Zhou Shen Did Another Photoshoot For The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival Performance. It’s One Of His Serious

Concept arts and sample insert illustrations by Marina Privalova (@Baoshan_Karo) for Sha Po Lang Russian Edition of the book shared by Istari Comics Publishing.

If you haven't seen the beautiful cover arts, here's the link.

Yes, the same artist behind MDZS insert illustrations for EN and RUS license.

zhou shen + a non-exhaustive list of chinese new year 2021 appearances

↳ 归处 / gui chu: happy camp + jiangsu tv ↳ 大鱼 / da yu ↳ got it (with mao buyi) ↳ 我在这 挺好的 / wo zai zhe, ting hao de ↳ 灯火里的中国 / deng huo li de zhong guo (with zhang ye) ↳ 牛仔很忙 / niu zai hen mang ↳ 达拉崩吧 / da la beng ba ↳ 微光海洋 / wei guang hai yang ↳ bonus clips: singing 吉祥三宝 + 恭喜发财 + 同桌的你 edit to add: ↳ 达拉崩吧 / da la beng ba (with morin khuur and dombra by shui guo xing qiu) ↳ 春天到万家 / chun tian dao wan jia (with zhang ye)

hey there!! hoping to get your input on this: ive seen plenty of fics where characters across the cql board will say just very openly "i love you." i don't know if this is a common way of expressing romantic love in ancient china? i could be wrong, but the FEELING i get is that it's more common to use gestures, or allude metaphorically to some poem/story instead of being so direct? i think theres an old-fashioned jpn phrase like "i'll make soup for u every day" to confess, anything similar here?

oof, so I’m going to go ahead and start by saying that I don’t know nearly enough to be make generalized statements about how romantic love is expressed in ancient/dynastic China or even in modern-day, because I’m just not widely-read/steeped in the culture enough. And even if I were, I still don’t know if I could make definitive statements on what can be considered a “common way of expressing love” because there are as many ways to express love as there are people and permutations of relationships on this planet. 

The renditions of love that tend to linger in our minds, however, tend to be defined by action: 梁山伯与祝英台 Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the butterfly lovers inseparable by death; 牛郎织女 Niu Lang and Zhi Nv, a mortal man and celestial maiden, crossing to each other over a bridge over the Milky Way made of magpies; 孟姜女 Meng Qiangnv breaking open the Great Wall with the force of her tears. Just gonna... put that out there.

I did include a brief discussion of the character 爱 ai in this post, which is the character that’s pretty much translates to ‘love’ (and many of its complicated English valences) in modern Mandarin. Given an earlier reading of 爱 not as ‘love,’ but as ‘begrudging, cherishing’ makes the possibility of saying 我爱你 woaini rather...unlikely in ancient China (especially when you consider that 我 wo and 你 ni were different pronouns back then, too... what I’m trying to say is that a simple ctext search hasn’t been helping me here).

I am, however, willing to bet that writing/reciting poetry for your lover was a Thing, and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t seize every possible opportunity to add gratuitous poetry to a post:

《上邪》/ Shangye

上邪！/ High Heaven!

我欲与君相知，/ I want for us both to know each other

长命无绝衰。/ as long as life, with no decline or end

山无陵，江水为竭，/ When mountains lose their peaks, when river waters dry up,

冬雷震震，夏雨雪 ，/ when thunder rumbles in winter; when rain and snow fall in summer

天地合，乃敢与君绝！/ when sky and earth seal back together, only then will I dare end things with you!

One of the shortest pieces in the Hanyuefu, which I mentioned briefly in this post, 《上邪》 is an incredibly powerful declaration of love, loyalty, and devotion without using any of the above words (it does, however, use 知 zhi / knowing). 

Oh! Both 《上邪》and《卜算子》use 君 jun, which you might recognize from ‘Hanguang-jun’ or ‘Zewu-jun.’ In addition to being an honorific, 君 also appears often in poetry as a respectful second-person pronoun. Again, it’s technically gender-neutral, though most of the time it’s assumed to refer to a man.

