Global Suburb

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:40:16 GMT

Nomadic suburb

Ok, I'm moving this blog over to Blogspot:

globalsuburb.blogspot.com

(XML feed: http://globalsuburb.blogspot.com/atom.xml )

I know it means giving up "the power and freedom of desktop web publishing", but Blogspot is easier to post to at work or while on the go. I've come to appreciate the power and freedom of web publishing anywhere, anytime and on someone else's machine -- and, importantly for an obsessive-compulsive like me, the ability to edit posts from remote locations.

Like others, I've stuck around Userland because of the community, but many in that community have been moving off Salon blogs. Comments and bookmarks are a better way to stay in touch than scanning the Updated Blogs List.

Also I need the $$$ for a subscription to Chinesepod, an innovative learning-via-podcasting service which I'm excited about.

So, see you around, everybody! Hope you'll stop by my new site.

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:22:08 GMT

One Yo-Yo Ma cello solo too many

We finally got around to seeing Geisha this weekend -- had already read the reviews, was hoping it would turn out to be better than rumoured. (One can always hope). What I saw was a potentially great movie undermined by lazy, cop-out choices, weird pacing, and lapses in taste. Either Rob Marshall didn't have the skill to bring it off, or the studio forced him into expedient but fatal (artistically speaking) decisions. Ocean-eyed Sayuri achieves her quest to become a geisha, and then -- wait, what's this? There's been a war going on? And it just ended? And Japan lost? And lovely ladies are being banished to remote areas to harvest rice and make like characters from The Good Earth? No way!

To be fair, parts of Geisha really did resemble a powerful, affecting, Oscar-calibre movie. That mostly happened in the first third, before Suzuka Ohgo grows up to become Zhang Ziyi. Everyone knows by now about the flap over Chinese actresses playing Japanese characters, and I have nothing to add to that discussion; I approve of culture-crossing, and I'm always glad to see Zhang Ziyi. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the real standout performances here were by Ohgo and Koji Yakusho (as a physically disfigured, surly but soulful engineer who deeply loves Sayuri). They gave the movie just enough depth to save it, or almost save it, from being a gorgeous mess.

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:32:15 GMT

Amateur astrology

Without a professional to consult, it's hard to sort through the maze of predictions being offered for the Year of the Dog, which kicks off at midnight Saturday.

They include rising real estate prices, an easing of world tensions and (my favorite) a year of "debate and anxiety" for George W. and Laura Bush. However, even to a non-expert, at least two forecasts seem certain to come true.

#1. Good times for the wedding business in Asia, as the couples who put off marriage during the inauspicious Year of the Rooster finally say their vows. Related trend: a rush on fiery red underwear, since this isn't just any old canine year, but the Year of the Fire Dog.

On a different and uglier note,

#2. A boom for Chinese pet stores, followed by large numbers of maltreated, neglected and abandoned dogs, as the recipients of these "auspicious gifts" lose interest in caring for them.

The Year of the Dog is a miserable time for dogs, it seems; trust us humans to arrange it so.

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 15:57:01 GMT

Brave Sir Google!

When China wanted keywords banned,
He smiled and said he would understand.
Yes, to get his share of the market pie,
He boldly decided to comply
Brave, brave, brave Sir Google!

Standing up for freedom and privacy,
Unless you live in the PRC,
Brave, brave, brave...

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:56:42 GMT

The most beautiful language you've never heard

Shanghainese!

I came across this the other night and was entranced. To my (untrained) ear, it sounds very different from Putonghua (Mandarin) and at times like a cross between Chinese and Japanese.

There's an ongoing debate as to whether Shanghainese and other forms of Chinese are "dialects" or "languages". Some are mutually unintelligible and differ from each other to a greater extent than, say, French and Italian.

As part of the effort to impose Putonghua as the national language, Shanghainese has been systematically repressed, and even today the local government is exhorting citizens to "be modern" and abandon their mother tongue. Even so, the number of people speaking it is equivalent to the population of some European countries.

Interesting background information and resources here.

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 02:13:54 GMT

Movie night

We've embarked on a babysitting scheme with another couple, opening up the possibility of going to the movies on alternate Friday nights. Our first foray was to see Pride and Prejudice.

It wasn't our top choice, but it turned out to be well worth the trip and ticket price. One thing I especially appreciated was the effort made to suggest the somewhat different living standards of two centuries ago. The Bennets' home was not in pristine shape. It looked potentially cold and drafty. Livestock were close by. When it rained, people got muddy and wet. The Meryton village public ball had the excitement of staying up late in a world without electric power.

Literary adaptations often present dolls in a well-appointed dollhouse; that wasn't the case here. The Bennet sisters behaved less like prep school girls at Cotillion Club and more like regular hormone-driven, semi-crazed teens. The risk that the family could fall from their gentrified status was felt throughout. Therefore, the choices the characters made (especially Elizabeth, who rejects two proposals in the course of the story) carried real weight.

As for how it compares to the legendary 1995 BBC production, I can't say – haven't seen it. Two people I know are acquainted with both. One has cherished "the Colin Firth one" for years, treating herself to a repeat viewing every few months. As expected, she was disappointed, even offended by the new take. My wife, on the other hand, decided to watch the BBC version a few days after seeing the movie. Naturally, she found it redundant.

How about you, compadres? What did you think?

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:36:19 GMT

Books with images of water on the cover almost never sell

and other secrets of the remainder wholesale industry...

