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Showing posts from January, 2006

Chinese New Year and Western Xmas

Kung Hei Fat Choi (Chinese: 恭喜發財, English: Wish you have a prosperous New Year). Lunar New Year is the most important day for Chinese. Chinese takes it as seriously as the Western does Christmas. Interestingly, it is found that they share some similarities of custom. Let us have a look. ****** Chicken and Turkey The chicken is a must in the dinner of Lunar New Year as if the turkey is the main course in Xmas dinner. In medieval Europe, having large fowl at meals was considered a sign of wealthy sophisticated household. Likewise, in traditional Chinese, in which agriculture was the main industry, chicken was considered as a high class dish. Chicken, which was thought to cry out the sun, also represents good fortune. Peach tree and Christmas Tree Chinese people, especially Cantonese, like to buy peach trees just before Lunar New Year. They believe that peach trees can bring them good fortune in the coming year. In view of psychology, the slight pink color of peach flower can make people

Yamato

"Yamato: The Last Battle" (Japanese: 男たちの大和) strongly hits the box-office record of Japan. The movie has likely reached six billion yen box-office as the highest grossing film of Japan since opening on Dec 17 2005. Yamato (Japanese: 大和) was the largest battleship ever built in World War II, more than 260 meters long and 64,000 tones heavy. Its final mission was to destroy the US forces off Okinawa (Japanese: 沖縄) and to prevent an invasion of Japanese mainland. On April 6 1945, under a few hours of attack by 390 US planes, it exploded and sank off the coast of Kyushu (Japanese: 九州) with the loss of all but 300 of its 3,000 crew, most of whom were teenagers. The movie tells the final mission of the teenagers. This movie has provoked anger amongst China and South Korea because of its sympathetic portrayal of the battleship's military crew, especially in this cold winter between Japan and China freezed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (Japanese: 小泉純一郎)'s repeated visit

Crying out love in the center of the world

"Crying out love, in the center of the world" (Japanese: 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ), which novel has been sold over three million copies and adapted to movie and TV with numerous awards, has just become my candy since it showed in TV last Monday. The pretty main female character, the bittersweet romance, the pure innocent love and the fresh farm environment weaved the love story between Aki Hirose, who eventually died from leukemia, and Sakutaro Matsumoto, who cried for her death and their love in the Ayers Rock that is so-called the center of the world. Interestingly, in a shot of the TV, a Chinese poem was shown on the back of a photo owned by Sakutaro's grandfather. The poem is known as Dolichos (Chinese: 葛生) from Book of Odes (Chinese: 詩經). This shot reminds me the earliest romance. Book of Odes, published three thousand years ago, is the earliest Chinese poem collection. Authors of the poems have been unknown. In the section of Lessons From The States (Chinese: 國風), poems are mos