hetalia | [Niconico] Two East Asia MADS

Hmm but in the mirror frame Yao is actually supposed to be there with Kiku... Most of the ending is showing the protagonist's past so...

~~sunflower samurai reminds me of Ivan though, I kept thinking I'd see him somewhere LOL~~

I'm not familiar with the anime itself so not sure but yeah the sunflower does remind me of Ivan.

You could make this into a Sino-Soviet split memories thing since it talks about memories of the past.

I went back and watched it and I got what you mean.Somehow I missed the fact that the black blob below was the back of Kiku's head. What do you think Yao is doing standing behind Kiku? Tying his own hair?

Though i think maybe the first frame is Kiku staring across the sea (towards Yao's direction?) and thinking about the past and then the rest of it are all memory sequences...

Anyway it's creepy :X I sort of have a phobia of mirrors in case I see something that's not supposed to be there behind me.

I watched Champloo so maybe I shouldn't say for fear of spoiling for people but based on the original characters' relationship, it could either be Kiku is somehow getting his hair done by Yao or Kiku poked his head in when Yao was messing with his own hair haha.

Gyah mirrors I have the same phobia, I can't look at them at night unless the lights are on and I refuse to have one in my room o_o

In Champloo, what are the two characters' relationship?

If I remember right, Chinese cover up mirrors when a person dies but I'm not sure why.Do you know?

I think I'm haunted by The Ring where the woman combs her hair in the mirror in the cursed videotape.

Haha it's a major big spoiler though! 簡単のことに、親子です。But it's a complicated relationship.

Apparently so no one sees the reflection of the coffin in the mirrors, if you see it then there will soon be a death in your family. Hmm I think this custom is out of date, no one keeps the deceased in their home in these days.

You seem to be very familiar with lotsa animes unlike me. I like the ED theme though, very sad.親子 ummm, not sure if Kiku and Yao can be described that way...

Mirror: You'll be surprised, that's what my relatives back in China did quite recently. The deceased was indeed kept in the house.

I watch too much anime >.< lol Yea those two as 親子 is strange in every way. Then again sometimes I think calling them brothers(even if symbolically) is a bit off.

In order to keep the body at home you'd have to have the proper rooms and house to accommodate it though. Your relatives must have one of those old traditional houses.

Well, in canon, it's Yao who insists that he's the older brother while Kiku resists it. In real life, it's a lot less fuzzy wuzzy....:x

Yeah, my relatives had a traditional house large enough for it. Maybe they're more old-fashioned back in Yao's land.

Just curious but you seem to be quite familiar with Chinese customs. Do you fly back to HK a lot or something?

We're not really close to the (mainland) Chinese side.I sort of envy the first gen/1.5 gen who's familiar and comfortable with both worlds.

Yea, in real life Yao wasn't really much of a brother nor wanted to be. It's just that other "siblings" seemed to look up to him.

I've never been to HK actually, all the times my parents went back they never brought me ;__; so I'm still saving up for it haha. Everything I know about Chinese customs, and that's not much, either comes from tv or what I hear from relatives.

All of my immediate family and relatives are all in Canada so we're also not too close to family in China or HK, just the phonecalls here and there. Hmm I've actually never thought about the divide between both worlds, though I definitely think it's more interesting to live in both. For me, I live in one and only hear about the other OTL

In real life, Yao and Kiku were separated by the sea so Yao didn't pay much attention to Kiku because he was too far off.I do know that an ancient gold seal granted to Wa Country was dug up in Kyushu. You can see it today in a museum there.At that point in time, Japan was not unified yet.

http://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/yayoi-era-yields-up-rice/lifestyle-and-society-of-the-land-of-wa/continental-connections-and-international-relations/

Actually, I had the impression most second-gen Chinese raised in the West can't speak Chinese.I've only been to HK once and never to China (they left me behind each time).All my immediate family is here too so I only live here. People fresh from China seem very alien to me. OTL

I went to HK a long time back but I wonder if the proportion of mainlanders has increased now? My strongest impression of HK was its homogeneity, everyone in the streets was Chinese! First time in my life I was in a totally "Chinese" place...I also got the same impression in Japan (everyone was Japanese except for me that is), everyone had black hair, dark eyes etc. So unlike home which has a mixed population...

I think people growing up in their ancestral countries must have very different self-images from those growing up abroad as minorities or immigrants...

Edit: Forgot to say I heard in HK, certain Chinese festivals are public holidays...I think the festival atmosphere must be a lot more 浓厚 (;_;)

It's kind of true, you can find a lot of Chinese who are born and raised in the west and either can't speak Chinese or speak it very very poorly(and have foreigner's accent)... But I think it really depends on their exposure to the language, if their family speaks Chinese to them from birth or not and their interest in Chinese culture. There's not really a need to speak Chinese in western countries so it's really a setback to learning the language. I don't use it much but thanks to Chinese TV and my parent's lack of enthusiasm for speaking English(I speak to them in English though XD) I can speak and understand enough Chinese(only Cantonese though) to get by should I get stuck in HK or somewhere. Reading and writing at a competent level is right now impossible though OTL

Since 1997 the number of mainlanders in HK is surely steadily increasing. There are still a lot of non-Chinese peoples living in HK though despite the homogeneity. I don't think I'd be too astonished by seeing Chinese everywhere I go. Chinatown is already like that lol. I also visit my relatives often in Vancouver and there's an area there so populated by Chinese it's nicknamed "little HK" lol.

