress and a new fan, and we got my old bed out of my room. Unfortunately, my new bed did not work out. Flat pack furniture is always hit and miss and the central support of this one was flimsy and poorly made. I had two nights before it gave out, thankfully not while I was in it. Much drama was had, but we think we can salvage parts of it to make a new set up. We got it on very good sale, so if we can get anything out of it, the money won't be wasted. Right now my mattress is on the floor, but I'm having my best sleep in months, possibly years down there, so we're thinking we might see if we can rig something lower for me. I feel like my room is a doomed venture; every time I try to work on it, something goes awry. But I am always grateful that I at least have a place to sleep and that we have the means to experiment.
We also had a family friend pass away. My sister-in-law's aunt, Barb, died a few weeks ago. My SIL's family has always been kind enough to include us in their gatherings, so we spend quite a bit of time with her, despite the distant connection. She was developmentally delayed and lived in a care home, and was such a bright, happy spirit, always very fun to be around. She was seventy-two and lived a good, adventurous life. She even went to the Special Olympics as a swimmer, which we didn't know until the memorial service. She will be missed.
Mum's health has improved; she went to the doctor and got some extra meds and is feeling a lot better on them. My stones have been pretty good, but the weather has made me migrainey. Any fellow migraineurs get deja vu or presque vu with their auras? I've had some weird bouts of that lately that I think are related.
Also, Paxie had graduated from the kitchen at last! We still put him in there at night and when none of us are home, but otherwise, he's allowed to wander as he pleases during the day, except in the bedrooms. Mostly because they're messy and full of temptation, which is our fault not his.
I've been watching a show on CBC Gem called "Miss S". It's a Chinese version of "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries", which Mum and I watched all of and loved. "Miss S" is set in 1930s Shanghai instead of Australia, but otherwise the characters and stories are mostly the same, just localized. It's been just long enough since I watched Miss Fisher for me to forget who the culprit is, so I don't mind the stories repeating, and I find the changes they make to suit the culture really interesting. The actors are really great and the leads are adorable and have great chemistry. There's a bit of a cultural gap on my part, not so much within the show, but the differences between Chinese and western media. Like, whenever a character comes on screen for the first time, their name pops up next to them to tell you who they are, and one scene had the lyrics of the song being played on the screen. I had to figure that out by screenshotting and running the picture through Google Translate, because the subtitles were not giving me the names or the lyrics and I didn't know what was happening at first. The subtitles are a little hit or miss, mostly just in that they are awkward sometimes. 'That's very sorry' instead of 'that's very unfortunate' and inadvertently making me laugh when a character describes his brother being murdered in a somewhat brutal fashion and follows it up with 'it really gets me down', to which Miss S agrees 'yes, it gets me down, too'. I feel like there was probably a more appropriate way to translate that sentiment than something akin to 'what a bummer, dude'. There also seems to be a trope that if anything romantic is happening it turns to slo-mo and soap opera-like music plays. They only made one season, apparently, but there are 30 episodes (15 stories of two episodes each), so lots to watch, and I've enjoyed what I've seen so far. CBC Gem is region locked, but it looks like it's on Prime, Apple, and Max, so if you have any of those, you can check it out. It's a lot of fun, not too too violent, and the recurring actors are all adorable and have great chemistry together.
Anyway, hope all are doing well in these continually crazy times. Enjoy your festivities if you are festiviting and take care of yourselves!
no subject
Date: 2023-11-23 04:25 pm (UTC)As you noticed, there are a lot of little things like that. I find them really interesting to discover and then think about.
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Date: 2023-11-23 10:42 pm (UTC)I'm pretty good with languages, but I have to confess that Chinese is very hard for me to make heads or tails of listening to. I've watched shows in Italian and managed to start to pick up certain words as they were repeated and I speak enough French to only need the subtitles for guidance when I watch something in that language, but aside from 'thank you' and the honorific meaning 'miss/young lady', I know as much as when I started watching. But it's fun, as you said, to experience something different from the kind of culture you normally engage in.
