I know in my last post I said that Iff would still be updated on occasion, but that is no longer the case. I’ve moved again since creating an account on LiveJournal; I am now blogging via Dreamwidth.org
Song lyrics, translations, whatever you visit this blog for are in the process of being moved over to my Dreamwidth blog. That’s all for iff.blogsome.com!
As of today, I have a LiveJournal account. [nijibug.livejournal.com]
Initially, I did this with the intention of lurking in some fandoms, though after further examination, I found that not only does LJ fulfill all the purposes of a blog, but I actually have friends who use it. Well, that has led me to this decision.
No, I am not “deactivating” this blog; I will still update it on occasion (song translations, not to worry). But in terms of being a “chapter of my life”, I am drawing the curtains on Il faisait frais[e], the snows of my yesteryear…
Very bad news to share with you, my friends. It seems that I have contracted a strangely unrelenting brain parasite. His name is Adrian Veidt a.k.a. Ozymandias. <3 <3 <3
Went to see Watchmen with friends a few days ago (Apr 5). Thought it was a good movie, very impressive and all that, blahblahblah. Left theater unable to decide who was my favorite character. Woke up the next morning with a lovely headache.
OZY OBSESSION NOW EATING MY BRAIN KTHXBAI
Blue is a beautiful color. I haven’t always thought that. Actually, I never thought of blue as my color. I used to be a firebird. Red, orange, yellow, mahogany. Phoenix bedspread.
It was after I came to Nville. Jessica thought blue was my color. Started dropping hints. Bought me blue clothes. Made me blue jewelry. I didn’t embrace the idea of blue right away. And I still haven’t embraced it completely. But I have since realized that the color blue and I have what in Chinese is called 缘分: a sort of destiny together. The significance of the symbols of sky and water in my life is irrefutable. Sorairo-Magatama and The Gift of Rain. The music I listen to and the music I write. Blue is now without a doubt my favorite color.
I have yet to learn to use the color blue in my art. It still comes out muddy and resistant to flow. But that is due in part to the red-earth nature of SAND DANCE. This is not a problem; SAND DANCE was conceived in my childhood, my firebird days. It is meant to reflect - no - to embody that passion from the noontide of my life.
So while I bask in my sea-sky-blue, I remember the fierce joy that fueled my imagination and gave birth to a world, a music, a story that continues to wend. I will take that fire in my hands and form it into a searing, blue-bright star. It will shine on its own, complete, without me.
That is the long and short of it; the whole of my life’s goal. To bring my one story to a fitting end.
Happy 6th Anniversary, SAND DANCE.
I just got my hands on JS’s 2004 album, 遇见未来 (”Encounter the Future”). I had to translate 天空的颜色 (”The Color of the Sky”) right away. A traditional Chinese melody with lyrics in the same spirit as Do As Infinity’s “Enrai” - it was simply too moving…
Lyrics & translation moved to new blog:
http://nijibug.dreamwidth.org/12757.html
…from THYME’s nifty first studio album, first 9uality
Hello
Lyrics by THYME; translation moved to my new blog:
http://nijibug.dreamwidth.org/11984.html
“Autumn’s Dream”
A short bit of BGM originally written for SAND DANCE in 2006. It was accidentally erased from my MIDI before I could record it, and I didn’t get around to re-programming it till 2009. Anyways…sort of a theme for Ailan’s childhood.
This post has moved to
http://nijibug.dreamwidth.org/18629.html
In memory of Charlene W. Sun (1974-2009)… http://news.deviantart.com/article/72185/
And afterwards, all of my tears
began to overflow
[Last night I dreamt of dragons
This morning when they came
I let them take me with them
And left the world the same]
One night she dreamt of dragons
This morning when we knew
Her spirit had grown wings then
We mourned her as she flew
Tonight let’s dream of dragons
Tomorrow we’ll recall
The one who dreamt of dragons
And shared them with us all.
The dragons’ song, so wild and strong,
fell from the sky like rain
“My name’s Ed.” We shook hands. “Short for Editor.”
“I can guess what your mother wanted you to be.” I grinned.
“My mother? My mother had nothing to do with it. My father beat her to death with a stick and in the process discovered that she had given birth to me.”
The silhouette of a leprechaun, bowlegged and froglike…
“A scholar should never waste their time drawing cartoons,” says Rouhui’s father.
