#「 地 」: letters across the world

[eirenical]

OP, I hope you don't mind if I add on to your post, but I feel like this will be relevant to your interests. ^_^

In addition to the Lotus Tower model, I also got the wall scroll of Li Xiangyi from Baichuan Court. And it ALSO had a letter, this one with "Li Xiangyi" on the envelope...

Transliteration and OCR app translation behind the cut, but as OP said, if anyone wants to take a real go at it, feel free. ^_^

And now excuse me while I go cry in a corner. 😭

所以,李相夷的遺憾到底是什麼呢? 是英雄一朝拔劍起,生死邊緣十年劫 是他回不去的年少江湖 還有收不回的輕狂自負 是舊緣放不下,再度相逢隔天涯 是淚眼故作瀟灑,放手紅顔另嫁 是從前摯友言天地,人人憶他還負他 是年少仗劍三千里,江湖再不見風華 是他走遍市井無人問,處處全 頌他聲 是一眼望盡的命運既定 是五感盡喪的前路無影 是劍猶在,人難回,意氣劍仙終低眉 終是人間留不住 少年以身還江湖 去去重去去,來時是來時 逢君一程,我命之幸 前路坎坷,君自珍重

So, what exactly is Li Xiangyi’s regret? Once a hero draws his sword, he is on the verge of life and death for ten years. It’s the youthful world he can’t go back to There is also an irrevocable arrogance It’s because we can’t let go of the old relationship, we meet again across the world It’s the tearful eyes that pretend to be free and unrestrained, let go of the beauty and marry another It is a former best friend who speaks to heaven and earth. Everyone remembers him and still betrays him. It is a young man who has wielded a sword for three thousand miles, and the world has never seen its splendor again. It is he who walks through the streets and no one asks him, and everywhere he is praised It's a destiny that is determined at a glance It’s a loss of all five senses, with no way forward The sword is still there, it is difficult for people to return, the spirit of the sword fairy will finally lower his eyebrows In the end, the world cannot keep it The young man returns his life to the world Go and go again, the time comes is the time it comes I am lucky to have a ride with you The road ahead is bumpy, so take care of yourself

Also, is everyone else seeing how VERY Feihua this is or is that just me? TT^TT

My Lotus Tower model kit arrived, and I am ridiculously excited! I haven’t started assembling it yet, but I wanted to share some of the other goodies that came with it!

First, adorable mini figures of the lotus trio!

It also includes a booklet that has the Yangzhouman instructions Li Lianhua left for Fang Duobing!

I’m also very intrigued by this letter that was included (in an envelope with Li Lianhua written on it), that seems to be about what happened to Li Lianhua and to maybe say something about his future? (My knowledge of Chinese characters is not nearly advanced enough for me to read this, and I have my doubts about how well Google Translate worked on the image.)

Here it is, in case anyone wants to translate it!

I’ll post images of the model itself once I start assembling it, but it needs to wait for another night when I have the energy to try to translate the instructions (at least there are images and not nearly as much text)!

(Tagging @dramaloverrants who wanted to see some images.)

[lynninnerworld]

Yifei Liu & Zhang Zhiyao- The Curse of Forever Life - a Xianxia story 【张智尧X刘亦菲】 长生劫 - 剧情向创意剪辑

First of all, I don't support romance between teacher and students in real life. I made this video when I was very young... It's a fantasy story okay? 首先声明我现实中不支持师生恋。这视频是很早的时候剪的，而且，背景是奇幻所以…… —————————————————————— It's a romance story between a girl and her teacher. There's no such drama, I made up a story like this. Ling'Er secretly loves her teacher. Though she thought it's not allowed, she couldn't help it. But she didn't know, a strange evil power was sealed in the her body. One day when she used up her strength to cure her teacher's would, she activated that power and mindlessly killed people. Therefore, to prevent her from killing more people and to save her from being punished by more other people, her teacher handed her to a group of people, who promised that they will lock her up and protect her in the meantime. However, these people eventually decided to kill Ling'Er. Her teacher came the rescued her at the critical moment. Kissed by Ling'Er, and this is the first time that he faced the reality that he also loves her. However, sad ending is the destiny between them, eventually, the teacher sacrificed his life to protect her, and after that, Ling'Er refused to believe that her teacher died, and started to go around the world to find him... 这是一段师徒恋。并没有现成的电视剧，是我原创的剧本。 灵儿悄悄地暗恋着师父，尽管她知道这是禁忌，但她情难自禁。她不知道的是，她的体内封印着一股神秘的邪恶力��。有一日，因为她用尽全力救治了师父的伤，她唤醒了那股力量，却受那个力量影响大肆屠杀。于是，为了阻止继续酿成大祸，也为了保护她不受人报复，她的师父把她交给了一群术士，他们承诺看守和保护灵儿。但那群人说谎了，最终打算杀死灵儿来消灭这股力量。关键时刻，师父破门而入救走了灵儿。灵儿吻上师父的面颊，也就是此刻，师父终于正视了自己的内心，他也深爱灵儿。但不论如何卜算，他们的宿命就是悲剧。最终，师父为了保护灵儿而死，灵儿却不愿意相信这个事实，在世间流浪，去寻找师父的灵魂/转世。 —————————————————————— The two songs in this video: 1) 江山雪 Snow over Rivers and Mountains Translation credit to (except for a few corrections): http://classcalstylechinesesongtranslation.blogspot.com/2018/01/english-translation-snow-over-rivers.html 2）拂雪 Whisk Snow I didn't find a translation, so I translated myself：

此生的守候, 已盡我溫柔 I have used up my gentleness to wait for you this life 只恨年華早泛白, 不能偷 Only hate that my hair turned gray and I can't steal the time back 此生都溯遊, 執念未肯休 I'm been running back and forth, cannot let go of my obsessions 只因一字未看透, 未看透 Only because of one phrase: not seeing through 你是振翅欲飛的獵獵白裳 With your billowing white clothes, you were like a bird lifting its wings to fly 看華山之巔一捧雪, 落下的明亮 Seeing a handful of snow on the peak of Mount Hua, and the brightness when it fell 舉步凌太虛, 執劍沖陰陽 Strode in the air, dashed with a sword across Yin and Yang 劍鋒倒映你滿目星罡 The blade reflected your eyes, shining like starts 年少初相逢, 萬丈紅塵中 We met each other when we were young, in the mortal world 想書心思墨未濃, 墨未濃 Though wanted to write our thoughts in letters, the ink was not thick enough yet 人生忽倥傯, 再想畫細雪 Time flies all of a sudden, even if I want to paint that light snow again 卻隔青山千萬重, 千萬重 Tens and thousands of mountains are in between you and me now

[shinsengumi-archives]

Sannan’s letter

Until now, it was believed that not a single letter from Sannan Keisuke survived. At least I haven’t come across them anywhere. But in this book, in the comments to one of Hijikata's letters, I suddenly came across a letter from Sannan! More precisely, it’s a postcard where Sannan congratulated Kojima Shikanosuke on New Year’s 1864. I found it three weeks ago, now I'm spreading it as a New Year's surprise.

English Translation

Happy New Year and I wish you peace in the world. It was gratifying to know that you and your family welcomed the New Year in good health. Your humble servant also made it through this winter safely, so I dare ask you not to worry. May everything that was said in the New Year's prayers come true, but for now, accept my humble congratulations. When we see you, let's talk slowly. Respectfully, Sannan Keisuke Tomonobu January 27 As for the situation in the vicinity of Kyoto on the 2nd, I would like to keep you informed about this, but, as expected, Kondo-sensei will detail everything in his letter, so I omit this circumstance.

Original

(https://seiran.exblog.jp/4944066/)

新春之御寿ぎ四海昇平目出度く申し納め候。先ず以て　貴兄御始め御家内様方御機嫌克く御越年遊ばされ、登賀奉り候。下拙も無異越年罷り在り候間、憚りながら御安意下さるべく候。先ずハ年甫之御祝詞申し上げたく愚礼を呈し候。尚永日之時を期し候。謹言。

山南敬介　知信（書判）

二白、京地之形勢即ち愚書を以って差し上ぐべく候処、果たして近藤先生より御細書之事と相略ス

Commentary

For some reason, Kojima Shikanosuke copied this New Year’s greeting in his "Records of Amazing Stories" (異 聞 録 - ibunroku), but the original still did not survive, so it’s not in our destiny to see Sannan’s handwriting (And Kojima’s handwriting, apparently, was not very good either, so in the only Japanese blog where I found this letter, some kanji are different from those in the book. But the meaning is not changed)

Postcard text is pretty standard, and is similar to the greeting that is Hijikata sent to their relatives in the same year of 1864. However, even from this little note you can learn something new about the second Vice-Commander of Shinsengumi.

For example, Sannan calls himself 下拙 (gesetsu, 下 - low, 拙 - bad / inept). I have never met such a personal pronoun. It is similar to 拙者 (sessha - a bad, inept person), which was used mainly by samurai (Kondo constantly, Okita sometimes, Hijikata never), but not the same. It’s special. He refers to Kojima as 貴兄 (kikei, 貴 - precious / noble / noble, 兄 - older brother) - this is the epistolary "you" when referring to a man who is older in age and/or position, but at the same time a fairly close friend. Hijikata addressed Kojima and Sato in the same way, and it would probably be more correct to translate this pronoun as "you". I struggled with it from the very beginning - the general increased politeness of these letters is very hard to translate. For comparison: there is also 貴君 (kikun) - also, in general, a friendly address, but not "brotherly", and there is 貴殿 (kiden, noble lord) - to those who are completely higher. And 貴様 (kisama) which is similar. Nowadays, all these pronouns have been replaced by the rather impersonal 貴方 (anata - noble person), and the once super polite "kisama" has become offensive.

And even in this little card, Sannan’s love for the Chinese language is evident. He spelled "world peace" as 四海昇平. 四海 means "seas from four directions", figuratively "the whole world", and 昇平 - peace, tranquility, order - I didn’t find it in any Japanese dictionary, but I found it in Chinese, even though there are several alternative phrases in Japanese that could be used instead.

About the "situation in the vicinity of Kyoto on the 2nd" Hijikata wrote: “The other day, on the 2nd, in connection with the next visit of the shogun to the capital, we were sent to Osaka. The day before yesterday, on the 8th, when the shogun arrived in Naniwa, we guarded him." He even attached a sketch.

The promised letter from Kondo-sensei was either not preserved, or he didn’t bother to write it.

The date on the postcard is also quite interesting. It was customary to send New Year's greetings from January 1 to January 10, but now it's already the 27th! The letter was clearly written in response to Kojima's greetings, but even given the speed of mail delivery at that time, it is somehow very late. Even if we consider that at the beginning of January the Shinsengumi were busy guarding the shogun, they returned to Kyoto on the 15th, and Hijikata's stay in Osaka did not prevent him from congratulating his relatives before the 10th. But this is explained in the testimony of Tomizawa Chuemon, which I wrote about here. Tomizawa, the headman of Renkoji Village and a good acquaintance of the Shieikan, visited them in Mibu on February 2, 1864. And he mentioned that "Sannan fell ill due to illness, so we did not see him." And that was just four days after writing the New Year's card! Moreover, until April 13, when Tomizawa left Kyoto, he never again mentions any meetings with Sannan. It looks like it was a lingering illness, and most likely, it began before January 27, so Sannan wasn’t able to write a postcard for a long time. Presumably, the whole thing is related to the wound that Sannan received in August 1863 in Iwagimasuya, and which thoroughly incapacitated him. Because in the summer of 1864, Sannan also didn’t participate in the Ikedaya Incident due to illness. A few years later, the thoroughly ill Okita, writes so that they would not be worried about him, and that he "survived this winter safely." Although, indeed, it is still quite well - I have not survived the next one ((Moreover, judging by the brevity of this message to Kojima, it is unlikely that his farewell letter when leaving the detachment was long.