I live about two miles south of Daedalus Books, which has built a flourishing global business by joining the desire of publishers to get rid of excess inventory with the desire of bookish types to grab as much high quality reading material as they can at bake sale prices. We can't help it -- most of us were weaned on used bookstores (which, long long ago, were cheap), the sunlit corner back of the Goodwill, library sales, and hand-me-downs from deceased, literary-minded relatives. When the remainder boom took off, it was a natural transition; we already had a hunter-gatherer mentality.

Here in central Maryland, Daedalus has become a kind of cultural landmark. It's situated in a large warehouse in an industrial park off of Route 32; neighbours include Eastland Food and Rhee Brothers. First time visitors are apt to get lost, and you have to watch out for the trucks.

When you step in, you're greeted by jazz, folk or world music coming over the speakers, Celan or William Burroughs or Tatyana Tolstaya catch your eye, a fresh shipment of bargain philosophy awaits your perusal: Heidegger for $2.98. It feels partly like a Costco, partly like a good city bookstore on an off day. It's one of my favorite places around here.

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:58:30 GMT

Supergirls

Although I can't claim much expertise about Chinese pop culture, even I know that the major phenonemon of 2005 was "Super Girls" (more literally "Super Female Voice"): an American Idol-type contest that ran for several weeks in the summer, generating a craze which may have been significant for reasons beyond mere entertainment.

The winners were chosen partly by a panel of expert judges, partly by a panel of non-expert judges representing ordinary folks, and partly by the TV audience, voting via SMS message. Note the word "voting". Many saw the wild popularity of the show as having a political dimension -- giving people a taste of direct democracy in a country that has none.

The blog EastSouthWestNorth collected a representative sampling of the kinds of discussions Supergirls provoked -- you can read it here.

Also of interest was the outcome. The ultimate winner, Li Yuchun (center in the above picture) was not the conventional, long-haired, sweet-smiling nymphette you typically see on Chinese entertainment television. She was androgynous in looks and behavior, with a husky voice and a flat singing style, and some have speculated that she was an erotic outlet for teen girls who made up the core of the Supergirls fan base -- it would have been acceptable for them to swoon over her in front of their parents. Alternatively, she might have provided an appealing image of liberation and self-determination.

I have to admit that my first reaction to Li Yuchun was "huh? they call this super singing?" As I realized later, this was missing the point.

Li Yuchun

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:59:09 GMT

My progress of sorts

Last year around this time, I decided to study Chinese. I started out memorizing characters, and soon after began listening to the Pimsleur tapes (they are great) during my commute to and from work. These days I'm now concentrating on vocabulary building, and after that's progressed a little further I'll probably try to boost my listening comprehension.

Besides absorbing about 750 high-frequency characters and 45 hours' worth of spoken Mandarin training, I also learned about my misconceptions concerning the language -- some of which, I now realize, were very naive. For starters, I thought that once you have learned X number of characters, you are then able to read Chinese.

Not true. I forgot about compound words, for instance. Mandarin does not consist only of simple, one-character words; like other languages, it combines units to produce complexes of meaning. In English, just knowing the words "under" and "stand" doesn't ensure you can guess the meaning of "understand" -- you might assume it means "to stand under something." Didn't you know it's bad luck to understand a ladder?

Similarly, in Mandarin you will come across such words as chu kou (out+mouth=exit), tou ding shang fang (head top above space = overhead bin) or shui long tou (water dragon head = faucet). Furthermore, there's the small question of syntax and grammar, which you can't pick up just by studying characters.

Attempting to learn a language, especially a memorization-heavy one, also reveals interesting things about how the mind processes, or fails to process, new information. As everyone knows, it's simple to register material in short term memory (the cram factor), but harder to get it to stick.

Perhaps even harder than that is to learn how to recognize it in varied contexts. What the mind loves to do is place things in a relationship. So after repeated poring over a list, what you eventually learn is the list. It even happens with flash cards, despite shuffling -- you learn to recognize something in the flash card format, but not when it pops up in a printed text.

There just aren't any shortcuts -- you study and then come back three days later only knowing a fraction of what you thought you had down. Weeks go by with little evidence that you're doing anything other than playing with word sand. Knowledge accumulates gradually and imperceptibly -- you realize that you just understood something you read or heard that you wouldn't have three months ago. Such are the satisfactions...

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 03:00:08 GMT

Words in a space

It seems like a good enough time to write in this space again -- the license expires in 24 days. It wouldn't make sense to renew if I don't write here, and for some reason I'm reluctant just to forget about it.

Plus, I keep coming across arcane things that I'd like to share. For example, this comprehensive database of the numbers from 1-10 in over 5,000 different languages. You can scan them all, in one mombo file, or study them as grouped by language family. There's even a clickable map. It's mind candy for people who like tracing/speculating about affinities and common origins, as well as for those who prefer revelling in the complexity and variety of human linguistic history.

yi er san si wu liu qi ba jiu shi (Mandarin)

hana tul set net tasôt yôsôt ilgop yôdôl ahop yôl (Korean)

pitö puta mi yö itu mu nana ya könönö töwo (Old Japanese)

yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan yhdeksän kymmenen (Finnish)

bat bi hiru lau bost sei zazpi zortzi bederatzi hamar (Basque)

moja mbili tatu nne tano sita saba nane tisa kumi (Swahili)

tasi lua tolu fa lima ono fitu valu iva sefulu (Samoan)

wanji nupa yamni topa zaptan s'akpe s'akowin s'aglohan nepchunka wikchemna (Lakhota)