A bottle of ink and two black pens beside an open notebook. My muse from Malaysia shares with me another glimpse of her life. The ink drawing depicts a young man holding a book and wielding a brush against the night sky. She entitles her picture “window”, for it symbolizes “an escape where my imagination speaks of my dreams and hidden desires.”
Rouhui is a chemical engineering biochem major, an archetypal path of study for a young person of Chinese descent. She tells me often about the struggles of schoolwork, but her cheerfulness is unflagging, and more often than not, she manages to inspire and console me seemingly without effort. But Rouhui’s true passion and talent lie in art, especially the ability to ply traditional media to her will. Each piece comes with a story, anecdotes from her childhood, snippets from her daily life; they are her messages of encouragement to students, artists, young people across the globe
In “window”, Rouhui describes the pressure she feels from her family - in particular, her father - to abandon her art: “Ashamed, I bury myself in books in his presence. But the more I read, the more I end up drawing something in his absence. ” While expressing her desire to escape, at the same time, Rouhui never fails to present a determined face with her fierce creativity.
Since we met through a digital picture book project in 2005, Rouhui and I have been escaping in each other, she through my music and I through her art. For a long time, though, I never quite got my finger on what exactly it was that - on a deeper level- drew us to each other. Then, I saw “window” and, as if remembering, I realized.
Last year, I read an article in National Geographic entitled Gilded Age, Gilded Cage. It was a case study following a girl named Bella (Jiaqing Zhou) from the age of four to the age of fifteen. Growing up in Shanghai, Bella’s life exhibits many of the defining aspects of a single child coming of age as a part of China’s expanding middle class - all the competition, stress, frustration, and self-doubt. 
Emerging from elementary school, children must take standardized tests in order to battle their way into the top middle schools, and at the end of middle school, an even more ruthless round of testing winnows out those fit for the very best high schools. As for college entrance exams…let’s just say that China has a scarcely imaginable rate of teenage suicides and leave it at that.
But in spite of the cut-throat environment, Bella remains a headstrong girl - a bit of a diva - with a tendency toward loquaciousness and a startlingly eloquent pen. Reading her description of her final days of middle school, hot tears sprang into my eyes: “I sit in my middle-school classroom, and the teacher wants us to say good-bye to childhood. I feel at a loss. Happiness is like the twinkling stars suffusing the night sky of childhood. I want only more and more stars. I don’t want to see the dawn.”
Her sentiments cut a melting swathe across my heart as my thoughts cried out to her, with her, “Why?” Why are children like us - and yes, we are children - forced to see the dawn? Children of Asia, whether or not we live in our motherlands, can never seem to leave the tethers of the motherland behind. We are driven by our parents, reminded by society, that unless we do as we are told, unless we achieve as we are expected - and more, we are worth less than nothing at all.
I myself am unspeakably lucky.
Tian must do battle to keep her construction site standing in the present; Rouhui must climb through her window to escape the scorch of shame; Miyako and her sunflowers must feed and thrive on dust and exhaust.
As a child with progressive Asian parents, I watch their undulating griefs and triumphs, and I feel that I am blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to be myself without fear.
As an adult with promises, I am both honored and inspired to be their friend and to bear witness to their courage and integrity.
Our generation is at a tough transition in Asian society. We have no right but to stay strong and fight for our due. Our lives are a bridge to a better future.
I conclude with my translation of a very fitting song, a piece that will tie this journal entry together. The song is a multi-genre work of art in itself, beginning with a classical arrangement, transitioning into rock and then into rap
Lyrics and translation on new blog:
http://nijibug.dreamwidth.org/19022.html
China was absolutely fascinating. I spent about five weeks traveling across China and I have to go back there early next year for round two. It’s all for a nonfiction project. […] I’ve been feeling my nonfiction wings atrophying. I’ve turned into some kind of penguin. So I thought it would be really interesting to write about China and I’ve been fascinated about the legend of the Monkey King and that became the sort of starting point for me.