Just like Okita, who later became thoroughly ill, he writes that they should not worry about him, and that he "successfully survived this winter". Although, he was indeed still quite well - he wouldn’t survive the next one (And judging by the brevity of this message to Kojima, his farewell letter when he left the headquarters was unlikely to have been long.)

* Although there is a record that another New Year's card had been sent on January 2, Genji 2 (Keio 1), the content is unknown. (source)

[aegisoul-blog]

[ sends love to Zorro & his Zorro outfit. ] 💙

srsly holli, you are a literal angel. just the sweetest person alive. the world does not deserve you ♥

[healwoo]

Vocabulary from Love Talk (WayV)

View the song lyrics with translations and notes here

Watch the official music video here

The tag for “WayV” + “NCT”

Other vocabulary lists

grammar

的 (de): (possessive particle) of, -’s

着 (zhe): (an aspect particle indicating that an action is in progress; implies that the action will continue to happen for a while)

被 (bèi): (used to express the passive voice, i.e. where the object of an action becomes the subject of the sentence)

无 (wú): to not have [something], to lack; (when attached to a word) “-less,” “un-”

就像 (jiùxiàng): just like

像 (xiàng): (used for comparing similarities) looks like, as if

颗 (kē): measure word for small spheres

是 (shì): to be (used to connect nouns in a sentence)

而 (ér): (indicates [1] contrast, i.e. “yet”, “but”; [2] a causal state, i.e. “and so...”; [3] a change of state)

是否 (shìfǒu): (conjunction) whether or not

会 (huì): (a helping verb that expresses an ability or skill that one has learned) can

但 (dàn): (conjunction) but, yet, however, still

向 (xiàng): (preposition) (literally translates as “to” or “towards”, but used in the same function as “from”)

却 (què): (adverb) however, but (indicates that something was contrary to one’s expectations; usually followed by a negative comment)

在 (zài): (expresses [1] existence in a place or location; [2] that an action is ongoing/currently in progress)

在 (zài) + [location] + 里 (lǐ): (used to show where an object is in relation to another object)

将 (jiāng): (denotes that an action will occur in the near future) about to; is going to, will

当 (dāng): (expresses time and date) when

就 (jiù): (usually follows a sentence that sets up a situation, and then indicates what should be done as a result of that situation) then, just

把 (bǎ): (marks the following noun as a direct object of an action)

和 (hé): and (used to link nouns together)

verbs

藏 (cáng): to conceal, hide away, harbor, store

等待 (děngdài): to wait [for something]

开启 (kāiqǐ): to open, start

跨越 (kuàyuè): to step across, step over; to span

无法 (wúfǎ): to be unable, incapable [of doing something]

想象 (xiǎngxiàng): to imagine, picture, fancy

迟疑 (chíyí): to hesitate

怕 (pà): to fear, dread, be afraid; to be unable to endure

伤害 (shānghài): to harm, injure, hurt

保护 (bǎohù): to protect, defend, safeguard

传递 (chuándì): to transmit, pass [something] onto someone else

出 (chū): to go out, come out, appear; to occur

呼唤 (hūhuàn): to shout, call out [a name, etc.]

渴望 (kěwàng): to long for, thirst for

向 (xiàng): to face, approach, advance towards; to admire, revere; to side with, favor

借 (jiè): to lend; to borrow; to take [an opportunity]

颤抖 (chàndǒu): to shudder, shiver, tremble, quake

充满 (chōngmǎn): to be full of, brimming with; to permeate, fill

故作 (gùzuò): to pretend, feign

说 (shuō): to speak, say; to explain; to tell off, scold

融化 (rónghuà): to melt, thaw, dissolve; to fuse, combine, blend into

释放 (shìfàng): to set free, release, liberate, discharge

喧哗 (xuānhuá): to riot, make a racket, cause a disturbance; to clamor, make noise, be loud

戍守 (shùshǒu): to guard, defend, garrison

倾塌 (qīngtā): to collapse, fall down

让 (ràng): to yield, permit; to have or let someone do something; to make someone [feel something]

消失 (xiāoshī): to disappear, fade away

张开 (zhāngkāi): to open up, spread, extend

翱翔 (áoxiáng): to soar; to hover (at height)

带 (dài): to take, bring

穿梭 (chuānsuō): to travel/shuttle back and forth

显得 (xiǎnde): to seem, look, appear

不如 (bùrú): to not be equal to/as good as [something]; to be unable to compare [to something]; to be inferior

相信 (xiāngxìn): to be convinced [that something is true], accept something [as true]; to believe

回应 (huíyìng): to respond, answer, greet

听见 (tīngjiàn): to hear

抛开 (pāokāi): to throw out, get rid of, discard

压抑 (yāyì): to constrain, inhibit, repress, stifle

怀疑 (huáiyí): to doubt, suspect; to speculate, surmise

投下 (tóuxià): to drop from a height; to jettison; to cast (e.g. a shadow)

想念 (xiǎngniàn): to miss; to remember with longing; to long to see again

写 (xiě): to write

写给 (xiěgěi): to write to somebody

爱 (ài): to love, be fond of

留下 (liúxià): to leave behind [a scar, an impression, a person, etc.], stay behind

变成 (biànchéng): to change into, turn into, become

想起 (xiǎngqǐ): to think of, call to mind, recall

注视 (zhùshì): to watch attentively, gaze at

读懂 (dúdǒng): to read and understand

细语 (xìyǔ): to speak softly, whisper; to chat with a low voice

包围 (bāowéi): to surround, encircle, hem in

纪录 (jìlù): to record, take note, write down, log

遗忘 (yíwàng): to forget; to be forgotten

用 (yòng): to use, employ

不懂 (bùdǒng): to be unable to understand; cannot [do something]

翻译 (fānyì): to translate, interpret

离去 (líqù): to leave, exit

凋零 (diāolíng): to wither, wilt; to decline, decay, fade

adjectives

安静 (ānjìng): quiet, peaceful, calm

沉默 (chénmò): taciturn, silent, uncommunicative

急 (jí): urgent, pressing, rapid, hurried

隐约 (yǐnyuē): faint, vague, indistinct

好奇 (hàoqí): curious, inquisitive

镇静 (zhènjìng): calm, cool

不同 (bùtóng): different, distinct; not the same, not alike

陌生 (mòshēng): strange, unfamiliar

不安 (bù'ān): unstable, uneasy, disturbed, restless, not peaceful

唯一 (wéiyī): only, sole

多余 (duōyú): unnecessary, superfluous, redundant, excessive, uncalled-for

诚实 (chéngshí): honest, truthful

忧郁 (yōuyù): sad, depressed, melancholic, dejected

美丽 (měilì): beautiful

温暖 (wēnnuǎn): warm

未知 (wèizhī): unknown

nouns

秘密 (mìmì): secret

魅力 (mèilì): charm, charisma; glamour; fascination

预警 (yùjǐng): warning (in advance)

两 (liǎng): two; both; some, a few

流星 (liúxīng): meteor, shooting star

奇迹 (qíjì): miracle, wonder, marvel

人们 (rénmen): people

距离 (jùlí): distance

心 (xīn): heart, mind; intention; center, core

身体 (shēntǐ): the body (can refer to the condition of one’s health)

讯息 (xùnxī): message, information, news

幽灵 (yōulíng): ghost, apparition, specter

月光 (yuèguāng): moonlight

勇气 (yǒngqì): courage, bravery, valor

唇 (chún): lip

边 (biān): side, edge, border, limit

阴影 (yīnyǐng): shadow; (figurative) a haunting or traumatic experience

世界 (shìjiè): world

彼此 (bǐcǐ): each other, one another, you and I

言语 (yányǔ): words, speech, (spoken) language

密码 (mìmǎ): (secret) code, password

夜晚 (yèwǎn): night

孤单 (gūdān): loneliness

梦 (mèng): dream

过去 (guòqù): the past

天际 (tiānjì): horizon

时空旅行 (shíkōng lǚxíng): time travel

心跳 (xīntiào): heartbeat, pulse

频率 (pínlǜ): frequency, rate

颜色 (yánsè): color; facial expression, countenance

名 (míng): name

表情 (biǎoqíng): expression [of one’s feelings, on one’s face]

小说 (xiǎoshuō): novel, fiction

影 (yǐng): picture, image; film, movie; reflection; shadow, trace

眼睛 (yǎnjing): eye

自己 (zìjǐ): oneself

信 (xìn): letter

耳 (ěr): ear

乐曲 (yuèqǔ): music, musical composition

笔记 (bǐjì): note(s)

���图 (dìtú): map

上 (shàng): upper part; above, on, up

领域 (lǐngyù): domain, territory, realm, field, area

感觉 (gǎnjué): feeling, sense, perception, emotion, intuition

神秘 (shénmì): [profound] mystery

时间 (shíjiān): time, period

回忆 (huíyì): memories, reminiscence, recollection

adverbs

总是 (zǒngshì): always

仿佛 (fǎngfú): as if, as though, similar to

仍 (réng): still, yet

太 (tài): too, too much, so

早已 (zǎoyǐ): long ago, for a long time

一点 (yīdiǎn): a bit, a little

此刻 (cǐkè): now, at present, at this moment

似乎 (sìhū): apparently

渐渐 (jiànjiàn): gradually, progressively; little by little, step by step

终于 (zhōngyú): at last, in the end; finally, eventually

永远 (yǒngyuǎn): forever, always, permanently

永 (yǒng): forever

永不 (yǒngbù): never, will never

一起 (yīqǐ): together, with; in the same place

phrases/expressions

不经意 (bù jīng yì): not paying attention, carelessly, by accident

出卖 (chūmài): to sell out or betray; literally “to offer for sale”

你我 (nǐwǒ): you and I, we; everyone, all of us

心里 (xīnli): in one’s mind/heart/conscience

眼底 (yǎndǐ): right in front of one’s eyes; in full view, like a panorama; literally “the fundus of the eye”

双臂 (shuāngbì): both arms, two arms

有人 (yǒurén): someone, anyone; literally “for someone to be present”

欲言又止 (yùyányòuzhǐ): to wish to speak, but deciding against it after having second thoughts; from 欲 (to wish for, desire) + 言 (to say, talk) + 又 (again, once more) + 止 (to stop, prevent)

无法解释 (wúfǎ jiěshì): indecipherable, unsolvable; cannot be expressed in words, defies explanation, unexplainable

也不会 (yěbù huì): neither will..., also won’t..., nor will...

[sillsif]

《an essay for him》

based on an original story i’m trying to write. a piece of that world i’m constructing these days.

note: posting this here for friends who might still want to read my writing.

what makes words plausible? i could tell you the sun rises from the east every morning and you would still find some who believe otherwise. what if i say they are right? that there is no east, nor west, no north, nor south; no direction but the side of bed from which the sun rises — his side of bed — will you believe me?

