A Poem Translation

The Flowering Tree
By Xi Murong

So that we could meet
At the height of my beauty

For this
I prayed to Buddha for 500 years
I pleaded that we might meet in this life
And so he made me a tree
Growing by the way you would take

In the sunlight
Carefully blooming
Each petal my past life's desire

When you come by
Please carefully listen
To the quivering leaves
It is my yearning passion

And when you finally go
Without even a glimpse
My friend
Upon the ground behind you
Are not fallen petals but the fragments of my heart

Dead dogs

Several hungry puppies were suckling, but their uncaring mother went out into the cold of winter, and being still attached, the puppies froze to death.

-Story from a friend-

Super Doctor

June 11, 220 AD
Hubei, China

Does not give a f---

This guy named Hua Tuo is like the most amazing doctor ever. He can heal every single sick person and his methods never fail. One day he receives a house call to treat the arrow wound of a famous general named Guan Yu. Hua Tuo takes a look at the wound and gravely shakes his head, muttering, "The arrow has penetrated deep, and it was poisoned. Unless drastic measures are immediately taken, the entire arm will need to be amputated."

"What drastic measures?" queries Guan Yu.

"An operation so painful that I will have to prepare you for it by first erecting a large pole, linking a metal hoop around the pole, then sticking your arm through the hoop and binding it against the pole to make sure you don't pull away."

"The pole and hoop won't be necessary," says Guan Yu, who proceeds to sit down, enjoy a brew, and play chess with a friend, remaining utterly unfazed throughout the entire process, which involves removing the bandage, opening the wound, slicing away the infected flesh, exposing the bare bone, and finally creating a horrific sound by scraping away the poisoned portion of bone.

Guan Yu gets up, yawns, stretches out, and thanks Hua Tuo. Those in the vicinity are thoroughly impressed.

Breaking News

June 11, 2010
Henan, China

A bunch of photographers hire a model to sit naked on a rock so that they can practice their human figure photography. Suddenly, a mob of angry villagers appears, shouting and wielding sticks, led by an old man shouting "This is an immoral disgrace!" They attempt to attack the model, whom the photographers rally to protect.



"They do not understand art," claimed the photographers

Book Recommendation

Do you think clean energy is good for the environment? That the rise of agriculture was intentional? Or that technological progress has any potential for solving the current ecological crisis? Well, YOU ARE WRONG!

To find out why, as well as learning a variety of fascinating information on the important role of decomposition in healthy ecosystems, humanity's misguided attempts to harness nuclear energy, and the striking parallels between human and insect agriculture, read "The Spherical Mind," by Adam Oswald.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-spherical-mind/6347669

How to Trick the Strategist of A Rival Warlord Into Joining Your Side

The following story is excerpted from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous Chinese novel about warlords struggling for dominance over the nation following the fall of the Han Dynasty (about 200 CE).

Liu Bei and Cao Cao are two rival warlords vying for dominance in central China. Liu Bei is good and Cao Cao is evil (Moral ambiguity is not one of the novel's strong suites) Unfortunately, Cao Cao is way stronger. He has like 300,000 soldiers and Liu Bei has like a tenth that many.

So Liu Bei wises up and decides to even the odds by finding himself a good strategist. One day when he is out in the fields, some kid riding on a water buffalo tells him about a super smart guy named Xu Shu who lives in the area.




Liu Bei decides to go and persuade him to join the fight against Cao Cao. Unfortunately, Xu Shu is living somewhere off in the boonies precisely because he doesn't want to be pestered by warlords into joining their squabbles. Liu Bei finds him and pesters him to him join the squabble, to such an extent that he can no longer stand it and finally gives in.

Before long he is hatching and devising ingenious plans and strategies left and right. Cao Cao sends his subordinate general Cao Ren with a 50,000 man army to attack Liu Bei. This army gets totally owned due to the help of Liu Bei's newest strategist.