Yes, I definitely agree with the self images statement. There's definitely more pride among China born and bred Chinese.

In HK I think all holidays that PRC observe HK observe. And then HK observes some extra ones that PRC doesn't. I think the reason why a lot of people return to China is to take part in the major celebrations such as lunar new year. It's definitely more fun over there.　In Canada, we all work when Chinese new years is going on ;__; but then we have Christmas >.

I don't really need to use Chinese in my daily life either though I have to speak Chinese to my parents.I don't listen to Chinese songs at all but lately, I found I seem to know a lot of oldies simply because my family likes Chinese TV/radio so I grew up having them in the background lol

Do you know Fei Yu Qing? lol His singing beats Jay Chou in this song lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPD8DSKN-h0&feature=related

I had zero interest in Chinese culture, hated reading Chinese novels for class and was in fact labeled "banana" lol

Yeah, HK observes more traditional holidays than PRC which only designated more holidays as public holidays recently. I really think HK is more traditional then mainland because they didn't undergo 文革. We can only dream about having the day off to celebrate 中秋节 here.

I was eavesdropping on a mainland Chinese BBS and some guy posted "Chinese should all emigrate to US., Europe etc. and take over the world peacefully that way with the sheer force of numbers!" It reminded me of Yao's scary obsession with setting up Chinatowns all over the world.

Haha Jay Chou, I don't get what the deal with him is. He mumbles when he sings. On top of that I can't understand much Mandarin so I don't think too highly of his singing lol. Despite not really understanding I used to listen to a lot of Leehom Wang(big fan!) and David Tao though.

Sigh... cultural revolution. If nothing else just this is enough to make me despise the PRC government. When I took some beginners Mandarin courses in highschool, the curriculum specified that Chinese courses are to be taught in the simplified writing system. This frustrated me to no end! Because they were beginner courses, most of the vocabulary were those I knew previously, but I had to learn them again in simplified just so I could read the textbook. In the end I didn't really get much from those classes except for proper pronunciations because all the Chinese newspapers and signboards where I live all use traditional style exclusively ;__; Not to mention IMO simplified style is quite ugly and can be confusing. (and then I'm also learning Japanese and sometimes their variations on writing kanji/hanzi really messes up my Chinese which was horrible in the first place :/)

It's not Yao's fault there are Chinatowns everywhere, his scattered children need them lol

I don't like Chou's mumbling either but I like his lyricist Vincent Fang.He writes very poetic classical Chinese inspired type lyrics.

Wang Lee-Hom? I only know this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igs788j02Os&feature=PlayList&p=34FEEA966973F761&index=44

There was an online debate about this song and some cynic said that if he's so proud of his heritage, he should trade in his American passport and go "home". The amusing thing about this song is that the main body of the song is about cultural icons in China like the Yellow River but the rap part actually mentions that his parents came from Taiwan. I think he's waishengren but...it seems to indicate that his root is still in China, not Taiwan or he will be singing about betel nut beauties,Sun Moon Lake or something...Also, 它 is used for China but because of Yao I think of China as 他 now XD

I'm your opposite, I was raised with simplified so I have trouble reading Hong Kong/Taiwanese websites. I think traditional characters turns into a blur on computer screens.I prefer writing my name in traditional though, it's prettier.Actually, I think learning Japanese has helped me read traditional (which was not what I was raised on) but I think Japanese kanji are a nice compromise (simplified but not too drastically). I wish the two countries can synchronize their kanji/hanzi, possible?

There's a funny comic about this:
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=big&illust_id=3937389

Speaking of the 親子　thing, I found this funny line in a news article.

"Although Japan has been culturally indebted to China since the Tang dynasty, somehow Japan has developed a strong Oedipus complex toward China—namely to commit patricide against its cultural patron."

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/college/coll-china-politics-007.html

So who's the mother?

Anyway, I came across this interesting bit about the whole "Shina" vs 中国 thing.

According to a Japanese commentator in 1983, "the belief that [China] is a culture that is the centre of the world is outrageous and anachronistic.A country befitting the former 中国 certainly does not exist today."...More specifically, it is "highly improper" for Japan to use 中国, a term that implicitly accepts China's superiority...Shina should now be used because Japan is a modern nation. It has liberated itself from the antiquity of the Chinese world order.

I think the meaning of 中国 has evolved over the years actually since it first appeared in Chinese historical records.Maybe it came from 中原? Some people say the modern day 中国 is just short form for 中华人民共和国.I don't have time to look it up now. Do you know?

