#and it was ruining my feng shui

[thatfreshi]

Appreciate the Astarion works!!! 💙💙💙

If you'd like another request, what about Tav gifting him something that allows him to see his reflection? Idk some kinda spell/amulet/potion? They're already to the point where he feeds from them or in a relationship and he's just beyond touched/ shocked they would do something for him like this? (Bc we know he's not ever had the most kindness shown to him)

he's been living rent free in my head and I just want to give him everything his undead lil heart desires.

Recommended Song: Mirrorball - Taylor Swift

(I just started listening to her music and holy shit this song is so them!!!)

It's late, the perfect time of day for the two of you. You and Astarion and out in your backyard, putting out some new furniture that he haggled for today. It's hard to say no to that smile, you would know. As you move nice chairs around debating where you should put them, you get into a playful argument.

"I know you're like, the house decorator, but gods why can't we put it in this corner?"

"Because darling, it'll ruin the feng shui. We should put the chairs here instead, and keep the plants over here."

You roll your eyes.

"I bet you don't even know what feng shui means."

"I don't, but it sure sounds fancy doesn't it?"

You giggle.

"What, I'm laughable because I don't know one tiny phrase? I bet there are plenty of words you don't know."

"Well, I don't know them, so I'm not worried about them."

You saunter over to him, throwing your arms up around his shoulders, and the two of you stare at each other for a moment.

"You know our anniversary is tomorrow right?"

"How could I forget my sweet?"

"I don't know, maybe the way you forgot what feng shui means."

"Okay, ouch. But yes of course, I have wondrous plans for the two of us."

"Okay but you can't have that good of plans because I really need to make sure you don't one-up this."

You walk back into the house for a brief moment, grabbing a scroll out of your bag.

"When I walked away while we were at the market, because I said I got tired of hearing you argue with that old lady? Well, I found this."

You hold the scroll out, and he gently grabs it out of your hands.

"I tried to get Gale to teach me, but you know I'm not very magically inclined so..."

He unrolls the scroll, reading the scrawled writing.

"This is-"

You cut him off in excitement.

"Mirror image! I thought maybe you could use it to make a reflection of yourself."

He stares at the scroll in shock.

"How much did you pay for this?"

"None of your damn business."

You grin at him, knowing all too well that you paid that guy way too much.

"This is very sweet my dear, I... I don't know what to say."

"Well you don't have to say anything, try it!"

After reading for a moment, he goes to cast the spell. He says a few words that go right over your head, and suddenly there were three more Astarions in your backyard.

"Gods!"

Astarion's cry of shock echoed through, all four of him? You're not quite sure how this works. After getting his bearings, Astarion looks around at his three reflections.

"Wow, this is certainly... wow."

You're so excited, you can finally show him all the little details you like about him, he gets to see how gorgeous he is, the list goes on and on.

"Okay, I have to do something funny, because I NEED you to see your little laugh lines. Hm..."

He furrows his brow at you, wondering what you're planning. And then you tickle his sides, causing an eruption of laughter.

"Quick, look!"

As he's still smiling, he catches a glimpse of one of the reflections, the little crow's feet he gets when he laughs.

"Oh, that was so important you had to attack me? If anything they make me look old."

"Well... you are kinda old."

He playfully pushes your shoulder. After the two of you quiet your laughter, he stands staring at one of the reflections, taking it all in. The eyes, the hair, trying to remember what he used to look like.

"What do you think?"

"I think... I think it's fitting."

He snarls to look at his fangs. Astarion has never seen just how menacing he can be, why people listen to him when he's threatening. You don't see anything scary though. Maybe you used to, long long ago. But now, he's just Astarion. That's all he has to be.

"This red really is quite bright."

He says, commenting on his eyes.

"Yeah, they're nice though. Piercing."

"At least my hair looks as good as I think it does. All my efforts haven't been wasted."

And just as fast as they came, the reflections vanish, fading out of existence. It's just the two of you again.

"Damn, I thought it would last a little longer."

You frown a little, wondering if it was really worth it. Astarion catches your glance, realizing your doubt. He tilts your chin up and cups your face in his hand.

"Even if it was short, it was a wondrous gift darling. I appreciate it, truly. Besides, now I know what kind of handsome devil you've ended up with."

"Yeah, trust me, I know."

