The Price of Fame

Reading Stephen Fry's latest blog entry has brought to mind a thought I've had previously about the challenges of being a celebrity, particularly an actor.

I wouldn't want to be an actor.  When I think of what that entails, it seems to me to be as awful an occupation as being a sewer technician or working in a slaughterhouse.  It's a more creatively satisfying occupation, but at least when one goes home from work at the end of a long day of chopping up cow parts, one doesn't have to worry about international media repeating one sentence you said that day, out of context, over and over as if it was a proclamation from the Pope.

But it isn't just that sort of media frenzy that makes acting seem so unappealing to me.  It's the thought of all the things actors have to do to carry out their craft.  I'm primarily thinking of film and television acting, but some of the same concerns apply to stage acting as well.

About 25 years ago while I was an undergrad, one of my art professors decided to make an artistic video.  It was the kind of thing that might have aired on the PBS series 'Alive From Off Center', before the advent of YouTube.  My professor asked for some of his students to act as production crew on the filming.  For about 6 weeks one summer I participated in the production as a still photographer.  I sat on set and watched much of the shooting, and even had a couple of opportunities to go on location.

It was then that I learned just how boring and tedious shooting a film can be, at least for those who aren't appearing on camera.  It involves a lot of sitting around being quiet while the camera is rolling, punctuated by quick flurries of activity as the set is reset for another take, or everything is shifted for a new shot or scene.  For the actors it may be a bit more interesting, as between takes they can be reviewing the script or getting their makeup touched up.  But it must get very tedious if the director likes to do a lot of takes.

An actor has to play a character.  That character might be furiously angry, or weeping, or deeply in love.  I can't imagine that there's any way to simulate those emotions without actually feeling them.  But when the scene is over, or the director says, "Cut", that emotion, no matter how powerful, must be switched off.  If you're a film or tv actor, you may have to switch it back on again in a few minutes when the director asks for a retake.  I can only try to imagine how stressful it must be to do that all day long.

Film and tv actors also work very long hours.  Now that it's easier to film at night, they may have to shoot until 4:00 a.m.  When they're shooting they often don't get any time off.  They can't go home in the evenings if they're on location.  They can't spend time with their families and friends, or watch the films and tv shows they like to watch, or spend hours playing video games, or indulge in hobbies that take a lot of time and equipment.  They have to live in hotel rooms or apartments.  They may be working in marvelous locations, but have little time to enjoy the scenery.

We all have to work with people we don't like.  But actors not only have to work with people they don't like, they may have to pretend those people are their best friends, or even their lovers.  They may have to simulate sexual activity with a partner for whom they have no attraction.  They have to do all these things in front of dozens of other people.  They may have to repeat the actions over and over, because the sound or the lighting was wrong, or someone missed a cue, or the director just wants a few more takes to choose from in the editing suite.

Is it any wonder that actors seem to do such a poor job of choosing life partners?  They are thrown together with a small group of other people for some very intense activity, taken away from their "normal" lives.  Maybe they have to act out a deep relationship with some of those people.  That feeling can bleed over into "real" life, and suddenly you've got a scandal as Actor A and Actor B leave their respective spouses or long-term partners to be with each other - only to find after a few months or years that the only thing they really had in common was that film/tv show/play they were both appearing in.  Then, because they are celebrities, the avaricious public want to know every detail of their embarrassing or saddening personal situation.  Ordinary people probably make just as many bad choices in romance as actors do, but of course we don't hear about it on E!.

Actors make friends while they're working, just as we all make friends with our co-workers.  But in ordinary jobs we don't usually find ourselves spending 16 hours a day with a small group of people, then not seeing those people again for months or years.   And what about the friends an actor had before taking up that occupation?  What happens to the old friends after an actor becomes famous and sought-after?  It must be a bit like having a co-worker / friend suddenly get a promotion.  It's difficult to remain friends when your friend becomes a boss.  It must be equally difficult to remain friends with someone who's become a huge celebrity.

In addition to all these other unpleasant activities, actors are expected to do publicity for the film, show or play they're appearing in.  They have to appear on chat shows and radio programs and be interviewed by newspapers and magazines and websites.  They're expected to have Twitter accounts and a presence on Facebook.  But many actors are by nature private people.  The characters they play are their public personae.  They don't enjoy talking about themselves.  They don't want to share their personal lives with the public.  Some of them aren't really very interesting people, others aren't very articulate or witty.  They have to appear on programs with interviewers or presenters who don't like them, or find themselves being overshadowed by someone who is more witty or just more self-aggrandizing than they are.

It's a constant grind, too, for them to keep themselves in the public eye, so the studios won't forget who they are.  There are a few actors whose names are big enough that they can pick and choose their roles and take a year off from performing without fear that they'll be forgotten. But for most actors it's audition, audition, audition, public appearances, and taking whatever roles they can get.

