Book-Ceng Xu Nuo (Promise me a forever) by Tong Hua [English translation] Prologue

So I'm going to start on this book today and will also give a go at translating it from Chinese to English to share it with others. :) I've always benefited a lot from English translation in my kpop fandom (watching dramas/variety shows) and will like to give back somehow.


Will see how this goes. It will be a new side project for me to distract me from my ruminations.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to whoever it should belong to. The Chinese work to Tong Hua and the translation here to me :)

Some Chinese folklore and mythology background related to the book:

Although there is no myth (shenhua 神話) of a god having created the universe like in most other cultures and religions, there are lots of popular tales of persons that helped to build up and to repair the world during a time of chaos and uncertainty. A lot of such myth originate in southern China whose cultures and phantastic beliefs differed from the more "realistic" attitude of the northern peoples. Those mythical persons are by no means godlike, but are rather part of the world they helped to construct. The most famous of this persons is Pan Gu 盤古, but there are also smaller figures like Nü Wa 女媧 and her brother or husband Fu Xi 伏羲 who repaired the world with dividers and ruler, or the heroical archer Lord Yi 后羿 who shut down eight of the nine existing suns to prevent the soil from burning out. The Yellow Emperor (Huang Di [Huangdi] 黃帝) is thought to be the ancestor of the Chinese people. The clan of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi zu 黃帝族) and the clan of Yan (Yandi zu 炎帝族) are thought to have represented the Qijia culture 齊家文化 in modern Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. Later these tribes might have moved to the east and founded the cultures of the Central Plain 中原 as basic cultures of Chinese civilization, with a people later named Huaxia 華夏 (or simply Hua 華 or Xia 夏) was told to have founded China's first dynasty, the Xia 夏. Other descendants of the Yellow Emperor's clan is a clan with the surname Ji 姬 who later founded the Zhou Dynasty 周. Ancestorship of the Yellow Emperor is often constructed to obtain legitimation for rulership. Even Non-Chinese tribes should later claim their descendency from the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor's father was Shao Dian 少典, his actual name was Gongsun Xuanyuan 公孫軒轅 (Xuanyuan [Xuan Yuan] might also be a place name where his clan dwelled), his residence (or state) was Youxiong 有熊. The Yellow Emperor was the first of a line of cultural heroes that are venerated for their inventions. Xuan Yuan is said to has invented - also with the help of his ministers - wells, mortars, bow and arrow, cattle breeding, carts and ships, clothing, divination, mathematics, astronomy and calendar, musical notes (minister Ling Lun [Linglun] 伶倫), medicine and writing (minister Cang Jie [Cangjie] 倉頡). In early Chinese thought, every ruler is blessed by one of the Five Processes or Five Phases (wuxing 五行), that of Xuan Yuan was the earth (corresponding colour: yellow), hence his designation "Yellow Emperor". As a universal ruler, the Yellow Emperor fought against and subdued improper and rebellious rulers and tribes, like Chi You (Chiyou) 蚩尤 in the battle of Zhuolu 涿鹿, the northern Hunzhou 葷粥 (said to be ancestors of the Xiongnu 匈奴), and the Red Emperor (Chi Di [Chidi] 赤帝, also called Yan Di, the "Emperor of the Fire") in the battle of Banquan 阪泉 (might be the same event as in Zhuolu). He replaced Shen Nong (Shennong) 神農 as the ruler of the world. The main wife of the Yellow Emperor was Lei Zu (Leizu) 嫘祖 who invented spinning and weaving. The tomb of the Yellow Emperor(Huangdi Ling 黃帝陵) is in Qiaoshan 橋山, Huangling County 黃陵縣/Shaanxi.  Source: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/mythology.html

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PROLOGUE

In the beginning, in this chaotic universe, there is a ruler. He is Emperor Pan Gu-the one who created the Heaven and Earth.

