News Box: Santa Clauses Past And Present And Content Theft
News Box: Santa Clauses Past and Present and Content Theft
© open-arms, shared under the permission of CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Life is a fascinating yet somber journey in which we see the Santa Clauses of our childhood in the mirror as we age and our younger, gift-begging selves in our own little elves as they grow bigger. No true Santa Claus, however, ever gifts stolen goods. Neither do we need to be conversant in the native language of Rudolph the Red-nosed to become more civil and considerate members of the global online community. Before you share content that does not originate from you on social media and other places, verify its source and check out guidelines on proper citation practices. If you have been nice and awesome so far, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANUKKAH or just a GREAT HOLIDAY SEASON!
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Necessity and Sufficiency
Even the most fervent critic of metaphysics must have pondered from time to time: what is the meaning of my existence to this world? Feeling hopeless about her prospects in grades-obsessed South Korea on the day of the college entrance examination, mathematically challenged highschooler Jang Dan-bi jumps into a rain puddle transporting her to a drought-stricken Joseon, where Sejong the Great…
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nothing has made me feel like an ancient grumpy crone more than the “using chatgpt for school is fine actually” sentiment among youths
Everyone else's reaction to The Acolyte: Not DEI again.
Your soapbending T-Rex: Moar, MOAR!
The following poems appeared in the episode broadcast on Tuesday:
1. The 21-st century time-traveling heroine, Hae Su, is mesmerized by a Goryeo prince’s beautiful calligraphy. What the family-loving and genteel man writes is a piece of prose titled “Home Again” by Six Dynasties Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, which describes the poet giving up his governmental post for a peaceful, simple life at his countryside home. (Original text | Translation)
2. As a confession, the prince gifts her “Bamboo Stalk Song,” a poem by Tang author Liu Yuxi that uses inconstant weather as an analogy for ambiguous love. (Original text | Translation – be sure to read the footnote)
3. Since modern-day Koreans are generally not as well-versed in classical Chinese, Su has to depend on his brother and wife (also her cousin) for the interpretation. This, of course, leads to some awkwardness and fury, which Su fails to notice. Then, ignoring the romantic undertones of the poem, she hilariously attempts to copy Goryeo official Kim Ji-dae’s poem on majestic and serene scenery, “Yugasa Temple,” as her response to the prince. Since no translation is available online, The Chair is supplying its own below:
瑜伽寺 유가사 (note that the Korean alphabet has not been invented then)
寺在煙霞無事中 (사재연하무사중)
亂山滴翠秋光濃 (난산적취추광농)
A mist surrounds the tranquil temple in the evening light
A jumble of green mountains and the marvelous sights of autumn beckon
雲間絶磴六七里 (운간절등육칠리)
天末遙岑千萬重 (천말요잠천만중)
Steep stone steps rise for six to seven miles into the clouds
Numerous layers of hills lie at the faraway horizon
茶罷松簷掛微月 (다파송첨괘미월)
講闌風榻搖殘鍾 (강란풍탑요잔종)
After sipping tea, one sees a new crescent hanging at the pine canopy
After a lecture, one hears lingering bell notes from the sleep chambers
溪流應笑玉腰客 (계류응소옥요객)
欲洗未洗紅塵踨 (욕세미세홍진종)
The streams must be laughing at the government official,
Who tries to but cannot wash away his worldly marks
(References: Naver, Apple Daily)
Su eventually settles on this reply: \^0^/
According to Apple Daily, the netizen who identified this poem noted that the current name for a temple which used to be called Yugasa is Donghwasa / 桐華寺. 桐華 is the name of the Chinese novelist who penned the book the show is based on. Readers may like to know that there is another Yugasa Temple, which retains its name to this date and has been associated with the poem. All the same, we are free to regard the coincidence as a cross-cultural tribute.
Similar plots can be found in Scarlet Heart, the 2011 Chinese drama adaptation of the novel. Most poignantly, the quick-witted, Chinese time-traveling heroine there struggles to pronounce the exquisite vocabulary used in letter writing in Qing China, finding herself as good as illiterate despite her education and white-collar background. In both cases, too, it may be one thing to read about polygamy and marriage between closely related individuals as a side note in history books, but another to see it simulated three-dimensionally, with actors viewers emotionally identify with. Time slip shows, clearly, provide excellent opportunities for examining how robust people’s connection to their ancestral past can or should be. On one side, there are the issues of lost heritage and pardoning historical figures for being products of their times. On the other, we have arguments for cultural pride in using language entirely of your own (for Koreans), heightened literacy rates brought about by simplified languages, and support for modern ethical sensibilities.
