My thesis will make a comparison between dragons in the Germanic and Chinese traditions. I want to explore the differences and similarities between them concerning their characteristics, cultural contexts and symbolism. We normally know that Western dragons and Chinese dragons are two different concepts in people’s mind and I want to see if comparing these two aspects will offer deeper reasons of the differences or similarities, or a deeper communication between two kinds of culture. Will such a comparison reveal differences in how Western and Chinese dragons originated? What influences does the origination have to their own dragon cultural development respectively? Will the comparison help to contribute to people’s understanding to each other’s cultural backgrounds? If so, what can we do for the cultural communication?
The texts with dragon stories will mainly be popular and traditional folklore and myths. I will first cite the necessary stories.
To give a concise introduction of dragon characters and their characteristics, for western part I will draw on Beowulf (any possible Old English or translated versions) and The Saga of the Volsungs: With the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok (Jackson Crawford, 2017). There are three dragons–one unnamed dragon in Beowulf, and another two are Fafnir in the Sigurd legend and the dragon in the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok, which are both in the second work mentioned above. As for Chinese part, Classic of Mountains and Seas (in Chinese 《山海经》; in pinyin Shan Hai Jing) will be the main source text. I will pick three dragons among eight dragons in this work, which are Ying-long ( Responsive dragon), Qing-long (Azure dragon), and Jin-long (Golden dragon). Generally, both ancient Germanic and Chinese legends or myths considering dragons are not detailed enough, Therefore, besides the texts above, I will introduce other legends adopted based on these dragons in later traditions and later generations’ analysis.
To place the dragons I introduced in their contexts, I will draw on essays or books related to introduction in Germanic and Chinese national history, religious belief, customs, mode of thinking, way of life, and regional style, including Language and history in the early Germanic world (Cambridge UP, 1998), in particular “Religion” and “The migration of Goths” chapters, and it will be helpful to have an overview of Germanic geography and religion; A History of Germanic Private Law by Rudolf Huebner, translated by Francis S. Philbrick. (LITTLE, BROWN & Co., 1918), in which although it mainly introduces Germanic laws, religion and culture are more or less introduced to readers; H Davidson’s Myths and symbols in pagan Europe: early Scandinavian and Celtic religions (Manchester UP, 1988) firstly seriously attempts to compare the religious practices and beliefs of Celts, Germans and Scandinavians, which recalls history, religion, and ritual encased in traditional forms and gives the reader a vivid and highly suggestive vision of societies lying just beyond the full light of recorded history by combining studies of myths and folklore with linguistics and archaeology into a coherent approach. For Chinese part, Classic of Mountains and Seas will also be the main source for this chapter, because it is not only a work that records ancient myths and folklore, but also include the areas of geography, plant, animal, mineral, witchcraft, religion, medicine, costume etc. It provides us such a kind of convenience: it is one of the most ancient books to preserve Chinese mythological materials, although it is also very fragmentary, but it is indeed relatively concentrated, which is one of its advantages; all myths are close to their original appearances, which is its another advantage. Therefore, Classic of Mountains and Seas is the first and best choice to study Chinese myths. And I will look on Zhu Tianshun’s A preliminary study of ancient Chinese religion (in Chinese:《中国古代宗教初探》). (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1982), in which the author discusses the emergence and development of ancient religions of China before the Western-Han Dynasty, including the issues of the worship of natural gods, totem worship, precursor superstition and ancient divination, ghost and ancestor worship, ancient god system and so on. The shortage is that It’s not a deep exploration but a simple exploration, but it still a good reference to Chinese religions.
In considering the symbolic meaning of dragons in two contrast cultures, I will refer to Ernest Ingersoll’s Dragons and Dragon Lore, a fascinating book teeming with information about powerful serpents of the deep and land-roving, fire-breathing monsters that first appeared in the creation myths of the ancient Far East. Dragons in China, Korea, and Japan are covered, as are those in Babylonian and Egyptian legends, and in English, Irish, and French tales. The bad side of Chinese dragons are similar to Western dragons, which is the reason why I said there are similarities between the West and the East. Dragons and Dragon Lore explains both good and bad sides of Chinese dragons, so it will be a work cited to introduce the common features between two contrast cultures. Besides, Jonathan Evans is one of the most important scholars of dragons in the Germanic tradition. I will refer to some of his works like ‘Semiotics and the Medieval Dragon Tradition’, Journal of Folklore Research, 1985.85-112; “The Dragon-lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” I will also refer to “Real Dragons: Monster Symbolism in Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, and Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls” by Kevin Sun. He argues three dragons in the essay. They are malicious external threats, yet symbolize the internal struggles of selfishness, dependence, and guilt respectively. The author discusses these stories to demonstrate their common feature in dealing with issues violate fundamental values in the symbolic childhood of Western culture. As he said, “monsters, terrifying yet vulnerable, make the horror bearable.” Although it’s not an essay about Germanic dragons, it does reflect common features of western dragons, including the most original ones. Another essay I will draw on is Valery M. Garrett’s Chinese Dragon Robes, which shows the close relationship between Chinese Jin-long and emperors, clearly indicating dragon is one of the most ancient and powerful symbols in Chinese culture.
As the research goes further, I may find and draw on more works related to each chapter’s specific content.
I have been updating my blog posts every month since the early October last semester, but I’m still not sure I ‘m a qualified blogger. I have to admit that it is a great experience to have a blog account and continuously post what I’m interested in on WordPress site to share them with others. At the same time I have to say it’s not easy to consist it, because we have loads of assignments to do every week, and when updating blog posts become a compulsory assignment too, I do feel stressful sometimes if I don’t have any idea about what to write. And our blog accounts are public to everybody, which makes us more nervous to share ideas. Actually I was afraid of making mistake as I’m a foreigner from China here and using grammars or vocabularies appropriately is not my strong point. Although I have so many worries I’ve been on my way to become a good or bad blogger, of course, which depends on my readers.
