#Chinese Vietnamese

[maybe-boys-do-love]

just a friendly note to the BL fandom on here that plenty of people enjoy queer-oriented shows like love in the big city and mainstream shows like spare me your mercy and classic BL approaches like Cooking Crush. Plenty of people see the queerness, the strengths, the value for viewers in all these shows.

just a friendly reminder that a work is not less queer because no one is protesting it. That’s not a legitimate metric across vastly different cultures. The differences between politics, religious majorities, and manners across QL producing countries is absolutely massive.

just a reminder, if we wanna talk about capitalism, that the whole idea of a work being better or worse, queerer or less queer, more valuable or less valuable based on it’s reception in numbers (either higher or lower) is not something Marx and Engels would be into, since they ascribed to exchange value over use value. The labor put into the work is where it’s at—and all of these shows had plentiful hours of (queer) labor put into them! But not everyone who talks about the wrongs of capitalism on here is actually interested in the finer details of how capitalism operates, the full political and economic realities of the companies making these shows, nor the individuals who are forced to fight for change within capitalism’s global structure.

just a friendly reminder that queer sex, queer kissing, queer love, and queer marriage are part of and entwined with a larger humanist struggle for agency and cooperation, and queer creators are allowed to adapt their works and connect queerness to those broader political questions, and the work does not become any less queer because it lacks nc scenes or marriage plots.

and just a friendly reminder that a simple BL romcom is equally as queer of a story as a story about HIV. They’ll have vastly different narrative structures serving different emotional goals, and they’ll likely have different audiences. Yet, somehow, like me when I wake up in a different mood every morning, they’ll still be gay.

[bixels]

Jesus man, relax.

[novy2sirius]

Vietnamese Astro Notes

— by novy

Keep in mind that your numerology plays a big role in all this as well. For example: If you’re a 7 life path or born on a 7 day but your animal sign is the Tiger you may still be a party animal and not a huge loner like some other 7’s can be

• Vietnamese astrology does not go by years exactly. The new sign starts sometime in between January or February every year. You must search your exact birth date and year along with “vietnamese zodiac” for this reason in order to find what your animal sign is

• The Goat, Pig, and Cat trine are the wealthiest trine, especially when working together. The Goat is the richest though. Rat’s can also be wealthy sometimes though

• Tigers, Goats, and Dragons are the most attractive signs to society (physically)

• Goat’s are one of the most sexual signs besides Pigs

• The best romantic match out of all the signs are the Goat and the Pig

• Similar to numerology the energy of the year we’re all in effects us. Example: During Goat years people may be more emotional

• Tiger’s are very unpredictable similar to how Aquarius energy is

• Your enemy sign is important to stay away from but also your enemy signs whole trine in general

• The matrix favors the Rats - m(atr)ix. The rat’s enemy sign is the Horse so for this reason Horse’s tend to have the most challenging lives. Goat’s also tend to have hard lives though

• Monkey’s are often very confident but at worst can be self absorbed

• Snake’s are considered the wisest sign but for this reason can be very good liars and deceive lots of people often

• Cat’s are genius’ but will play mind games with you a lot

• Dog’s are the most loyal sign but Ox’s and Rooster’s tend to be loyal as well

• Tiger’s are the biggest cheaters but Pig’s come in at second place and Goat’s at third

• Dragon’s are the best fighters (physically)

• Goat’s tend to worry too much about things that genuinely don’t matter

• The Cat should avoid the Rat. They aren’t enemy signs but they will never get along

[parasite-of-sentience]

Mutual Aid Request

After moving my savings have been cut, and my current check is taken entirely by my rent + util payment. this + my cats vaccine shot not being covered has left me unprepared for the coming month.

Goal is $150 and goes to groceries/gas/general funds

anything after that helps and will go towards paying off upcoming bills or payments. might also stream this weekend to promote.

shares appreciated

[thistransient]

Taipei is not hosting the big national lantern festival this year but there are still some cool things set up around the city, this one is outside Songshan Station 松山站

[leminhjuice]

Chúc mừng năm mới!! :D 🐉

[lotusinjadewell]

Hội An, Vietnam. Credit to Hoi An Recorder.