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Date: 2023-11-24 12:01 am (UTC)There's so much that's culturally different, like when the ride horses the 'lets go' and 'stop' noises people make is not what I'd expected after seeing Old West set things, they use entirely different words/sounds.
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Date: 2023-11-24 01:28 am (UTC)I’m a huge language nerd, I love learning languages, etymology, translations, Shakespeare, conlangs, all of that stuff. There’s a channel on YouTube called ecolinguist and he puts people who speak languages in similar language groups together to see if they can understand each other, and it surprises me how often I can follow along with any of the Romance languages because of my French background, or the Germanic languages because of English and German, but I have very little experience with Asian languages. My only previous exposure to Chinese is through Firefly, lol.
There's so much that's culturally different, like when the ride horses the 'lets go' and 'stop' noises people make is not what I'd expected after seeing Old West set things, they use entirely different words/sounds.
Hee! That’s cool.
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Date: 2023-11-24 02:07 am (UTC)Something else interesting with Cdramas is the difference in the way language is used in some 'ancient' set one, particularly a royal court drama vs a Republican era one (30s, like when Miss S is set) vs a modern one. I guess it's sort of like how depending when stuff is set in English canons it might use a more Shakespearian English vs BBC Received Pronunciation vs just regular modern accents and slang.
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Date: 2023-11-24 03:15 am (UTC)I was reading about the honorifics because a character tells another one that she doesn’t have to use them with him and I was wondering if they were similar to Japanese honorifics, which I vaguely know from the minuscule amount of anime I’ve watched, and it said in the wiki article that they aren’t used very much anymore in modern China, but I guess they were in the 1930s, which goes along with what you’re saying about the language differences based on the era.
I watched an Italian show once set in a department store in the 50s and random people kept being called Dottore So and So, which, depending on who subtitled the episodes would either get translated as ‘Mr So and So’ or ‘Dr. So and So’ and it turns out that any one who has a university degree in Italy can use the title of doctor, so it was a sign of the characters’ education level, but the nuance is lost in English. Those sorts of things are really interesting when consuming foreign media. They tickle me.
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Date: 2023-11-24 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-24 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-24 02:41 pm (UTC)Subs are terrible for names. Sometimes they translate things (so you get the Young Lady This and whatnot) but often they just pick one way to refer to people and will use it no matter how obvious it is that isn't what is being said or makes sense for it to be used in that situation. It bugs me because sometimes there's a lot of character development being shown in how people refer to one another (do they go from Young Lady/Master Whatnot to the character's full name? Do they move from informal to formal for a specific scene?) and it's not even a case where there's no English equivalent (like switching formal and informal "you"), it *could* be done but they don't. Not sure if it's to make things easier for the subbing or they just think other language speakers won't understand.
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Date: 2023-11-24 03:19 pm (UTC)Yeah, translation is such a tricky thing when there isn’t an English equivalent. Even something like tu vs vous in French is significant, informal you vs formal you , and you can invite someone to ‘tutoyer’ with you (use the informal you), but we don’t have a good approximation in English. You could say ‘don’t be so formal with me’ I guess, but the context would still be missing. There was also a problem with the Italian show I watched because the word for ‘girlfiend’ and ‘fiancée’ are the same, and depending on who translated the episode and how much they were paying attention, characters would switch from one to the other without rhyme nor reason.
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Date: 2023-11-24 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-24 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-24 03:49 pm (UTC)There are many absolutely GREAT translators though, I really love the ones that take the time to use and then explain idioms.
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Date: 2023-11-25 01:58 am (UTC)I used to do a lot of translation of French lyrics into English for a Disney board and for a website about French musicals, and I always tried to get the meaning across more than the literal phrasing, but I know that there’s varying viewpoints on that.
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Date: 2023-11-25 02:08 am (UTC)