It's not just to keep the studio heads from forgetting who they are; that's how they earn their living.  No one is going to pay them to stay home and play with their kids.  They have to pay their agents and publicists.  They have to pay for their houses and health insurance and taxes and utilities just like the rest of us.  And because acting isn't a stable job with regular hours, they don't get employer-provided benefits.  The studio may pay for an actor's medical care while she's working on a studio project, but once she's not working for that studio she's on her own.  Those immensely wealthy actors with enormous mansions and yachts and garages full of expensive cars have agents and financial planners helping them get the best rates for their work and invest it wisely.  The rest just have to hope they can get a role in a big movie or a tv series that lasts more than 3 episodes so they can pay the bills.

And finally, what happens when an actor suffers a long-term illness, or just has a reversal of fortune and stops getting parts?  How often have you heard someone's name and said, "Is he/she still alive?"  How must it feel to be forgotten, to be considered "too old" for the roles you'd like to play, or to be typecast because you gained fame in a particular part and now all the casting directors think you can't play anything else?

Now that I think about it, perhaps being an actor isn't so different from my life after all.  I don't have to go into a freezing cold movie set, take off all my clothes, and pretend to be having sex with someone I don't know while half a dozen people watch.  And I don't have to pay someone 10% of my income to help me find a job, or appear on the David Letterman show and have him ask me a lot of smarmy questions that he doesn't really care about..  But I still have to work with people I don't like, and pretend emotions I'm not really feeling, and worry that management will decide I'm too old, and fret about how to pay the bills, just like actors.

I still wouldn't want to be an actor, though.

Movie Review: Clash of the Titans (2010 remake)

I originally posted a number of movie reviews on a forum site, but I've decided to gradually move them all to my blog. 

____________________

Reviewed 3-13-2011

This was a movie I considered seeing in a theater and ultimately decided to save my money. Instead I watched the Rifftrax version during a friend's birthday party.

Clash of the Titans was a movie I wanted to like more than I did. But this movie just didn't come together. My perception of it is probably biased by the Riffing, but it had some very obvious flaws that I think I would have noticed without the help of Mike, Bill and Kevin.

The biggest flaw is that the hero doesn't do anything for half the movie. I am not impressed with Sam Worthington, and evidently the filmmakers weren't either, because Crazy Cultist Guy had more lines than Perseus did. It was hard to take it seriously when the warriors from Argos suddenly elected Perseus their leader and began treating him like a hero, because at that point in the plot he really hadn't done anything.

The advent of digital effects seems to have carried moviemaking back to the Cecil B. DeMille days. Everything has to be bigger and splashier and sparklier, and have lots of big name actors in the cast. The palace at Argos really looks like something DeMille's set designer would have created. It's too bad someone couldn't have designed a Hellenistic palace with at least a nod to historical accuracy. And some armor that doesn't look like a parody of Roman armor mixed with a bad imitation of the props from Lord of the Rings.

The movie rushes along to the Big Action Scenes without taking any time for the characters. We didn't get to learn anything about what kind of personality Perseus had (sullen, apparently, judging by his perpetual expression), or even the names of the Praetorian Guards (Excuse me!? Praetorian guards were Roman!!!). They do yell their names at each other just before Medusa kills most of them, but by then it's too late to care. And what was the purpose of the Comedy Relief Duo? Did they have more scenes on the cutting room floor? The Rifftrax guys dubbed them Curlius and Larricles, which I found pretty amusing, but the two characters didn't even get to do something as stupid as the Stooges. Their appearance in the film was completely pointless.

The Djinn was visually interesting and I liked him, but he didn't belong in this movie, nor did the Babylonian ruins the warriors suddenly stumbled into when they encountered Calibus, or the crazy cultist who looked like Hindu Brahmin priest. Greek mythology is full of wonderful creatures the filmmakers could have used. Maybe they were hesitant to do centaurs and satyrs because they thought those creatures are too closely associated with the Narnia movies. But there are plenty of other creatures they could have chosen from. The colossal scorpions looked really cool, very D&D-esque, but they moved badly and took up too much screen time. The warriors could have walked to Stygia faster than the scorpions carried them.

I was disappointed that the film provided no reason for Pegasus to bond with Perseus, and how did Perseus know how to ride, anyway? He was a fisherman! At least the filmmakers took the time to have someone teach him a little swordsmanship, but no one taught him to ride. He also found Pegasus and the magic sword too early and too close together in my opinion.  It removed any sense of challenge from the discovery of these two divine gifts.