是什麼讓文字可信？即使我告訴你太陽每早從東邊升起，你還是可以找到不相信的人。然後我會說：他們是對的，世上沒有東南西北，沒有方向，只有迎接日出的那一邊床——他的那邊——你會信我嗎？

 publish it, he always told me, publish your words, make it a book, something physical and tangible and weighted — hardcover, he'd always say — because what you can touch must be real. so i'm publishing this letter, printing a thousand copies, sending them across the bridge, until it touches those who matter.

出版吧，他總告訴我，把你的文字出版，印刷成書，一本實體的、可觸及的、有重量的精裝書，因為但凡踫得到的必為真實。所以我要把這一封信出版，印刷一千份，寄到橋的另一邊，直到它們落在重要的人手上。

 whom am i speaking of, you ask? him, my jörmungandr. oh, you're asking about the other one — those who matter. right.

我在說誰？他啊，我的耶夢加得。啊，你問的是其他人——重要的人。嗯。

 before i answer with a name — i will, i promise — please feel the wrinkles on this paper you hold. no, i did not manage a book. unlike my love, my words run dry at the thought of his pain; even now, they are escaping me with how much i cry. but tears, too, are tangible. run your thumb over the crooked edge and the smudged letter "i". that's the proof of him and i.

 在我說出一個名字之前——我會，信我——請先感受手上這張紙的皺紋。對，我這封信成不了書。和我的愛相反，每當想起他受的苦，我的字詞就乾澀得很；就連此刻，它們趁我大哭就跑了。可是眼淚也是實在的。提起你的姆指，撫過曲折的紙緣，以及化開了的「我」字。那就是他和我的證據。

 do i have your attention now?

你在留心了嗎？

 the story begins here: we met on a cold winter day. winter, it seems, has a bad reputation. bad things happen in winter, the unbearing cold — at least to us in the south. he happened on a winter day, one of the days where the air was so clear you could see the temperature. he might be bad, but he is not a bad thing.

故事從這裡開始：我們在一個寒冷的冬日相遇。冬天似乎惡名昭彰——壞事總在冬天的嚴寒裡發生——至少我們南方人是這麼覺得的。他也來自某個冬日，某個空氣清澈得能夠看見溫度的日子。他可能很壞，可是絕非壞事。

 i apologise if my recollection blurs — can you blame me? with the gut-wrenching, nerve-wrecking pain inside me — like the way his breath blurred my vision. his breath fell on my neck, warm and tempting, as he murdered the man beneath me.

如果我的記憶含糊不清，我很抱歉——這能怪我嗎？我正經歷肝腸寸斷之痛——就像他的呼吸還我的視線朦朧一樣。當他謀殺我身下的男人時，呼吸落在我的頸間，��暖而誘人。

 why was there a man beneath me? well, if you must know: we were bound by transaction. is that clear enough for you? now, back to him.

為什麼我身下有個男人？如果你堅持要問：我們有所交易。這個答案夠清楚了嗎？那麼，回歸正題。

 he murdered the man and swept me off my feet, both literally and figuratively. i know, this sounds bad — how could i fall in love over a murder, with the murderer? see, i came from the dirtiest streets. i might have never killed, but that doesn't mean i'm good.

他謀殺了那個男人，抱走了我、俘獲了我。我知道，這聽起來很糟糕——我怎麼可能因為目擊謀殺而跟殺人犯墜入愛河？我出身於最骯髒的街道。我也許從未殺人，可是這不代表我是好人。

 i'm a bad person. besides, i hated the man, and every person i had transaction with, men or women or other. it wasn't about the transaction itself — they were from above, and i hated them out of principle.

我是個壞人。而且，我討厭那個男人，討厭每個和我交易的人，男人、女人或其他。這無關交易的內容——他們全部來自高高在上的地方，而我基於原則討厭他們。

 you see, as he pressed his hands upon mine, tightly wrapped around the man's neck, i expected a crunch. a satisfying, chilling crunch. i've always imagined death like that — a clear snap, a definite line, the absolute space between zero and one.

當他的手按住我的手，緊緊握住那個男人的脖子，我期待聽見清脆的斷裂聲。叫人滿足、渾身雞皮疙瘩的清脆聲響。我一直都是這樣想像死亡的——俐落的一聲劈啪、確切的一條線、一和零之間的絕對距離。

 but he showed me the decimal places of murder: the gurgling as your subject chokes, the xylophone as you kneel on their ribs, the yelps as an audience arrives. he'd killed so many he lost count, but he never forgot those sounds.

然而，他向我展示了謀殺的小數點：目標嗆到窒息時的淙淙水聲、跪壓在他們肋骨上的木片琴音、旁觀者抵達的呼天搶地。他殺過太多人，記不住殺了多少，可是忘不了這些聲音。

 then came the stomach-turning realisation — i was in trouble. i demanded him to fix it, for it was him who dragged me into that mess. i wasn't always nice to him but i opted for fair. he did too, in reciprocation. it was the first quality i noticed — he reciprocates, fair and square, like a stubborn mirror.

之後我開始反胃——我知道自己大難臨頭。我要求他幫我解決，因為是他把我捲進來的。我並不是從一開始就對他好，但是我至少待他公平。他對我也是禮尚往來。那是我注意到他的第一個特質——他像一面固執的鏡子，公平公正地以牙還牙，以眼還眼。

 he often said i was a poet. i asked what it meant. he said it meant i could reach the invisible and undo the impossible. i asked where he learnt all that. he said he read it from a book. a page, printed, clutched in paperback. he said paperbacks held special thoughts. softer ones.

他時常說我是個詩人。我問他那是什麼意思？他說我能夠抓住不可見的事物，也能夠推翻任何不可能。我問他是哪裡學來這些的？他說他是從書裡看到的，印在一本平裝書裡面的一頁。他說平裝書裝的想法不僅特別，還很柔軟。

 i wish i read, i said. i'm reading to you now, he said. for you.

真希望我也看書，我說。看，我現在就讀給你聽了，他說。為了你。

 he taught me this too, writing essays. said the word came from french, and in french it meant to try, to attempt. and i am trying, very hard, to convince you.

這也是他教我的，寫散文這一回事。他說散文的英文「essay」來自法文，而在法文那是「嘗試」的意思。而我在非常努力地嘗試說服你。

 back to the point: i need you to believe me. i need you to believe that he did nothing wrong. have you ever seen someone hold a butterfly like it matters? like it is precious and sacred and deeply loved, even for a brief, fleeting moment?

言歸正傳：我要你相信我。我要你相信他沒有做錯任何事。你見過一個人小心翼翼地捧住一隻蝴蝶嗎？對他珍而重之，因為他重要，他珍貴，他神聖、因為他被深深地愛著，即使只有稍縱即逝的瞬間？

 i have. i was that butterfly.

我見過。我就是那隻蝴蝶。

 so gentle and tender, his hands on me. i have never seen killing hands so kind. he might be a killer, but a kind one, no less.

他的手在我身上，是那麼溫柔又細心。我從未見過殺人的手如此善良。他也許是個殺手，可是他是個善良的殺手。

 he always said i used the em dash too much — he was right. but i like this punctuation too much to let it go — it dashes, straight and determined, towards where it wants to be. i want to be like it, dashing straight towards him.

他總說我濫用破折號——他說得沒錯。但是我太喜歡這個標點，實在不願割捨——它筆直地、決心地劃破距離，直達心之所向。我想像它一樣，直達他的所在。

[fishxx]

Se Qing and the Naked Truth

February 24th, 2017

Below the rooftop of a Beijing building that shudders against a glaucous sky of factory moans is an unextraordinary office building. In it, perhaps on the sixth floor, sits a man in a suit at a desk. The phone on his desk rings. He probably picks it up. Maybe he shifts his weight in his seat, undoing the buttons on his cuffs. Maybe he texts his wife, tells her not to wait up, a client needs this or that document tonight.

It’s 11 degrees Celsius, and a pair of broad-boned feet rest on the ledge of the rooftop above the office building. The owner of the feet crouches over them, back bent round as if in a snail shell. He looks down to the street below, speckled with pedestrians bundled in scarves and cars blaring their horns. He thinks about what kind of people might be in the office building.

Seven months prior, he’d written in a series of diaries published online:

           我总是能听到开枪的声音，开始的时候我有点害怕，时间久了，也就习惯了，那声

           音也像有人在用槌子往我脑袋里钉钉子，好像有一个建筑工地，有人要盖摩��大楼

           ，盖了这么多年也没盖好，好多无家可归的人在我的脑袋里面哭啊闹啊，我要被吵

           死了，他们不让我睡觉，也不让我出门。不睡觉也好，不出门也好，反正每天出门

           前，穿上精心挑选好的衣服，照着镜子怎么看都觉得像要去参加自己的葬礼

           I am always hearing gunshots. In the beginning it scared me a little, but over time I’ve

           grown used to it. Someone has taken up a hammer and is knocking nails into my head,

           it’s a construction site where someone is erecting a monstrous skyscraper, they’ve been

           building it for years and it still isn’t done yet. The many homeless people in my head are

           crying and jibing, they won’t let me sleep, won’t let me out the door. Staying home and

           awake suits me just fine, because every day before heading out, after putting on the

           clothes I’ve selected so meticulously for myself, and looking into the mirror, it looks to

           me as if I’ve dressed to attend my own funeral.

It had always felt this way. For much of his life, since his childhood in a suburb of Changchun, the capital of China’s northeastern province of Jilin, Ren Hang had felt as if he was stumbling through a shadowy psychosis, a jammed film reel in disparate shades of gray.

Still, through the fog of voices and visions clouding his consciousness, in Ren’s pulsing circuit board of veins, he has always felt a deep connection to his family, to his hometown, to China.

And this has never wavered, even as he moved what seemed continents away to study marketing at 17, to live in the 4-to-a-room cramped quarters of Beijing’s university housing, high from the ground, amidst the haze and cancers and pollution of a city of chaos.

–

Fragmented light splashes across the bare thighs and torso of a man whose face cannot be seen. Each hand holds a disco ball, whose mosaicked faces refract the flash’s exposure. Between the disco balls, an erect penis. In another photograph, from the last series Ren published, two nude men sit curled atop one other on the ledge of a building, pasted against a jumbled, silver skyline. Their eyes meet the camera’s gaze steadily.

As Ren crouches on the windowsill, many of these photos are already on exhibition at Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. Museum curator Mirjam Kooiman says of the work, “It’s visual poetry. It’s without limits.”

Ren is not without limits.

The man in the office shuffles a stack of paper, maybe. He sighs when the phone rings again. Perhaps he stares at the minute hand on the wall clock.

Ren, some days, can’t tell wall clock from whiskey.

He rises slowly in the frame of the window. Stands, looks. Maybe he is naked, like so many of his subjects are. Maybe, as always, he’s meticulously selected what he believes to be the proper attire for the occasion. In one month he’ll be 30. He is always hearing gunshots.

He steps into the air.