Cao Ren runs home and cries. Cao Cao is hella pissed. He captures Xu Shu's mom and asks her, nicely, to write a letter to her son persuading him to come over to Cao Cao's side. Xu Shu's mom responds by calling him bad names and throwing the ink tablet at him. Cao Cao is so pissed he almost orders her to be beheaded, but then he gets a better idea. Instead, he places her under house arrest and then tells his friend to go every day to her house with presents, pretending to pity her plight.

Every time she gets presents, she writes thank you notes, and after awhile Cao Cao and his friend have gathered enough thank you notes that they are able to imitate her style of calligraphy and thereby fabricate a letter from mom to Xu Shu telling him to come rescue her.

A distraught Xu Shu receives the letter and tearfully bids farewell to his new master, who is equally distressed to see him go. As they are parting for the final time, Liu Bei watches Xu Shu's horse disappear around the bend and angrily declares something to the effect of: "How I wish I could obliterate this forest, just to be able to keep Xu Shu in my line of vision for that little bit longer." It is a very moving scene.

Instead of being relieved to see him, mom is furious with Xu Shu for being duped by Cao Cao's tricks. She chastises him for believing a fabrication and abandoning a virtuous warlord for an evil one. The next day she hangs herself.

The End

The Old Man Under The Moon

During the Tang dynasty there is a dude named Wei Gu. By the ripe old age of 16 or so, he's supposed to be getting married, but he's too picky and keeps turning up his nose at all the eligible 14-year-old bachelorettes in town (when the average life span is 30, you gotta start pumping 'em out early).

One day a leering haggle-toothed matchmaker shows up at his door and starts showing him portraits of beautiful potential wives, but he will have none of it.

Portrait 1: "Her mouth is too big"
Portait 2: "Her eyes are too narrow"
Portrait 3: "I want someone literate"*

Anyway, Wei Gu is pissed about the matchmaking ordeal so he goes off for a walk to get that off his mind, and winds up somewhere outside the city, where an old dude with a big package on his back is sitting under the moon, reading a book.

Wei Gu's like, "What is that book?" and the old dude's like, "This is the marriage book. The names of everybody and who they will marry are written down here." Then he reaches into the package, pulls out a big bundle of red string, casts the string into the air, and lassoes Wei Gu around the left ankle as he's trying to walk away. He says, "Whenever a man and woman get lassoed by this red string, they will inevitably be destined to get married, no matter what." He goes on to inform Wei Gu that his future wife is the daughter of a vegetable seller outside the city.

Wei Gu visits the vegetable seller to see his future wife; unfortunately, she is a screaming, revolting three-year-old described as having "disheveled hair and an unkempt face" (peng tou gou mian). He gets so pissed that he pulls out his sword and slashes the toddler in the forehead.

Fourteen years later, Wei Gu is still unmarried because he's too picky. Some rich dude is like "Wei Gu you should marry my daughter" and Wei Gu is stoked because the guy is rich so he says yes but when he sees his new bride for the first time even though she is hot he is surprised because she's wearing some kind of flower ornament over her forehead, so he asks her why she's wearing it and she's like "cuz some horrible man slashed my forehead with a sword when I was 3" and suddenly Wei Gu recalls his terrible deed and confesses all to her and because she is a fictional product of the imagination she forgives him.

Later, Chinese people think that the story is really romantic and they decide that the old guy from the beginning of the story is actually the god of matchmaking, who they call "The Old Man Under the Moon" (Yue Xia Lao Ren).

I hope you have learned something today.

*I didn't make that part up*

Yet Another Blight in the History of the Whites

Well, I was aware that due to the racism, it was customary in the 1950s and 1960s for white singers such as Pat Boone to perform covers of music originally created by black people. But I just discovered this, which takes it to a whole new level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY28Unb3v0

How dare that Chuck Berry plagiarize the Beach Boys! Oh wait, this came out 20 years earlier, which would mean that...

Sigh...yet another blight in history of the whites.

