ARTIST: Coco Lee (李美林) ALBUM: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon OST (臥虎藏龍) Translator: bloodredrosez, keep this credit if taking for use or reposting
Notes: I absolutely love this soundtrack. Even after listening and playing it for years, it never fails to send shivers down my spine. I prefer the Mandarin version of this song over the English, although both have nice lyrics basically with the same theme. Still, I feel like the Mandarin version is more depressing whereas the English lyrics are a little more hopeful, even exultant in the end. Maybe it’s because Hollywood has an aversion to death whereas very generally speaking, East Asian countries love it.
This is one of those songs with very simple lyrics that end up being really hard to translate because no matter what words are chosen, it seems like some of the feeling is lost. I think part of it is because the Mandarin is more profound. The language allows for fragments which encapsulate all these ideas in a few words/characters, whereas I end up having to use whole sentences that then sound childish and simplistic. (If you’ve ever tried to translate classical Chinese poetry, you know what I mean. Or even worked with haiku.) I want to draw your attention to the translator’s note for “eternal.” Those particular words evoke death, which shouldn’t be surprising given that sleep has been associated with death in every culture. The hard part is that with translation, you sometimes have to fix the meaning arbitrarily – for example, the title is literally “Moonlight Lover” and can be just that, but could also be more “moonlight’s lover” or even “lover of moonlight,” all of which subtly shift the meaning, you see? Anyway, I did my best, so leave comments if you have suggestions.
Oh yeah, the lines in parentheses are the ones that are spoken by the background vocals. And go Taiwanese pride for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award :]
月光愛人 | yue guang ai ren | Moonlight Lover (Traditional Chinese, pinyin, and English translation. English lyrics also available.) English Title: A Love Before Time
我醒來 睡在月光裡 wo xing lai / sui zai yue guang li I wake, having slept in the moonlight
下弦月 讓我想你 xia xing yue / rang wo xiang ni And the waning moon makes me think of you
不想醒過來 誰明白 bu xiang xing guo lai / shei ming bai I don’t want to awaken; who understands?
怕眼睜開 你不在 pa yan zheng kai / ni bu zai I am afraid of opening my eyes and seeing that you are not here
愛人心 沉入海 ai ren xin / chen ru hai The lover’s heart has sunk into the sea
帶我去 把它找回來 dai wo qu / ba ta zhao hui lai Take me there so I can find it again
請愛我 一萬年 用心愛 qin ai wo / yi wan nian / yong xin ai Please love me, for a thousand years, with your attentive heart.
〈愛是月光的禮物〉〈我等待天使的情書〉 ai shi yue guang de li wu / wo deng dai tian shi de qing shu (Love is the moonlight’s present / I wait for the angel’s love letter)
〈說你愛我〉 shuo ni ai wo (Say you love me)
我願為了愛沉睡 別醒來 wo yuan wei le ai chen xue / bie xing lai For love I am willing to be fast asleep, and not wake
永恆哪 在不在 yong heng na / zai bu zai That eternal* thing, is it here or not? //* figuratively the expression is “to pass into eternity,” e.g. to die
怪我的心 放不開 guai wo de xin / fang bu kai Blame my heart for being unable to let go
北極星 帶我走 bei ji xing / dai wo zhou North Star (Polaris), take me away
別躲藏 把愛找出來 bie duo cang / ba ai zhao chu lai Do not hide yourself, go seek out love
我愛你 每一夜 wo ai ni / mei yi ye I love you, every night
我等待〈等你〉 wo deng dai (deng ni) I wait here (waiting for you)
我的心 為了愛 睡在月之海 wo de xin / wei le ai / xue zai yue zhi hai My heart, for love, sleeps in the moon’s ocean
孤單的我 想念誰 誰明白 gu dan de wo / xiang nian shei / shei ming bai My lonely self, who am I missing (longing for)? Who understands?
〈我在月光下流淚〉〈也在月光下沉睡〉 wo zai yue guang xia liu lei / ye zai yue guang xia chen xue (Beneath the moonlight I cry, and beneath the moonlight I am fast asleep)
〈沒有後悔〉 mei you hou hui (without regrets)
等待真心人把我吻醒 deng dai zhen xin ren ba wo wen xing Waiting for a sincere person to kiss me awake
〈我在睡夢中一天〉〈也是在回憶中一年〉 wo zai xue meng zhong yi tian / ye shi zai hui yi zhong yi nian (I sleep in dream for one day, and sleep in memories for one year)
〈說你愛我〉 shuo ni ai wo (Say you love me)
我願為了愛沉睡 到永遠 wo yuan wei le ai chen shui / dao yong yuan For love I am willing to be fast asleep, for eternity.