There are many various topics and themes among my blog posts, and I was still struggling with which topic I should choose to deeply explore in this portfolio before I started writing the first paragraph. Now I think I find it. Let’s have a short analyse to my blog posts.
Except the part “about me”, Speak Gently, Please is my first “formal blog post”, I think. But Andrew King who is my supervisor on this assignment comments like this:
You say at the start that this is your first formal blog. I am afraid that you do not yet have that ‘blog’, journalistic voice here–which of course you do have in most of the other pieces submitted here. I would like to see more intrusion of our own personality…I think you could effectively rewrite this to make it more the instrument for your own voice.
–Andrew King
And unfortunately, there is the same problem in my other blogs. Here I want to apologize to Andrew again. I’m sorry to let him repeat the same words so many times…I feel so lucky to have such a responsible supervisor to correct me so many mistakes. When I read his words above I suddenly realized that some essays what I had written cannot be called blog posts. Like Andrew said, “reading out loud a passage from a novel could not fool careful listeners into thinking that they are hearing a poem. ” Every literature genre has its special feature and language, and blog is what you need to express your own ideas, and the manner of expression should not be too formal, neither too casual. The mistake I made let me know that I need to figure out what is the thing is before I start it is the first and the most crucial step, because without the definition I’m always on the wrong way.
The topics I have discussed involve the manner of speaking (Speak Gently, Please), Family Education, Northern European Mythology, the methods of translating Chinese cuisines, experience as a Wikipedia editor, pretending to be good (“Bottom”, “Pretence”, “Top”), and Lonely, Lonely. I love them all, but as an emotional person I prefer to choose “loneliness” mentioned in Lonely, Lonely to do a further exploration.
I recalled my daily life and feelings and I found I do often feel lonely, especially in a strange country myself. This is my first time to go aboard and live myself alone. I do have confidence in my ability to live alone, by which I mean I can take care myself well and handle everything myself. When I was twelve I left home and lived in school’s accommodation with over thirty girls in one room. I didn’t know what loneliness is because girls talked a lot before sleeping and even sometimes the teacher came and asked us to calm down. Although it was noisy, I miss the wonderful time with those talkative girls a lot. We had meals together, and studied together, and even went to toilet together. At the time I never felt lonely and I didn’t have time to feel it because we stayed in the classroom from 6 o’clock in the morning and went back the accommodation at 9 o’clock in the evening.
Crowded Beijing subway station
Then I went to high school, and I got more courses and less leisure time. My teacher often said that you need to run faster or you can’t catch or follow others. One of the most impressive things I remembered is that I complained that why I was always the last one left accommodation and he told me, “you can squeeze your toothpaste in advance before you go to bed and it saves time in the morning.” Wow, I was shocked. Anyway I didn’t do it, but his words did help me to understand how strict one person can be to him/herself. If you still feel I had time to “enjoy” loneliness, I may tell you one scene that is always in my mind. In my dormitory, there were six girls and everyone opened flashlights (The school asked us to turn off the lights at 10:00 pm. ) to study until about 1:00 am. Then we got up at 5:30 am. I lived in such a “crowded ” society and the pressures from my parents, teachers forced me to move forwards. I say these not because I hate this kind of life. On the contrary, it was the best memory in my life. Situations and cultures are different between China and the country where I am–Ireland. To be completely honest, I was shocked and attracted by the beauties here. Less people, fresher and moisture air, plenty of green grass are very different from the place I live in China. I moved into the room where I am still living now and I have three friendly housemates. I go to class three or four times one week. I have wonderful classmate and teachers who are always there to offer help. I appreciate everything here. But along with the comforts of life loneliness comes.
What is loneliness? According to Dr. Kimberley Smith, who is a lecturer in health psychology at the University of Surrey, “Loneliness is one metric of poorer social relationships that is receiving increasing attention. The late social neuroscientist and leading loneliness scholar John Cacioppo labelled it a ‘public health problem’ (p 38). And in his essay Charting Loneliness he summarizes some definitions of ‘loneliness’.
Sociologist Peter Townsend defined loneliness as a perceived deprivation in social contact, Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo define it as perceived social isolation, and professor of public health Mima Cattan defines it as the unwelcome feeling that accompanies isolation. The most commonly used definition is that of US social psychologists Daniel Perlman and Letitia Anne Peplau, who propose that loneliness is an unpleasant affective state that results from a discrepancy between the quality and quantity of relationships we perceive we have and the quality and quantity of relationships we want to have. They suggest that most definitions of loneliness have the following in common: first, that loneliness relates to a perceived deficiency in social relationships; second, that it is a subjective experience; and finally, that the experience is aversive (p 38).
Kimberley Smith
And he also refers that researchers have identified different types of loneliness.
American sociologist Robert Weiss suggested there were two main kinds: social loneliness, which is linked to a lack of a social network; and emotional loneliness, which is linked to an absence of emotional attachment. Furthermore, Dutch sociologist Jenny de Jong-Gierveld suggested that a differentiation can be made between ‘situational loneliness’, when one becomes lonely in response to a situation or event, and ‘chronic loneliness’, which can be thought of as a persistent state (p38).