The Stygian witches looked like they had been lifted from a Guillermo del Toro movie. But despite the appealing visuals, the entire sequence in the Underworld was very disappointing. The filmmakers took 'underworld' literally and made it all subterranean, which is acceptable, but they seem to have forgotten that the Greek Underworld was the land of the dead. Not a single dead soul made an appearance, and Charon didn't nothing but look creepy. It was really boring until they fought Medusa. Medusa's appearance was impressive , though I don't know why the designers felt compelled to put both a rattle and a sting on the end of her tail - which she then didn't make use of.  Why would a creature who can petrify her vicitims merely with her gaze need to poison them with a sting, and why would she want to warn her prey by rattling?

Similarly, why did the Kraken need to have so many teeth? Biology aside, a turtle that big complete with tentacles the size of the Alaska pipeline would be plenty scary without needing a mouthful of fangs. And why, oh why must every monster start its first appearance by roaring at everything? It's become such a cliche.

There were also a couple of scenes where it was very obvious that shortcuts were taken. After the scorpion battle the warriors walk down a slope of what looks like stacked stone. Then they meet the djinn and travel back down the same slope again, even though they should have been at the bottom of it by that point. Later, when Perseus is talking to the Stygian witches, Io warns him against asking too many questions of them. A minute or two later she does it again, and it's clearly the same footage. One wonders why they felt it necessary to pad this scene by reusing footage, when they could have padded the movie elsewhere with scenes of more character development and made it a slightly better film.

Speaking of Io, apparently the curse of agelessness was accompanied by the blessing of perfect cleanliness, as one of my fellow viewers pointed out. I might have suggested that was a special feature of being touched by the divine, like Zeus's sparkly armor, but Perseus is constantly dirty, as is Hades. Ralph Fiennes (Hades) and Liam Neeson (Zeus), by the way, were wasted in this movie. All the other gods are wasted, too; you don't even get to know who's who, they're just a bunch of people in shiny outfits standing in the background while Neeson and Fiennes walk through their roles. I can imagine the director telling Fiennes to say his lines just like Voldemort, which was a disservice to a fine actor who could have brought so much more to the role, and transformed a fascinating mythological character into just another hissing megalomaniacal villain.

This was just a very disappointing movie. I'm glad I saw with the Rifftrax version. The Riffers were in fine form and kept me and the dozen other people I was watching it with laughing consistently throughout. I don't think it's worth watching without the Rifftrax. It has some evocative visuals, especially from the perspective of a D&D game, but that's about all it offers. Despite all the sound and fury, it lacks the gravitas I'd like to see in a movie based on one of the classic hero tales.

My Chinese story, Chapter 3 part 1

Chapter 3 is longer, but my teacher hasn't finished correcting it yet.  This is the portion that has been corrected so far.

第三回: 苍鹭的故事

苍鹭的伤又多又严重。那个老人把他从地上抱起来以后，他晕过去了。后来他醒过来的时候，他不知道他在哪儿，也不知道这是什么地方。那个地方非常黑，但是他可能听水的声音。他不能动，也不能说话。他只能躺在哪儿。他渐渐得明白了他在一个洞里。

那个老人来看苍鹭的时候，他没说什么。他就是好好地照顾苍鹭。那个老人

给苍鹭吃药，吃饭，还有他把他的伤都治了。苍鹭不知道为什么那个老人想帮助他。他想了一想，可是还不想去一个原因。

苍鹭复原了一点以后，他又可能说话，所以他跟那个老人说，“谢谢，前辈。我不知道怎么报答你。“那个老隐士说，“不用谢。”苍鹭有一点讶异，因为他觉得那个老人一定是哑巴。苍鹭问他，“请问，前辈，为什么你以前没说什么？”那个老人没有答回他。

因为苍鹭还有伤，他不能走路，得住在那个洞里面。那个老人告诉他，“我教你内功，帮你养好伤。“苍鹭没想到那个老人也是一个功夫高手。他心里想，要是我可以请这个老隐士帮我一点，我就能救我的兄弟葱绿刀了。哪有多好啊！

Cānglù de shāng yòu hěn duō yòu yánzhòng. Nàge lǎorén bǎ tā cóng dìshang bàoqǐlai 

Heron's injuries were many and serious.  After the old man picked him up off the ground, 

yìhòu, tā yūnguòqùle. hòulái tā xǐngguòlái de shìhou tā bù zhīdào tā zài nǎr, yě bù zhīdào zhè shì shénme dìfang.

he fainted.  Later when he woke up, he didn't know where he was, and didn't know what kind of place he was in.