In those times, heaven and earth are not separated and of different realms. Humans lived on Earth and the Gods lived in the sacred mountains. Humans can meet the Gods by climbing the Heavenly stairs. And hence, the gods, the humans and the spirits coexisted and lived between the heaven and earth.

Emperor Pan Gu had three subordinates who he was closed to like siblings. Of them all, the one with the strongest magical powers was a women whose name has been long lost through the ages. It was only known that she established the Hua Xu Kingdom and hence future generations refer to her as Hua Xu. The other two subordinates were male, one was Sheng Nong who lived and protected the central Chinese plains and the other was Gao Xin who lived in the east and protected the place where the sun rose.

When Emperor Pan Gu passed away, the world was in chaos with wars. Hua Xu grew tired of the unending fights and hid herself by establishing the pretty and harmonious Hua Xu Kingdom. However, the reason she was remembered by future generations was not because she created Hua Xu Kingdom, but because of her son Fu Yi and her daughter Nv Wa.

Fu Yi and Nv Wa were judicious in their rule and were respected by all, finally putting an end to the war. From then, they became Emperor Fu Yi and Emperor Nv Wa. When peace was restored, the lands began to prosper.

A few thousand years later, Emperor Fu Yi passed away. Emperor Nv Wa was devastated and left the Hua Xu Kingdom, never to be seen again. This resulted in the decline of the FuYi and Nv Wa people.

In the Northwest deserts, there is an inconspicuous mountain, known as Mountain Xuan Yuan. At its foot lived the small and unknown heavenly clan known as the Xuan Yuan people. After a great ritual, the elder of the Xuan Yuan clan made the youngest hero of the clan the leader, against the wishes of the majority. Even then, he could not expected what will become of this young leader and the fine accomplishments that he would have achieved later on.

In just a few thousand years, the young leader expanded the Xuan Yuan clan so much that it became a threat to Shen Nong and Gao Xin. However, the two of them realised this too late and missed the best opportunity to kill him, unwillingly seeing Xuan Yuan achieve its status of becoming the third clan of great Gods, together with the Shen Nong and Gao Xin clans.

Among these three great clans, Shen Nong was the greatest and its leader was Emperor Yan and he ruled with kindness. Gao Xin clan was second to Shen Nong and its leader was Emperor Shun and he ruled respectfully. The last was the new comer Xuan Yuan and its leader was known as Huang Di (The Yellow Emperor) and he ruled with laws.

Since then, Shen Nong from the Central Plains, Gao Xin from the South East and Xuan Yuan from the Northwest each ruled over their lands and world was divided into three.

Book- The fault in our stars by John Green

I will be honest. I came to this book expecting some sort of sweet young love and yes, it did happen. But at the same time, it is both a depressing and hopeful book all mesh into one that at the end of it all, I can sort out my feelings.

I have so much emotions, thoughts etc from reading this. It was hard on my heart, the theme being one of death and cancer, which both are topics that are so taboo that people don't usually talk about. I mean, you don't go around asking people their thoughts on death, cancer and young lives lost do you?

But this book does just that. It's fiction, it's a narrative. Yet, it triggers your own reflections on your life, on your own thoughts of it all.

Especially Peter Van Hosten. How can one character be so awesome yet so horrible?! You can sympathise with him, but you do hate him for all his blunt and crude remarks too.

The part about cancer patients being failed experiments of evolution...it just hurts. The fragility of it all. How human lives seem so small and insignificant in these whole universe or whole population with billions of people. Some one dies, some one else is born right?

I haven't given much thoughts on death... mostly just being oh I can't take it anymore, I wanna die cos life is so pointless kind of rant... It's different when you talk about death in the point of view as someone who actually has limited time in life.

Reminds me of 'the last lecture' book... all these books are quite hard to stomach, but they are really inspirational...makes me realise how blessed I am.

Am starting on another book, the end of my life book club. will blog on that soon.

On a side note, I'm really sick of group project works. I take classes by myself and I really hate the get into groups part/asking people if I can be in their groups part. It's just... people like to be in cliques and I don't like that. I like freedom, and that doesn't really apply in a group project... will see how it goes. hopefully I can find others who are like me too and we can set up a ragtag group.

