电影/Movie：Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

明天 （2008年8月1日）在美国将推出。

To be released in the US tomorrow (8/1/08).

怎么说 "blog"? / How do you say "blog"?

因为我应该知道用中文怎么说blog，所以我查了词典。

原来有四个词！

Since I ought to know how to say "blog" in Chinese, I looked it up in the dictionary. It turns out there are four words (or expressions)!

1. 网志 wǎngzhì "web log"
2. 网络日记 wǎngluò rìjì "online diary/journal"
3. 部落格 bùluògé
4. 博客 bókè

The first two are translations (or calques) of the full form "web log." The latter two are transliterations of the common form "blog".

Language note: 网 wǎng can literally mean "web" (as in a spider's), but is also used for the [World Wide] Web. 网 wǎng can also literally mean "net" (e.g. when talking about fishing or tennis), as well as network/internet.

Now how to choose? Well, 网络日记 is a bit long and literal. 部落格 seems weird since it's a 3-character word. 博客 is apparently more common (based on Google search) and it comes up immediately when using pinyin input (网志 doesn't seem to be recognized as a word). So 博客 it is!

为什么 《东游记》？/ Why "Journey to the East"?

中国人一定懂我为什么叫做博客《东游记》。

因此我用英文给别人讲解。

The name of this blog is a play on name of the novel 西游记 Xīyóujì Journey to the West, substituting 东 dōng "east" for 西 xī "west".

First published ca. 1590, Journey to the West is one of the four great classical Chinese novels; these are often sold in sets (as in the photo of a children's edition below, where the other three novels are propping open 西游记).

Journey to the West tells the story of a Buddhist monk's trip to India with his disciples, one of whom is the Monkey King (the two are pictured below, with the latter riding a cloud). The Monkey King is a popular figure in Chinese culture; part of his story is retold in Gene Yuen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese (more on that book in another entry).

Read more about 西游记 Xīyóujì Journey to the West on Wikipedia.

Language note: While Journey to the West is the usual English rendering of the title, the meaning of the characters 游记 yóujì is literally more like "travel record/notes".

电影：功夫熊猫 / Movie: Kung Fu Panda

我看了两次！第二次是在IMAX电影院的。
虽然我觉得电影的故事不太好，
我觉得动画很好看。
中国风景他们画得很漂亮。
I saw it twice, the second time in IMAX. Although I didn't think the story was that good, I thought the animation was good. The scenery of China was very pretty.

Pros: scenery, lack of bodily-function humor, decent female characters, kung fu!
Cons: (granted, most of these are shared by many other American children's movies): too much physical slapstick, lame psychological excuses (the panda eats too much because he's unhappy!), villain with a British accent.

我和一些中国人讨论这部电影。
多数喜欢，但是觉得有点奇怪。
一来，熊猫很难看。中国人画的熊猫都很可爱。
I talked to some Chinese people about the movie. Most of them liked it, but thought it a bit strange. First, the panda is ugly. Pandas drawn by Chinese people are all cute.
(Compare also Japan's Tarepanda. Know of other cute pandas? Please leave a comment.)

二来，熊猫的父亲怎么是鸭子？
Second, how can the panda's father be a duck (or goose)?
(The Shanghai Daily mocks a lawsuit brought against DreamWorks over this.)

我的看法是，在美国很多孩子不像他们的父母。
美国白人常常抱养从非洲或者亚洲来的孩子。
如果父亲和母亲的种族不一样，孩子可能不像他们。
The way I see it, in the US, lots of children don't look like their parents. Caucasian Americans often adopt children from Africa or Asia. Or if a mother and father are of different races, the child may not look much like them. So I think Americans have less trouble accepting this sort of thing.

三来，蛇是电影的一个英雄。蛇应该是坏蛋。

Third, a snake is one of the movie's heroes. Snakes should be bad guys.

虽然我也想不出动画中好蛇的角色，

但是五位功夫高手的那些动物都代表传统的武术路。

Although I can't think of a good snake character in a movie either, the animals of the "Furious Five" represent traditional martial arts styles. This is even explained in one of the trailers (use the widget above to view). For me, this nifty touch overrides the connotations of the specific animals.

(Any one know any good guy snake characters?)

Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion of the movie.

Language note: 熊猫 xiōngmāo "panda" is a compound of the characters for "bear" and "cat".

Sometimes also called 大熊猫 dàxiōngmāo, roughly analogous to Eng. "giant panda".

Chinese you can learn from the movie:
The panda's kung fu master is called "Shifu" (although it's pronounced poorly in the film), that is 师傅 shīfu "master".
The elder master, who is a tortoise, is called "Oogway", that is 乌龟 wūguī "tortoise".

我介绍一下

大家好！欢迎来我的blog。
我的中文名字叫林爱。
我是美国人。
2005年开始学习中文了。
去年我不上课了，
所以我要找到办法练习。
也要试试写blog。
结果就是这个。