Chapter 8

0005 那印度女人 It seems that she is from India. - or could this include Indochina?

0006 她穿着金鱼黄紧身长衣 Gold fish??

0008 像飞了金 0009 的观音菩萨 I know about Guanyin Pusa, but why 飞了?

0013 这是萨黑夷妮公主 Saheiyini - can we reconstruct her actual name?

0021 你是个道地的中国人 I wonder why he insists on this. It certainly gives her an advantage over the princess.

0025 说是克力希纳·柯兰姆帕王公的亲生女 Transcriptions are difficult.. I don't know where this is.

0030 当面何尝不奉承着她 I want this to mean "when she is present, you flatter her", but I can't work it out. 当面 Openly 何尝 how come 不奉承着 NOT flatter 她 her. Another typo?

0031 我这样一个穷遗老的女儿，The word 遗老 is interesting here. My dictionary suggests "adherent of a defunct dynasty"..:) What about "old fashioned"?

0005 那印度女人 It seems that she is from India. - or could this include Indochina?

Not according to my dictionary –

0006 她穿着金鱼黄紧身长衣 Gold fish??

She is wearing a long goldfish-yellow dress

0008 像飞了金 0009 的观音菩萨 I know about Guanyin Pusa, but why 飞了?

I am guessing: the gold application flew --- vanished – from the face of the statue – now it is brownish with a gold hue

飞 is given as potentially: evaporate, disappear in my dictionary

0013 这是萨黑夷妮公主 Saheiyini - can we reconstruct her actual name?

I can’t

0021 你是个道地的中国人 I wonder why he insists on this. It certainly gives her an advantage over the princess.

In my opinion FLY has a strong identity problem. Remember his origins and upbringing... Everything genuinely Chinese attracts and perhaps also irritates him at once.

0025 说是克力希纳·柯兰姆帕王公的亲生女 Transcriptions are difficult.. I don't know where this is.

I take this to be the name of an Indian ruler/prince – her father. The first part might be Krsna, the second part ke-lan-mu-pa is up for grabs...

0030 当面何尝不奉承着她 I want this to mean "when she is present, you flatter her", but I can't work it out. 当面 Openly 何尝 how come 不奉承着 NOT flatter 她 her. Another typo?

Not typo, tricky rhetorical device. 何尝 is in my dictionary as „it is not as if“ so I see it the way you do: to their face it is not as if you did not flatter them – „when you are with them you flatter them like crazy...“

0031 我这样一个穷遗老的女儿，The word 遗老 is interesting here. My dictionary suggests "adherent of a defunct dynasty"..:) What about "old fashioned"?

Yes, my dictionary gives „conservative“—

In my opinion FLY has a strong identity problem. Remember his origins and upbringing... Everything genuinely Chinese attracts and perhaps also irritates him at once.

Yes, I agree about the identity problem - but why does he insist that Liusu is so very Chinese?

0025 说是克力希纳·柯兰姆帕王公的亲生女 Transcriptions are difficult.. I don't know where this is.

I take this to be the name of an Indian ruler/prince – her father. The first part might be Krsna, the second part ke-lan-mu-pa is up for grabs...

Krshna is a great suggestion! I didn't think of that.

Not typo, tricky rhetorical device. 何尝 is in my dictionary as „it is not as if“ so I see it the way you do: to their face it is not as if you did not flatter them – „when you are with them you flatter them like crazy...“

Very good!

Why does FLY... Maybe Liusu is actually already a bit behind time --- Remember that the story begins with the statement that in the Bai household the clocks were set an hour late against official time? There may have been a part of the Shanghai society which was clinging to the old ways and they may have belonged to it -- which FLY knew from various indications. And as he says: he like other expatriate Chinese has this hankering after tradition.
What I am not sure about: how far is Liusu herself defined by the oldfashioned ways of her family?

0034 柳原道：“你放心。你是什 0035 么样的人，我就拿你当什么样的人看待，准没错。” What he is promising is to see Liusu as she really is. I think that what impresses Liusu is that this is something believable, but difficult. Suddenly, it does not sound like conventional empty words.

0042 指着汽车道旁郁郁的丛林道 "Jungle path" sounds a bit strong... it might be an old name?

0045 一蓬蓬一蓬 0046 蓬的小花 Why the reduplication of 一蓬蓬?