–

January 15th, 2010

           我只会注意那些病态，结巴，物质，2维思维，单亲家庭的男孩。有一种男孩是我

           在涨潮几个小时之后会打电话给他，听到他的声音我知道虽然我还在水底，但是我

           还没有溺亡。

           I will only pay attention to those morbid, stuttering, material, two-dimensional- thinking

           boys in single-parent families. There is a kind of boy who calls me after hours of high

           tide. Hearing his voice, I know that although I am still underwater, I am still not dead.

Huang Jiaqi has the broad, hopeful eyes of youth and lips full as if they’d been stung by honeybees.

It’s been nearly a year since he ran away from home, leaving his university entrance examinations unfinished, his childhood tucked somewhere in diaries with thick-pulp pages, like those still made by tired men in the Qinling mountains.

At only 18, Jiaqi is slight of build, and can often afford nothing more to eat than a box of fried rice with a cucumber for five yuan. He devours the meal shoulder-to-shoulder with his lover, beneath the opaque and oppressive Beijing sky.

Jiaqi and Ren sleep in a house with five or six others who pad silently through the space like apparitions, also hungry.

Ren takes Jiaqi to rooftops. He snaps his shutter.

And with friends pitted naked against mosaicked Moroccan-style floors, between red curtains backlit by pale light, in reeds and bushes, amidst the haze of cigarettes in dingy apartments, Ren snaps his shutter. Boys and boys, girls and boys, girls and more girls mingle, mangled in limb and wire and branch.

Ren graduates from his compact analogue camera to a $29 Minolta X-700 film model. He is not interested in digital cameras. He says, “I like film. It’s exciting to wait.”

His work is featured in small group shows in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Nanjing.

Still, it seems no one in the art world knows Ren Hang’s name.

Jiaqi knows Ren Hang’s name, his mother’s name, the pock-marks of his left cheek, the sound of his heartbeat. In and out and in and out like the tide.

Jiaqi is Ren’s greatest muse, the reason for all things.

In eight years, an image of his face will splash the cover of an international art book published by Taschen and Ren Hang will be dead.

–

June 8th, 2008

           写给周耀辉的信

           每个人都是同性恋，每个人都是霸权者，每张脸都打上马赛克，每颗心都穿上防弹

           衣。所有的亲吻都是一味毒药，所有的拥抱都是一个牢房。

           Letter to Zhou Yaohui:

           Everyone is homosexual. Everyone is a hegemonic person. Each face is marked with a

           mosaic. Each heart is wearing a bulletproof vest. All the kisses are blind poisons, and all

           the hugs are a jail cell.

Ren books his first solo show in 2010. It opens in July under the name “Eat Naked Lunch!” at Yuyintang, a cozy underground live house in Shanghai.

One photograph features a young woman lying on her back, her knees drawn against her bare chest. Between her legs sprouts a tangled bouquet of leaves and red wildflowers. No genitalia can be exposed in the photographs on display, though the work Ren produces is often explicit, featuring cigarettes with seething red heads protruding from vaginas and lilies with their stems tucked into anuses.

He begins to exhibit quietly in other galleries and live houses.

And gradually, like a moonflower unfurling, Ren Hang’s work begins to bloom in the art world. The influence of boundary-pushing erotic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe becomes increasingly apparent, yet curators and collectors insist they have never seen anything like it before.

They are eager to comment on its starkness, its unapologetic sensuality, its balance and color, and its function as a bold fuck you to the Chinese government.

–

In the spring of 2018, Chinese social media platform Weibo announces a three-month “cleanup” effort of its site, a censorship initiative launched on the heels of President Xi Jinping’s new cybersecurity jurisdiction. Weibo quietly begins removing all content related to homosexuality. In response, social media users storm the platform with the hashtag #Iamgaynotapervert.

Though homosexual sex was decriminalized in China in 1997, members of the LGBTQIA+ community continue to face prejudice and a dearth of political discourse about their rights. Today, gay marriage is still not legally recognized in a single continental Asian country.

The Dream of the Red Chamber, the Qing dynasty-era novel oft considered the peak of Chinese literature features a number of steamy same-sex relationships, and passages of dialogue brazen enough to make even the most indiscreet of patrons blush: “What’s it to you if we fuck asses! It’s not like we fucked your dad,” says one character. Hand scrolls of the same time period depict what appears to be recreational sex between male friends, one colorful panel portraying a man hiking up his robes, sitting upon another man’s lap while they enjoy a cup of tea.

So whence came the disdain for homosexuality in China? Anthropologists argue that the influence of Western socio-cultural norms and exposure to foreign media rendered the subject taboo, casting shame over same-same relationships as the perverted product of delinquency or mental disorders. Others assert that the filial values of traditional China that have dominated social life since the era of Confucius are to blame.

Ren says, “We hide the body in our culture,” because it is “a demoralization to show what they think should be private.” But instead of hiding, Ren rebels—worshipping both the sacred and the sacrilegious in the human form, twisting and contorting it into geometry and shadow.

Everything about Ren’s photography is charged with the electric current of sexuality. Much of it is homoerotic. Much of it is not. As one curator puts it, “There’s no hierarchy between the female and the male model in his work. It’s very telling about these tendencies of sexuality and queerness in Chinese society and how his generation is dealing with it.”

What does this one represent?, they ask. It must be a commentary on the political state of modern China, they whisper.

When asked whether his pictures are meant to inspire or incite a sexual liberation in China, Ren responds flatly, “A sexual liberation? No.” He says, “Nudes have always been around. We were born nude. So I don’t think there’s anything to revolutionize. I just photograph things in their more natural conditions.”

Ren Hang didn’t intend to become a photographer. He became one accidentally, toying with a compact camera in the ennui of his days at the Communication University of China, snapping photographs of his roommates here and there, often naked, scuttling to the showers from their room with four bunks like narrow coffins stacked atop one another.

Perhaps he didn’t intend to become a poet either, although after his death, Tim Crowley of the KWM Art Center in Beijing says, “He was, in a way, a poet who just happened to be a great photographer.”

At times, he writes:

           "My cock"

           When soft, it’s like a piece of meat

           When hard, like a knife

           I give you soft when you eat

           Wait for you to eat hard

           Use it to kill you

And, at other times:

           "Real desperation"

           I found

           My breasts are bigger every day

           My vagina is wider day-by-day

           I can be ashamed

           I can hold hundreds of rivers

           My time is finally coming

           But I also felt for the first time

           What real despair is

           I stand in the highest place

           But I dare not take a look below

And as Ren Hang comes barreling into the world of contemporary Chinese art with images that incite gasps, fury, and arrests, he perplexes and enchants by straddling, unapologetically, the worlds of straightness and gayness, of kink and custom, of truth and deception, of masochism and tantrism, of woman and man.

–

May 9th, 2013

           还有一次连续几天晚上我都觉得我的隔壁睡了两匹马，我能听到他们的喘息，还有

           那种马的“突突”的鼻音，我每天���到家都小心翼翼地怕吵醒了他们，有一天我的朋

           友来家里住，我跟他说，我的邻居是两匹马，他们一直在睡觉，你今晚还是不要洗

           澡了，洗澡的声音太大了，我们说话走路也小声一点，不然会吵醒他们的，我已经

           三天没洗澡了。我朋友说我疯了。我说，他们不是一般的马，他们会说人话，会躺

           着睡觉。开始他以为我在开玩笑，但是我的表情越来越严肃，他说你真是疯了。后

           来我也不知道该怎么跟他解释，他再也没有住过我家。

           For a few days in a row, I felt like there were two horses sleeping next to each other. I

           was very careful not to wake them. One day, my friend came to stay at my place. I told

           him that my neighbors are two horses. They have been sleeping. You shouldn't take a

           shower tonight. The bathing sound is too loud. We can only speak quietly. Or I will wake

           them up. I haven't bathed for three days. My friend said I was crazy. I said that they are

           not ordinary horses. They speak ‘people’ and lie down to sleep. At first he thought I was

           joking, but my expression became more and more serious. He said that I was crazy.

           Later, I didn't know how to explain to him. He never stayed at my house again.

In China, mental illness is like homosexuality. It exists. We don’t talk about it.

–

April 5th, 2016

           我适应了逆来顺受，就像掷骰子，每次都掷到同一个点数，后来你发现，其实每一

           个面的点数都是一样的。这个房间里我最熟悉的就是头顶的那块天花板，它就像我

           的天空，白色的天空，没有任何阴晴变化的天空，我幻想过楼上的邻居就是住在天

           上的神仙

           I have adapted to obey just like a die that is rolled over and shows the same number every

           time. In the end you realize that each side of the die is exactly the same. I am most

           familiar with the ceiling from my room. It’s like my sky, a white sky. There is no

           pleasant change in my sky. I imagine that my neighbor from upstairs is an angel living in

           heaven with the gods.

“I love China, and I like shooting Chinese people,” Ren tells Vice Japan. “The more I’m limited by my country, the more I want my country to take me in and accept me for who I am and what I do.”

Ren is arrested a number of times—for shooting nude models in public places, where indecency is punishable by up to six months’ jail time, and, perhaps more scandalously, for self-publishing.

The Chinese government exercises nearly complete control over the press, and the country’s commitment to extensive media censorship is a well-documented phenomenon. Self-publishing, while technically legal, is a highly regulated procedure requiring an ISSN number and authors’ compliance with mandatory censorship policies.

Ren begins publishing his work underground in 2011 with the help of a friend who works in printing, knowing that he will never be able to publish his work otherwise, as the distribution of explicit photo or video content in China is illegal. The Communist Party once dubbed pornography “spiritual pollution.”

In 2015, in the vindictive heat of a Beijing summer, when asked about if he considers his pictures erotica, Ren tells a magazine intern, “I don’t like the word ‘erotica’ (in Chinese, qing se). I prefer ‘pornographic’ (se qing). I think it’s more direct.”

In China, a lifetime behind bars may await anyone who produces, disseminates, or sells “obscene materials.”

Naturally, Ren sets out to do all three.

Within five years, he produces 16 of his own zines and monographs, filled with glossy pages of penises urinating into corded telephone receivers, bodies twisted into fantastical shapes, vaginas splayed open like raw wounds. Many of the earliest of these books were sold underground in small shops whose owners knew his work.

A posterboy millennial, Ren has generated cult followings on his Weibo, Tumblr, and Instagram profiles. He publishes his photography freely on his website, alongside collections of poetry and an unassuming tab on the sidebar menu bar labelled “My Depression.”

His website is shut down unexpectedly. Once. Twice. Again. Law enforcement officers swarm Beijing galleries in wailing Volkswagen Passats, calling for the stop to his exhibitions. A man attends an exhibition and spits on one of the photographs.

He is arrested, but never imprisoned. While Ren operates as an anomaly, a dark creature inhabiting the fringes of Chinese society, authorities seem ambiguous about his status as a criminal. Is he a political rebel? Is he subverting the zhengfu?

They hesitate further because the mind of China is evolving. The economy, taking new shapes.

Chinese citizens born in the 1980s were taught that the country’s “pillar industries” included the automotive, construction, mechanical, electrical, and petrochemical sectors. But these categories are not static. In recent years, biotechnology, advanced energy, and IT have made their way to the forefront of the economy. These new pillars are China’s loyal heed to the call of science. Yet—more than anything—they’ve become the cherubim upholding the god that is capitalism to this country of atheists.