Nàge dìfang fēicháng hēi, dànshi tā kěnéng tìng shuǐ de shēngyīn. Tā bùnéng dòng yě 

The place was very dark, but he could hear the sound of water.  He couldn't move and 

bùnéng shuōhuà. Tā zhǐnéng tǎng zài nǎr. Tā jiànjiànde míngbaile tā zài yīge dònglǐ.

couldn't speak.  He could only lie there.  Gradually he realized he was inside a cave.

nàge lǎorén láikàn cānglù de shìhou, tā méi shuō shénme. tā jiù shì hǎohǎo de zhàogu 

 When the old man came to see him, he didn't say anything.  He only took care of Heron.

cānglù. nàge lǎorén gěi cānglù chīyào, chīfàn, háiyǒu ba tāde shāng dōu zhìle. cānglù 

The old man gave Heron medicine and food and also cared for his wounds. 

bù zhǐdào wèishénme nàge lǎorén xiǎng bāngzhù tā. tā xiǎngle yīxiǎng, kěshì hái bù xiǎng qù yīge yuányīn.

Heron didn't know why this old man wanted to help him.  He thought about it, but he couldn't think of a reason.

cānglù fùyuánle yīdiàn yìhòu, tā yòu kěnēng shuōhuà, suǒyǐ tā gēn nàge lǎorén shuō, 

When Heron had recovered a little, and he could speak again, he said to the old man,

“xièxie qiánbèi. wǒ bù zhīdào zěnme bào nǐ.” nàge lǎo yǐnshì shuō, “bùyòngxiè.” cānglù 

"Thank you, elder.  I don't know how to repay you."  The old hermit said, "There's no need for thanks."

yǒu yīdiǎn yàyì, yīnwèi tā juéde nāge lǎorén yīdìng shì yǎba. cānglù wèn tā, 

Heron was a little surprised, because he felt the old man must be mute.  Heron asked him,

"qǐngwèn,qiánbèi,wèishénme nǐ yǐqián méi shuō shénme?" nàge lǎorén méi yǒu huìdā tā.

"May I ask, elder, why you didn't say anything before?"  The old man didn't answer him.

yīnwèi cānglù hái yǒu shāng, tā bùnéng zǒulù yě děi zhù zài dòng lǐmiàn. nàge lǎorén 

Because Heron was still injured, he couldn't walk around and had to stay inside the cave.  The old man

gàosu tā, “wó jiào nǐ nèigōng, bāng nǐ yǎng hǎo shēng.” cānglù méixiǎngdào nàge lǎorén yě 

told him, "I'll teach you an internal energy method, it will help your injuries."  Heron hadn't expected this old man 

shì yīge gōngfu gāoshǒu. tā xīnli xiǎng, yàoshi wǒ kěyǐ qǐng zhège lǎo yǐnshì bāng wǒ yīdiǎn, 

was also a master kungfu practitioner.  In his heart he thought, if I can ask this old hermit to help me out a little bit, 

wǒ jiù néng jiù wǒde xiōngdì cōnglù dāo le. nǎ yǒu duō hǎo ā!

I'll be able to rescue my brother Verdant Blade.  That would be great!

My Chinese story part 2

第二回: 苍鹭的故事

Chapter 2: Heron's Story

苍鹭在璀璨黎明派的时候，炯炯头领请几个武林的人都去璀璨黎明派

Cānglù zài Cuǐcan Límíng Pài de shíhou, Jiǒngjiǒng tóulíng qíng jíge wǔlín de rén dōu qǜ Cuǐcan Límíng Pài

While Heron was at the Resplendent Dawn School, Headmaster Shining Eye invited some martial artists to the Resplendent Dawn School

跟璀璨黎明派的弟子比武。很多客人们来到璀璨黎明派。客人们包括石龙教的弟子。

gēn Cuǐcan Límíng Pài de dìzǐ bǐwǔ. Hén duō kèrénmén lái dào Cuǐcan Límíng Pài. Kèrénmén bāokuò Shílóng Jiào de dìzǐ.

to complete in martial arts with the Resplendent Dawn disciples.  Many people came to the Resplendent Dawn School.  The guests included disciples from the Stone Dragon Sect.

石龙教的将人叫无敌龙。无敌龙将人想要让武林人都＇顺我者昌逆我者亡＇,

Shílóng Jiào de jiàngrén jiào Wúdí Lóng. Wúdí Lóng jiàngrén xiǎngyào ràng wǔlínrén dōu 'shùn wǒ zhě chāng nì wǒ zhě wáng',

The leader of the Stone Dragon Sect was called Invincible Dragon.  Invincible Dragon wanted all the martial artists to 'submit to him or die', 

他真的想跟皇帝一样。他的弟子对璀璨黎明派的弟子很不客气。

tā zhènde xiǎng gēn huángdì yīyàng. Tāde dìzǐ duì Cuǐcan Límíng Pài de dìzǐ hěn bù kéqi. 

he really wanted to be just like an emperor.  HIs disciples were very impolite to the Resplendent Dawn disciples.

石龙教弟子跟璀璨黎明派弟子比赛功夫的时候，石龙教的弟子都做鬼。

Shílóng Jiào dìzǐ gēn Cuǐcan Límíng Pài dìzǐ bǐsài gōngfu de shíhou, Shílóng Jiào de dìzǐ dōu zuòguài.