* * *
English Lyrics - A Love Before Time (NOT a translation)
If the sky opened up for me, And the mountain disappeared, If the seas ran dry, turned to dust And the sun refused to rise I would still find my way, By the light I see in your eyes The world I know fades away But you stay
As the earth reclaims it due And the cycle starts anew We'll stay, always In the love that we have Shared before time
If the years take away Every memory that I have I would still know the way That would lead me back to your side The north star may die But the light that I see in your eyes Will burn there always
Lit by the love we have Shared before time
When the forest turns to jade And the stories that we've made Dissolve away One shining light will still remain
When we shed our earthly skin And when our real life begins There'll be no shame Just the love that we have made before time
I think for a lot of students, the stabbing at Young Hall reminded us of how uncertain the world is and how easily it can all change. I know a lot of people who were in the building at the time and the stabbing a week before that at the frat party was just one block down the street from where I'm sitting and typing this. It really makes you think...and at the same time, there's a kind of sensationalized media hype about all this, probably partly because the news media are still feeding off the tragedy of the Yale graduate student killed in lab.
I was also surprised at the different reactions from other students, from downright flippant in my class right after it happened to suddenly people afraid to go out at all. A student in my class said "oh, it's those science nerds. This is just more proof that science is evil!" while some of my other classmates cheered him. I sat there and fumed. Here is a girl, probably someone either you know or connected to you by someone else you know, who is in critical condition and had just been slashed across the neck in a building not very far from where you are, and you're laughing about it? And excuse me, but wasn't the Virginia Tech killer an English major like all of us in that room? We're sitting there learning how to pronounce freaking Middle English and memorizing Chaucer because it's a required class for our major, and you're talking about how science is evil because some poor student was attacked during her lab?
While walking down the "Rape Trail" the first time, I asked my friends why it was called that and no one knew since it was something that had been there before we got to UCLA. I don't think using the word "rape" is right - just imagine how victims feel when you call a part of campus that - and they tried to rename it last year, but so far I haven't really heard the new name and I haven't heard anyone use it.
You know what also happened before my class got to UCLA? A rather hushed up rape trial in 2004 (the actual incident was in 2002) over a girl who claimed she was raped in her De Neve dorm by three Carson High School boys during their class trip. The charges ended up being dismissed after the defense argued that it was consensual and the jury became deadlocked. We'll never know the truth, but I wonder how many of the students here now have even heard of it.
Somehow the stabbing and people's reactions to it just emphasized something else I've been thinking about. For three years, I've been immersed in the college student's life. There are endless rounds of midterms, finals, papers, clubs, socials, and yes, parties - although less of that last one than many of my peers. The college world seems like a dream state between the high school and adult worlds. The social hierarchies dissolve a little and there's no more drama about the next school dance, yet for the most part we're still students at heart and go to classes still with the unique feeling of being able to do anything we want. We're the next generation of athletes, engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers...the world seems out there for us to explore. We still have the youthful arrogance that makes us joke around when one of our peers gets seriously hurt (or it may just be that some people are jerks and downright immature.) Instead of "that might be me" it's still "too bad, sucks to be you."
There's something special about college that I didn't really feel until this last year, when all of a sudden everyone is embarking on their actual lives. Suddenly the answers you've always given whenever people ask you what you want to do or be is here, only a few years away. Reality is approaching at the speed of a bullet train. I look around and realize that we're no longer dressed in the standard student outfit of jeans and a T-shirt, but instead people are wearing business casual for the interview they have after class for the job they want after they graduate. The girls are in dresses and high heels, makeup perfect and smiles bright - they're no longer girls but women, and a few of them even have rings on their fingers.
Forever 21 isn't a number we're waiting to reach and for some friends, the forever is already over. There's still potential, still goals and ambitions, but they're specialized ones. Many people have chosen the paths they'll take for the rest of their life. At the same time, there's an underlying familiarity to the application process for graduate schools, the students studying for the MCAT, the LSAT, and the GRE. It's too early for nostalgia and yet there's the sense that it's all going by so fast and ending so soon. We're no longer the youngest, the brightest, the newest. The incoming freshmen this year were born in the 90s and you know you're old when the newest star who's already got a Gold album is younger than those from High School Musical. Specifically, I'm referring to Justin Bieber, some kid who became famous around age 12 and is now friends with Usher and Justin Timberlake. He's now 15 and looks like a mini Zac Efron. Just looking at his debut music video makes me shudder, not to mention that the girl's cute, but she's bigger than him.