Kimberley Smith
I do think many people especially adults and the old have suffered more or less both social loneliness and emotional loneliness, and I am one of them. There are two periods of time I’ve suffered social loneliness intensively–the first few weeks after I arrived Ireland and the first week after the isolation due to COVID-19. As to emotional loneliness, there are so many nights when I cannot sleep and I cannot contact my parents or friends in China because of 8 hours’ jet leg. It is really easy to get lonely when studying abroad. As I know, there are many international students are suffering the same problem as me. But I believe every individual can find a suitable way to overcome it. I feel much better now, and even better when I was in China. Local friends and teachers help a lot, so if you really cannot handle the bad feelings yourself, do ask for help!
Everybody’s got to walk that lonesome valley,
You got to go there by yourself.
Ain’t nobody here can go there for you,
You got to go there by yourself.
–Nineteenth-century popular revival song (Kevin Levis )
I could paint a portrait which would bring the tears, had I canvass for it, and the scene should be solitude, and the figures–solitude–and the lights and shades, each a solitude.
–Emily Dickinson (Hart&Smith 51)
When I read such kind of words, poems, prose, or novels, I always fall into thinking and let myself feel like I am the person who is experiencing these feelings. Loneliness is often regarded as the source of inspiration. Here I want to talk about Emily Dickinson, who is one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time. There is evidence suggesting that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation and she was considered an eccentric by locals. She developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence (Wikipedia). Her loneliness came from her doubt of the existence of God, the separation between friends and relatives, and the absence of love. In her whole life she have written 1775 poems, the themes of which includes religion, death and love. To some certain, her isolation provided motivation and inspiration for her creations.
Emily Dickinson
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community, where everyone dreamed to be the elected man by God. However, in such an atmosphere, Dickinson had been wandering between yearning and doubt, and finally she couldn’t find spiritual shelter from institutional religion, and thus she and her friends and families gradually divided over the faith.
Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision. The channel of the dust who once achieves Invalidates the balm of that religion That doubts as fervently as it believes.
–Ourselves we do inter by Emily Dickinson
In the bitter journey of life, the departure of friends and family brought Dickinson endless sadness and pain. His friends and father were moving away, which made her suffer from loneliness. “Loneliness” became a highly frequent word or subtext in her poems and letters. In her works around 1861, although the general themes are different, but separation is repeated frequently. The absence of love added solitude to Dickinson. By the time of her death, loneliness was still occupied her life. She showed intense emotion and desire in many of her poems, such as Wild Nights, Wild Nights!, You left me-Sire-two Legacies and so on, but at the same time, she expressed a kind of resistance and unyielding attitude, which made the feeling of loneliness became more distinct and intense.
Around the year of 1862, it was the gathering point of Dickinson’s spiritual distress, and her poems of this period frequently mentioned the words “loneliness “,” fear” and “pain “, and this period was also the peak of Dickinson’s poetry creation. According to statistics, between 1861 and 1863, Dickinson wrote nearly 600 poems, which is one third of the total number of his poems. Loneliness makes the poet depressed, wandering, helpless, at the same time, it also inspired the poet’s creation, to a certain extent to help her retain her originality and poetics. There is no denying that humans need some time to be alone, to reflect and to think deeply. Through being alone, one’s personal identity and personality can be established and strengthened.
Dickinson depicted multiple levels of her inner world in her poetry. At these levels, loneliness resonates strongly. She painted a lonely view of her heart. Living in seclusion, Dickinson rejected traditional social activities and made her father’s home her castle. In her lonely and anxious life, she suffered a lot. As a rebel, Dickinson was trapped by the loneliness of broken religious beliefs. In the face of nature, the universe, life and death, Dickinson felt the alienation between man and nature; in the face of death, she was lost. As a female poet, Dickinson struggled in a patriarchal society, striving for the voice and standing of women. She suffered from anxiety, and her anxiety, which made her, a typical Victorian female writer in the 9th century, feel incomparably lonely. The pain and loss permeate her poems.
The Heart has many Doors —
I can but knock —
For any sweet “Come in”
Impelled to hark —
Not saddened by repulse,
Repast to me
That somewhere, there exists,
Supremacy —
The Heart has many Doors by Emily Dickinson
Dickinson believed that “the heart has many doors”. The heart is one’s castle, which has many doors, but in everyone’s heart, there is always a door refused to open to the outside world to maintain its own privacy. Dickinson was different in that she closed all doors tightly and retreated. Her evacuation and seclusion originated from her temperament and gradually strengthened into her intentional choice. He was not to escape the worldly life, but to maintain herself and personality. Dickinson felt happy from loneliness, and the reclusive way of life was the source of her literary creation. As Dickinson wrote in the poem There is a solitude of space,
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself —
Finite infinity.
There is a solitude of space by Emily Dickinson
the loneliness in this poem provides infinite space for the soul.
Writing to here, I feel like I envy her loneliness, but I even cannot imagine what a big pain she had suffered. Loneliness is not a bad feeling. Take it and face it, and we can even take advantage it. Compared to Emily Dickinson’s isolated life, we all the lucky dogs. The life of isolation is not that horrible, if only we enjoy ourselves by doing something we are interested in. I feel much better with my life in this country now. As time goes by, I found there are new friends I can make and new knowledge I need to learn. When I do these I feel I am doing meaningful things, which help me get ride of loneliness. As I mentioned in “About Me” in my blog page, I’m so lucky to meet such nice friends and teachers who always offer help to me. I feel like I’m home rather than in a strange country.
Looking back to my blog posts, I can remember the scenes while I was writing them. We have the assignments about the seminars we have attended, which was the most part I had ever worried about. To be honest, I have difficulty in understanding the seminars, so I was afraid of I couldn’t write anything out about them. But later my friend Steffi told me, “you don’t really need to understand everything they said in the speech, and you can talk about something relating the speeches but about yourself.” Then I got “Bottom”, “Pretense”, “Top” and Lonely, Lonely.
