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6/7/13 22:22What is the word for eight minor, minor things all going wrong at the same time, so that even though very little is really awry, you feel entirely beset upon by little injustices?
A couple of years ago, at a bookstore in Chinatown, I picked up a Chinese book (when I was still kind of blundering about unseriously with Chinese). A version for children of the Cowherd and Weaving Girl story. Because I like the story; I've heard about it from manga, of course.
And it's actually really well done as a children's educational version, because it has:
1) phonetic symbols on all the characters (zhuyin rather than pinyin, which is an adjustment for me, but there aren't that many to learn)
2) a fairly simple range of vocabulary, so that I might need to look up only a couple words on a page
3) lots of glitter on the cover.
And I got to thinking it would be great if I picked up a couple more in that same series because CULTURE. There are a LOT of children's versions of folktales and classic stories, but a lot of them have too much obscure vocabulary, or they're way too long relative to what I can read, and most of them don't have any phonetic symbols. Which I still need, for sure. (I do have a children's "Journey to the West" with pinyin, and that same series has the other Great Novels -- Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Water Margin -- but the vocabulary is too advanced for me.)
The bookstore where I originally got the book just closed (it must have been within the last couple months.) The other largish bookstore in Chinatown doesn't have anything in that series, nor any children's classics that are anywhere near an appropriate level. (Maybe I should check Flushing, but oh, it's far.) BPL doesn't have anything. NYPL doesn't have that series, but if I can scrape out some time to go branch-hopping I may find something good later. I go on the publisher's website, I go so far as to register an account -- not knowing if they'll mail to a US address or charge a US credit card -- and oh, most of the series [read: all the ones that are stories I've heard of] is out of stock.
Really, this ought to motivate me to become SO AWESOME that I learn how to read all those books in the original, but classical Chinese is ... I won't say it's totally off the table for me, but it's definitely on the list of things I can do when I'm middle-aged and wildly successful.
The binding broke on one of my favorite cookbooks (Vegan Eats World) and all the pages are coming out, and FedEx has gotten three times as ridiculous, and my thermometer is measuring over 100 degrees in the kitchen. I am very much looking forward to a short workweek this week and the next.
A couple of years ago, at a bookstore in Chinatown, I picked up a Chinese book (when I was still kind of blundering about unseriously with Chinese). A version for children of the Cowherd and Weaving Girl story. Because I like the story; I've heard about it from manga, of course.
And it's actually really well done as a children's educational version, because it has:
1) phonetic symbols on all the characters (zhuyin rather than pinyin, which is an adjustment for me, but there aren't that many to learn)
2) a fairly simple range of vocabulary, so that I might need to look up only a couple words on a page
3) lots of glitter on the cover.
And I got to thinking it would be great if I picked up a couple more in that same series because CULTURE. There are a LOT of children's versions of folktales and classic stories, but a lot of them have too much obscure vocabulary, or they're way too long relative to what I can read, and most of them don't have any phonetic symbols. Which I still need, for sure. (I do have a children's "Journey to the West" with pinyin, and that same series has the other Great Novels -- Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Water Margin -- but the vocabulary is too advanced for me.)
The bookstore where I originally got the book just closed (it must have been within the last couple months.) The other largish bookstore in Chinatown doesn't have anything in that series, nor any children's classics that are anywhere near an appropriate level. (Maybe I should check Flushing, but oh, it's far.) BPL doesn't have anything. NYPL doesn't have that series, but if I can scrape out some time to go branch-hopping I may find something good later. I go on the publisher's website, I go so far as to register an account -- not knowing if they'll mail to a US address or charge a US credit card -- and oh, most of the series [read: all the ones that are stories I've heard of] is out of stock.
Really, this ought to motivate me to become SO AWESOME that I learn how to read all those books in the original, but classical Chinese is ... I won't say it's totally off the table for me, but it's definitely on the list of things I can do when I'm middle-aged and wildly successful.
The binding broke on one of my favorite cookbooks (Vegan Eats World) and all the pages are coming out, and FedEx has gotten three times as ridiculous, and my thermometer is measuring over 100 degrees in the kitchen. I am very much looking forward to a short workweek this week and the next.