The story is one of the four great Chinese classical stories from the 16th century. And I got to investigate the real-life people that story was based on in the 7th century. I also got to travel across China where I had a variety of strange and wonderful events including bribing an elderly watchman to allow me into a closed-down amusement park filled with dark and dusty monkey statues. The park takes you through a story that ends in hell. This thing was an amusement park inside a warehouse so it was very incredibly dark and it closed down because people simply weren’t coming back. I did this walk where you start out in this fun, lovely, happy monkey story and you walk through that to the end of the warehouse where you are in hell and you watch all these demons crushing people before you stumble out into the daylight. I really can’t imagine any little Chinese kid turning around to their dad and saying, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to come back.’
from the LA Times
Very cute how the interviewer paraphrased that as "you start out with ‘Curious George‘ and end up in ‘Dante’s Inferno‘". To which Gaiman replied:
Yes, exactly, that’s it. I also had an old man try to sell me a human elbow by a ruined temple. But I had a wonderful time. Obviously with something as huge and old as China, you can only cover a little bit. I’m looking forward to getting back there and writing more about it.
SHINE - lyrics by Rurutia, translated by me
Listen to WIP:
VERSE 1:
If I had known you as a boy
Listening to blades of grass wage war in the wind
Chasing pale moths that rise like souls out of battle
VERSE 2:
If I had grown up at your side
Losing our shadows in a forest of cornstalks
Flapping from the field at the end of each day
A pair of scared crows
BRIDGE:
If I had shared your stepping stones
Would you still have died alone?
Would you still have died alone?
CHORUS:
If we had been children together
If we had grown up side by side
Would you still have died so lonely
If I had known you as a boy?
(repeat)
CODA:
Souls out of battle
Crows from the corn
Children together
The day we were born
_ _ _
Here is Anne-Claire’s enchanting French rendition:
VERSE 1:
Si je t’avais connu petit
Écoutant la guerre de l’herbe dans le vent
Chassant les esprits papillons sortis de batailleVERSE 2:
Si j’avais grandi avec toi
Perdant nos ombres dans un forêt de maïs
Quittant d’un battement d’aile à la tombée du jour
Une paire de corbeaux apeurésBRIDGE:
Si j’avais partagé tes peines
Serais-tu quand même mort seul?
Serais-tu quand même mort seul?CHORUS:
Si nous avions étais enfants ensembles
Si nous avions grandi côte à côte
Serais-tu quand même mort si seul
Si je t’avais connu petitCODA:
Esprits sortis de guerre
Corbeaux du maïs
Enfants ensembles
Depuis la naissance
And here is Miyako’s adorable Japanese translation:
（共にいる子供達・戦から抜けた魂）
Tomo-ni iru kodomotachi/Ikusa-kara nuketa tamashiiVERSE 1:
（もし貴方を少年の時から知っていれば
草の刃が風と戦争を巻き起こす音を聴き
戦から抜けた魂の様に舞い上がる青白い蛾を追いかけただろう）
Moshi anata-wo shounen-no tokikara shitteireba
Kusa-no yaiba-ga kaze-to sensou-wo makiokosu oto-wo kiki
Ikusa-kara nuketa tamashii-no youni maiagaru aojiroi ga-wo oikaketadarouVERSE 2:
（もし貴方の傍で育ったなら
トウモロコシ畑の林の中で私達の影を無くして
日が落ちる頃にそこから羽ばたく
二羽の怯えるカラス）
Moshi anata-no soba-de sotatta-nara
Toumorokoshi-batake-no hayashi-no naka-de watashitachi-no kage-wo nakushite
Hi-ga ochiru koro-ni sokokara habataku
Niwa-no obieru karasuBRIDGE:
（もし私があなたと同じ踏み石を共有したなら
それでもあなたは一人で死ぬの？
それでもあなたは一人で死ぬの？）
Moshi watashi-ga anata-to onaji fumiishi-wo kyouyuu shitanara
Soredemo anata-wa hitori-de shinuno?
Soredemo anata-wa hitori-de shinuno?CHORUS:
（もし私達が一緒に子供だったなら
もし私達が共に育ったなら
それでもあなたはそんな孤独に死んだのか
もし少年としてあなたを知っていたなら？）
Moshi watashitachi-ga issho-ni kodomo dattanara
Moshi watashitachi-ga tomo-ni sodattanara
Soredemo anata-wa sonnna kodoku-ni shinndanoka
Moshi shounen-toshite anatawo shitteitanara?CODA:
（戦争から抜けだした魂
トウモロコシ畑のカラス
生まれた日から共にいた
子供達）
Sensou-kara nukedashita tamashii
Toumorokoshi-batake-no karasu
Umareta hi-kara tomo-ni ita
Kodomotachi
Thank you all so much! <3
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