0046 壁栗剥落燃烧着 I don't understand 壁栗, maybe a typo for 壁架, ledge? We are in the tropics, but I am not sure why it is still so hot, the sun is about to set - or am I misinterpreting the 烧s?

0047 那紫蓝的天也熏红了 I suppose that 熏 is a typo for 黑? The blue sky was turning dark red?

0049 不成腔 "not like music"??

0057 死的颜色 "dull colour"?

0062 流苏，也许你会对我有一点真心 This sounds more conventional to me. Like "you will be mine in our next life".. but maybe not to a Chinese girl.

0034 柳原道：“你放心。你是什 0035 么样的人，我就拿你当什么样的人看待，准没错。” What he is promising is to see Liusu as she really is. I think that what impresses Liusu is that this is something believable, but difficult. Suddenly, it does not sound like conventional empty words.

Mhmm. There are moments when I want to believe in a happy end...

0042 指着汽车道旁郁郁的丛林道 "Jungle path" sounds a bit strong... it might be an old name?

I could imagine that it just mean thicket, a mass of trees and bushes in their natural state -- dark and impenetrable

0045 一蓬蓬一蓬 0046 蓬的小花 Why the reduplication of 一蓬蓬?

I like it – manymany many many little blossoms all in a row--- it is no typo

0046 壁栗剥落燃烧着 I don't understand 壁栗, maybe a typo for 壁架, ledge? We are in the tropics, but I am not sure why it is still so hot, the sun is about to set - or am I misinterpreting the 烧s?

No typo according to my book, just ZAL waxing very poetic. The way I understand it after a long search through my dixies is that 壁栗剥落 is onomatopoeic to make the burning audible – (you are free to disbelieve...) and the 烧 are meant for the color of the flowers.

0047 那紫蓝的天也熏红了 I suppose that 熏 is a typo for 黑? The blue sky was turning dark red?

Again –poetry not typo. The red is like a smoke ... a cloud (as of incense) colouring the otherwise blackblue night sky

0049 不成腔 "not like music"??

„tuneless“? it is compared to the erratic jingling of bells

0057 死的颜色 "dull colour"?

Maybe actually like deadly pale – after all he begins to talk about a kind of apocalyptic end of everything

0062 流苏，也许你会对我有一点真心 This sounds more conventional to me. Like "you will be mine in our next life".. but maybe not to a Chinese girl.

Actually I did not think of „We have 緣 分 „ here –- it sounds more like a premonition of the war to come, of civilizations clashing --- and it does not sound conventional to me but strangely gloomy-doomy – as if he knew about the gap separating them.

Of course your are right, it is already night, so the red cannot be the setting sun.

That 壁栗剥落 is onomatopoeic is so strange, that it must be true..:) But I had never guessed that.

I have read up on Chinese history, and at this time (late 1941), the Japanese held most of the Chinese coast, including Shanghai. We haven't heard a word about that though, it is not what ZAL wants to tell us about. But Liusu and her family must have experienced the Japanese invasion of their home town in august 1937, around the time when Liusu left her husband? It seems to have been a huge three months battle with the defending Chinese (KMT) government troups fighting from house to house in downtown Shanghai. Even the Bai family must have noticed that something unusual was going on outside.

With that back drop, it must have been tempting to be gloomy about the future of the world.

That historical background part is very useful!! I keep reading, even drawing nice time lines... and then forgetting again... Thank you.

I have been thinking about the tree with the red blossoms ... tried to find botanical details ...in vain. Up to now I still consider the possibility that it is supposed to remind you of the 想思 tree - the classical tree of true but tragic marital love. Its seeds look like beans and are also called 紅 豆. You certainly read the shi by Wang Wei.

I didn't read the Wang Wei shi, but I found it now (thanks, it's nice to be with you...:) :

227王维:相思

红豆生南国,春来发几枝? 愿君多采撷,此物最相思。

I'm not sure it's what ZAL wants us to think of. She has red flowers, not seeds, but of course that might be too pedantic.

I think there are pictures of the flowers here :

http://www.fotop.net/conradkwleung/conradkwleung01

They really are very red and beautiful.

Well, what can I say... thank you for indulging me in my botanically rather dubious poetic moods (no,no, not too pedantic-- I share your skepticism re bloom and seed and different tree!) and offering me pictorial materials to dream on... I have a feeling I saw those trees in Quanzhou, Fujian four years ago and was struck, too, although they were young and small and did not have the impact of FLY's specimen.
Well -- after all this red-hot stuff -- shall we go on?