You wrap yourselves up in each other, locking lips, somehow sharing your gratitude for each other in kisses. He gets a little handsy, and you jokingly whisper to him.

"Should've done this with the reflections."

He laughs quietly.

"Oh hush."

You end the evening tangled up in each other, and he seems to be more sure of himself than usual. Turns out seeing yourself after two hundred years can do something for the ego. Maybe one day, you'll find a more permanent soluton, but for now, one little scroll is enough. He's enough. You're both enough, as long as you have each other.

[pisspurveyor]

estinien may be my beloved beast that i have to bathe in the ocean once every 2 weeks or else he ruins the feng shui in my shithole apartment just by standing in it, but he sure can pull off the doe-eyed beauty look in an instant if he fuckin' wants to

[bagopucks]

Blurbs

Cole Caufield x Reader

✄————————————

The chill of cold bedsheets woke me up. Likewise the smell of fresh coffee. When my eyes fluttered open, I knew something was off. That something, being the lack of my boyfriend’s presence. I laid awake listening to his thudding footsteps down the hall, and the undeniable sound of his humming. It brought a smile to my lips. A quiet rumble of thunder blocked out the noise from my boyfriend, and I realized quickly why he was up so early. Cole was too light of a sleeper to be able to get through storms.

I climbed out of bed and checked the time on my phone. I had missed messages from friends, asking for a day in hanging out and catching up. I would have said yes if not for my knowledge that days in with Cole were far more fun.

I tossed my phone onto our bed and slipped out of the bedroom, careful to be quiet so I wouldn’t startle him. It took me a moment to actually find Cole, but when I stepped into the living room, I was greeted by the most wonderful sight.

I grew up in a shoreside town, surrounded by the most beautiful views. When I decided to take Cole home with me, we agreed on renting out a small house close to the ocean. Nothing too expensive, or even extravagant, but something that offered us privacy and a fun experience. Our first home together, technically.

Cole took advantage of all the windows, keeping the blinds open at all hours of the day until it got completely dark out.

I assumed it was the first thing he did when he woke up that morning, seeing as he was laid out on the floor, hands held to his stomach and eyes closed, basking in the sunlight that just barely peeked out from behind the hazy clouds.

I folded my arms across my chest, Cole’s old muscle tank top barely covering much of what it was supposed to, but it was only us. I didn’t want to speak, afraid of ruining his relaxation, but he broke the silence anyway.

“Come lay with me.” Id admit, it startled me.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I’m in my feng shui era.” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but I walked over and sat on the floor next to him nonetheless. Cole opened his eyes and looked up at me with a lazy smile. “I opened the windows.”

“To smell the rain?”

“Yeah.” He rested a hand on my knee.

“We should move south when I retire.”

“You like this?” I taunted playfully.

“I love it.” He patted my knee. “Lay with me.” I wasn’t the biggest fan of laying on the floor, but I did for Cole, resting on my back next to him.

“You gonna tell me what feng shui is?” I had to ask, seeing as he wasn’t going to volunteer the information.

“Something about balance and inner peace.”

“Right.. cause the Cole last night who wined and complained we didn’t have ice cream, was definitely feeling that inner peace.”

“I don’t remember that.” I turned my head to glare at him.

“I do. Because you were a hassle to deal with.”

He laughed, his pretty teeth on display as his eyes closed in delight.

“We should stock up on ice cream then.”

“Or get you some behavioral management classes.” I countered, reaching out to grab ahold of one of his hands. Cole intertwined our fingers and allowed me to rest our hands on the carpet between us. A rumble of thunder ceased our conversation, and Cole inched himself closer to me, to the point that I ended up moving our hands to rest against my stomach, so he could press his shoulder into my own.

“Storm wake you up?”

“I was up all night.” My brow furrowed at his response, and I turned my head once again to look at him. “It rained and thundered all night, and the lightning was real bad too.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Cause you sleep better than I do. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Cole,” I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I would have laid up with you all night. We didn’t have plans today.”

“It’s fine.. I’ll just take a nap later.”

I sighed and turned my head to look back up at the ceiling. Cole squeezed my hand in reassurance.

“We could take a bath.” I suggested slyly.

“Really?” Cole may have had the occasional issue with his height, but I would admit, one thing we never had to worry about was how he was fitting in the bathtub when we wanted to relax together.

“Or we could get the heated blanket out and read.”

