User Comments - WillBuckingham

Posted on: In a Moment

Thanks - fantastically useful material.

Posted on: About Face! A Multi-faceted Look at 面子

An interesting discussion - and a great Qing Wen. As an aside, the trick with mobile phones is to hold on to them for so long that they pass through the swamps of uncool (and the terrible, debilitating loss of face that results) to eventually come out the other side with an impressive aura of retro-chic. ;-)

Posted on: Munich

Xemrac, that gua bao is terrifying: it looks like something out of the film Alien.

Posted on: Remembering that Day on the Creek -- 如梦令: 常记溪亭日暮

Now, that sounds like a fine way to spend an afternoon. Sat on a boat, writing poems, 沉醉... What I love about this one is the sheer pleasure of it: some of those male poets who write gloomy poems could do worse than take a boat out on the water with friend and a flagon of wine. You never know, they might discover that things are not that bad after all.

Another vote here for extending the range with a bit of contemporary poetry as well.

Posted on: The Attitude Pattern (yǒu shénme... 有什么...)

I agree with Clay: 小王子有什么不好的？ I found a Chinese copy the other week in a bookshop in London. It's great in French, and I'm working up to trying it in Chinese. There's a online version here: http://www.xiaowangzi.org (although surely there are copyright issues here...)

Posted on: Dreams of the Departed 陇西行

Another great poem in the series.

Regarding the etymology of "barbarian", here's the online etymological dictionary:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=barbarian

And the entry for 'beard':

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=beard

All the best,

Will

Posted on: Eating Dead Flesh 猪吃死人肉

The lotus is interesting, because although it is not stained by the mud (the science can be found over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect) it is also nourished by it.

So my own take would be somewhere between Pete's and Chiefmadapple's. The lotus does and can bloom (fortunately) and it blooms, astonishingly, from out of the mud itself, despite all expectations. This doesn't make the mud any less muddy... but at least the water is not boiling.

Will

Posted on: Hold the Elevator

Chivalry is dead? Maybe, but then, who would want to share a lift with the unchivalrous?

Small correction in expansion exercises with the translation of "他住几楼？" which should read "Which floor does he live on?"

Will

Posted on: Tech Fixes and Traditional Characters

The hide English option is great, and down the line I'm sure I'll be finding the traditional character support handy. Thanks for all your hard work.

Will

Posted on: Drinking Alone Under the Moon 月下独酌

Great poem! I wonder whether, even if we could get hold of Li Bai and ask him to dispel the ambiguity, he might just pour us a glass of wine, take us out onto the hillside, point to the moon and the Milky Way, pour us another glass of wine... and before we knew it, we'd be waking up the following morning with a heavy head, to find that Li Bai was away over the hill, taking his explanations with him.

The more I think about this poem, the more ambiguity seems to be central to it: all those shadows and all that flickering light, all that tipsiness caused by the wine.

Disreputable bunch, poets...