temple yard:
silent in mid-day sun,
butterflies flutter through.
Temple Yard [Haiku]
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DAILY PHOTO: Rainy Day Busan
BOOK: “Old Master Q Chinese Idioms LOL 5” by Wong Chak
Old Master Q Chinese Idioms LOL 5 by Wong ChakMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Instagram – Ng Hing Kee
This collection of chengyu (four-character Chinese idioms) are presented by means of humorous comic strips. Each idiom takes up one page, which includes: the chengyu in both Traditional Chinese characters and pinyin (Romanized phoneticization,) very brief literal and colloquial definitions as well as a statement of the general circumstances under which the idiom might be used, and a four to six panel comic strip that shows the reader a humorous scenario for which the idiom is applicable.
The book is divided into five parts, and at the end of each part there are a few pages of exercises to test the reader’s understanding of that section’s material. (Answer keys are provided — upside-down at the end of each quiz.)
As someone learning Chinese, I found this book to be useful. However, it doesn’t require any Chinese literacy to learn. If you’re interested in compact bits of wisdom or quotes, you may find this book worthwhile.
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“Monody” by Herman Melville [w/ Audio]
To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal—
Ease me, a little ease, my song!
By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees’ crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.
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PROMPT: Typical
At some level of granularity, you could slice it that way.
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Petal Drop [Senryū]
Land’s End [Free Verse]
Public beach:
10am on a Tuesday.
It's peaceful --
Peaceful in a depressing
Sort of way.
It's desolate.
There are gulls and crabs,
But not a human in sight.
It's like the scene in which
A solitary survivor --
Having endured
Disease,
Starvation,
Outlaws,
&
Zombies
While crossing the
Continent on foot --
Realizes he has reached
The end of the line, &
The rumored sanctuary
Does not exist...
But at least the view is nice,
And -- for the moment --
It's Zombie free.
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DAILY PHOTO: International Cinema, Seoul
“The Place of the Solitaires” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]
Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.
Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;
And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,
In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.
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PROMPT: Describe Yourself
Of middling tallishness, perpetually perplexed, and independently impoverished.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 