“Oh I’m not in a reading mood.” I chuckled at his response. “But I like the heated blanket.”

“Here’s an idea,” I drew in a breath. “We can do the bath, then get dressed, and I’ll plug the heated blanket in for you to nap under.”

“You’re napping with me, girl.” Cole turned his head to look at me, nudging my leg with his own.

“Yeah. I’ll nap with you.”

“I’m not sharing my blanket though.”

“What the fuck Cole?” I feigned offense, laughter bubbling from our lips. “I bought that blanket for you, and you won’t even share it?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You better think long and hard, Buddy. And then you better make the right decision. You’ll lose your cuddle Buddy if you make the wrong one.” I warned as I slowly turned onto my side, propping my head up on my hand and releasing Cole’s hand to fix the shirt that did nothing to cover my body at this point.

“You’re not wearing anything under that?”

“This was what I threw on after last night. Sue me for assuming I didn’t need to be decent for my horny boyfriend.”

“You’re so mean today.” Cole laughed, turning away from me. I gasped at his antics.

“Absolutely not, Coley.” I reached for the back of his shirt and tugged on it. “Hey!” I tried to quiet my laughter as I scooted closer to him and snaked my arm around his midriff.

“I don’t wanna talk if you’re gonna be mean.”

“Then forget the nap and the bath.” I threatened as I pulled away. “I’ll go chill in the guest room.”

“You will not!” He spoke, in clear disbelief of my words.

“Will too!” I argued as I stood up. I looked down at Cole in time to see him turn to me and reach for my ankle. I leapt out of his reach, and before I knew it, Cole was off the floor and chasing me down the hall.

[dangermousie]

Tencent press conference also released a bunch of posters and here are some that caught my eye for a variety of reasons.

As a poster it’s just heads but I am here for the chaos that will ensue from mashing a bunch of Jin Yong novels together in New Jin Yong Wuxia Universe. Is it going to be a disaster? Probably. Am I here for it? With bells on. PS hi Zhou Yi Wei and Vengo Gao and Peter Ho, at least no matter the content of this, my eyeballs will feast mmmmm

I don’t do moderns and thus have no interest in The Snowstorm of Love despite my fondness for both Wu Lei and Zhao Yinmai, but I had to post the poster because good god that poster is heinous and all I can think of is frostbite.

Zhuo Zhuo Feng Liu poster is a bit generic but in exactly the way I like - men in armor (with handsome horse in background), lady in court robes, forearm holding and staring, classics are classics. And it’s not swimming in pastels, already a win.

Have you guys ever been big into 1970s fantasy with those delightfully trippy covers? Because this is the vibe the poster is giving me and I love it. This is where the casting carousel of The Guide to Capturing the Black Lotus stops and we get Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi apparently and NGL I am loving that casting and that pairing for those characters.

The Wonderland of Love poster is as good as its trailer and its trailer was by far my favorite out of the entire tencent conference.

Liu Shishi’s Fox Spirit Matchmaker @aceinthetrap let me know is not FSM it’s a different drama (apparently called Love Beyond the Grave? Why am I thinking zombies and romantic poets in cravats?) looks beyond gorgeous. This is how you do it, people!

Tho if you got to go for cliches, you could do worse than Everlasting Longing which continues to push the sexy barbarian chief thing like everything depends on it, which I suppose for the drama it does. Luckily my main emoji on seeing it is 😍😍😍😍

God damn you! Hands off 1000 Miles of Bright Moonlight. I do not want an adaptation of this because they are going to ruin it utterly. They already ruined my n1 het web novel with the travesty that was the adaptation of Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir and now time to go for my second most favorite? Between censorship regulations and cdramas’ own narrative tendencies in recent years, they are just gonna do a terrible job, leave it alone pls.

I like this poster for Liu Shui Tiao Tiao because it’s not like anything else and is not drowning in pastels; it’s probably my favorite poster out of the entire conference.

Thanks to my dealer @aysekira who linked me to a bunch of these and, as always, a fun game of “how many of these will actually air? And in some reasonable timeframe?” starts now. Plus don’t ever air, 1000 Miles of Bright Moonlight, pls don’t ever even get made!