(at least Chuck Berry successfully sued them)

Sensible Priorities

Members of the US government have been hemming and hawing for months over whether to reform health care, but they seem unanimous that we all need faster Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21sun1.html?hp

A Love Poem

Penned to one Courtney Swanson-Mellich:

Oh comely maiden
Fine and fair
A splendid jewel
How precious rare

Bubbly eyes
And lustrous hair
Your legs so smooth
Do you use Nair?

Like fire's her gaze
And ice her glare
At my heart strings
You gently tear

The misty air
Or a fragrant pear
Could ne'er compare
To the love we share

Potential Onion Article Headlines

It's no secret that I'm a great fan of The Onion. In fact, I've gone as far as trying to come up with my own potential Onion headlines:

Area Woman Not Just Another Pretty Face, Gorgeous Body, Incredible Hair, Stunning Curves

Nations Announce They're Tired of Providing Aid

Children These Days Don't Know How Hard They Have It

Personal Judgment Of Acquaintance Made Based On His Choice of Email Service Provider

All Forms Of Human Contact Being Saved For Marriage

5-Year-Old No Longer The Person He Was At 3

Things I Have Seen, Volume 2

A woman stooped over to wipe a dog's butt after it pooped.

(I'm sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, the moment you start wiping dogs' butts for them is when you officially relinquish your human being card.)

Things I Have Seen, Volume 1

A dog walking down the street on two legs - for over two minutes.

(After every ten steps or so, he would almost fall forward and put his front paws down, only to manage to pull himself upright again before he touched the ground. His owner strolled at a leisurely pace next to him, acting smugly oblivious to the fact of how well he had trained his little minion.)

Tip for Cooking Home Fries

A tip for making your home fries crispy on the outside while soft on the inside:

Before putting potatoes into the pan, first -

chop into chunks
lightly coat with olive oil
microwave for 5 minutes
freeze for 15

A New Facebook Application

I completed a couple test designs for a new Facebook application called "Actual Friends."

My new food pyramid

食物塔，余揚基版

Things Learned from Translating

My job as a translator can be rather dull at times, but every now and then I learn some interesting things. Today, I learned the following:

-Indonesia is home to one of the world's three major rainforests.
-Unfortunately, every year the rainforest is shrinking by a land area equivalent to two-thirds the size of Taiwan (36,000 km2, or 14,000 ft2).
-This trend is also threatening the orangutans which inhabit the forest.
-Some Taiwanese organizations are trying to help the problem by going there to set up conservation centers, which is great, but ummm...they claim the centers are going to:

'teach local residents that orangutans are a valuable asset...develop tourism...promote cultural events...use the internet, which transcends national boundaries, to bring the people of the world together as a force for benefiting the environment as well as our posterity.'

I really don't want to be too harsh on a organization that's trying to help the environment, but you'll have to pardon my cynicism if I find their goals a little naive, not to mention ethnocentric...

A Very Concise History of Taiwan

I recently read "The Concise History of Taiwan," because my dad gave it to me, and although it was not a very good book, I did end up learning some interesting stuff. For those of you who are uninitiated, here is a concise version of a concise history of Taiwan:

1. Long time ago: - Polynesian islanders drift to the Taiwan and settle there, becoming the island's first human inhabitants. Presumably, they are happy.

2. History begins.

3. 1500's: A bunch of Portuguese sailors sail by. One of them spots Taiwan and shouts out "Ilha Formosa," which means "beautiful island." He then immediately succumbs to scurvy and syphilis, collapsing on deck.

4. Early 1600's: The Dutch invade southern Taiwan. Conquest and and rampant resource exploitation ensue, but at least the people get to hear about Jesus.

5. About the same time: The Spanish invade northern Taiwan, then same as #4.

6. Mid-1600's: A Chinese rebel named Koxinga invades Taiwan. The Dutch and Spanish are owned.

7. Late 1600's: China invades Taiwan. Koxinga's grandson, the acting ruler, is owned.

8. Late 1800's: The first Sino-Japanese War breaks out. The first naval battle is miserable lost by the Chinese, whose empress squandered the national treasury to fund construction of, among other things, a lavish marble boat, resulting in the military being underfunded, resulting in a production mistake, resulting in the manufacture of cannonballs which were too large for the cannons, so that when they tried to shoot the Japanese, the cannonballs got stuck, blowing huge holes in their own ships and sinking them. China is owned and Taiwan is ceded to Japan.