 When the Stone Dragon disciples competed with the Resplendent Dawn School disciples, they all used dirty tricks.

比武之际，葱绿刀跟一个石龙教的弟子赛功夫,

bǐwǔ Zhījì, Cōnglǜ Dào gen yīge Shílóng Jiào de dìzǐ bǐsài gōngfu, 

During the contest, Verdant Blade competed with a Stone Dragon Sect disciple, 

石龙教的弟子往葱绿刀身上甩毒药的针试图让他受伤。

Shílóng Jiào de dìzǐ wǎng Cōnglǜ Dào shuǎi dúyào de zhēn shìtú ràng tā shóushāng.

and the Stone Dragon disciple threw a poisoned needle at Verdant Blade and tried to injure him. 

苍鹭看到了那个东西，因为他跟葱绿刀有八拜之交,所以他阻断那个毒药针，

Cānglù kàndàole nǎge dōngxi, yīnwèi tā gēn Cōnglǜ Dào yǒu bā bài zhī jiāo , suǒyǐ tā zǔduàn le nǎge dúyào zhēn, 

 Heron saw this thing, and because he and Verdant Blade had sworn an oath of brotherhood, he intercepted the poisoned needle,

可是毒药针伤他，他中毒了，也生病。他生病的时候，他觉得很乱,

keshi dúyào zhēn shāng le tā, tā zhòngdú le, yé shēng bìng. Tā shēng bìng de shíhou, tā juěde hěn luán,

but the poisoned needle injured him and made him ill.  While he was ill he felt very confused,

也很不好意思。他让轻风很生气，也让冬月生气。后来他不知道怎么办。

yé hěn bù hǎo yīsi. Tā ràng Qīng Fēng shēngqì, yé ràng Dōng Yuè shēngqì. Hòulái tā bù zhǐdào zěnme bàn.

and also very embarrassed.  He made Gentle Breeze angry, he also made Winter Moon angry.  Later he didn't know what to do about it.

比武完了以后，苍鹭看到了一个很奇怪的事情，他看到了四个石龙教的

Bǐwǔ wánle yìhòu, Cānglù kàndàole yīge hěn qíguài de shìqíng, tā kàndàole sīge Shílóng Jiào de 

After the contest finished, Heron saw a strange thing, he saw four Stone Dragon Sect disciples 

弟子绑架了葱绿刀。苍鹭追不上他们。

dìzǐ bǎngjiá le Cōnglǜ Dào. Cānglù zhuī bù shàng tāmen.

kidnap Verdant Blade.  Heron couldn't catch up with them.

后来他无意中地找到了他们的安营的地方。可是苍鹭不敌那四个人，

hòulái tā wúyìzhōng de zhàodàole tāmende ānyíng de dìfang. Kēshì Cānglù bùdí nǎ sīge rén,

later he unexpectedly found their campsite.  But Heron was no match for those four people,

他们抓住他还重重的殴打他。苍鹭的伤非常严重。

tāmen zhuāzhù tā hái zhòngzhòng de ōudà tā. Cānglù de shāng fēicháng yánzhòng. 

they captured him and severely beat him.  Heron's injuries were very serious. 

他躺在地上，觉得不行了。那时，一个白色头发的老男人来，救他。

Tā těng zài dìshàng, juěde bù xíng le. Nǎ shi, yīge báise tóufa de lǎo nán rén lái, jiù tā. 

He lay on the ground and felt like he was about to die.  Just then, a white-haired old man came and saved him. 

请看下回分解。

qíng kàn xià huí fēn jiě

to be continued

My Chinese story

This is a story I've been writing for Chinese class.  The story is a summary of a novel I'm working on (in English).  To avoid spoilers, I've changed some of the details.  Below is part 1.

苍鹭的故事

Heron's Story

从前在一个遥远的国家有一个男人叫苍鹭。 他跟他的爸爸一起遨游，

Cóngqián zài yīge yáoyuǎn de guǒjiā yǒu yīge nán rén jiào Cānglù. Tā gēn tāde bàbà yīqī áoyóu,

Long ago in a faraway country there was a man named Heron.  He and his father wandered around,

帮助人们，也做英雄的事。 但是他的妈妈不跟他们一起遨游,

bāngzhù rénmen, yé zuò yīngxióng de shì. dànshi tāde māma bù gēn tāmen yīqī áoyóu, 

helping people and doing heroic things.  But his mother didn't travel with them, 

因为苍鹭两岁的时候，他的妈妈离开，再也没回来。苍鹭不知道他的

yīnwèi Cānglù liǎng suì de shíhou, táde māma líkāi, zài yé méi huí lái. Cānglù bù zhīdào tāde

because when Heron was two years old, his mother left, and didn't return.  Heron didn't know 

妈妈在哪儿, 也不知道怎么找妈妈。

māma zài nǎr, yé bù zhīdào zěnme zhǎo māma.

where his mother was, and didn't know where to find her.