[sab3rtooth]

tumblr ads ruin the feng shui of my blog

[anotherwvba]

By Blood or By Choice pt. 1

The gym was buzzing with excitement as Mika, Niki, and Cutie hustled around, making final preparations for the anime party that was set to start in a couple of hours. The atmosphere was electric, filled with the scent of snacks, the sound of anime theme songs playing softly in the background, and the sight of colorful costumes.

Cutie, dressed as Kamen Rider Kivaala, was meticulously arranging the seating area. Her helmet sat proudly on one of the ring aprons, almost as if it were watching her work fluffing pillows and arranging bean bags

"Ah, this is going to be so cozy!" Cutie exclaimed, fluffing up the last cushion.

"It sure looks it, Cutie! You've got the feng shui down," Mika called out, admiring Cutie's handiwork.

"Arigato, Mika-chan! I want everyone to feel relaxed while we geek out," Cutie smiled. “This is going to be so much fun! I can't wait to see everyone's reactions to the anime lineup we've chosen."

Niki was knee-deep in cables and remotes, setting up the audio and video equipment, "Right? I've been looking forward to this all week. And these speakers are going to make everything sound epic!"

"How's the tech coming along?" Mika asked as she continued with her work..

"Almost there, just a few more tweaks. This setup is gonna be awesome," Niki assured, her eyes not leaving the screen she was calibrating. "Okay, HDMI goes here, and the sound system... there!"

Mika, decked out in her Sailor Moon cosplay, was unpacking an assortment of refreshments. She had a mix of typical snack foods like chips and pretzels, but also included some traditional Filipino snacks she had prepared herself. A variety of sodas and juices were neatly lined up on a table.

A whiff of a sweet treat caught Niki’s attention. “Mika— please, please tell me you made turons.”

"Oh yeah, girl! These snacks are going to be a hit, I can feel it!" Mika said as the delicious smells filled the gym.

Niki looked up from her tangle of wires. "Hey, speaking of hits, any news on Skye? That knockout from Reina last night was brutal."

Mika sighed, "Yeah, it was tough to watch. But Doc Wakada checked her out. No concussion, thank God, and he managed to set her broken nose. He says she’ll be clear to leave the infirmary by early afternoon and she said she'll be joining us later."

Cutie clenched her fists. "That Reina. She’s nothing but a cheat and a show-off. I can't wait to get my gloves on her."

Mika nodded, "Get in line, Cutie. I want a piece of her too, especially after those elbows and that headbutt. But let's focus on having fun today."

"You're right," Niki chimed in, "There’s no way we let her heinous highness ruin the mood today. Skye came out alright, proved she belongs here, and now she’s officially on the WVBA roster. If we weren’t already having a party, I’d say we should throw one!"

Just then, the gym doors creaked open, and Bald Bull's head popped in. "Is okay to come in?" he asked in his broken English.

Cutie smiled, "Yo, Bull-san! Come on in!"

Bald Bull stepped inside, revealing his cosplay outfit. He was dressed as Bright Noah from Mobile Suit Gundam. Both Mika and Niki's eyes widened in surprise. "Everyone, this is Bald Bull," Cutie introduced. "Bull, this is Star Mika and Niki Binary,” Cutie said before cutting her eyes back to her friends, “And I told you he loves Gundam!"

Mika's eyes sparkled as she gushed. "Oh my gosh, your cosplay is amazing, Bull! You’ve nailed Bright Noah!"

Niki, still a bit intimidated, shuffled her feet. "Uh, hi...nice to meet you."

Sensing her discomfort, Bull smiled and tried to reassure her. "Is okay, no need to be scared. I not bite."

"Thanks, Bull. It's just, you're a legend, and it's a bit overwhelming," Niki admitted.

The big Turkish boxer rested a hand on Niki’s shoulder, “Not legend. Just boxer, like you.”

Niki looked away, humbled that Bald Bull would say they were alike. 

"So, Bull, excited for the party?" Mika asked, trying to keep the conversation flowing.

"Very much. Love anime," Bull replied. "Can I help?"

"Actually, yes. I could use some help setting up the tables for the refreshments," Mika grinned, grateful for the extra pair of hands.

As Bull and Mika moved to set up the tables, Niki finally untangled the last wire and plugged it in. "Alright, I'm ready to test the audio and video. Fingers crossed, everyone!"

Just as she said that, the gym doors swung open again. This time, two people walked in, uninvited guests, a young brown-haired man dressed as Link and a young blonde woman as Princess Zelda.

"Hey, is this where the party's at?"