We were also informed to edit one page of Wikipedia considering our final dissertation. I was really shocked by the news. And the truth is that it’s not that hard but it’s not that easy, either. My dissertation topic is about dragons in Germanic and Chinese traditions, so what I chose to edit is “Chinese dragon”. I came across many problems during the process, but finally I did it and I posted one blog to record the experience, which is really a big and exciting challenge. I had ever doubted about it, “how can I edit a Wikipedia page? I even need it to teach me! ” I though about it. And I got a conclusion: we are the group of people to change and develop the world in the future, and we can do many things that even we ourselves cannot imagine. What we need to do is to improve ourselves, believe in ourselves and step out from our comfort zones and just do it.
Keeping writing blogs is such a meaningful experience. Here I would like to encourage you to form this habit too. Everyone has new ideas at any possible time and keeping them in such form is an excellent idea. We share ideas with each other and comment on each other, or we find some people have the same thoughts with us and we can make friends or communicate with them. It’s really a habit that is worth to insist.
Work Cited:
Smith, Kimberlley. “CHARTING LONELINESS.” RSA Journal. London: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 2019. pp. 38-41.
Amelia Worsley, who is from Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA, gave us a research seminar on Feb 5, which is about “Charlotte Smith’s Solitaries and Her ‘Strange Shells’ of Poetry”. I was attracted by the words “solitary” and “strange”. Then I read her introduction to this seminar and she said “many solitaries populate Charlotte Smith’s poems. From the lunatic who paces the headland in the Elegiac Sonnets, to the “hermit of the rocks” who dwells in a ‘lonely cave’ overlooking the sea’s blasts in Beachy Head, her poetry is characterized by solitude.” Then she used the words such as “singularity”, “loneliness” to explain more. I have a strong feeling to these words, and if you ask me to name them as a group, I would like to say “passive words”. I have no idea if you agree with me or not, as a foreigner, “passive” is the only word I can find in my brain. And I love passive stuff, which is a big part of our life.
Charlotte Smith
When I read the lyric poem I wondered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth, I was attracted by the word in the title “lonely”. But the fact is that the poem is not expressing loneliness, but pleasure. Here is the poem:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
—William Wordsworth
The speaker encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake when he was wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys. And he thinks that a poet could not could not help but be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. He stared and stared, but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. For now, whenever he feels “vacant” or “pensive,” the memory flashes upon “that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude,” and his heart fills with pleasure, “and dances with the daffodils.”
This poem reminds me that if you wander “lonely” as a cloud, it does not mean that you are “lonely”. I used to feel lonely because I am always alone, which is the reason why I am sensitive to those “passive” words. When I was in senior high school, I felt like everybody was doing everything as quick as they can, but I am a slow person and I do everything slowly, so I always stay alone. And even now I keep this special characteristic. Just like this poem, even I am alone, I shouldn’t feel lonely, and so do everybody else like me.
We have read many melancholy poems, novels, comedies, and we have experienced a lot of sad experiences, but all of these are not bad things to read and to happen. I have to admit that I often write a diary when I feel bad but not when I feel good. And I belief what I am doing is also many others are doing, especially those who are always sensitive with what is happening to them, and even some famous poets or novelists also perform like us. Therefore, if we keep diary whenever we feel bad, we may become famous writers too one day.
I prefer to be alone and I don’t feel lonely anymore when I am alone. Because I am doing something just as what you are doing when you are alone but which won’t make you feel lonely.
Pretending, pretending, pretending, from “Bottom” to “Top”, someday.
Fara 🙂
Last Wednesday, the Prof Goran Stanivukovic, who is from St Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada, gave a seminar titled “ ‘The Disenchantment of Bottom’: Daniel Maclise’s close-up ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The painting “The Disenchantment of Bottom” by Daniel Maclise, who is an Irish painter in Victorian London inspired by Shakespeare and theatre, is from one moment of Shakespeare’s comedy—A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Prof Stanivukovic’s words, his lecture “is concerned with an analysis of this neglected (he said this painting is overlooked before) piece of art against the background of the obsessive naturalism of the (Shakespearean) stage, including popular stagings that veer towards the Gothic supernatural and dream sequences.” He also discussed the currents and cross-currents of the changing landscape of sexuality and ideas of the unconscious that were going on at that time. What I was interested in is that Bottom’s pretence of being a higher class person in the play.
Pinterest
Nick Bottom, a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who provides comic relief throughout the play. He is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck. (Wikipedia) He gave a speech on his awakening without the donkey’s head in act 4 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
“[. . .] The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream(4.1.209–216)
Fine Art America
Many critics have commented his foolish speech. But here I prefer to talk about the word “pretend” itself as an action. Sometimes, pretending can be beneficial to ourselves. Simone Elkeles (1970), an American author known for the teen romance Perfect Chemistry trilogy and How To Ruin trilogy, said that “We’re actors in our lives, pretendin’ to be who we want people to think we are.” I have experienced a lot concerning these words since I was in junior school. I was totally a good student in my teachers’ eyes, because I always pretended to perform perfect on every class I had. And the result is that I also performed perfect on my examinations. See, pretence works well. Later, I was told by my teacher in senior high school that if you always pretend to be good in your study and your daily habits, you will become what you are pretending to be. It is true. One of the most impressive scenes during my middle and high school time is that no one raised their heads to see what’s happening when somebody pushed the door and came in. We were used to being focus on what we were studying in the classroom rather than some guy coming back from his sister’s wedding or toilet. It’s the hardest time, and it’s the best time.