Some images of great quotes from the book found from google:

Book- weird things people say in bookshops

An entertaining read.

There's this part on this woman who goes the bookshop and asked for any book that's in the shade of green that will go well with her wrapping paper. It sounded very ridiculous to me, so much that it's funny. xD 

Not that I don't judge a book by it's cover, it's just that usually I will place more emphasis on the book's synopsis and would only read it if it interests me. That being said, if there's different editions of the book, I'll still choose the cove that I like more so I'm still a visual person I guess. 

And of course there'll be some ramblings on rude/inconsiderate/weird customers together with the funny ones. Customer service's really a tough industry. I can just imagine the patience needed to deal with some of the people. Oh the horror! xD 

That aside, it's still pretty cool to work in bookshops, surrounded by books. Except that reading the books there are not part of the job requirement. xD 

Book-Disappointments with God by Philip Yancey

Just finished this book. It's really wonderfully written. I have always have issues with my faith. Although I'm a relatively new Christian, I still do have times when I have my seeds of doubts. I don't have that kind of 100% confidence and faith in God that I see in some believers. Sometimes that made me wonder if I'm really a believer, if it's really okay to be like this. It made me feel like maybe it's wrong what I'm feeling and perhaps I should find ways to have more faith, to believe more and do whatever it takes.

And so I did, I do what I always do when I have questions. I turn to books. And I'm so glad I found this book. I have to applaud Yancey for writing this book. It isn't easy I think, the emotional toll that one has to go through to think and pen down such ideas and theories. He cleverly summaries our disappointments with god as three types: whether god's unfair, why he's silent and why he's hidden.

We people think life would be so much easier if God would just show up and tell us what to do; guide us, create more miracles that are attention drawing, in fact anything loud so that we KNOW for sure he's there.
But after reading the analysis done by Yancey from the books of the Old Testament, I now could see how that maybe wouldn't work out.

God wants us to love Him; not fear him or act like we love him/obey him out of submission and resignation. That's why we had the option to love Him or not. I think it's kind of like how we humans are like too, how we want to be loved but we want genuine love.

And yes, Yancey's very relateable in his writing. I feel like I just came out of this reading with a much renewed faith. A kind of faith that can survive doubts, disappointments and injustice and yet still hang on to God. As long as we cling on to him, I guess that in itself is a very wonderful act of faith.

Just like how God has never forsaken us, the lest we could do is do the same when we're tested with the trials of life.

I'm still a work in progress and I've realised I've got so much to learn. Lessons on patience, humility, and love. And I thank God for showing me all these. It made me accept my flaws (kind of although sometimes I really wish I was just simply perfect xD who doesn't?) and yes, learning and the growth process is really painful. But I guess this is part of life, part of growth, part of what it means to be human.

Thank you Yancey for the good book and sharings. And thank you God for leading me to the bookstore and chancing upon this book. I'm feeling so blessed now.

book- old souls by Tom Shroder

This book just reaffirmed my belief for the existence of past lives. Yet as much as it answers some of my questions (eg: can people know their past lives without going through hypnotic regression/ do past lives really exist/how do you tell/ as much as I want to believe, I still kind of doubt it/ I am still skeptical) , it brought up more questions (eg: does everyone gets reborn/why can some people retain their memories like these kids and why do people like me have absolutely no other memories except maybe some phobia like being afraid of staircases possibly being linked to past lives?/how do one go through this process)

I really respect Ian Stevenson, his dedication to his research and the amount of effort he puts into his fieldwork and yet is so underrated by the public. While this is a free world (we can choose want we want to believe), I think reincarnation can only be a concept that is partially accepted by people. Unless there is really a definite mechanism (say like how you describe the Earth's hydrological cycle with the water evaporating into clouds then condensing and precipitating to Earth as rain), not everyone will accept this theory.