Mika's eyes widened, her mouth falling open in sheer delight and surprise.

[arcaneinsomniac]

Because it's annoying and I don't like it and it ruins the Feng Shui of my dashboard

Write why Tumblr should delete Tumblr Live asap.

[ornament-of-rhyme]

Watching a cyber truck drive through my shitty little city with abandoned buildings and needy people all over is dystopian as fuck.

Please get your dented tin can out of here, it's ruining the feng shui.

[sunaleisocial]

Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/qa-as-long-as-you-have-a-future-you-can-still-change-it/

Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”

Tristan Brown is the S.C. Fang Chinese Language and Culture Career Development Professor at MIT. He specializes in law, science, environment and religion of late imperial China, a period running from the 16th through early 20th centuries.

In this Q&A, Brown discusses how his areas of historical research can be useful for examining today’s pressing environmental challenges. This is part of an ongoing series exploring how the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is addressing the climate crisis.

Q: Why does this era of Chinese history resonate so much for you? How is it relevant to contemporary times and challenges?

A: China has always been interesting to historians because it has a long-recorded history, with data showing how people have coped with environmental and climate changes over the centuries. We have tons of records of various kinds of ecological issues, environmental crises, and the associated outbreaks of calamities, famine, epidemics, and warfare. Historians of China have a lot to offer ongoing conversations about climate.

More specifically, I research conflicts over land and resources that erupted when China was undergoing huge environmental, economic, demographic, and political pressures, and the role that feng shui played as local communities and the state tried to mediate those conflicts. [Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice combining cosmology, spatial aesthetics, and measurement to divine the right balance between the natural and built environment.] Ultimately, the Qing (1644-1912) state was unable to manage these conflicts, and feng shui–based attempts to make decisions about conserving or exploiting certain areas blew up by the end of the 19th century in the face of pressures to industrialize. This is the subject of my first book, “Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China.”

Q: Can you give a sense of how feng shui was used to determine outcomes in environmental cases?

A: We tend to think of feng shui as a popular design mechanism today. While this isn’t completely inaccurate, there was much more to it than that in Chinese history, when it evolved over many centuries. Specifically, there are lots of insights in feng shui that reflect the ways in which people recorded the natural world, explained how components in the environment related to one another, and understood why and how bad things happened. There is an interesting concept in feng shui that your environment affects your health,and specifically your children’s (i.e., descendants and progeny) health. That concept is found across premodern feng shui literature and is one of fundamental principles of the whole knowledge system.

During the period I research, the Qing, the primary fuel energy sources in China came from timber and coal. There were legal cases where communities argued against efforts to mine a local mountain, saying that it could injure the feng shui (i.e., undermine the cosmological balance of natural forces and spatial integrity) of a mountain and hurt the fortunes of an entire region. People were suspicious of coal mining in their communities. They had seen or heard about mines collapsing and flooded mine shafts, they had watched runoff ruin good farmland, causing crops to fail, and even perhaps children to fall ill. Coal mining disturbed the human-earth connection, and thus the relationship between people and nature. People invoked feng shui to express an idea that the extraction of rocks and minerals from the land can have detrimental effects on living communities. Whether out of a sincere community-based concern or out of a more self-interested NIMBYism, feng shui was the primary discourse invoked in these cases.

Not all efforts to conserve areas from mining succeeded, especially as foreign imperialism encroached on China, threatening government and local control over the economy. It became gradually clear to China’s elites that the country had to industrialize to survive, and this involved the difficult and even violent process of taking people from farm work and bringing them to cities, building railways, cutting millions of trees, and mining coal to power it all.

Q: This makes it seem as if the Chinese swept away feng shui whenever it presented a hurdle, putting the country on the path to coal dependence, pollution, and a carbon-emitting future.

A: Feng shui has not disappeared in China, but there’s no doubt about it that development in the form of industrialization took precedence in the 20th century, when it became officially labelled a “superstition” on the national stage. When I first went to China in 2007, city air was so polluted I couldn’t see the horizon. I was 18 years old and the air in some northern cities like Shijiazhuang honestly felt scary. I’ve returned many times since then, of course, and there has been great improvement in air quality, because the government made it a priority.