Here is another guy’s words:
“Don’t pretend to be what you’re not, instead, pretend to what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self-realization.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson
And
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
I really don’t know how to start this blog, but as I’m sitting in front of my laptop I begin to type some words…
I really don’t know how to start editing or even find a page on wikipedia to “repair” or add somthing on it, but as I choose one topic and do some research I suprsingly find there are somthings I can help!
Editing wekipedia sounds like a job for experts, professors, and skillful editors, and most of us never thought we ourselves can create a new account to do this job one day, even though in the left-top cornor of wikipedia page is written “Log in”.
To be honest, I never paid attention to the word “edit” follwing after each subtitle. I’m not sure if there are other people having the same feeling as mine. Thinking it further, in such a convinient modern society, information comes to us like flood and we are too busy to diguest it to contribute new information, which is the reason why when we got the assingment we became nervous wrecks and didn’t know where to begin, what to do, and how to do.
I have typed some useless words, but its my genuine feelings. I am creazy about to do something I am really interested in and contribute a little and know where my worth is, though it is a big challenge.
Now let’s talk about the challenges I have met.
Challenge 1. Psychological diathesis
I was scared by the long page about “Chinese dragon” on wikipedia when I opened it. The truth is when you only have few days to complete one assingment and you have other work to do, you are easy to fall into anxious. If you don’t have good psychological diathesis, you would stay in the circle of choosing your topic. As I am sure to write an essay about dragon, I did’t waste much time on it. But as the contents table shows below, it’s impossible to make a big change onto it. So I finally decided to add or change some small points, which mainly focus on “cultural references”.
And as a Chinese, I don’t have confidence to change anything the native speakers have written. The truth is my editing was recovered many times for the reason that I don’t have an exact resouce or I used some wrong expressions. It’s exthausting and I have gaven up adding or changing some of the points, but I have some sreenshots and hope you can give me some advice to correct them.
About “nine sons of the dragon” I changed the origin of it, because I did’t find one spercific origin about the nine sons on Baidu, which is a Chinese Website like Wikipedia.
beforeafter
I added “dragon vein”, “Longtaitou Festival”, and “Dragon and Fenghuang” under the entery of “cultural references”, but only “Dragon and Fenghuang” passed (because I copied it from wikipedia). Ah, that’s a sad story.
dragon veinLongtaitou FestivalDragon and Fenghuang
It doesn’t matter. When I find more convincing evidence and my English expressing abiliy goes to a better level, I would try repair them again. I believe in myself, anyway. 🙂
Challenge2. Technical issues
Obviously, we are a group of students majoring in Literature not computer studies. And we click on the button “edit”, we will see some blue and purple words with many marks. Personally, I didn’t figure out these founctions. I used another way to edit. When I need these marks I copy them from its original form and make a little change on it so that it becomes what I want. It’s a stupid way, but it suits me.
when you are editing…
Chinese dragon and Western dragon
As I posted on twitter, I found Chinese dragon on wikipedia is like Chinese cuisines in western countries. Western people adopt it in a way they are eary to access. I compared “Chinese dragon” on wikipedia and “long” （龙）on Baidu, I found the points we emphasize are different. The Chinese dragon on wikipedia pays much attention to the symbolic meaning of dragon, but Baidu pay much attention to the historically origins of dragon. In my opinion, it’s because in China, everyone knows the symbolic meaning of dragon and there’s no need to describe more, and history is our main subject in school, so the origin story is our main focus. In contrast, in western countries, they don’t learn Chinese history, and knowing the culture is their main focus.
In addition, as China has a long history and has a special relationship with Japan, so when Chinese depict the history, they stand their point of view, which is different from the depiction on wikipedia. There are more details I would like them show in my dissertation.
Food culture is an important part of China’s traditional culture. It has a long history. There is an ancient Chinese remark still going around like this, “food is the paramount necessity of people.” That shows how important food is for the Chinese people. Also, for the foreigners, the Chinese cuisine’s variety of selection, unique culinary art, as well as its fine shapes and rich tastes impress them and delight them; it is seen as a marvelous creation.
In the past fourty years, with the progress of the reform and opening up, there is an increased awareness and necessity to standardize the English translation of Chinese menus. While, on the other hand, more and more inappropriate and even funny English names of Chinese cuisine are seen and heard in restaurants and during talks. It’s not surprising to encounter such names, like translating these famous Chinese dishes“狮子头” and “夫妻肺片” directly into “Lion Head” and “Husband and Wife’s Lung Slice”.
夫妻肺片
In 2008, the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality organized the complication and publication of the book Mei Shi Yi Yuan. In this book, 2158 Chinese dishes were given their “official names”, which provided a reference standard for the messy translation of the Chinese dishes.
The English names of Chinese cuisines are not the simple substitute of Chinese words and the process of translation is closely related to cultural differences.
One of the most important factors determining translation purpose is the audience, i.e. target receiver or recipient (Nord, 2001). That is to say, the aim of translation is to make others get the information that you try best to convey. If the “audiences” don’t accept or feel confused in front of the culture shock, the goal is not accomplished.
Generally speaking, the difficulty of translating Chinese dish names lies in comprehending expressions of information about cultural connotations. In large part, the most important step, when doing a translation of a dish, is to express the connotation hidden deeply. From the angle of cross-cultural communication, as a major media of expressing the culture of diet, the translation of Chinese dish names can be expressive.
Though it cannot be expected that the target text matches the source text hundred-per cent, the ideal situation of translation for the translators is that these two texts “agreed with each other” in every aspect. To achieve it, the translators need to use the most suitable methods of translation to deal with problems in translation under the premise of well understanding. Among the so many methods, two of the most popular methods of translation are literal translation and free translation and others include transliteration and the addition of annotation.