《卜算子》李之仪， Busuanzi by Li Zhiyi (Northern Song Dynasty)

我住长江头，君住长江尾。/ I live at the head of the Yangtze; you live at the tail of the Yangtze,

日日思君不见君，共饮长江水。/ Day after day, I think of you but do not see you; we drink from the same river’s waters

此水几时休，此恨何时已。/ When will these waters rest? When will these feelings stop?

只愿君心似我心，定不负相思意。/ I only hope that your heart is similar to mine; I would not let down the intent of our mutual love.*

*note: this entire last line is rough, but I spent more time than I’d like banging my head against 相思, which I translated as ‘mutual love.’ It’s glossed in Pleco as ‘pining, lovesickness’ but literally means ‘mutual thought.’ 

The language of thought, of mutual thought, of the sentiment behind the phrase thinking of you, is something that goes way, way back. It’s in 《饮马长城窟行》, from the poetry post I linked earlier; it’s also referenced in the last line of 《楚辞·山鬼》Mountain Ghost from the Songs of the South: 思公子兮徒离忧 / only in thinking of you can I depart from sorrows.

Oh! Here’s a classic declaration of love -- literally, from the 《诗经》 Shijing / Classic of Poetry: 

[...]

执子之手，与子偕老 / I’ll hold your hand, and with you grow old...

[...]

It’s the most famous line from 《国风·邶风·击鼓》which I think is actually a... war poem? So a poem that’s primarily all about that Mutual Loyalty and Manly Camaraderie, but one that has had its most iconic line co-opted for the sheer romance of it all.

I’m not going to translate《击鼓》 fully because trying to read the 《诗经》is one of my personal nightmares, but you can find it here on ctext with the James Legge translation, which, admittedly, takes some liberties with the text.

One last poem, because the last line is peak pining:

《越人歌》 Yuerenge

今夕何夕兮 搴洲中流，/ What evening is this evening? Drifting in the river current.*

今日何日兮 得与王子同舟。/ What day is today? That I can travel in the same boat as you, prince

蒙羞被好兮 不訾诟耻，/ I hide my shyness, cover my fondness; there will be no slander or gossip or shame*

心几烦而不绝兮 得知王子。/ My heart is troubled, unending -- to come to know you, prince

山有木兮木有枝，心说君兮君不知。/ On mountains, there are trees; on trees, there are branches -- my heart delights in you, and you do not know.

*leaning heavily on the baidu-baike glosses

The story I’ve always been told about 《越人歌》 is that a prince of Chu, fleeing political strife in his state, crosses a river in a boat poled by a young woman of the state of Yue. She recognizes the fleeing prince and sings this song to him as she poles across the river. The catch is that she sings it in the language of the state of Yue, so he has absolutely no idea that she’s confessing her admiration and love for him.

This story, according to my Google searches, is inaccurate, but OH WELL, the last line is still peak pining regardless.

made a picker wheel for basically zhou shen's entire discography!

tag yourself, i'm 风筝是风的信

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 2. Pages 48 - 62.

Ten more pages of notes...

饮鸩止渴 drink poison (legendary bird with poisonous feathers) stop thirst. It's a cool way to say "What you're doing may be helping you in the short term, but it's killing you in the long term," yah?

I really like how in Chinese, each rank of royalty has its own honorific, so when Chen QingXu says "殿下," we know she means "the prince" (or similar ranking), not "the emperor."

"陈轻絮管杀不管埋" "Chen QingXu took care of killing but did not take care of burying." ie She didn't deal with the consequences of her actions, but satisfyingly symmetrical in Chinese.

｡ﾟ ( ﾟ≧ᗜ≦^ﾟ)ﾟ｡

得罪君子不得罪小人。(Because, you know, an upstanding gentleman might get mad, but he won't resort to dirty underhanded deeds to get his revenge on you, whereas you never know what low deeds a petty person will stoop to to get his revenge.)