[lgbtqreads]

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee

Today on the site I am so thrilled to be sharing the cover for the long-awaited Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee, a cozy Sapphic YA fantasy releasing June 10, 2025 from Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan! Here’s the story: A geeky overachiever determined to save the world through science and a troublemaking chosen one lashing out against her destiny meet and fall in love in a magical…

[oakygn]

I had to draw Juno when I saw the comic, I’m so glad we got some Vietnamese rep <3

[leavescrown]

You are welcome to write them down or tag them too :) 🎧

(it's totally okay to add more languages first before voting 😂)

[shiranuieditorial]

20 inspirational names for a super summer!

List summary: 新夏、夏向、夏涼、夏艷/夏艶、琉夏、夏樂、夏怡、夏悅、夏嬉、夏歡/夏懽、梨夏、夏梅、夏蓮、莽夏、青夏、勇夏、承夏、平夏、峰夏、and 夏緒！ (Keep reading ’til the end to discover their meanings, readings, pronunciations, guide to etymology and history, and more linguistic knowledge!)

Is it just me or has this summer been unnervingly chilling for us tropical islanders? 🌞🥶

Check out this summer-inspired name bank I’ve been working on for the past 5 months!

Each name was…

→ meticulously hand-picked like exotic cherries 🍒

→ carefully translated to the best of my ability 🉑

→ and then packed with a mini beginner’s guide to 夏 (the Han character/Chinese character for “summer”, used throughout the Sinosphere) 📖

→ which contains its standard readings in many languages: Mandarin Chinese, Dungan Tili, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, Wu, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese! 🀄

(If you need info on any other topolect, dialect, or time-specific variant not mentioned here, just ask away! I’ll see what I can do for ya!)

👉🏼 An incredibly versatile character, it’s impossible to run out of given names containing/based on 夏!

The possibilities are endless, and the only limit is our imagination! 💡

👉🏼 If we visit the Wiktionary entry for 夏, we’ll see a whole lot more linguistic variants & historical hypotheses on this ancient grapheme dating back to 2070 BC, and even a reconstruction of its Middle Chinese & Old Chinese pronunciations based on recovered millennia-old scripts! 😱

👇🏼 Comment “Wiktionary” and I’ll send you the link to read further. It’s very interesting to read, whether you’re a curious beginner or a veteran Sinologist.

❓ QOTD 1: Which name stood out to you in particular? 🤔

❓ QOTD 2: Do you know what the difference is between “reading” and “pronunciation”? 🗣️

👇🏼 Also also also, let me know what you think of this list! 📜

Is it interesting enough? Are the tables mathematical enough? Are my font choices weird enough? Have I managed to convince you that I’m secretly an omniscient Taoist immortal from the 16th century BCE here to steal all the trees off your backyards, or should I try harder? If so, what other attempts at floor-length grocery lists should I make to satisfy your most honourable expectations?

Remember—your plants are at stake here! 🧚🏼‍♀️🌲🌳🌴

[hanaflorbloom]

the polyglot struggle

when I want to learn French but I also think it would be cool to learn Italian but Korean is also pretty cool but then there's also German and can't forget about Chinese and what about that Vietnamese song I listened to the other day that would be a cool language to learn-

[bl-bracket]

Introducing the Next BL Bracket: Poorest Little Meow Meow!!!!

Wait a minute... does this sound familiar? Well, that's because this is our first ever rematch round!!! That's right, it's time to revisit the very first bracket I ever did, Poorest Little Meow Meow!

The only difference with this compared to other brackets is that the previous winner (Wei Wuxian from The Untamed) can NOT be submitted again (we might have a special one off fight between him and whoever wins this one). Otherwise everyone is fair game!

There are TWO factors of what makes a Poor Little Meow Meow that I want to establish:

There must be something morally questionable about the character. I'm not going to say that they must be evil (because that's a complicated definition lol) but there needs to be some moral ambiguity on the table. They must have done something morally questionable

They needs to be pathetic and/or pitiful in some way. Emphasis on the "poor" in "poor little meow meow." Despite doing something bad, they must still be able to evoke pity or just be pathetic in some way.