What is largely unexpected is the State Council’s 2009 announcement to make “culture” one of its pillar industries by 2020. In 2016, the Ministry of Finance earmarks nearly four and a half billion yuan in funding for cultural development initiatives. Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are booming. The art world, rising.

“The market in China has greatly matured, and this has enabled us to present exciting, emerging artists from China and across the Asia-Pacific region,” says Alexander Montague-Sparey, the Artistic Director of Photofairs Shanghai.

It’s no wonder that authorities cannot put their thumb on Ren Hang with enough accuracy to stamp him out like a cigarette butt. Instead, they fumble with his burning edges.

–

May 19th, 2011

           这几年你一直在寻找一张失踪的桌子，生活在一只倾塌的杯子里，逐步进化成愤怒

           的杯底。这世界就是离你这么近，却摸不着，又看不清楚。就像一束光要和影子做

           爱，那么难，我活得像一个影子。却只能再黑夜里出没。

           In the past few years you have been looking for a missing table, living in a falling cup,

           and gradually evolving into an angry cup. This world is so close to you, but it can't be

           touched. Just like a beam of light to make love with a shadow, so difficult, I live like a

           shadow. Only to haunt the night.

Ai WeiWei is China’s most beloved and most despised political dissident. The irreverent artist is known for designing the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics and for his controversial visual arts challenging the institutions of modern Chinese society. In 2014, he exhibits an entire collection featuring only photographs of his left hand pitted against the background of famous global monuments and religious buildings, his middle finger raised in bullish protest.

The state media deem him a “deviant and a plagiarist.” He’s arrested in April of 2011 and held for 81 days by authorities. Officials allude vaguely to his “economic crimes” without filing specific charges. His assistant, Wen Tao, mysteriously disappears and is never seen again.

In the consistent spirit of controversy, he champions the work of underground photographer Ren Hang.

In 2013, he curates an exhibition called “FUCK OFF II” at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, featuring the works of Ren and 36 other contemporary Chinese artists, many of whom are pioneering a neo-avant-garde driven by a need to challenge the sociological, environmental, and political climates of modern China. It contributes to a burgeoning, global Ren Hang following.

Ren always maintains that he is simply making pictures the way he wants to make them.

“Politics is interested in me,” he tells the press at the OstLicht Austrian photography gallery in 2015, “but I am not interested in politics.”

–

March 23rd, 2015

           我昨天在超市

           偷了一管牙膏

           前天把邻居的锁孔

           用口香糖堵住

           上周把小区��口的

           一排垃圾桶

           全都踢翻

           每次我做了坏事

           都觉得生活好像

           又变得美好了一些

           I was in the supermarket yesterday,

           I stole some toothpaste

           The day before yesterday,

           I blocked the neighbor’s keyhole with chewing gum

           Last week, at the neighborhood entrance,

           I kicked over

           A row of trash cans

           Every time I do bad things

           I feel like life

           Is getting better again

Ren hasn’t spoken much to his family since he left Changchun at the age of 17.

He calls his mother. He paces the length of his apartment slowly, watching one foot move in front of the other, the pattern in the floor’s wood grain rendered into clusters of tiny faces.

“I’m wondering if you’d like to model for me in a photo shoot.”

His voice hangs in the air like a bird riding a current of wind.

“Do you want me to take off all my clothes?” she finally laughs.

He is jarred by the realization that his parents must know everything. Here, all along, he believed they couldn’t have suspected a thing.

Of course he doesn’t want her to take off her clothes—she’s his mother, for goodness sake.

She doesn’t mind.

He insists that a bra and underwear will do just fine.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She smokes a cigarette. Ren snaps his shutter.

Expressionless, she holds a pig’s severed head. Ren snaps his shutter.

–

February 2nd, 2010

           《我爱你》

           想在你身后，

           看你走路的姿势，

           盯着你并不丰满的屁股看。

           想去你家。

           想跟你睡一张拥挤的铁床，

           在半夜突然醒来，

           舔你的眼睫毛，

           摸你冻裂的嘴唇。

           想在早上抢着穿你的内裤，

           让你穿我的，

           看你站着小便，

           拍下你用过没冲的厕所。

           "I Love You"

           Want to be behind you,

           Look at your walking posture,

           Stare at your not-so-plump butt.

           Want to go to your home.

           Want to sleep with you on a crowded iron bed,

           Wake up suddenly in the middle of the night

           Lick your eyelashes,

           Touch your cracked lips.

           Rush to wear your underwear in the morning,

           Let you wear mine,

           Watch you standing, urinating,

           Photograph the toilet you used without flushing.

Sometimes Ren darts into traffic, or lunges himself ahead of an encroaching bus, only to leap backward at the last moment. Sometimes he stands too close to the platform’s edge in Beijing’s swollen subway stations. When he swims in the chlorine-blue pools of hotels around the world—places where his work is championed, where he receives bottles of wine and dinners of black caviar and foie gras from museum directors—he keeps his eyes closed, lets his body sink to the bottom of the basin, listens to the muted sparkling of the water.

He feels most at peace when he is close to death.

“Since I was seventeen,” says Jiaqi, “the most important thing for me has never changed—to protect you and to protect our love.”

Jiaqi is well on his way to establishing himself as a leading fashion stylist, editor, and model. He makes his own pictures, too. In 2018, his photography glosses the cover of Tatler Hong Kong.

He snaps an iPhone photo of Ren. Beneath the glow of a red umbrella amidst geometries of sunlight, Ren stands in a blue Umbro soccer tank top. He looks into the distance blankly, his broad and elegant cheekbones lending to his perpetual appearance as gaunt, as exceedingly gentle, as older than he is. It seems so far removed from the world of art that they both have learned to inhabit in different ways.

–

January 10th, 2013

           《最亮的光太快》

           我从来不想变成最亮的光

           最亮的光太快

           比流星还快

           我愿意变成黑夜

           我愿意缓慢得就像静止

           我愿意经常被你遗忘

           偶尔被你仰望

           即使在那仰望里

           我只是一张背景

           “The Brightest Light is Too Fast”

           I never want to become the brightest light

           The brightest light is too fast

           Faster than meteors

           I would like to turn into night

           I am willing to be slow like static

           I am willing to be forgotten by you often

           Occasionally you look up

           Even in that gaze,

           I'm just a background

Ren Hang steps into the sky.

The gray of Beijing’s carbonate heavens flashes against fragment of glass, of skyscraper, of silver branch. Perhaps a bird darts past, cutting through the air careless—careless as one must be to have been given the great gift of flight without cognition of one’s privilege.

Perhaps before peace,

He sees his mother’s face. Her harsh mouth in a line, a stream of smoke curling around her.

Perhaps

He sees a boy with bee-stung lips.

The boy says: “I didn’t even know about this thing called depression the first time I saw you crying and telling me you wanted to set the flat on fire so we could die together.”

Maybe he hears the boy’s voice ringing in his ears, a kind of private, radiant sonar.

“You said you were my home, and I was yours.”

These words are true.

But these ideas are all simulation, are all romantic projection.

The BBC runs the headline: Ren Hang: Death of China’s Hotshot Erotic Photographer.

It is all romantic projection.

He is not an erotic photographer. He is, unapologetically, a se qing photographer, an artist of the bizarre and the beautiful, unmarried to any creed or movement, an artist brazenly throwing forth pictures of a violent peace, an artist, an artist, an artist. A mere observer of his world.

And he is, by no means, a hotshot. He is simply a student of the human condition—what his lover calls, “a kid who loves life, but lacks the skills to live it.” He is only human, diseased and obsessed, incurable and in love.

So more than likely,

When Ren Hang steps into the sky,

He does not take note of the clouds reflected in the windows of the office building tearing through space, or the dusky thrush floating above him. He does not see his mother’s stern face or hear the voice of Huang Jiaqi.

More than likely,

He thinks of nothing.

When Ren Hang steps into the sky,

He refuses to become the brightest light.

The brightest light is too fast.

Kendra Clark is a New York-based editorial content creator and part-time residential student in the creative writing master’s program at the University of Cambridge. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in or are forthcoming in Into the Void magazine, The Evansville Review, Emrys Journal, and more.

[seigyokus]

Translation+lyrics below the cut!

TL Notes/comments:

SORRY I AM WORKING THROUGH MY BACKLOG AT GLACIAL SPEED BUT ANYWAYS SEEING HOW CH19 REFERENCED THIS SONG I FIGURED I SHOULD PROB POST IT 

I THOUGHT IP OSTED IT BUT APPARENTLY NOT IM A DUMB GOLDFISH IT WAS FINISHED BUT JUST ROTTING TEHRE IN MY PASTBIN

ANYAWYS

SEEING OFFICIAL LYRICS HELPED SO MUCH WITH UNDERSTANDING WHICH LINES ARE A PHRASE AND WHICH LINES ARENT, also seeing the Actual Correct Lyrics helps a lot with some of the weird phrases I had no clue what to do w/ when I did it by ear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In case it wasn't clear, writing in the notes aka adding in the music to the lyrics is what they're talking about during Tamaki's first solo line! I had translated it literally as sound because I misheard kakitashite as kakidashite but if it's kakitashite (literally writing in additional stuff, like you would a postscript on a letter), then it makes a little more sense if it's musical notes and not like some weird synesthesia-type stuff like physically writing out sounds idk

BACK TO BUSINESS

Goddamn, This Song Is Beautiful

I combined the sougo-mitsuki + yamato-nagi line in first verse because I realize that makes more sense than both of them as stand-alone lines

NOW I KNOW WHAT KAKIKESU it is, 'erase' it is! somehow, this song is bittersweet, bleak yet hopeful......

the tears/scars line's last part is interp because the orig is just 'miteru'/watching, vague subject??

'Semete haru no ame ni nurenai you ni' - Just wanted to note that cherry blossoms tend to bloom, but scatter very quickly. They're very short-lived blossoms, and oftentimes the spring rain causes them to fall away as well. Anyways, I'm p sure that's what this line is referencing!

'Chiri isoida to shite mo' - I added in a bunch of words since chiriisogu = 'rush to scatter' (this is a cherry blossom reference) and I needed 2 get the point across man

I THINK IT'S VERY PERTINENT THAT YAMATO AND NAGI HAVE THE SOLOS THAT THEY DO IN THE LAST PART OF THE SONG, IN TERMS OF PART 3 PLOT... 

For Yamato, think Part 3 Chapter 5........ BOYYyyyyyyyyy

also nagi’S LONG SOLO : ^ )  IN REF TO CH19

As always, if you see any mistakes/mistranslations/etc, please message me!

[zxrysky-writes]

Whisper the Language of the Dead

慢慢地爱着我，把我当做你的天空，你的星星，你的月亮。请教我世界的旋转，在我的心上刻下爱的舞蹈。

~ 心声，章三

-+-

It tires him to read the characters over and over again, slowly drifting away into the arms of Morpheus. The words dance across the book, lazy and slow; it reminds him of the way they are drifting off to join the world of dead languages, following closely behind Greek and Tamil.

English is the World Language, the one true reputed language amongst all others, and slowly, slowly, the way the world turns on its axis, English quietly kills off other languages until it reigns supreme.