For more Sino-Korean and Chinese poetry, you are welcome to explore this site category or search for Kuiwon’s very informative WordPress blog, which The Chair has long wanted to introduce here. Kuiwon has also written at length about his thoughts on the issue of Chinese character usage in South Korea. His view, however, neither reflects nor contradicts this site’s.
One mistake in the Korean adaptation warrants notice. As the netizen reported, the story takes place in the AD 900s, but Kim Ji-dae lived from 1190 to 1266, so the writing Su copied from could not have been lying around. At least it is a romantic notion that a book traveled back in time with you—theoretically more romantic, perhaps, than being wooed by the husband of your sick cousin.
"No hearing is sharper than that which can hear silent soul-quakes and muted battle cries.
No sight is more acute than that which can see a real tomorrow where a beggar's child and a president's child have the same odds of receiving a maximally uplifting and productive education."
—Her Excellency Ilera, non-hearing founder of the Extratemporal Serenetics Habitat
100% Human-written. Not quite the last we're seeing of Ilera.
Deep Down Inside, Beneath the Clothes of Culture
Deep Down Inside, Beneath the Clothes of Culture
Logic broke down when a bare-bodied male philosopher locked eyes with a little cat in a bathroom. That was the scene Jacques Derrida painted of himself alongside a meditation on how the cat was behind him since it was before him. But more precisely, Derrida was referring to the animal world in general and how animality surrounds and pervades humanity since it precedes the emergence of humanity.…
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All the World's a Mimicry
All the World's a Mimicry
Forging human connections is like running a makeshift theater academy. At times, a man briefly stages in his head the turmoil ravaging another person’s mind. At times, he recalls and mentally rehearses scenes that have brought someone in those shoes a little cheer. Then he walks onto a visible stage, located wherever the other party can be reached, and re-enacts the soothing gestures that show…
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Omniposition—An ice dessert café inspired by Silent
Would Tsumugi say this? Bard is a mischievous ball that grows more and more humongous as you spellbindingly roll it along the contours of your mental snowscape. The latest offspring is Omniposition, an expression of the vision that kindred spirits will be able to see beyond all the clouds of differences in our daily lives and sense one another when so desired from anywhere. Spoilers ahead.
Food Menu
Tsumugi's Dreams: This is a milk confection made with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and peach sauce and topped with raspberries and a small music note. Found in numerous desserts, milk is primed for association with dreams as it contains the sleep-promoting molecules tryptophan and melatonin. This particular confection represents Tsumugi Aoba's dreams of a career in the music industry and of a life with Sō Sakura. The music note represents the collective wish for her dreams to come true.
Sō's Chocolate Cherry Sundae: This sundae is made with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and cherries, including a cherry on top. Chocolate is often associated with love and passion and has a rich and complex flavor, which can be seen as a metaphor for the beauty and complexity of music. In the drama, Tsumugi and Sō share a love of music, often listening to music together. The chocolate ice cream represents their love of music, and the whipped cream and chocolate sauce represent the sweetness of their relationship. The cherry on top represents the hope that they will one day be reunited.
Tsumugi's Strawberry Shortcake: This shortcake is made with strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, and fresh strawberries. It is a light and refreshing dessert that represents the beauty of the world around her.
Mint Ice Cream Float: The mint represents their hope for a fresh start.The mint ice cream is topped with club soda and a splash of chocolate syrup that symbolizes their sometimes awkward, sometimes sweet bonding over music after their reunion.
Snowy White Chocolate Mousse: This mousse is made with white chocolate, heavy cream, and egg yolks. It is light and fluffy, and it has a subtle sweetness that is perfect for a winter day. "It's quiet when snow falls." "It's noisy. You're noisy."
Snowy Berry Sorbet: This sorbet is made with fresh berries, sugar, and water. It is refreshing and tart. This is the sweet, hopeful Tsumugi on the first day of snow one winter.
Sun Marshmallows: This bowl of dessert is made with vanilla, milk and oranges. It is topped with a sun-shaped cookie, which is made with yellow sugar and sprinkles, and edible gold dust. Back in his college days, Tsumugi's sign language instructor glumly took on transcription volunteer work for the sake of his CV, only to melt at the sight of Sō's deaf friend's sun-like smile. It's a sad story if our aged selves will not remember that forever changed his life.
Drink Menu
Eternal Morning Smoothie: This smoothie is made with vanilla, yogurt and frozen apricots and bananas. J-rock band Spitz is heavily featured in the series. The colors of the smoothie represent the colors of Spitz's logo, and the whipped cream represents the band's music.
The Silent Gesture: This is a glass of transparent yet berry-flavored beverage served with a straw bent in the shape of a heart.
The Unspoken Agreement: This is a frozen drink made with ice, water, and the ordering customers' favorite fruit. It is served with a straw decorated with a small piece of paper with a message of reminder written on it. This frozen drink represents the unspoken agreement of friendship, the promise that we will be there for each other no matter what.