Top: 肉麻 is a cool word. We don't really have it in English. It's a little like "cringy"？ It's how you feel when someone does something too romantic or overly emotional in front of you.

Bottom: I guess Chinese crows foretell misfortune.

Formatting again. I really appreciate paragraph breaks.

Characters = words, reading, literacy. (Not "characters" as in "people.")

Missing paragraph in the print edition, again. But I really like this paragraph!

In case you can't read my writing: Shen Yi is feeling sorry for himself. Gu Yun grew up as a rich boy yelling "Mommy!" When he got older and joined the Black Iron Battalion, he didn't have a mommy anymore, so he treated Shen Yi as his new "Mommy!" to take care of things for him.

Below the missing paragraph, I have a note that "Dage" is 大哥 = Big Brother = "Boss," like you would call a mob boss "Boss."

And below that, in the online version, the entire quote from the bandit is "废话，还不放箭！包围！包围！” = "Nonsense. Why haven't you released the arrows yet! Surround them! Surround them!"

谁不想死谁先死. "Who does not want to die, who first dies." It's very symmetrical in Chinese.

The other note is about how we call people we deem useless as "饭桶 rice barrel," because all they do is eat rice.

老大 old big = Boss.

说人话 talk human speech = talk like a normal human being!

人模狗样 human, mold/model, dog, type/shape. It's a disparaging way to say "poser!" (Dogs are generally looked down upon in Chinese culture, at least in compound words and idioms and such.)

OK. And this ten is done!

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

I’m rereading 杀破狼 by Priest (Sha Po Lang) (“Stars of Chaos”). It took me forever to read it the first time, but I don’t really want to leave this universe, so….

I love how in the first 5 chapters, Priest perfectly conveys how Chang Geng is terribly in love with Shen Shiliu, completely against his own better judgement. Chang Geng is just entering adolescence and is having his usual nightmares, but now some of them are wet dreams, and he just doesn’t know what to do about all these feelings and Shiliu is not making it easy on him.

Shiliu is blind and deaf (or pretending to be) and lazy (not pretending there) and constantly trying to distract Chang Geng from his studies. He’s always calling Chang Geng over to play and waste time. He’s always throwing his arms around Chang Geng and giving him childish presents. He’s infuriating! And so, so handsome.

But Chang Geng is already building his life around Shen Shiliu. He has to become smart so that he can earn enough money to support Shiliu. He has to become strong so that he can protect poor blind, deaf Shiliu. He will be a good godson and take care of godfather, Yes.

Chang Geng is frustrated and confused out of his mind, and Shiliu keeps grabbing him as if one of them were a child!, but, even at this tender age, he knows who he wants to be with. Even if that person makes him mad in every sense of the word.

This is most affirming thing I’ve ever read.

I am very grateful for this (amazingly funny and honest and raw and did I mention funny?) analysis of Why This Story Changed My Life.

okay love this tor dot com article exploring writing craft through the lens of the untamed fucking slaps and why 

jin zixun has such a main character complex that he thinks wei wuxian, the yiling patriarch, declared enemy of the cultivation world cursed him specifically for something that happened like a year ago and when zixun accuses him of doing so wuxian’s like look man first off i don’t care about you enough to hold a grudge i only have a vague idea of who you are and second off it’s awful bold of you to assume i’d let you live if i did

WangXian Phoenix Mountain Kiss Censored Panels?

Ok I don't know how official this is...if it's like that "leak" of WangXian's drunk kiss or just a really really good fanart, but these're SUPPOSEDLY the missing panels from WangXian's Phoenix Mountain kiss in chap 185 of the manhua that were chopped due to good old censorship.

It's so weird cuz I just read another danmei manhua that had their kiss intact and they even kinda showed a nonexplicit handjob, so if these are indeed official, I wish they wouldn't be so hard on MDZS.

~

credit to weibo in last image above.

Astronomy I-