一天苍鹭的爸爸出去以后，也没回来。苍鹭想要找爸爸，不过不知道怎么办。

Yītiān Cānglù de bàba chūqù yǐhòu, yé méi huí lái. Cānglù xiǎngyào zhǎo bàba, bùguò bù zhīdào zěnme bàn.

One day Heron's father went out, and he also didn't return.  Heron wanted to find his father but he didn't know what to do.

他在这儿里找过爸爸，在那儿里找过, 那儿都没有找到爸爸。

Tā zài zhèr lǐ zhǎoguò bàba, zài nàr lǐ zhǎoguò, nàr dōu méi yǒu zhǎodào bàba.

He looked here and he looked there, but he couldn't find his father anywhere.

苍鹭找爸爸的时候， 他见到了两个人，一个是男的，叫葱绿刀，

Cānglù zhǎo bàba de shíhou, tā jiàndào le liǎngge rén, yīge shì nánde, jiào Cōnglǜ Dào,

While Heron was looking for his father, he met two people, one was a man called Verdant Blade,

一个是女的，叫冬月。 他们都是璀璨黎明派的弟子。

yīge shì nǚde, jiào Dōng Yuè. Tāmen dōu shì Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài de dìzǐ.

 one was a girl named Winter Moon.  Both of them were disciples of the Respledent Dawn School.

葱绿刀真像苍鹭。 冬月是很漂亮的美人。

Cōnglǜ Dào zhèn xiàng Cānglù. Dōng Yuè shì hěn piàoliang de měirén.

Verdant Blade looked a lot like Heron.  Winter Moon was a very pretty young lady.

苍鹭非常喜欢那两个人。 葱绿刀也很喜欢苍鹭。

Cānglù fēicháng xǐhuan nà liǎngge rén. Cōnglǜ Dào yé hěn xǐhuan Cānglù.

Heron liked these two people very much.  Verdant Blade also really liked Heron.

苍鹭和葱绿刀马上成朋友。 不过开始的时候冬月有一点不喜欢苍鹭。

Cānglù hé Cōnglǜ Dào mǎshàng chéng péngyou. Bùguò kāishǐ de shíhou Dōng Yuè yǒu yīdiar bù xǐhuan Cānglù.

Heron and Verdant Blade immediately became friends.  But at first Winter Moon disliked Heron a little bit.

葱绿刀请苍鹭跟他们一起去璀璨黎明派的房子见他的爸爸。

Cōnglǜ Dào qíng Cānglù gēn tāmen yīqī qǜ Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài de fàngzi jiàn tāde bàba.

Verdant Blade invited Heron to come with them to  theResplendent Dawn School  to meet his father.

他的爸爸是璀璨黎明派很有名的头领, 叫炯炯。

Tāde bàba shi Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài hěn yǒumíng de tóulíng, jiào Jiǒngjiǒng.

His father was the Resplendent Dawn School's headmaster, Shining Eye.

璀璨黎明派的房子在璀璨山上。 他们三个人到璀璨黎明派的房子去的时候，

Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài de fàngzi zài Cuǐcàn Shān shàng. tǎmen sānge rén dào Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài de fàngzi qù de shíhou, 

The Resplendent Dawn School was on Resplendent Dawn Mountain.  When the three people arrived at the Resplendent Dawn School, 

炯炯头领很高兴地认识了苍鹭, 可是葱绿刀的妈妈不要见他，

Jiǒngjiǒng tóulíng hěn gāoxìng de rénshi le Cōnglù, kēshì Cōnglǜ Dào de māma buyào jiàn tā, 

Headmaster Shining Eye was very happy to meet Heron, but Verdant Blade's mother didn't want to meet him, 

他不知道为什么。

tā bù zhīdao wèishénme.

he didn't know why.

苍鹭在璀璨黎明派的时候他见到了葱绿刀的堂妹，叫轻风。

Cānglù zài Cuǐcàn Límíng Pài de shíhou tā jiàndào le Cōnglǜ Dào de tángmèi, jiào Qīng Fēng. 

When Heron was at the Resplendent Dawn School he met Verdant Blade's cousin, named Gentle Breeze. 

她是很漂亮的美人。因为轻风很喜欢葱绿刀，所以她也喜欢苍鹭。

Tā shì hěn piàoliang de méirén.Yīnwèi Qīng Fēng hěn xǐhuan Cōnglù Dào, suǒyǐ tā yě hěn xǐhuan Cānglù.

She was a very pretty girl.  Because Gentle Breeze really liked Verdant Blade, she also liked Heron.