Feng shui is a future-oriented knowledge, concerned with identifying events that have happened in the past that are related to things happening today, and using that information to influence future events. As Richard Smith of Rice University argues, Chinese have used history to order the past, ritual to order the present, and divination to order the future. Consider, for instance, Xiong’an, a new development area outside of Beijing that is physically marking the era of Xi Jinping’s tenure as paramount leader. As soon as the site was selected, people in China started talking about its feng shui, both out of potential environmental concerns and as a subtle form of political commentary. MIT’s own Sol Andrew Stokols in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) has a fantastic new dissertation examining that new area.

In short, the feng shui masters of old said there will be floods and droughts and bad stuff happening in the future if a course correction isn’t made. But at the same time, in feng shui there’s never a situation that is hopeless; there is no lost cause. So, there is optimism in the knowledge and rhetoric of feng shui that I think might be applicable as time goes on with climate change. As long as you have a future, you can still change it. 

Q: In 2023, you were awarded one of the first grants of MIT’s Climate Nucleus, the faculty committee charged with seeing through the Institute’s climate action plan over the decade. What have you been up to courtesy of this fund?

A: Well, it all started years ago, when I started thinking about great number of mountains in China associated with Buddhism or Daoism that have become national parks in recent decades. Some of these mountains host trees and plant species that are not found in any other part of China. For my grant, I wanted to find out how these mountains have managed to incubate such rare species for the last 2,000 years. And it’s not as simple as just saying, well, Buddhism, right? Because there are plenty of Buddhist mountains that have not fared as well ecologically. The religious landscape is part of the answer, but there’s also all the messiness of material history that surrounds such a mountain.

With this grant, I am bringing together a group of scholars of religion, historians, as well as engineers working in conservation ecology, and we’re trying to figure out what makes some of these places religiously and environmentally distinctive. People come to the project with different approaches. My MIT colleague Serguei Saavedra in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering uses new models in system ecology to measure the resilience of environments under various stresses. My colleague in religious studies, Or Porath at Tel Aviv University, is asking when and how Asian religions have centered — or ignored — animals and animal welfare. Another collaboration with MIT’s Siqi Zheng in DUSP and Wen-Chi Liao at the National University of Singapore is looking at how we can use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and classical feng shui manuals to teach computers how to analyze the value of a property’s feng shui in Sinophone communities around the world. There’s a lot going on!

Q: How do you bring China’s unique environmental history and law into your classroom, and make it immediate and relevant to the world students face today?

A: History is always part of the answer. I mean, whether it’s for an economist, a political scientist, or an architect, history matters. Likewise, when you’re confronting climate change and all these struggles regarding the environment and various crises involving ecosystems, it’s always a good idea to look at how human beings in the past dealt with similar crises. It doesn’t give you a prediction on what would happen in the future, but it gives you some range of possibilities, many of which may at first appear counterintuitive or surprising.

That’s exactly what the humanities do. My job is to make MIT undergraduates care about a people who are no longer alive, who walked the earth a thousand years ago, who confronted terrible times of conflict and hunger. Sometimes these people left behind a written record about their world, and sometimes they didn’t. But we try to hear them out regardless. I want students to develop empathy for these strangers and wonder what it would be like to walk in their shoes. Every one of those people is someone’s ancestor, and they very well could have been your ancestor.

In my class 21H.186 (Nature and Environment in China), we look at the historical precedents that might be useful for today’s environmental challenges, ranging from urban pollution or domestic recycling systems. The fact we’re still here to ask historical questions is itself significant. When we feel despair about climate change, we can ask, “How did individuals endure the changed course of the Yellow River or the Little Ice Age?” Even when it is recording tragedies, history can be understood as an enduring form of hope. 

[jcmarchi]

Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/qa-as-long-as-you-have-a-future-you-can-still-change-it/

Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”

Tristan Brown is the S.C. Fang Chinese Language and Culture Career Development Professor at MIT. He specializes in law, science, environment and religion of late imperial China, a period running from the 16th through early 20th centuries.

In this Q&A, Brown discusses how his areas of historical research can be useful for examining today’s pressing environmental challenges. This is part of an ongoing series exploring how the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is addressing the climate crisis.

Q: Why does this era of Chinese history resonate so much for you? How is it relevant to contemporary times and challenges?

A: China has always been interesting to historians because it has a long-recorded history, with data showing how people have coped with environmental and climate changes over the centuries. We have tons of records of various kinds of ecological issues, environmental crises, and the associated outbreaks of calamities, famine, epidemics, and warfare. Historians of China have a lot to offer ongoing conversations about climate.