The newest xkcd comic is titled "Scary" and captioned (hover your mouse over the picture on the website) as "I'm teaching every 8-year-old relative to say this, and every 14-year-old to do the same thing with Toy Story. Also, Pokemon hit the US over a decade ago and kids born after Aladdin came out will turn 18 next year."
I was going to write a review of Blood Promise here, but I realized that there's nothing I can really write that wouldn't be a spoiler in some way (and I'm still trying to get other people to read it, so no spoilers!) and 90% of it would probably consist of my gushing over how great the writing is, the series, the author, the characters, Dimitri, Rose, etc. Instead, I've decided to make this post a casting game. I was already thinking of this since I wanted to make a new xanga layout that was Blood Promise or Vampire Academy related. I mentioned in my initial review of the series that VA probably lost some otherwise prospective readers because of its horrible covers. Someone in charge of design must have finally realized this, because they now have new covers and design for all the books and the new covers are no longer glossy. With the exception of Shadow Kiss, though, all they did was touch up and revise the pre-existing covers to make them a little less completely contrary to the actual descriptions of the characters they surprisingly were meant to represent. For example, in the original cover of Frostbite, Lissa has brown hair instead of platinum blond and Christian (apparently it was meant to be him) has uhm, red eyes. I have to ask...who decided to Photoshop it to red in the first place, and why? So in the new version, they've resized the original and darkened it so that Lissa's brown hair doesn't show and Christian's red eyes aren't as red. Nevertheless...
Not really much of an improvement. So, I don't really want to use these images in my VA layout, if I ever get around to making one. It's fun to think of who you would cast as the characters, though...although indulging in that is probably the reason why I still think Robert Pattinson makes a terrible Edward, since the other candidates were so much better. Usually, I don't pay nearly enough attention to celebrities to know enough of them for this kind of thing, but I do know models, and I do know Russian celebrities. My obsession with all things Russia related has actually increased in the past couple of years.
Anyway, I've found what I consider to be the perfect Lissa and near-perfect Christian (or possibly Dimitri, due to the Russian background and if you like him enough.) So who are they? Dima Bilan is a Russian pop superstar whose music I've been listening to ever since I discovered him about a year ago. He's had a lot of Russian No.1 hits, but is probably most famous internationally for having represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2006 (placing second) and in 2008 (won). Better yet, his real-life model girlfriend, who starred with him in a prettyful music video, looks exactly like what I imagine Lissa to be, and fits the description. Platinum blond hair, modelesque stature (like most Moroi) and a strange combination of strength and fragility in her looks. (I should also add a disclaimer here: From a photoshopping perspective, it's an added bonus to think that surely there must be a few premade Lissa & Christian pictures out there, loL. And, since both are famous, there should be no lack of photos to choose from or music videos for snapshots.) Elena Kuletskaya actually reminds me of Gemma Ward a bit, only less of the baby doll, "alien" otherworldliness.
Vasilisa (Lissa) Dragomir - Elena Kuletskaya Christian Ozera - Dima Bilan
They can look really good together. lol, I just realized - the music video is about a guy who "found" a princess, and Lissa is, well, a princess. Is that fitting or what? The song's okay and the music video is just eye candy. This is Dima Bilan's Это была любовь / "This was love" / "eto byla liubov." There's quite a bit of skin in this too, but having familiarized myself somewhat with the Russian pop scene, I guess it's almost expected. Knowing that they really are together makes it easier to watch and maybe it's why I feel like there's some genuine currents of emotion in this. Too bad the last five seconds kind of ruins it.
Dima Bilan went through a rather unfortunate mullet period and I think he's a less-than-perfect Christian for the occasional facial hair period, but even when he's not looking great, he looks dark/wild next to a proper Lissa, which is acceptable for a character who set people on fire, yeah? If only he would shave off that last little part, ugh. Somehow I don't think Christian would strip as often as male Russian pop stars seem to -_-' but I guess that means that "Christian" has been automatically gifted with a pretty respectable six pack.
Now to find a Dimitri and a Rose. I have some possibilities for both, but nothing definite. Sergei Lazarev and Vlad Topalov as characters? Nah, I don't think so... Fortunately, there's no shortage of gorgeous Russian (or those of Slavic descent) people. I was thinking that Shiva Rose could have actually been a pretty good Rose, except for the fact that she's way too old and doesn't look strong enough. I was surprised when I found out that she was of Irish and Iranian descent, since Rose is Irish and Turkish...