In this blog post let’s see the translation of cold dishes first. As the main part of abundant Chinese cuisines, the cold dishes collected in this book Mei Shi Yi Yuan number 199. Table 1 followed will give the number of different methods of translation that are used in Chinese cold dishes.
Table 1. Percentage of translation methods used in Chinese cold dishes
Literaltranslation
Freetranslation
Transliteration(+annotation)
Totals
Number
40
154
5
199
Percent(≈)
20.10%
77.39%
2.51%
100%
According to the data above, we can see that the differences are so great. The free translation takes a large proportion, occupying almost 80%. Respectively, literal translation and transliteration take up about 20% and 2% in the English translation of cold dishes. Next, a few examples will be given for further analysis of the translation of cold dishes.
According to the cuisines in the Mei Shi Yi Yuan, the cold dishes using the free translation method can be classified into three types.
When the cold dish is made up of major and minor materials, the translation formula is: the major material + with(and) + minor material (minor sauce).
Sample 1:
Chinese name: 泡椒鸭翅
Duck Wings with Pickled Peppers
English name: Duck Wings with Pickled Peppers
When the cold dish contains cooking method and material(s), the translation formula is : cooking method (-ed) + material (+ minor material).
Sample 2:
Chinese name: 蒜泥白肉
English name: Sliced Boiled Pork with Mashed Garlic
For the cold dish contains shape, taste and the material, the translation formula would better be like this: (cooking method) + shape/taste + material.
Sample 3:
Chinese name: 麻辣肚丝
English name: Shredded Spicy Pork Tripe
As the above samples show, the free translation of these dishes make sure that the most important part, the ingredients and cooking methods, is direct to the foreign friends who will understand at first sight. “On the English translation of Chinese cuisines, it must be accurate, smooth, precise and come to the point of raw material and cooking method.”(Huang, 2007(1): 40-42.) Then the formulas will make sure the names precise and smooth.
Next, several cold dishes using the literal translation method, taken from the book Mei Shi Yi Yuan, are as follows.
Sample 4:
Chinese name: 盐焗鸡
English name: Salty-Baked Chicken
The translation method of this Chinese cold dishes is apparently, literal translation. For such names which only involve the raw materials but not contain cultural connotation at all, the best method for them is a literal translation
References：
Catford, J. C. (1965). A Linguistic Theory of Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Levefere, A. (2004). Translation, Rewriting, and The manipulation of Literary Fame. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Newmark, P. (1988).A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall International Ltd..
The river of inheritance of myths and legends always tends to dry up rapidly because of cultural invasions, but for some ethnic groups in which the arts of war were prized above the arts of peace cultural invasion can often become an opportunity. The original oral stories can be gathered into books and sorted out so that they can finally be preserved in the destruction of history. The most popular northern European myths in games and films are officially established after the cultural invasion.
Northern European mythology was first spread in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, created by the Scandinavian people, one of the Germanic peoples. Germanic people were originally discriminated against, especially referring to the “barbarians” who had not yet been civilized, while the Scandinavian aborigines who lived in ice and snow had developed a character of irritability, outrage and barbarism because of the cruelty of their living environment. Their characters make their clans fight inside constantly, which is the reason why the number of legends handed down from mouth to mouth is very large. Most of the expansions of the northern European nation are based on the exploration of the sea. Around the eighth century the exploration gradually became a planned, organized conquest and plunder. Various tribes united to form an army galloping across the ocean, and Vikings became their exclusive title. When Viking pirates raged Europe, Viking mythology also entered its heyday. The hero stories that had spread between different islands began to blend, and the images of gods were constantly improved, becoming the amateur pastime and spiritual pillar when they voyaged far away.
From the emigration to Viking plunder, the Nordic people are constantly fighting. War has become the norm of life in northern Europe, and they put their fates in battle and adventure. This concept affected the formation of northern European mythology, which also became the creed of the northern European nation. In northern European mythology, the world is created because of battle and destroyed by war, and there is life and death even the gods, which is an unbreakable concept. The gods in northern European mythology are far more human than Greek mythology, and the gods are always faced with the same aging and death as mortals, and the threats from giants. Even if Barter, the god of light, falls into the underworld after being assassinated to death even the gods cannot be able to bring him back to life. Gods are more like heroes, and their cunning, cruel and heroic personality have become virtues pursued by people. In the process of invasions, Vikings themselves are also gradually experiencing differentiation and development. They not only plundered wealth and slaves from abroad, but also gradually accepted the influence of advanced culture in various parts of Europe, the most important of which is to convert to Christianity and accept feudalism. The concept of monarchy. After the thirteenth century, Vikings declined and the power of European churches increased greatly. The Norse mythology that could only be passed mouth from mouth began to lose its “mystery”. The Nordic scholars began to collect and record the myths that had originally spread among the wandering poets and gathered them into books, which succeeded in inheriting the northern European myths to today.
The Viking era not only succeeded in perfecting the system of northern European mythology, but also activated another literary imagination in continental Europe. Many Germanic legends that began to break because of the influence of Christianity became complete again because of the arrival of Vikings. The works such as Nibelungenlied, Beowulf and other Germanic legends with obvious northern European style represent them. These legends were often added Christian elements and spread again, which to a certain extent inspired the birth of knight novels. In addition, the setting of giants, dwarfs, elves and dragons in the northern European mythological system also directly affected the modern fantasy literature. Northern European mythology permeates all aspects of our life and has a great impact on film and television works and festival settings, because the relative books become popular nowadays.