可是这样的事让冬月很生气。因为她暗暗地很喜欢苍鹭,所以她对轻风很嫉妒。

Kèshi zhèyàngde shí ràng Dōng Yuè hěn shēngqì. Yīnwèi tā ànàn de xǐhuan Cānglù, suǒyǐ tā duì Qīng Fēng hěn jídù.

But this business made Winter Moon angry.  Because she secretly liked Heron, she was jealous of Gentle Breeze.

另外苍鹭爸爸出去的以前他给儿子一本功夫的秘笈。

Língwài Cānglù bàba chūqù de yǐqián tā gěi èrzi yīben gōngfu de mìjí.

Furthermore before Heron's father went away he had given his son a secret kungfu manual.

冬月看了那本书，因为那本书像璀璨黎明派的功夫秘笈，

dōng yuè kànle nǎbēn shū, yīnwèi nǎbēn shū xiàng Cuǐcan Límíng Pài de gōngfu mìjí,

Winter Moon saw the book, and because the book looked like the Resplendent Dawn School's kungfu manual,

所以她觉得苍鹭偷了璀璨黎明派的书。后来，苍鹭跟冬月发生过很多误会。

Suǒyǐ tā juěde Cānglù tōu le Cuǐcan Límíng Pài de shū. Hòulái, Cānglù gēn Dōng Yuè fāshēngguò hěn duǒ wùhuì.

so she thought Heron stole the Resplendent Dawn School's book.  Afterward, Heron and Winter Moon experienced many misunderstandings.

Banging My Head Against the Great Wall of Chinese

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I am learning Chinese.  I've been studying how to speak Mandarin Chinese for about two and a half years, and for the past year I've also been learning to read and write Chinese characters. 

More than a year of studying a foreign language sounds like a fair amount, doesn't it?  I should be able to go to China and talk to people, shouldn't I?  But I think most Chinese learners would tell you that you can't go to China and function with your Chinese language skills until you've been at it for three years or more.  My current Chinese language skills are probably equivalent to a second-grader.  I can only talk about concrete things, nothing abstract.  I don't know the words for thousands of objects.  I know how to write the characters for even fewer words, and reading something like a restaurant menu is well beyond my current capability. 

Another writer has written a much longer and more thorough description of how hard it is to learn Chinese.  If you're interested in the perspective of someone who's been studying the language much longer than I have, try this:  Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard

But here's my perspective as someone who's only been struggling with it for a short time.  Yes, Chinese is hard.  Its' writing system, grammar, syntax and pronunciation are all very different from English or other Indo-European languages.  Let's start with the basics. Chinese is a tonal language.  What does that mean?  It means that the tone with which you pronounce the words is important to their meaning.  For whatever reason, Chinese developed far fewer phonemes - the sound units that make up the core of the language - than languages like English. 

To make up for this limited selection of phonemes, the Chinese added tonality to their languages as part of the sound/meaning combination.  In English, tone usually is used for emphasis and emotional content.  Saying "What?" with a tone of surprise and alarm is different than saying it with a tone of indifference, or one of impatience, but regardless of tone the word is still an interrogative with the same essential meaning.  But in Chinese if you say the phoneme "shi" with the fourth tone, sharp and descending, it might be the shi that represents all the tenses of "to be".  If you say it with the second  tone, a rising tone that sounds a bit like a question in English, it could be the sound of the number 10.  But there are a lot of "shi" phonemes in Chinese, and many of them use one of those tones.  You can really only know which meaning is being used by the context - or by seeing it in writing, because they'll look completely different.

I don't find the tones as challenging as some of my fellow students.  I don't know why it comes easier to me, but that doesn't really mean it's easy.  Especially when listening to native speakers speaking Mandarin Chinese, it's a real challenge to figure out which word they're saying.  To make it even harder, Chinese uses sounds we don't have in English.  There's a sound very similar to the German ö (which is easy for me, since I took German for several years in high school).  There's also a HSH sound, a sound sort of like J but not as sharp and made with the molars held a little farther apart, and a sound sort of like "woo" that follows a consonant ( i.e. "lwoo", "ywoo").  It's hard for an English speaker to wrap her tongue around some of those sounds.

Then there's the way all this is represented in a form an English reader can understand.  The method of transcribing Chinese language into the English alphabet is called pinyin romanization.  There have been numerous different methods of pinyin developed.  The current one is known commonly as Hanyu pinyin.  Hanyu is pinyin for "language of the Han people", the Han being the dominant ethnic group in China.  Hanyu pinyin uses English alphabet to represent those odd sounds I described above, so to learn to read it you first have to throw out a lot of what you know about how English letters are pronounced.  The HSH sound is represented as X in pinyin, so you have to remember that when you see an X in a pinyin word, it doesn't sound like KS or Z as it does in English.   An A in pinyin never sounds like the A in bake.  It always sounds like the A in all.  An E never sounds like the E in end; it sounds more like the U in under.  Don't ask me why it isn't just represented by U.  C doesn't sound like K or S, it sounds like TS.  There was a previous version of pinyin, Wade-Giles Pinyin, that actually used TS to represent that sound, but for some reason that pinyin method has fallen out of favor. So Chinese language learners now must struggle to put aside everything they've learned about pronouncing the alphabet in English when they start to use that alphabet to learn Chinese.