Arcane knows that the almost dead languages cannot be salvaged, just like how a brain dead man cannot be salvaged. Even if he learns these languages, embeds them into the thick of his heart and mind, keeps them alive within himself – who will take over from him? Endless streams of scholars dedicating their entire lives to studying dying languages, keeping the flickering flame barely burning, promising away their bright future to tomes gray, dusty and dead, like their ancestors?

The language is beautiful, endlessly charming, with so many words within it that English cannot begin to embody, and yet, and yet-

It is a terrible tragedy, a great sadness, 一种无法解释的悲剧.

He’s even thinking in the language now. He needs a break.

The tome in front of him slams shut with a flurry of dust and gray matter as he stands up. Arcane wishes for sleep.

Chinese is already dying out – him ignoring it for a while won’t be the cause of its death.

-+-

It’s a Monday. The Monday Melancholy hits him like a bullet train. Arcane doesn’t understand the fuss with dying languages.

He sits in the gigantic library, people of the same caliber as him slogging away at the books, desperately learning languages that no one ever uses, frantically remembering folk tales and stories to pass on to practically no one but other scholars, and wishes that the government would just give up on reviving these languages.

Who would bother memorizing the difference between characters that look so much like when English words are easily differentiated by placement of letters? Who would bother trying to wrap their tongues around 绿 with the irritating ü sound when they can just say everything in English with much less fuss? Who would bother with Chinese itself, when English is the common tongue?

It’s the reason why French is long dead. It’s the reason why Italian died before French. All these different variations of English are simply not needed, unnecessary, simply useless. Even more so are these languages so vastly different from English, with strange characters and different pronunciations.

Arcane pushes the characters around in his mind, internalizes the story written out in careful flicks of ink vertically and horizontally across the paper, and wonders why the government is trying to hard to save this language. It’s not indigenous, or anything. It’s Asian.

It’s a Monday, in the year 2090. Already, almost 85% of the languages that existed 75 years ago are going, going, gone. 85% of languages dead. What are a few more, in the scheme of things?

-+-

Arcane is Chinese, yes, but does it matter? English is his first language. Chinese language means nothing to him.

-+-

有时，我想着，有可能，在我们的未来，有些华人不会了解华语，不能读华文，也有可能，华文这个语言，会悄悄的去世，华人也不会发现到。啊，多么恐怖的未来！

~ 日记本，2011年5月6日

Arcane doesn’t think of this as graduation, but he has moved from reading scholarly articles and famous stories to diaries. Diaries are more intimate, the words used less technical, the tone applied more informal.

It actually hurts, just a bit, when he barely understands what the writer is trying to convey, even though he can roughly guess the entirety of the diary entry.

The fifteen-year-old boy from 79 years ago worries that his mother tongue might die out. Arcane is sitting here, fifteen years old, feeling like he is being forced to learn his mother tongue and wishes that it could die just a little bit faster, just a little bit more, to take away this pain.

If he had been Greek, if he had been Italian, if he had been French, he would be a normal scholar studying astrophysics maybe, or perhaps neuroscience, the science field that was all the rage with the recent breakthroughs it had achieved. Perhaps even enhancement of human potential, the one field that Arcane had always dreamed of joining, the sole reason he even applied for the scholar program.

Instead he is stuck here in no man’s land, learning a language he will never use, just because he is of the race that once knew it like the back of their hands, the words always floating on the tip of their tongues.

“我是华人。” The words sound strange on his tongue. His enunciation is all wrong, he speaks it like it is a question, he is hesitant, he is tentative, he is unsure – everything that he isn’t when he speaks English.

“You think you’re Chinese?” A scholar by his side snorts, raising an eyebrow. “All of us over here are Chinese. But are we Chinese? No man, we’re all English here.”

“… Do you want to be Chinese?”

“Nah, man, I mean, English is all we’ve got now, right? Forget about 新年 or 中秋节 or any strange things that you might have read in these books that are giving you ideas. We’re English. British, American, it’s all one and the same now. Why bother speaking a dead language in a world where the language on our tongues is as alive as us? English, man, who would want to be Chinese in this day and age? Who you gonna talk to in Chinese, huh? Us? We speak English too.”

Arcane wholeheartedly agrees. Chinese is a dead language. Everyone spoke English. It was English or nothing.

-+-

“Hey Arcane, you’re Chinese right? Say something in Chinese man!”

“Chinese? That’s a dead language, right up in the lists with Italian and Greek. You got anything so say in Italian?”

“Ciao.”

“… That’s it?”

“Yeah man, I mean, we all speak English. Who’s got the time to learn something six feet under, like Italian? The fact that I know how to say hello is good enough!”

“Then who’s got the time to learn Chinese?”

“Oh, you got me there, brother! Good point, good point, but even if you don’t have the time, can you?”

“… 我的名字是辉雄。我是华人。华文还未去世。它有可能会活下来。”

“Woah, that’s wicked! What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Chinese is a dead language. Why should I bother learning it? Waste of my time.’”

“Cool man, least you know more than me about your language.”

“What are you talking about? English is our language.”

“Damn, that’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard. Arrivederci!”

“I think your pronunciation is off.” 

“Haha, I think so too. But it doesn’t matter, and my English pronunciation is per-fect, so who cares?”

Arcane believes that Chinese will eventually die out, just as his grandmother died, slowly and softly, quick enough such that no one will notice. The language of his family died with his grandmother, the little girl growing up in the early 2000s, hidden in the murky depths of Chinese. Her English was to her the same thing that Arcane’s Chinese is to him.

Easily classified as the bane of their existence, but also something that held a strange amount of importance in their lives.

-+ 

Arcane can’t speak fluent Chinese. He probably never will. He speaks it hesitantly and slowly, trying to remember the sounds that his grandmother once taught him. When he’s free, he suddenly finds his fingers bending stray strings in the familiar formation of Chinese knots, following the wrinkled old hands of his grandmother.

With Chinese dying, an entire legacy of history and culture dies, and Arcane is only realizing it now. Maybe this is the kind of epiphanies that geniuses in the language field suddenly get, the burning desire to salvage their language.

The language is beautiful, endlessly charming, and maybe it pains Arcane just a bit, that it’s slowly taking its last breaths.

[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Essay代写：Community Banks in the United States

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- Community Banks in the United States，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了美国的社区银行。近几年来，从各方面的指标来看，美国的社区银行表现相当强劲。社区银行的资产收益率跟净资产收益率表现类似，已经稳稳地高于历史最好业绩时的基准。社区银行持续健康的一个有力指标是新社区银行持续创建的比率。美联储始终认为，社区银行将始终成为美国经济一个充满活力和勇于创新的行业。

Community Banks have long played an important role in the U.S. economy. However, after entering the 21st century, community Banks are confronted with a changing business environment and face many major challenges. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the federal reserve, speaks at the national convention and the world conference on technology in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 8. This paper discusses the robustness of community Banks, their role in the economy, and how the federal reserve, the regulator of community Banks, is adapting to the new environment.

By all measures, community Banks have generally performed strongly recently. For example, the average return on equity, which fell in the wake of the 2001 recession, is still stable and rising slightly. Generally speaking, the return on assets of community Banks is similar to that of return on equity, and has been steadily higher than the benchmark of the best performance in history. Net interest margins are still higher than at big Banks, and have widened even since 2003. In terms of various indicators to measure the quality of loans, the performance of community Banks is also quite high. Moreover, the fed's on-site and off-site inspection systems only detected potential problems at a handful of community Banks. The capital adequacy ratio of community Banks is still very high, and there is still a lot of room for community Banks to continue absorbing savings.

A strong indicator of the continued health of community Banks is the rate at which new community Banks are created. For example, if we define a community bank as a bank or savings institution with total real assets of about $1 billion, there will be about 700 new community Banks established from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2005, with an average annual growth rate of 120. Clearly, many people are still optimistic about the future of community banking. The fed has always believed that community banking will remain a vibrant and innovative sector of the U.S. economy.

At the same time, community Banks are also facing great challenges. Trans-regional expansion of bank operation, rapid update of financial service technology, increasing importance of non-bank financial service institutions, evolution of economic growth model and other factors are changing the banking industry. While many of the changes have improved the efficiency of the financial system as a whole, they have reduced the cost to Banks' customers; But it should also be acknowledged that these changes are new challenges, even daunting ones, for community Banks.

We have seen major changes in the structure of American banking in recent decades. By that definition, the share of banking assets owned by community Banks fell from 20% in 1994 to around 12% in 2005. The total number of community Banks fell from more than 10, 000 in 1994 to about 7, 200 in 2005. Other definitions of community banking and other measures of industry structure, such as the share of total savings, have also recently shown a downward trend.

Much of the focus on community banking can be attributed to mergers. A recent study by fed staff found that more than 3,500 Banks and thrifts merged between 1994 and 2003. In 92% of mergers, the target institution's total assets are at least $1 billion. Although bank mergers declined from the late 1990s, at least 200 mergers were completed each year from 2000 to 2005.

Research by our fed staff and other economists shows that community Banks continue to play an important role not only in providing financial services, particularly for small businesses, but also in providing financial retail services nationwide. Indeed, researches on community Banks habitually believe that the central principle of "community Banks" is Relationship finance. Relationship finance means that the value-added of financial services mainly depends on the continuous personal contacts between bankers and clients. Personal contacts speed up the flow of information and allow for more personalized services. Relationship finance strengthens the domestic economy by effectively providing credit and other financial services.

However, recent research also confirms what many community bankers say: traditional concepts of relationship finance are changing with the nature of the community bank-client relationship.

The traditional research paradigm holds that small businesses and households are often opaque. In other words, information about these potential customers is costly and difficult to quantify. Thus, effective provision of credit to these customers requires intimate interaction to obtain "soft" or qualitative information, such as the borrower's personal qualities or information about local market conditions and investment opportunities. This research paradigm argues that big Banks have a comparative advantage in lending to relatively transparent customers because they can obtain "hard" or quantifiable information from them, such as standardised accounting data. Community Banks, on the other hand, have a comparative advantage in lending to opaque small businesses and households.

Yet this division of Labour between big and small Banks has begun to blur. Today, bankers and researchers are well aware that low-cost information processing fees, improved credit scoring system and more mature management techniques are increasingly reducing the opacity of information of many small businesses and households. Credit card borrowing is proof of that. Technological and financial innovations, including economies of scale in credit scoring, securitisation and data processing, have combined to make credit card borrowing a "hard" information, transaction-driven business. It is very different from traditional unsecured personal borrowing, which relies heavily on personal knowledge and personal relationships.

Some of the latest data from the fed's small business finance survey may provide useful information about how the role of markets and community Banks is changing. The fed does this every five years. The latest figures are from the end of 2003, and these are preliminary figures that will be released later this year. These figures are based on our survey of more than 4,200 small businesses nationwide, representing approximately 6.3 million small businesses across the United States. Surveys show that small businesses are the main users of financial services. For example, the share of small businesses doing some kind of financial business in a bank or savings institution rose from 92 percent in 1998 to 96 percent in 2003. There are many types of financial businesses that are gaining share, especially in the area of "financial management services". Financial management services include the following services, such as check clearing, cash management, letter of credit and credit card processing.

According to these surveys, community Banks remain important providers of these services, despite increasing competitive pressures. About 37 percent of small businesses that reported using Banks and thrifts in 2003 used community Banks, down from 42 percent in 1998. Over the same period, the share of small businesses using financial services provided by non-depository financial institutions shot up from 40% in 1998 to 54% in 2003.