Karen Marie Moning's Dreamfever came out yesterday and I finished it around noon today. Now this is an example of an author who is only improving as the series progresses (unlike some others, :cough: Laurell K Hamilton) and has genuinely come up with something fairly novel in urban fantasy, at least now that we've entered Book 4. Okay, it actually isn't all that new, but I'm pretty sure she's the first that put it all together in more or less this particular way, so she gets innovation points. Some of the lines she writes still make me wince, but I've actually learned a lot from respacing her dialogue. I read it on a Word document file that jumbled up a lot of the dialogue, so being the OCD kind of person I am, I reformatted. One of my weaker points as a writer is dialogue, so after breaking up some 100 pages' worth of dialogue, I think I've picked up a lot of useful tips. My dialogue tends to seem a little too artificial. Not that any written dialogue is really anything but artificial, the same way you notice things on TV are quite artificial if you stop and think about it--you know, the dinner table set up on only two or three sides of the table, the way none of the characters ever quite face each other straight on, because they've got to be at the right angle for the cameras.
Dreamfever was one of those B+ books that are definitely above average quality (if there's anything such as average quality in massmarket paperbacks) but can't quite make it over to an A-. I spent some time pondering over why while driving home from LSAT class and also feeling guilty that I spent 3 hours reading Dreamfever instead of working on logical reasoning. What it comes down to, in my personal opinion, is that the heroine just isn't quite of that caliber herself. She's likeable enough, admirable in some ways, but honestly, I can't relate that well to her. That might be a personal thing, but the books in the Fever series also always feel rushed, a little too unpolished. Maybe it's a page limit thing, or the editor tries to cut out too much. The result, I think, is a book that isn't quite as good as its potential. The problem isn't the cliffhanger, it's more that the ending feels so unfinished that pretty much nothing is wrapped up at all. So all the individual parts aren't really coherent--it makes you feel like you've read half a book. In fact, nothing really has been wrapped up from the first book in the series...which is a good way to keep readers coming back, but you don't want to frustrate your readers too much, either.
I wanted to see more character development for V'lane, actually. And less of Barrons, although after the end, I thought maybe I wished a little too hard. I'm sure KMM will find some way to bring him back though. You don't kill off a main character with that many things still left unsolved, plus the "race" has never quite been equal between Barrons and V'lane, so I seriously doubt that she's going to bring in any new guy for Mac.
In other news, I will be a good girl and study my ass off for the next month. But I also can't stand 24/7 worth of LSAT, so I've decided to split my time between studying, playing Haru Haru on the piano, checking up on Nadal's matches, and writing. I'm revising BRR for the last and final time, regardless of how much else my writing changes and I mature! (Reading my own writing from when I was 13 is about as painful as getting my wisdom teeth taken out.) I'm taking down all the chapters past my revised point and eventually, when everything is done, I'm going to make an ebook out of it, complete with photoshopped cover. And I really hope that everyone who's saved the story in .html as it originally was will delete what they've saved. It's been seven freaking years since I started that thing. I'm going to make a finished product of it and put it behind me for once and for all.
* * *
My mom is a talker, and that's really one of the biggest understatements I can make. As a result, I think I've become a talker as well, and probably channeled a lot of my frustration into therapeutic writing. It made sense once I stopped to think about it. I developed a lot of personality traits in defense of talking. I learned to be aggressive, I learned to interrupt, I learned to be a talker myself, all so that I could just have any voice of my own. Of course, out in the normal world, these are all bad habits that are hard to break after a lifetime of learning them. My mom is the kind of person who grabs onto you so that there's just no way you can go, even after repeated attempts. My mom is the kind of person who follows you to the door, out to the front porch, and eventually to your car door. Trust me, it's as difficult on everyone around her as the person(s) actually being talked to.
I should add that my mom has also never learned or cared about the concept of not talking about people when they're either right in front of you or can hear every word you're saying. It's particularly infuriating listening to her talk crap about you to her friends when you're sitting there trying to study for LSATs. Oh yeah, like most talkers, she also brings up the same points and stories ten times, until you could pretty much say it for her. Is it any wonder why my concentration isn't as good as it needs to be? I have one month left!
I hear all the time about people who say they'll never become like their parents and yet do become like them. It's actually not that surprising, given that you probably learned to be like your parents in your efforts to combat them. Some who suffer abuse as children grow up to be abusers because it's all that they ever knew. How do you get to "normal" when you don't even know what that is?