My mother just ladled me a big bowl of wood ear fungus :p

I didn't know Koreans had to drink this stuff too lol

http://stuffkoreanmomslike.blogspot.com/2009/02/54-chinesekorean-herbal-medicine.html

I guess Yao must have made it for Yong-Soo when he was young lol

Oh that song. It's silly how people think you must trade in your passports just because you're proud of your heritage. That does not = love the for actual country. As far as I know, his parent's immigrated to US from Taiwan but they may have family in China. It is said his uncle wrote the Descendants of the Dragon song. Leehom tends to be really careful about leaning to or away from either the China or Taiwan side. He doesn't want to get banned from performing in China now XD

I think the way Japanese uses kanji and makes up their own is going to make it very difficult to synchronize lol. And I think some might not like that idea for political reasons.

lol Oedipus complex... the mom can be Taiwan... but wait that's not right o_O

China really was an arrogant country since the older days, but I don't really know how the modern day 中国 came to be.

木耳? Isn't that a cooking ingredient lol? It's supposed to be really cook for you, my mom makes a chicken dish with it.

Herbal medicine... a lot of people seem to be really scared of it lol. But compared to the taste of cough syrup, I'd take herbal medicine any day XD

Yong-soo was too hyper so herbal medicine should have calmed him down at least a bit >.<

I didn't know his uncle wrote the song but I read he only started learning Mandarin at age 18 which is really late. One has to respect that.Some people just like to grouse "Go back where you came from!" I guess. The flip side is some Chinese nationals think anyone who leaves China is a traitor (though I bet anyone will salivate over a foreign passport secretly, including me).

Teresa Teng and A-mei both ran afoul of the Chinese government before over the Taiwan thing.

There was actually some news about discussion of kanji/hanzi standardization amongst the kanji countries but I don't know what came of it. Surely, it's easier than standardizing history textbooks?

Oedipus: Nope, Taiwan is the little girl who fell in love with the neighbor next door though he's gay.And her older brother has gotten back stabbed by the neighbor before so he's not keen on her running away from home and trying to stalk the guy.

Mother: not sure who.

Yao's arrogance: I think he used to be overconfident but he's been raeped by so many countries since that he's suffering from PTSD and very insecure.I don't know what's gonna happen to him but I hope he doesn't implode. And seriously, he needs a break.

It's not easy to be Chinese whether you're living within or without Yao's house but I guess there are so many of us scattered around the world Chinese culture will survive somehow whatever happens....

I was reading some film theory today and it talked about two famous scenes in Bruce Lee movies, the one in which he broke a sign saying "Dogs and Chinese not allowed" and the one in which he challenged a Japanese dojo for describing Chinese as 东亚病夫。

I mean 白木耳。Looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_fungus

My mother cooks chicken with 黑木耳。It's different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricularia_auricula-judae

Yea, when he first started out he spoke Mandarin with an American accent lol But he is quite fluent now and can write songs in Chinese. I don't think those Chinese nationals who say such things really know how tough it was/is to live in China. There are some who return to China once they've upgraded their skills/education though. For someone like me who is born overseas, I don't have　the same attachment to want to live and work "for the betterment of China" though.

It would be really great if they could standardize kanji/hanzi.

Oh 雪耳! I've only ever heard it called by this name though. I've heard that if you cook with 雪耳, you have to eat it all because if you leave it for leftovers or even overnight, toxins will start releasing from it...

Well, lotsa 海龟 types and 1.5 gen do return. I think it's understandable to want to return if you're born there and received part of your education there but for those of us born abroad and brought up by other countries, we don't owe Yao anything.I mean we don't even have any memories of him?!

Though one does feel sympathy for Yao since in some Alternative Universe, I would be born there perhaps.Speaking of AUs, have you read this book?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312860986/ref=dp_proddesc_1/190-9307313-3967066?ie=UTF8&n=283155

It's a old scifi AU with China as Communist hegemon set in the future. The author's command of Chinese and hanyu pinyin sucks but it's pretty interesting. Though in reality a)I don't think homosexuals will be as oppressed in China in the future as depicted given that China Daily ran photos of gay rights activists in wedding gowns on the streets recently

b)China is not really Communist nowadays

I popped into an art gallery not so long ago and it was full of art by Chinese artists but all Communist kitsch....arghhh..

http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/11/yue-minjun-execution.html

I found this interesting Communist poster website.
http://chineseposters.net/themes/taiwan-liberation.php

Dunno if you've seen this. CCTV interviews Taiwanese Nobel prize winner Samuel Ting. He makes a dig over the KMT losing the mainland and running over to Taiwan. lol

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTI4NjQ0NDA=.html

He's named Ding Zhaozhong and his siblings are Ding Zhaohua and Ding Zhaomin lol He says if he had another sibling, he would be Ding Zhaoguo i.e. Zhonghua Minguo (Republic of China).

thx for hre vids! I don't know how I missed this one. I usually watch them the moment you post them up :/

[Niconico] Two East Asia MADS

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