Retreat Day 7; Writing Now

The Crazy Monk, with pouty lips 嘴唇尖呀尖

At long last, after completing a really decent outline, I got some real writing done that I feel good about. I chose to approach my chapter beginning with the second of three sections that form the first of three parts to the body of my chapter. So I estimate I'm 1/9 done with the body. That's excruciatingly slow progress, much less than I'd hoped for this morning. But typical of my revised estimates. I wrote about 2,000 words, which is a fair amount for one day's worth of work, I think.

I got stuck at one point when I decided to translate a line describing an old gatekeeper in a big manor home of Suzhou in the 1910s and 1920s:

...when the maid came back from buying vegetables, she would sit in the gateway and ask him to write out the invoice. He had many novels with tiny, densely-packed lines of print, like The Story of Jigong, The Story of Judge Bao, and Tales of Yue. In his spare time he'd put on his reading glasses and just read and read.

I'm just so fascinated when I see information on people's reading, and use of reading as characterization really drives me wild. I took the time to sketch out what will be the longest footnote of this section:

[footnote to say Jigong 濟公傳 is a cultural hero who rights wrongs and helps others. See Meir Shahar, p. for the probable edition and evidence that links the Jigong stories to the Boxers. Judge Bao is a popular story character in Baogongji, a "pure official" who is not afraid to prosecute powerful villains even if they are kin to the emperor. See Idema. The Tales of Yue (Shuo Yue) concerns the military achievements of Yue Fei, a Chinese general who fought against Jurchen people, ancestors of the Manchus who invaded northern China and established a Jurchen Jin dynasty in the 11th century. See James T. C. Liu. "Yueh Fei (1103-41) and China's Heritage of Loyalty." The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 31, No. 2 (Feb., 1972), pp. 291-297. Incidentally, each of these fictionalized accounts of heroes are based on real individuals.]

Next up: my examination of the memorial essay for Yang Jiang's little sister Yang Bi.