Submissions Close: August 12 @ 7 PM (GST)

Submit your poor little meow meows here!

@tournament-announcer

[dramatic-dolphin]

Oh man, I am waaay on the other side of the "pronounce names correctly" debate. Not because I don't think you should, in general, attempt to pronounce names correctly, I do. But I'm trying to get people to stop trying to pronounce my name correctly.

I happen to have a name that's (for foreigners) Hungarian on Hard Mode. I'm talking umlauts, digraphs with y, just all the good phonemes that don't exist in most other languages. I've spent a lot of time abroad with people from various parts of the world, and I can tell you from hard empirical data: nobody can say it. And I'm cool with it! I just tell them the English equivalent and it's fine.

Mostly. Some people, especially those who are trying to be culturally sensitive, have a Really Hard Time™️ accepting that a) they are not getting it right b) continue to not get it right despite asking me to demonstrate over and over. And I appreciated it at first! How thoughtful, this attempt to engage with my culture. Cue several months of unsuccessful attempts, at the end of which they were (mostly jokingly) accusing me of faking it. Almost verbatim: "if we recorded you saying your own name and played it back to you, you would say it's incorrect".

(I get it though, the pop sci explanation that I've never bothered to fact check is that as you grow up, you're more attuned to characteristic frequencies of your mother tongue, so when another language comes along with different frequencies, you are quite literally incapable of distinguishing them. So their attempts may sound the same to them, but it sure doesn't to me. I tell them I have this with "bet" and "bat", and that sometimes puts an end to it.)

So yeah, attempt to pronounce everyone's name correctly. Unless they have asked you multiple times not to.

YES YES YES. sometimes you don't want to hear your name butchered over and over and again. like it can be funny when the entertainment is the hungarian gyöngyi and the czech přemysl trying to pronounce each other's name (actual thing that happened at an event my mom was at, everyone thought it was hilarious), but like. at some point it gets TIRING.

god do i hate those people who are like "well at the introduction i wouldn't stop trying until i could pronounce their name correctly!!" newsflash you were not pronouncing it correctly unless you also did a deepdive into the phonology of the language right there. what actually happened was that scene went on for so long and got so awkward they said "haha yeah that's correct!" to stop you from trying again. PLEASE stop. it is very awkward.

the pop sci explanation is sorrrrt of right, you're not really ever incapable of distinguishing phonemes, or phonologists would be out of a job! but your brain does become attuned to the subtleties that are important in your language and discards other phoneme differences that aren't used in your language because who even needs that. it's possible to learn to speak a language like a native and understand all the subtle differences so deeply that they come as instinct. it just takes a LOT of work.

(but- learning your native language took even more work. you're at an 8yr old's level of umderstanding in the language you're learning? well, how long do you think it took the 8yr old?)

also, relatedly, if someone - usually someone who's chinese in my experience - tells you their name, and then adds "but you can call me [english name/name in another language]!" it tends to be because they LIKE being called that name and possibly even prefer it to you butchering their name. they understand that you will butcher their name, because the language - which may or may not be chinese - is notoriously hard for outsiders.

[fattributes]

Hu Tieu Ap Chao

[saranghandagom]

60 day challenge

inspired by this post, my friends and i are planning to do a 60 day challenge for the rest of the year, starting nov 1st!

i have opted for 7 habits, but not all of them will be daily (exercise, for example, will be three times a week, due to my schedule and physical condition!)

the habits i have chosen are:

read something in korean (i have a lot of korean novels that i never get around to because it's still kind of slow 🥲)

vacuum daily

gym: this is three times a week instead of daily! planning to monday, thursday and saturday/sunday because of my schedule

use at least one skin care product

vocab study: two new words in chinese, five new words in korean every day

read 10 pages of capital daily (if i do that i can finish the book this year!)

study some vietnamese every day (this is an extra, but i really want to finally get around to decently studying vietnamese!)

i think this might be somewhat challenging with all my regular uni commitments, but that's the point!