While the survey shows that community Banks face increasing competition and competition from non-deposit financial institutions, it also highlights the importance of community Banks' traditional strengths, such as local branch offices. In 2003, for example, the median distance between the headquarters of small businesses and their Banks or thrifts was three miles, roughly the same as in 1998. Part of the reason for the success of nondepository financial institutions may be that the median distance between small business customers and their nondepository financial institutions has plummeted from 83 miles in 1998 to 37 miles in 2003. Much of the change is due to the closer relationship between customers and non-depository financial institutions that provide loans. Proximity and convenience are important.

The data collected as part of the bank's community reinvestment act activities also demonstrate the importance of proximity to customers. The CRA act is known to focus on financial services and borrowing provided by Banks within the local community. Using CRA and other data, we can approximate the share of loans that deposit-taking financial institutions lend to small businesses in the local market. The data also show increased competitive pressure from borrowers outside the market between 1996 and 2004. This conclusion does not surprise you at all. But in dollar terms, the share of loans to small businesses from outside the market has not risen above 18% in any given year. The vast majority of small business owners borrow from local lenders.

We know that community banking is complicated. From a financial point of view, the community bank performance is still quite strong, there is still considerable room to enter the community bank. However, new technologies and new management methods have nearly obliterated the information advantages of some traditional relational finance, and community Banks have lost some market shares to large Banks and non-deposit financial institutions. But the data also suggest that many customers want local financial services; They value proximity and convenience. I believe that community Banks' ability to provide strong relationships and personalized financial services remains an important reason for their continued success.

Like community Banks, bank supervisors must adapt to changing financial and economic conditions. Below we discuss some of the recent ways in which the federal reserve has regulated community Banks, and would like to briefly comment on some of the major financial risks we have observed.

In the 1990s, bank regulators began to adopt a more forward-looking, risk-focused regulatory approach. In this approach, regulators assess business activities that appear to pose the greatest risk, mainly through on-site inspections. At the same time, special attention will be paid to procedures for Banks to assess, monitor and manage those risks. The purpose of this kind of regulation is to solve the problems in management and internal control before financial performance suffers significant losses rather than afterwards.

To adapt, the federal reserve and other financial regulators must also consider the competitive pressures facing community Banks. This pressure has made the cost of regulation for community Banks a big problem. Wherever possible, we have simplified the regulatory process and worked to remove unnecessary regulatory measures. For example, based on industry feedback and regulatory experience, the fed recently revised the policy reporting rules for small bank holding companies to increase the total assets of eligible companies from $150 million to $500 million. These revisions are in line with changes in the banking and economic environment since the first policy reports were issued in 1980. Although only 6% of the assets of all bank holding companies were affected by the revision, the revision exempts about 85% of the total bank holding companies from reporting to the fed, thereby reducing the regulatory burden on many small firms. The companies will also be exempt from submitting uniform risk-based capital guidelines, and will be allowed to submit short semi-annual reports instead of uniform quarterly financial budgets. Under the revised terms, the exemption will not extend to bank holding companies with large non-bank businesses or large off-balance sheet businesses that hold large amounts of public debt or stock. Of course, we and other bank regulators will continue to strengthen prudential capital standards for all deposit-taking institutions, including deposit-taking institutions that are part of bank holding companies that are exempt.

Regulators have adjusted their procedures to take into account the needs of other community banking institutions. It is well known that the big Banks must accept the minimum capital standards in the new Basel capital accord. Similarly, federal bank regulators are considering changes to existing capital adjustment guidelines to regulate Banks that are not subject to the new Basel capital accord. These possible changes to Basel 1 are intended to increase the risk sensitivity of the framework and to help eliminate any unfair competition arising from the implementation of Basel 2.

The recent changes to the CRA rules provide another example that regulators are taking into account the uniqueness of community Banks. Last year, the federal reserve and other federal regulators jointly issued final CRA regulations. The regulation proposes that Banks with assets between $250 million and $1 billion are called small and medium-sized Banks, thereby reducing the full compliance burden. Smaller Banks now submit fewer data and reports to regulators, and they meet only two sets of cross-cutting CRA tests -- optimized lending tests and community development tests -- rather than the three-part CRA standard that only large Banks must accept. These changes are intended to reduce the operating costs of small Banks and improve regulatory flexibility, but still meet CRA's community development goals.

The fed has also become increasingly reliant on automated off-site testing tools to determine testing objectives and limit the burden of on-site inspections. Since the late 1990s, for example, fed regulators have overseen many small bank holding companies using an off-site testing program. We support the plan. The plan is to set up a target detection system aimed at identifying the negative factors in the parent company or non-bank institutions of insured deposit institutions. The plan could prompt us to restrict on-the-spot testing of bank holding companies that might pose a risk to insured deposit-taking institutions. We also use statistical models to detect the state of state Banks, which can quickly resolve any problems that arise between routine scheduled field tests. This year, we fully updated these models to improve their capabilities. As a result of these efforts, today's regulators can carry out more off-site regulatory activities, which helps reduce the burden of on-site inspections on institutions like community Banks.

In addition to these changes, the fed is participating in an ongoing joint inter-agency review of bank regulation under the economic growth and regulatory documentation reduction act. The purpose of this assessment is to simplify testing procedures and regulatory requirements at the appropriate time, but these changes must follow the objective of maintaining the safety and soundness of the bank. The fed also supports changes to various regulations that would ease the regulatory burden. These include changes recently proposed to allow regulators to widen the time interval between on-site inspections. For well-run, well-capitalised Banks of $500m, the gap between on-site inspections can be 18 months. The change triples the current threshold for bank size and makes it possible for some 1,200 community Banks to comply with the proposal for expanded on-site inspections.

Well-run and innovative community Banks will continue to play an important role in the U.S. economy. Community Banks provide their customers with the necessary financial services and make major contributions to the sustained growth of the local and national economies. Community Banks have done well over the past decade. But neither bankers nor regulators should be complacent. There is no doubt that we will continue to be asked to assess changes in the environment and adjust accordingly. Changes in the environment are often complex, difficult to understand, and even more difficult to predict.

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[voidplus-jp]

アリエール　ハッサン 「平等の悲劇」 Ariel Hassan  "Tragedy of Equality" 2018.6.1(Fri) - 6.30(Sat)

void+ではアルゼンチン人作家、アリエール・ハッサンの平等の悲劇 【第一幕】を開催いたします。ハッサン氏はドイツとオーストラリアを拠点に、様々な手法を用いて制作活動をしています。オーストラリアや中国では注目すべき若手アーティストとして美術館にも所蔵される作品も多く、コーチ=ムジリス・ビエンナーレなどの国際展への招待もされる新進アーティストです。

ハッサン氏の初期の絵画作品は、様々な色で偶然に出来上がった、マーブリングの手法を駆使したような美しい平面作品でした。偶然と独創の融合に、緻密な手作業で時間をかけて描かれた画面がひろがり、それは上空から見た地形図のようにも、木星の衛星写真をも連想させました。また2012年インドのコーチ=ムジリス・ビエンナーレで発表した野外作品では、地元の人々をモデルに白黒のポートレートを撮影した写真の上に、既に何者なのか識別するのは困難になるくらいまで顔に墨を流し込んだかのような画面を36個のライトボックスにしました。今回発表する作品の前身である“Making all Things Equal（全ての物を平等に）”では、二つに分割された異なる白黒映像の中央に一文字ずつアルファベットが現れる映像と平面作品などで構成されたインスタレーションを制作。そこには宇宙のあらゆる事物を相対的にみる概念から、荘子の思想が引用されました。自然、科学、宇宙、生物、人間、思想、哲学、経済とあらゆる知識を素材とし、グローバルな生い立ちを持つハッサン氏個人の思想と様々な情報への本能的な反応、それとクリティカルな理論と読書から成り立っている世界観が制作の根源となっているようです。絵画、彫刻、映像、インスタレーションと多岐に渡る手法で表現するその作品からは、混沌、不条理、持続性、たゆまぬ、ながれ、法則、逆説という言葉が頭に浮かびます。けしてわかりやすい作品ではありませんが、鑑賞者は、疑問を抱き、心地よい思考の迷宮に入りこむことになるでしょう。

アルゼンチン人でありながらオーストラリアとベルリンを拠点に活動するグローバルな視点を持つハッサン氏の日本初個展となります。どうぞご期待ください。

平等の悲劇　【第一幕】について

アリエール・ハッサンは、三部構成のトリオロジーの展覧会の第一弾として、今回の展覧会をvoid+にて発表します。この三部作は、オーストラリアおよびドイツにて別々のパフォーマンスを行い、作品として展示する予定です。

この作品は、絶え間なく動き続ける生物としての人間の相互依存関係（種の保存という本能）と妥協し（政治的宿命）、生産と消費という私たちのユニバーサルなシステムを反映しています。三角形のスペースにて行われる直接的なパフォーマンスは、支配と服従の二進法に従う身体の生産と消費の間の葛藤を表し、そして、権力、権威、信頼、服従、欲望という、どれをとっても互いの存在がないところには成し遂げられないサイクルを、お互いが髪を剃りあいながら競争する行為を通して、その流れは生産されると同時に中断され、次第に欲望が失われていく過程を表現します。

アリエル・ハッサン

1977年、アリエル・ハッサンは1977年にアルゼンチン生まれ、オーストラリアとスペインで活動後、現在はオーストラリアとドイツのベルリンを拠点におくアーティストです。オーストラリア、スペイン、シンガポール、中国で個展を開催ほか、インドのコチ=ムジリス・ビエンナーレ（2012）、アートステージ・シンガポール- プロジェクトスペース（グリーナウェイ・アートギャラリー）、シンガポール（2011）; オーストラリアパビリオン、上海万博、中国（2010）;　プリマベラ、シドニー現代美術館（2008）などへのグループ展に参加。

■作家名＿アリエール　ハッサン

■展覧会タイトル＿平等の悲劇 ■会期：2018年6月1日（金）～6月30日（土） 営業時間：火―土　14:00–19:00　日、月、祝日休廊 ■オープニングレセプション：6月1日（金）18:00～　 ■会場：void+　〒107-0062 東京都港区南青山3-16-14-1F　Tel: 03-5411-0080 　Fax: 03-5411-0051 ■入場料無料 ■主催＿アリエール・ハッサン展実行委員会 ■企画＿Art Engineers、void+ ■助成＿平成30年度港区文化芸術活動サポート事業助成 ■協賛＿GAGPROJECT、YM Associates ■後援＿オーストラリア大使館

・プレス用画像をご用意しております。アーティストへのインタビュー、展覧会についての質問など、お気軽にお問い合わせくださいますよう、お願い申し上げます。 ・未就学児の入場も可能です。車いすをご利用の方は事前にお知らせください。

＜本事業・展覧会お問い合せ＞

void+ 107-0062東京都港区南青山3-16-14-1F           tel: 03-5411-0080 fax: 03-5411-0053 email:info@voidplus.jp

void+ presents Tragedy of equality [act 1], a project by Ariel Hassan, produced in collaboration with void+. 

Based in Germany and Australia, Hassan creates artworks across multiple mediums. He is regarded as a significant up-and-coming artist whose works are included in collections and museums in Australia and China. He has participated in numerous international art shows, such as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in India.  