Now that I've dealt with some of the difficulties of speaking Chinese, let's go on to reading and writing it.  When you know the English alphabet and general rules of pronunciation, you can figure out how to say a word you've never seen before.  But Chinese characters generally don't have anything to do with pronunciation.  They're all about meaning.  My Chinese teacher would probably disagree somewhat with that statement, but I think it's largely true.  Sometimes the strokes in the character do represent something about the pronunciation, but not always.  How does a student of Chinese learn that 就 and 九 are both pronounced jiu (jyoe)?  You just have to memorize them.  And then you have to memorize that the first one is pronounced with the fourth tone, and the second one is third tone.

Writing is a challenge, too.  As you can see from the above example, some of the characters have a lot of marks.  就 doesn't really have that many.  Chinese characters can have anywhere from one stroke to more than 20.  You have to write them in the correct sequence, too.  Teachers can tell if you've done the wrong stroke order.  When you learn to write the English alphabet, you're taught to write the letters in a certain way, but most kids almost immediately start developing their own method of writing the letters.  After first grade, teachers usually won't penalize students for not using the original method, as long as they can figure out which letter the student was attempting.  But when you're learning to write Chinese characters, teachers will usually insist that you do it in the correct stroke order.  That's not to say that the Chinese don't have an equivalent to our cursive handwriting.  They do.  People learn how to take all those marks and write them in a faster method, without having to pick up the pen after each stroke.  It's nearly impossible to read it, in my experience.  It's like reading a doctor's infamously bad handwriting.  When my teacher makes corrections to my homework, it takes me a lot of effort to figure out what she's telling me.  I can really only read Chinese that is done in the equivalent of block printing.  

Chinese characters are made up of combinations of  things called radicals, which are sort of the building blocks.  I don't know the radicals very well, because the first teacher who taught me to read and write Chinese didn't go over the radicals.  Unfortunately, you need to know radicals to use a Chinese-English dictionary effectively.  You also need to know stroke number and type.  It took me a long time to figure that out.  Before I learned a little about these things, looking anything up in the dictionary was torturous.  Just as an example of the importance of radicals, look at these two characters:  快 and 块.  They're both pronounced kuai (kweye), with the fourth tone.  The first one means quick or fast.  The second one is commonly used as an indicator of monetary denominations, similar to the use of "dollar" in English.  If you write the wrong left-hand radical, it means something completely different.  

Then there's context.  Lots of Chinese words are contextual.  It's a much more contextual language than English.  The character/phoneme 就 is a good example.  It means a lot of different things, depending on context.  In some contexts it means "then", but it can also mean "immediately", "just", "only", "as early as", "to approach" or "move towards" something, "to accomplish", or "concerning", along with a whole list of other potential meanings.  It's a multi-purpose word.   As you can probably see, that means it's a challenge to read Chinese and get the meaning, since you have to puzzle out which usage is being employed in the context of the statement.  It took me over a year to read a book that had only eight chapters and was written at about a third-grade vocabulary level.

Just to make all this more fun, the Chinese have two different writing methods.  In Taiwan and Hong Kong, they write using traditional characters, which are the way the characters originally developed historically.  Traditional characters have more strokes as a rule.  But about 60 years ago the People's Republic of China (that's the mainland Communist country, for those who are geographically challenged) started using something called "simplified" characters.  Some of them are simpler; they reduced the number of strokes necessary to write the characters.  But the decision-making process about when to remove strokes seems to have been rather arbitrary, at least from my perspective.  The word canting, which means restaurant or cafeteria, is written like this 餐厅 in both traditional and simplified characters.  The first character has about 16 strokes.  So why didn't they reduce the strokes in that one?  Beats me. And once you start learning to read Chinese, you realize that you're probably going to have to learn both types of characters, because you can't limit yourself to reading printed materials from only one country.  Chinese teachers say you can learn to recognize the traditional character for something you already know in simplified, but I can't.  

So why, you may ask, do I want to learn this language, when it's so difficult and isn't going to progress my career or improve my life in a measurable way?  Because I like it.  It speaks to me.  It is hard, it is frustrating, but it's also immensely satisfying.  I may be 70 years old before I can read Journey to the West in the original language, but that gives me something to look forward to.  I hope I can continue learning Chinese for the rest of my life.  And maybe I'll be good enough at it eventually to make a career of it.  I'd love to be able to make a career of translating Chinese literature into English.  We're missing out on a lot of good reading.