Many movies are created based on northern European methodology as background such as How to Train Your Dragon, Thor and so on. It is a kind of important connection between past and future. In the process of adaption, the creators draw nutrition from classic works, sources, or historical legends for their new works, and at the same time they also create some new elements to make their works follow the trend of the current society and imagine something that may happen in the future. Studying this connection helps us keep a historically vertical mind to explore the original appearance of one element and how it varies with time goes by.
When I was in my junior year of college, I had an internship in a primary school. My entire job was to teach grade three students English, and I plan to be an English teacher in the future. I know how important the teachers’ roles are for students, but in the process of my internship, I found parents also play vital roles in children’s growing such as the appropriate roles parents should play, the significance of family atmosphere, and the importance of moral education. The following are some theories about family education.
The father and mother play different but irreplaceable roles in the process of children’s growth. The formation of children’s personality, the development of children’s intelligence and socialization are not complete without the parents’ proper education. On the one hand, the father’s love and mother’s love are different. The love of a mother gives the child a sense of security in life, while the love of a father is to educate and guide the child to deal with the difficulties he may experience in the future. On the other hand, Fromm suggested that “the mother’s and father’s attitudes towards the child correspond to the child’s own needs” (p. 34). Children need unconditional love and care from the mother in infancy both physically and psychologically; when reaching the age of six, they begin to need authority and guidance from the father. So in the book The Art of Loving Fromm indicated that
In the ideal case, the mother’s love does not try to prevent the child from growing up, does not try to put a premium on helplessness. Mother should have faith in life, hence not be over-anxious, and thus not infect the children with her anxiety. Part of her life should be the wish that the child becomes independent and eventually separate from her. Father’s love should be guided by principles and expectations; It should be patient and tolerant, rather than threatening and authoritarian. It should give the growing child an increasing sense of competence and eventually permit him to become his authority and to dispense with that of the father. (p. 34)
To some extent, Fromm envisions a kind of ideal education in the family, where father and mother play different roles in the process of children’s growth, and these two roles cannot be replaced in the formation of children’s personality. The maternal love, as Fromm argues, is the base of emotional development, which makes children know how to love and care others; while paternal love is conducive to the development of children’s attitudes and values. If a child possesses both mother and father’s love, he will absorb both these aspects of human experience into his own personality and become a perfect human being.
Children’s early life experiences are closely related to the environment in which they grow up, so it is necessary for parents to create a pleasant family atmosphere. According to the statement of Freud in A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, “the significance of infantile experience…should not…be completely ignored as compared with ancestral experiences or those of our adult years; on the contrary, they should meet with an especial appreciation. They have such important results because they occur in the period of uncompleted development” (p. 378). In childhood, the nature and intensity of conflict among the id, the ego, and the superego depend on children’s growth circumstances, the conditions of upbringing, and the bearings of the caregivers and educators.
Freud believes the formation and development of children’s character are greatly influenced by the family environment. If a child is brought up in a harmonious family, he will be more amicable and outgoing, since he is used to expressing himself to his families and friends. Therefore, he foreknows how to interact with strangers. The child who is accepted and appreciated by families from a young age gradually learns to be friendly to others and understand others, which can bring him more respect from his friends, and help him improve the ability to handle problems independently.
Children’s mental health comes from a pleasant family atmosphere. One of the primary points of Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis is that human behavior is motivated by the basic biological impulses of the individual. When these impulses and the exotic environment are seriously out of balance, people are predisposed to mental illness. Given this, parents should take the emotional guidance of children seriously. A good mood reflects the coordination of central nervous system function, and it can make people be in a positive state both physically and mentally. On the contrary, negative emotions can unbalance children’s subjective experience and cause physiological dysfunction. Therefore, a family in which children can play and speak with freedom is requisite.
Moral education is one of the most crucial parts in family education, which is not only the cultivation of moral character but also the shaping of the spiritual nature or personality, including the advancement of moral character, wisdom, etiquette, and bravery. According to the view of John Locke (1632—1704), who has occupied an essential position in the history of modern western education, moral education is the soul of “gentlemen education”. He believes that virtue is the most indispensable and ideal quality, and he suggests that moral education should be carried out as early as possible.
In Locke’s view, one should have not only a healthy body but also a fine spirit and temperament. He raises the standard of mental health, believing that it is mainly the human’s psychological health. Parents should understand the child’s temperaments and characteristics, and make education in line with the child’s age, nature, and ability. Respecting the child’s spiritual existence is the basis of respecting the child. In the case of education, parents should respect the child like an adult and recognize his spiritual existence, which is meaningful in promoting the healthy development of the child’s mind.
Parents’ demonstrations are critical to the development of the child’s moral character, so parents should set a good example for their child. Young children cannot distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. They unconsciously imitate their parents’ behavior and gradually develop the same habits. The moral character, personality, and behavior of parents exercise a gradual impact on children, which directly affects children’s healthy growth. Provided that parents’ action emerges deviation, the thought and behavior of children are also easy to deviate. Therefore, the first thing for parents to do before educating children is to become a qualified parent, only in this way can parents set good examples for children and help them form healthy characteristics.
We should realize that family education plays an irreplaceable and unique role in the initiation education and life-long education of children. To optimize family education is not only the need of social prosperity and development, but also the need of personal perfection. A family with a high-quality education can protect children’s physical and mental health, which is beneficial to their whole life.
Bibliography
Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. Thorsons, 1995.
Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Washington Square Press, 1960.
Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. J. and R. Tonson, 1913.
This is my first formal blog post. I have thought it is easy to write a blog, but now I know it depends on the type of blogs. Writing an academic blog is obviously challenging, which has told me that never belittle anything before you start doing it.