And maybe it's fine like that. just let this be a discussion, a contestation, an unsolved mystery of life.

book- wild by Cheryl Strayed

This is one of the few 'autobiographical' kind of book that I read. I just finished this yesterday. It was a good read, a page turner. 

I think what Cheryl did was something that I'd really like to try once in my lifetime (eg: go hiking alone, backpacking etc) but the thing is she was able to do it because she was able to sort of 'let go' of her current city life in search of something/to recover something that she had lost/made sense of her life through this healing walk with nature. 

For me, I doubt so, asking me to stay a week alone out there in the wild will probably be the death of me. As much as I'll want/like to do this, I know I won't do this (if that even make sense). So yeah, I'm really happy that Cheryl finished her trail and shared her experience with us (maybe people like me can learn through her in this way?)

There was one part that really hit close to home, a part where she met this New age seer called Pat and their conversation went like this:

"The father's job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse and ride into battle when necessary to do so. If you don't get that from your father, you have to teach yourself."

"But- I think I have already," I sputtered. "I'm strong-I face things. I-"

"This isn't about strength," said Pat. "And you may not be able to see this yet, but perhaps there will come a time-it could be years from now-when you'll need to get on your horse and ride into battle and you're going to hesitate. You're going to falter. To heal the wound your father made, you're going to have to get on that horse and ride into battle like a warrior." 

I can really understand that. The importance of parents in one's life and what it means when one of your parent /either of your parent are not present in your life. The impact on you. How you'll be changed. 

Guess that meant self learning's necessary at times. Gotta teach yourself what your parents can't/won't be able to teach you. 

book-life of Pi by Yann Martel

This is a heavy book. Be warned. You must be prepared to polish it off in one sitting and yet still feel unsatisfied. You will end up thinking about the story even DAYS after you had finish reading it.

This is how impactful the book is.

Stunningly written, it questions a lot on religion, life, god and the question of necessity, perception and faith.
Pi was a religious man, he believed in many religion. He just wanted to believe in god. That's pluralism and I can identify with that. Since coming into contact with spirituality, I'm becoming closer to thinking that there is no one definite religion, but perhaps just different portrays of one god/source of life (?) to different people through different gods and thus appealing to them to their different cultures and practices.

And yes, Pi has a really strong sense of survival. Surviving 227 days afloat the sea is no mean feat, although in the end we knew how he did. The ending is open to many interpretations. How I interpret it though was that there were no animals on board. I mean the animals were all locked up in their cages and placed in the cargo at the bottom of the ship. Should the ship have sunk, the animals were the first to perish-they can't escape from their cages, much less swim to the surface into lifeboats. So I don't believe that the animals were really there. I'm more inclined to the second story, whereby each animal represents one character- the zebra as the sailor, the orang utan as Pi's mother, the hyena as the cook and Richard Parker as Pi.

With this newfound knowledge (and reading this book after the movie), it was really tough reading it, knowing when the animals injure/kill each other were actually between humans made it harder to stomach. And also the parts on cannibalism, the ethnics-whether it was really justified to do so were also brought up in the story. The drive of necessity, the lack of food made humans resort to animal like behaviours, killing one another and yes of course- only the strongest survive. Isn't that the Darwinian theory that many of us are familiar with? The survival of the fittest. And yes, Pi's very fit. There's the animal side in him, the Bengal Tiger Richard Parker side, that will do anything to survive.

It's kind of like a split personality for Pi. He had to acknowledge the presence of an evil side of him (the tiger) because that's what keeps him alive. The meat eating tiger side. The vegeterian Pi will not be able to survive alone out there. He needed the tiger. And the tiger needed Pi so that he won't go insane.

A very heavy book. I will have a hard time getting this out of my mind.

Some quotes that I like from the book:
"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

"If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?” 

“You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.” 

“You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”

“If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?” 

book- many lives, many masters

Another book that I've read that's revolving around the topic on death, past lives, reincarnation and spirits. It just reaffirms my beliefs I guess. And yes, I'm really thankful that there's many research going on about this, books being published on this so that we all can find out more about all this.