Design & Services
Blue silk and Japanese primrose welcome sign: Tsumugi is a type of silk fabric, while Sakura Sō (the order of the name in Japanese) means Japanese primrose, which in turn can stand for youth dreams and first love.
Sign language and translation software: Naturally, this is an inclusive café. But more than that, it does not content itself with starkly contrasting double standards for staff treatment and customer treatment. To facilitate smooth interactions with colleagues and customers who are deaf or hard of hearing, all staff members will be signed up for a comprehensive sequence of sign language courses and equipped with a speech-to-text translation app. The values and café reputation circulated as a result of staff turnover probably inevitable in most F&B outlets are likely to last longer than the most pleasant taste memory anywhere in the world.
Spitz music that is soft and instrumental: Yes, it exists. This will echo the couple's bonding over the J-rock band while creating a relaxing atmosphere that will not be too distracting for customers who are trying to talk. Lights in the translucent stems of the baby's breath decorations below will pulsate in natural shades of colors according to the music rhythms.
Shush! room: This would be a great place for customers who want to enjoy their ice cream in peace, as long as kid-reproached adults like Nana and Sō don't burst into complacent laughter over their signed conversations again. It would also be a great place for customers who are deaf or hard of hearing to feel comfortable by naturally blending in, if they need this type of quiet break from stares.
Knitted pastel and white furniture and rugs that are comfortable and inviting: These will make customers feel at home. Tsumugi's brother is into sewing.
Baby's breath decorations: Towards the end of the story, the five main characters gift and re-gift one another baby's breath flowers. Not all of them end up with who they want to end up with, but they can choose to turn their various corners of a romantic polygon into pulsating components of a life-giving, uplifting network.
Moon-shaped lamps which lighting is soft and calming: The lighting in the café should be soft and calming. This will create a relaxing atmosphere. The couple walk and share jokes viewers are not privy to under the Moon in the last scene.
https://href.li/?https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2261850/full/
↑『silent』最終話でかすみ草“花言葉”が話題に ヒゲダン「Subtitle」とセリフがリンク (Article on link between lyrics and baby's breath scenes)
Top image generated through WOMBO
The NI Series (2): Noble Idiocy and Ignoble Surgery
Admin’s Message: Here is the second installment of this more casual series of posts on the interaction between culture and drama writing. This time, 0kuo0 from C-drama blog Cfensi, whose ethnicity is Chinese, sees the noble idiocy trope as more of an instance of the literary tradition of exaggeration, rather than culture. He does not reject the trope altogether, but cautions against misuse of it.
written by 0kuo0
It is undeniable that the noble idiocy trope is sometimes linked to ideals such as Confucian values and concepts like love, loyalty, etc. but I am not sure if I would say they are intrinsic to those ideals.
I like to conceptualize it as more of a part of the artistic and literary tradition of exaggeration for dramatic effect. We see this successfully employed in various forms of art and it seems natural that this might be an extension of it. However, most of the time I start feeling like it is employed not for thought-out dramatic effect but due to examples of success in previous dramas and the pursuit of viewers and profits. These tend to make you feel like it was more of a cut and paste job. It feels rough and abused.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely those media forms that get it right and lead the audience to accept the triumph of symbolism of logic and a normal thought process and the fact that these types of media tend to ignite a rabid following is probably only encouraging their overuse. It is kind of like more recent but as of late, seems to be dying trend of having unreasonably conservative parents that run counter to the couple or main characters randomly dying near the end of sudden circumstances to make it “touching.” There are the successful examples and those that are just trying to ride the tail-coats of the trend.
You cannot say that such an interpretation is completely illogical because people are not perfect and we should not expect characters to be either. These “tropes” do tend to have a thought process behind them but the question for me is if it fits into the new story it was put in. Was the transplant something that would work or something going to cause an immediate rejection? Does it make the most logical sense in the new story and given the new dynamics? Sometimes no because the character personalities or story background is probably different and that would make this otherwise touching act seem really dumb like having some great sacrifice happen after having the characters know each other for years versus just a few weeks.
I guess my point is that it is usually something that is cherished when it is done right and has some reasonable backing or progression to lead us to it but there are those stories that simply insert dramatic elements without properly analyzing and building up the progression of the story to that point and that is when it tends to get tiresome and overused.
An energy economy intubated, intercepted and interrogated by its multiverse escape game, TikTok-addicted black holes, go-getting cerebral vampires and healing rice ball spirits. Originally an extension of The Asian Drama Philosopher (A-Philosopher)’s Chair, a site examining literature, art and ideas featured in East Asian series.
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