Hassan’s paintings are beautiful, random products that combine different colors in fluid like images. These images, seemingly done in minutes, are time-consuming manual operations mixing aspects of chance and creativity, appearing like topographical maps seen from above, possibly reminiscent of satellite photographs of Jupiter. In an outdoor installation unveiled at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 he exhibited 36 large black-and-white portrait photographs superimposed with images of fluids over the subjects faces — the portraits of local residents, were in the form of light boxes.

“Making all things equal,” the predecessor of the work he presents at Void+, was an installation composed of video, two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements. Two separate black-and-white videos join on a split projection, at the junction of which letters appeared one by one. When put together, the letters formed a quote from Zhuangzi about the relative perception of all things in the universe.

Hassan’s creative work, revolving around various knowledge related to nature, science, space, living organisms, mankind, thought, philosophy and economy, is obviously rooted in the artist’s personal experience informed by his global upbringing, instinctive reactions to various information, as well as world views shaped through critical theory and reading. Expressed in formats ranging from painting and sculpture to video and installation, his works evoke concepts such as chaos, absurdity, persistence, restlessness, flow, principle and paradox. Not exactly easy to understand, they leave the viewer doubting and questioning, entrapped in a comfortable labyrinth of contemplation.

Please look forward to this first exhibition in Japan of Ariel Hassan, an artist with a global mindset.

About the Tragedy of equality [act 1]

The exhibition at void+is the first in a trilogy of three exhibitions that each involve a different performance in a different country, and that will subsequently be exhibited as visual artworks.

This work reflects our universal system of birth and consumption, in a compromise (political fate) of the relation of interdependence (the instinct of species preservation)of man as a continuously moving being. Direct performances staged in triangular spaces express the conflict between birth and consumption of the body in accordance with the binary system of governance and obedience, while the cycles of power, authority, trust, submission and desire – none of which can be achieved without the other – are induced and interrupted at the same time through the competitive act of shaving each other’s hair, illustrating a process in which desires gradually vanish.

■Artist Name: Ariel Hassan ■Title: Tragedy of Equality ■Date: June 1, 2018(Fri) – June 30(Sat) Tue through Sat 2:00 – 7pm, closed on Sun, Mon and National Holidays ■Opening Reception: June 1st, (Fri) 6pm~ ■Venue: void+ 3-16-14 Minamiaoyama, 1stfl. Minatoku, Tokyo 107-0062　Tel: 03-5411-0080 　Fax: 03-5411-0051　http://www.voidplus.jp ■Admission Free ■Organized by Ariel Hassan Exhibition Committee ■Planning by Art Engineers, void+ ■Supported by FY2018 Minato Support Program for Art and Cultural Activities   ■Coopered by GAGPROJECT, YM Associates ■In Association with Australian Embassy Japan

・Admission to preschool children is possible. ・Please inform us in advance of using the wheelchair. · ・Please feel free to contact us for any questions regarding this exhibition, or artist interviews. Photos of artist’s work are available upon request.

＜Inquiry＞ void+ 3-16-14-1FMinatoku, Minamiaoyama, Tokyo 107-0062 tel: 03-5411-0080 fax: 03-5411-0053 email:info@voidplus.jp

[aegisoul-blog]

Hey Mamoru did you know Helios once lived in Chibi-Usa's room for MONTSH and saw her getting undressed too?

More than anything, Mamoru wants to call the stranger a liarand send them on their way. Not his Chibiusa. She would never… But even as words of protest take shape in his mouth, he can’t bring himself to shout them.Not when there’s that undeniable doubt that’s tunnelled its way through hisconviction and nested in that sacred part of his heart where he treasured and lovedhis daughter.

Some may call Chibiusa her mother’s daughter and she is inso many ways, but her need for secrecy is a trait that she’s inherited entirelyfrom her father. It wasn’t so long ago when they’d all been so embroiled intheir own troubles. Usagi and the senshi with the new enemy and him with thatblack death that’d sat heavy in chest. As was the way of things there’d never been that moment to rest and to talk and to think, everything had spiralled downwardswhen it had all converged into yet another calamity they’d needed to avert.

He never had the time nor the energy back then to give Chibiusathe attention she needed and she’d drifted into her own little world, keepingsecrets. So very much like her father.

“Is that so?” At best he manages a wan smile and feels onlythat familiar sharp stab of disappointment. Not at Chibiusa, but at himself forhaving failed her so badly.

“Then I trust she has her own reasons for not telling me andI’ll wait until she’s ready and if she doesn’t…” He shrugs. It’s as if someone’s pricked his side with a pin and he feels whatever strength he’s managed to cobble together leak away. His smile vanishes and his fingers curl tight at his sides. “Thenit’s her secret to keep.”

[aegisoul-blog]

DID YOU EVER CONSIDER THAT NOT SLEEPING WASN'T A GOOD IDEA?!

don’t judge me. i replied to our thing. aren’t you happy about that instead?

[aegisoul-blog]

What kind of parent is King Endymion like to Chibs in comparison to Neo Queen Serenity? What's his parenting style like?

I like to think we got a pretty good look at how NQS and KE are as parents through Mamoru and Usagi’s interactions with Chibiusa. I mean yes, the dynamics are a bit different since Usagi and Chibiusa are more like sisters and they tend to bicker a lot, but even then that’s very indicative of how things probably are like between them in the future. 

Since buried beneath all their shenanigans we get moments that are more like glimpses of their parenting styles especially in the manga since Classic tends to really dial up the sisterly antics to 11. But Usagi was always more of the disciplinarian, far more willing to put her foot down and very concerned about Chibiusa’s well being and safety. It’s also why those two tended to bicker a lot since she wasn’t willing to let Chibiusa get away with a lot of stuff. And translating that to NQS, who seems to have matured a lot though is deep down still very much Usagi (the letter from her with all of the doodles), she’s likely the stricter parent but still loving and proud of her daughter. 

And come on, between Usagi and Mamoru, she has to be the strict parent.

Since what we see between Mamoru and Chibiusa is basically what you’d get between KE and Chibiusa though I suspect that it’d be even worse. Mamoru being an orphan is that part of him that affects nearly every aspect of his life. He had no family, no one to love or to love him back for such a huge chunk of his formative years. It’s why he so readily took Usagi and the senshi into his life and basically made them into his family. There’ll always be this gaping hole in his heart where he needs family and Chibiusa’s presence in his life fills so much of that void. He loves her so much to the point of probably spoiling her and in his eyes, she can do no wrong. 

But I mean, it’s not like he lets her run wild or do whatever she wants either (well… for the most part, but I suppose we can give KE a pass for letting Chibiusa run around in the Crystal Palace since it’s supposedly safe and it’s their home and… also the dude was basically a ghost). We see during that moment when KE was encouraging Chibiusa to formally introduce herself to Usagi and the others how he’s still very much the parent with expectations for how his child should behave. He’s probably just that frustrating parent who stands back and lets Usagi do the hard work of punishing their daughter and scolding her when Chibiusa misbehaves (as all children are wont to do). 

Also there’s this frustrating and persistent fanon that floats around that I wish would just die. This whole idea of KE and NQS being cold and distant parents to Chibiusa is so ludicrous to me. Were we watching or reading the same series? This is Mamoru and Usagi we’re talking about, no matter how fancy they dress up and how much they’ve matured and how many years have passed, at their very core they’re still these two incredibly loving and kind and gentle people. They love their daughter. You see this time and time again across nearly all versions where we get to see KE and NQS interact with Chibiusa. 

[aegisoul-blog]

Regarding that AU child with Beryl, let's say Mamo didn't find her after the battle (thus didn't get a chance to have that bonding time) and she just suddenly showed up one day in Crystal Tokyo announcing her origins do you think Mamoru could ever learn to love her the same he does for Chibi-Usa, his daughter by the woman he loves? Or will he always give slight preferential treatment to Chibs? (Despite how much he'll try not to and feel guilty about it cause god this isn't poor Asana's fault!)

Actually, nonnie I’ve discussed this with @itsumomite and we’ve kinda discussed this together?

I’m not going to ignore the elephant in the room here in regards to the situation surrounding Asana’s conception since it’s basically rape. No ifs, ands or buts about it. And if you thought Mamoru had a lot of baggage about what he did while under Metallia’s possession, remembering what Beryl did to him during that already traumatic part of his life is going to make him hate Beryl even more and basically make it next to impossible for him to ever forgive her. 

But there’s no “learning to love Asana” for Mamoru. The moment she showed up at his doorstep claiming that she was his daughter, he would love her instantly without any doubt or hesitation. He would bring her into his life and make a place for her in the palace and insist that he stay with him and his family. Just remember that this is the same man who opened his heart and basically became a father figure to Chibiusa right from the very start without ever knowing that she was his future daughter.

Also just saying, but Mamoru would love both Asana and Chibiusa equally. In fact his greatest wish and desire would be for both of his daughters to get along and have a strong sisterly bond.

[aegisoul-blog]

BUT HOW DOES MAMORU FEEL ABOUT MINAKO? Like honestly? Cause I was sensing some antagonism there in the manga/PGSM thanks to the Silver Millenium

I’ll confess I’m due for a rewatch of PGSM and I don’t wholly remember Mamoru and Minako’s interactions during the manga. Actually it’s kinda one of my gripes with Mamoru since he’s like so isolated from the senshi. Most of his interactions are usually limited to only Usagi or Chibiusa. I would even bet good money that Mamoru’s spoken more with his future self than he has with all of the senshi combined. Which is also kind of why I loved PGSM since as I recall, Mamoru actually interacted with the senshi on a few occasions. 

But that kind of salt aside, I mean it kind of comes down to the interpretation of Minako since her personality’s almost completely different in nearly every iteration of her. In Classic you see more of that goofy personaility, in PGSM it veered way too much into the serious leader part of her and then the Manga, her being the leader kinda gets glossed over and she becomes more of a goofball later on. Honestly, it’s in the new musicals where we actually see a nice blend of leader and goofball. 

But when it comes down to it, Mamoru probably doesn’t really know what to do with Minako since she represents everything about girls that Mamoru never could understand or relate to – idols, music, what’s popular, fashion etc etc. It’s so hard for Mamoru and Minako to have a connecting point since the exact opposite’s the same for Minako – who in their right mind would enjoy sitting down to read of their own free will?? 

I also sense that this question really wants me to address that popular fanon idea that Minako actually hates Mamoru and blames him for the tragedy of the SilMil. It’s actually a 100% valid interpretation and I’m quite fond of it myself and wouldn’t mind exploring it to be honest. But coming from Mamoru’s point of view, who also blames himself a lot (read: blames himself entirely) for what happened during the SilMil, he wouldn’t hold it against Minako at all if she were to hate him for what he did as Endymion. 

Though with Minako being the leader of the senshi and her taking her duties as being Usagi’s protector very seriously, I truly believe that they at least can put aside their differences and work together to ensure that Usagi is protected. Of course Minako probably has no faith in Mamoru’s ability, but she might at least respect him somewhat for the lengths he’d go to in order to keep Usagi safe.

So the long and short of it: depends on the Minako. But basically the girl can either really try Mamoru’s patience or he simply feels a lot of apathy towards her and tends to keep his distance when possible.