I'm curious to know about my past lives, but I'm kind of scared as well. I don't think I'm ready to know about them yet although I suspect some of my fear and phobias (being afraid of horror movies, afraid of the dark, afraid of alleys) are possibly linked to them.

Oh well. The time will come when it's time for me to find out.

Patience. Patience. I need to cultivate my patience.

book- Journey of Souls by Michael Newton

I've always been pretty curious about topics on life after death, reincarnations, immortality and the metaphysics, the spirituality stuffs.

I think reading this book really changed my life, I can feel myself changing. I believe in the contents of this book (I've always been a firm believer of reincarnation) but some contents in this book really opened my eyes.

I'm really fascinated with this new found knowledge. Is it really possible that we're here on Earth just for lessons? And that even if we fail this lesson it's okay? And that whatever we do it's okay because we're all actors on a stage and it's okay to screw up your role sometimes?

It really gives me comfort, knowing that this life is not all that I have. I can do my best and yes I may screw up sometimes but that's okay. Because I still have other chances to try again, other opportunities to go for it again, to learn what I'm supposed to learn perhaps in another setting, in another lifetime. It offers hope. And also diminishes my fear of death. I find myself being more accepting of myself and others as well.

And that we are one. If we inflict pain on others, we will suffer the pain as well ultimately. Life's not a zero sum game.

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I'm definitely getting my hands on other books by Michael Newton soon, I'm still interested to know more about his research on this area.

I've just spent my whole reading week on this spiritual findings thing that I'm fascinated about, reading three books in a week gosh. Oh well. I will survive my finals! I can do it! And the finals is just a small scene in my life. Don't sweat it! You go girl!

book- the live you were born to live (Dan Millman)

I went to the bookstore today to get some new nonfiction books to read. I'm glad I bought this book. It sure has been an enlightening read. 

I'm sure many know of the concept of numerology but the system that Dan Millman had devised was slightly different from numerology in the sense that it links our birth number with spiritual meanings. What we were meant to do on earth spiritually, to learn and to overcome. 

Reading this book had been very therapeutic, perhaps even more so than going to the psychiatrist since I have a hard time opening up to others but reading and understanding myself and my issues through a book has always been a good way for me to learn how to resolve life issues. 

I'm slowly learning about life and most importantly ACCEPTING life and not resisting it since it's the resistance that's causing me so much pain and suffering. 

Will post a more detailed thoughts on this soon. I need more time to digest on this. 

Seriously, books are the greatest invention ever. 

Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse. -Charlie's Dad

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Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve. -Bill, Charlie's English class teacher

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Wise words indeed.

book-the perks of being a wallflower

I can be quite driven when it comes to things that I'm interested in. After watching the perks of being a wallflower movie yesterday, I went to buy the book today and finished it in one sitting.

I didn't like the vague ending in the movie, so I was hoping for a more detailed one in the book. I was pretty satisfied with the book's ending. It showed promises of Charlie getting better, being more accepting of himself and most importantly, hope for the future.

The movie was true to the book too, many of the important scenes in the movie were the main gist of the book.

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I bought another 2 book today! Cloud Atlas and the gathering. The synopsis for cloud atlas sounded promising, will be starting on that book soon!

After reading the perks of being a wall flower, I'm suddenly more interested in coming of age stories. I've yet to read the catcher in the rye, I should probably get started on that soon. I used to only like reading non fiction, inspirational kind of books, but recently I've been reading a lot more fiction and being more balanced in terms of the genre of books that I'm reading. That's good!

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On a side note, I cleared my room today! My table's neater now and I can use it to do my work properly and not have to stash stuffs here and there to make space. I guess clearing up stuff does make you feel good like how the happiness project advocated, but I've been putting off organizing my stuff so I'm really glad that I made time today.

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Read a magazine review on yummy burgers. I want one now!