* * *
Rather than listing and dwelling on my long list of woes from this summer, I decided to read Richelle Mead's Thorn Queen, which, as sad as this sounds, has been one of the highlights of my summer so far. Granted, I still immensely enjoyed Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, which I wrote about in this post previously before I deleted it, but Richelle Mead is my current It author. Charlaine Harris is awesome, but I'm a little sick of hearing about True Blood, aka the HBO series made from the book series. Mead hasn't quite bumped off Jacqueline Carey on my favorites list of published authors (as distinguished from other greats like Myrika or JC Jaquez), but I've been obsessing over Vampire Academy for at least a good year, and her other series are just as likeable. Thorn Queen is actually Book 2 of Mead's "Dark Swan" series and well, if there's any author I can learn from, it's definitely her. Characterization wise, plot pace, the urban fantasy genre, everything. I'm a very big Dorian fan too; he reminds me of the Scarlet Pimpernel in some ways.
I've decided on the next layout for this xanga. It won't be DBSK. It'll be featuring Rose (and possibly Dimitri) from Blood Promise, Vampire Academy #4. My 'review' of the series is here. Now there's something that will keep me going until August 25th, aka the release date of Blood Promise. After that, I think I'm reverting back to angels. Now that's an obsession of mine that's been around just as long as my vampire obsession, although angels aren't the current popular trend, thank goodness. Maybe I'll make something Sharon Shinn inspired, since I recently reread Archangel for probably the tenth time...
if I have grace to use it so 6.3 Simply living isn't enough. You have to have something to live for.
of existence; how soon hath time-- 4.5.08 Some people strive for comfort and contentment in their lives. I've heard so many times that happiness is something you can control, something you achieve by limited your desires and wants. It makes sense, but I've never been one to really strive for contentment, although I certainly tried hard enough for years. Most human beings don't seem to do well with contentment in any case. It's less about pausing and thinking about what you already have, and more about constantly seeing what you lack and want. Consumer culture, I guess, but I'm not talking just economically.
What I fear is existence. The monotony of life, doing things that are right and good, but which is not to be confused with really living. I don't want to be comfortable with life, I want to be excited by it. Maybe I have high expectations for human nature and the potential of human life, but I fear the unfulfilled feeling of knowing you can do even more, but not knowing how to get to that point.
No one knows exactly when they will die. And meanwhile, the days pass by like so many crossed off numbers on a calendar, and carpe diem overlays the colors of every sunset I watch.
and now the curtain falls 4.16 Growing up is about realizing that some mistakes can't be erased. Maybe that's the difference between an adult and child, and it has nothing to do with biology or age, but something else entirely. Children are blank slates, the markings of the triumphs and the losses easily wiped clean again, the innocence of impermanence. Someday, somewhere along the way, there are the things that leave marks that do not fade.
The marks have long since faded from my skin, but remembering that they were there leaves me with mistakes and regrets. Careless, careless. Talking eases the hurt and renews it at the same time. Like a mirror I can't look away from, the truths and ideals, the wants and wishes in their once-pure forms, are shown to me. If only. But worn down, I compromised myself.
You remind me. We're not like most others. We're serious people after all.
today 1.19 Too late, you finally realize what you didn't say - what you forgot to say - that you do care, but it's just that you don't understand how you care, and you don't want to make a mistake and assume that friendship is something more. Too late, you realize that being too cautious and too closed off means that you'll always be left wondering 'what if.' Too late, you've already driven yourself crazy asking why it is that you care, worrying too much about what it means - whether it makes you weak, whether it's real, whether you'll survive when someone else stops caring. Too late, you understand that you'll always end up pushing the people away because it's easier to pretend that you left them first, rather than acknowledge that you're the one that's been left behind.
pinocchio 11.16 The truth is, it's hard to resist when someone makes it clear that he cares for you. It's something that's hard to find in my world. I mean, when even your parents can't be bothered to care about you, you're pretty damn pathetic. If even a friend can't be bothered to make up with you after they've hurt you, then I guess it's a sign of how little all of it was worth. The truth is, maybe I am lonely in our big room all by myself, but I might as well not admit it because it's not like there's anything I can do about it anyway. But then, something happens and you're forced to admit that there is an alternative. It's there and you can't pretend not to see it. And how can you not like someone who's offering you a possibility of something else? How can you not care about someone who...cares?
kingless 11.29 I'm so sick of leading. I want a king or queen in my life, someone that I can devote my entire being to, confident that the person is worthy of my devotion... I want it to be something substantial, not some invisible God that may not actually exist. Because if I find that person, that king or queen, then it doesn't matter if they don't give me their attention or if I mean very little to them, because it's okay, I know they are that good anyway. I want to serve, but I only want to serve of my own will... I want to take all that's best and good in me, and give it to them; I want to offer everything, knowing I have a lot to offer. I want something to admire, something to treasure, something to believe in.
on October 9, 2008