I am a person who never promise things that I cannot do. I believe the power of words. Good words can make angels; bad words can make devils. I know it, so I would never say anything insulting to others.
As we all know, we are living in a world in which everyone can be connected by Internet, which means strangers can judge you or comment you casually. Especially many famous stars are experiencing gossip every day. When I read those comments I would like to keep silent and I don’t even know the reason why they act like that way.
Several days ago a Korean female actor committed suicide. As an audience, I had a premonition that she would do something silly one day, but I didn’t know it came so suddenly. When she was alive, she posted her life on Instagram, which always attracted scoldings. After her death nobody blamed her anymore but everyone was apologizing and feeling sorry to her. I am not sure if the group of people who were apologizing were those who had ever insulted her under her ins. Is is clear that she didn’t get any useful help or comfort when she was in her despairing valley of life.
Speaking gently is a kind of art. At the very early age, we can see the importance of speech act. In the book Old English Literature: A Short Introduction by Daniel Donoghue, “the vow” is the title of the first chapter, which emphasizes what role the spoken words played in the Old English era. Speech act is the start point of literature, and the vow is one of the most important performances among speech acts, which still plays a vital role in modern society not to mention in a period when people were not used to using the literate way to record affairs.
This chapter explores how formal utterances function as both a theme and at times a condition for the very existence of Old English literature .
Above is the aim of chapter “the vow”. As a type of formal utterance, the vow is a theme deserved to be deeply discussed as well as a condition in which people cultivated a special kind of literature. People at that time did not speak randomly when there were audience, because every word they said could be an evidence. Therefore, if you are doing what you said is the basic way to see if a person is responsible. But in the modern society things all have changed. People can say whatever they want on some websites, because in most of cases they do not need to be responsible for their words even if their words are destroying someone. I don’t know how to judge it, because Freedom of Speech is the legal rights of every citizen. From the moral point of view, we shouldn’t use our rights to hurt others.
On the other hand, ying is a more serious crime than other crimes such as murder, rape, mutilation. Archbiship Wulfstan indicated in his “The Sermon of Wolf to the English” that,
where that wretched deed has happened that a father has sold his son for a price and a son his mother, and one brother has sold another into the control of foreigners. And all these are great and terrible deeds, let him understand who will. And yet what harms this people is still greater and ever more manifold: many are forsworn and greatly perjured,and pledges are broken again and again. (p.89, lines 88-94)
Compared with “allowing the invading Vikings to inflict even worse crimes on them”, selling family member into slavery is more horrible, which reflects the fabric of society is the widespread loss of trust in spoken word. Wulfstan also gives his exhortations, “keep carefully oath and pledge, and have some loyalty between us without deceit”, which is similar to some words of AElfric, the abbot and homilist of Eynsham, “God helps those who speak the truth and keep their word.”
In Anglo-Saxon society, keeping one’s word becomes a measure of “troth, good faith, fidelity.” “It makes the Herefordshire woman’s will, the laws, and every other social transaction feasible, from commercial deals to marriage vows, from pledges of political fealty to the clergy’s religious vows, from solemn liturgical ceremonies to magical charms. ” “Such uses of spoken language have come to be categorized as speech acts, in which the uttering of a sentence changes a social relation (for example, “I promise”) or personal state (for example, “I believe”). Saying something is doing something.”
The vows embodied not only in daily common things, but also in some lyrics or epics such as Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s Lament, The Battle of Maldon, and Beowulf. Take Beowulf as an example, after receiving the wound from the dragon and with his life ebbing away, Beowulf gives a brief inventory of his virtues: he ruled his people well for 50 years, he protected them from enemies, he never provoked hostilities, and, he concludes, “I did not swear many oaths unjustly”. It is a classic example of what has come to be known as Anglo-Saxon understatement, because it must mean that he never swore false oaths, that he was meticulously honest.
People in Anglo-Saxon society or in Modern society always pay much attention to one’s credibility, which is also unchangeable in the future society. At any time, both oral culture and literate culture spread their own charm to us and to our lives.
Speaking honestly and gently is not that difficult if we try to do it. Our little changes may main a lot to others, so please do it.
Bibliography:
Donoghue, Daniel. Old English Literature : A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004.
Me? An MA student from China who is studying Medieval to Renaissance English in Ireland. Many people asked me the reason for choosing this major. Sorry, I myself don’t have an exact answer. The truth is that it is really a big challenge for me.
What challenge? Yes, language. As the only person who is not native English speaker, to some certain, it’s lonely and helpless. How can you imagine a whole class for two hours you are the one who cannot get the teacher’s points and classmates’ ideas, or you cannot answer most of the questions the teacher asks even to understand them, or you missed the words about after-class assignments and embarrassed in the seminar room, or you need to spend double more time to read various materials? Yes, helpless. But what else I can do except try my best to make it?
Someone told me life is too short to be upset, and I agree with him. People should be positive when facing difficulties. People should step out their comfort zone to challenge themselves so that they can make progress. I knew it. What I am facing can become the making of me one day if I overcome it.
I am the lucky one. I got the chance to study abroad that many of my friends are also crazy about. I have the best teachers and classmates who always care for me and encourage me. When I email to my teacher to ask questions, he always gives me the best answers and I am very appreciative when he speaks slower in class. When I fall into embarrassment, my classmates also dear friends would like to give me a big hug to comfort me, and they sometimes remind me about the assignments I may miss. It is these dear people who make me happy here. I feel satisfied here. And I will work harder here.
What I know about European history is not that much, but as I learn more I find it is interesting. Every place and every period has its own charm which deserves to be discovered by us. I would like to share what I have discovered with you, and would you like to listen to me?
Hello, EU History 