9. World War 2: The Communists and Nationalists duke it out in China. Furious with the Communists for suppressing intellectuals and dissidents, the Nationalists flee to Taiwan, where they slaughter thousands of Taiwanese intellectuals and dissidents in what later becomes known as the 228 incident.

10. 1950's: Taiwan is in grave danger of being owned by Mao, but is saved by the Korean War, which causes America to provide it with vast amounts of military and economic aid in order to check the spread of communism.

11. 1960's: The Taiwanese decide they are more interested in manufacturing semiconductor chips than growing taro. They become noticeably richer.

12. 1970's: Chiang Kai-Shek dies and his son takes over, developing national infrastructure, building roads, and secretly being mocked for his thick Zhejiang accent.

13. 1980's: Li Teng Hui becomes president and initially institutes many significant democratic reforms. Later, he becomes grossly corrupt.

14. 1990's: Chen Shui Bian becomes president and initially institutes many significant democratic reforms. Later, he becomes grossly corrupt.

15. 2000's: Ma Ying-Jeou is becomes president based primarily on physical attractiveness. He proves too useless to institute reforms or steal money.

15. Somewhere in this general timeframe: Bubble tea is invented.

That's it for now! Hope you have learned something from this short history lesson!

All Movies Suck Nowadays Except Avatar, Which is Pretty Sweet

Recently I've been watching lots of movies, and let me tell you that they all suck, except for Avatar, which is pretty sweet.

Lots of people have been bitching about Avatar lately, but what other choices do you have at the theater? Hmm, let's see, if you are interested in how many mediocre actors can be crammed into one mediocre, hastily-slapped-together date movie which aims to exploit the holidays, you could watch Valentine's Day. If you feel that Johnny Depp in 79 different weird guises hasn't yet been enough, you could go see Alice in Wonderland. And if you enjoy seeing the classics mercilessly butchered, you can get a ticket to Sherlock Holmes, or even better, a new movie starring Chow Yun-Fat as Confucius IKIDYOUNOTITISREALDEARGODHOWHAVETHINGSCOMETOTHIS, which seems to me almost as ludicrous as if a movie had been produced about The Rock as a tooth-fairy, or Vin Diesel as a baby nanny. Oh wait.

Anyway, Avatar reminded me of when I was little and threw all my toys - the robots, dragons, airplanes, aliens, and knights - all into a big pile and started making them fight each other, only to have some cruel person come by and inform me that the battle scene I was creating was not only unrealistic but anachronistic. Luckily, nobody told James Cameron that. Say what you will about how the story is a Pocahantas rip-off that should be called "Dances with Smurfs," but I was downright enthralled by this movie. That isn't to say I didn't wince along with the rest of us at all the cheesy dialogue and romantic portrayals of the noble savage, but when Jake tames the dragon thing and then rides it down a sheer cliff face, I wanted to jump out of my seat and start cheering. Unfortunately, morbid obesity prevent me from doing so. Just kidding.

Anyway, in conclusion:

Pros: Visuals, special effects, and the fact that say what you will about how little story line it has, at least it was original (that is to say, it wasn't Twilight 2, Toy Story 3, Shrek 5, Harry Potter 9, or Spiderman 22)

Cons: Michelle Rodriguez.

An Introduction

Hello all,

My name is John Yu. I'm a 26-year-old American currently working as a translator in Taiwan, and my interests include Chinese literature, video games, and sustainability, as evident from my self-appropriated moniker.

At the suggestion of my sister, I have decided to start this blog, and plan to post book reviews, creative writing, the occasional musings, and perhaps whatever humorous or peculiar experiences I have.

Hope you enjoy!
John Yu
February 28, 2010