More specifically, I research conflicts over land and resources that erupted when China was undergoing huge environmental, economic, demographic, and political pressures, and the role that feng shui played as local communities and the state tried to mediate those conflicts. [Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice combining cosmology, spatial aesthetics, and measurement to divine the right balance between the natural and built environment.] Ultimately, the Qing (1644-1912) state was unable to manage these conflicts, and feng shui–based attempts to make decisions about conserving or exploiting certain areas blew up by the end of the 19th century in the face of pressures to industrialize. This is the subject of my first book, “Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China.”

Q: Can you give a sense of how feng shui was used to determine outcomes in environmental cases?

A: We tend to think of feng shui as a popular design mechanism today. While this isn’t completely inaccurate, there was much more to it than that in Chinese history, when it evolved over many centuries. Specifically, there are lots of insights in feng shui that reflect the ways in which people recorded the natural world, explained how components in the environment related to one another, and understood why and how bad things happened. There is an interesting concept in feng shui that your environment affects your health,and specifically your children’s (i.e., descendants and progeny) health. That concept is found across premodern feng shui literature and is one of fundamental principles of the whole knowledge system.

During the period I research, the Qing, the primary fuel energy sources in China came from timber and coal. There were legal cases where communities argued against efforts to mine a local mountain, saying that it could injure the feng shui (i.e., undermine the cosmological balance of natural forces and spatial integrity) of a mountain and hurt the fortunes of an entire region. People were suspicious of coal mining in their communities. They had seen or heard about mines collapsing and flooded mine shafts, they had watched runoff ruin good farmland, causing crops to fail, and even perhaps children to fall ill. Coal mining disturbed the human-earth connection, and thus the relationship between people and nature. People invoked feng shui to express an idea that the extraction of rocks and minerals from the land can have detrimental effects on living communities. Whether out of a sincere community-based concern or out of a more self-interested NIMBYism, feng shui was the primary discourse invoked in these cases.

Not all efforts to conserve areas from mining succeeded, especially as foreign imperialism encroached on China, threatening government and local control over the economy. It became gradually clear to China’s elites that the country had to industrialize to survive, and this involved the difficult and even violent process of taking people from farm work and bringing them to cities, building railways, cutting millions of trees, and mining coal to power it all.

Q: This makes it seem as if the Chinese swept away feng shui whenever it presented a hurdle, putting the country on the path to coal dependence, pollution, and a carbon-emitting future.

A: Feng shui has not disappeared in China, but there’s no doubt about it that development in the form of industrialization took precedence in the 20th century, when it became officially labelled a “superstition” on the national stage. When I first went to China in 2007, city air was so polluted I couldn’t see the horizon. I was 18 years old and the air in some northern cities like Shijiazhuang honestly felt scary. I’ve returned many times since then, of course, and there has been great improvement in air quality, because the government made it a priority.

Feng shui is a future-oriented knowledge, concerned with identifying events that have happened in the past that are related to things happening today, and using that information to influence future events. As Richard Smith of Rice University argues, Chinese have used history to order the past, ritual to order the present, and divination to order the future. Consider, for instance, Xiong’an, a new development area outside of Beijing that is physically marking the era of Xi Jinping’s tenure as paramount leader. As soon as the site was selected, people in China started talking about its feng shui, both out of potential environmental concerns and as a subtle form of political commentary. MIT’s own Sol Andrew Stokols in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) has a fantastic new dissertation examining that new area.

In short, the feng shui masters of old said there will be floods and droughts and bad stuff happening in the future if a course correction isn’t made. But at the same time, in feng shui there’s never a situation that is hopeless; there is no lost cause. So, there is optimism in the knowledge and rhetoric of feng shui that I think might be applicable as time goes on with climate change. As long as you have a future, you can still change it. 

Q: In 2023, you were awarded one of the first grants of MIT’s Climate Nucleus, the faculty committee charged with seeing through the Institute’s climate action plan over the decade. What have you been up to courtesy of this fund?

A: Well, it all started years ago, when I started thinking about great number of mountains in China associated with Buddhism or Daoism that have become national parks in recent decades. Some of these mountains host trees and plant species that are not found in any other part of China. For my grant, I wanted to find out how these mountains have managed to incubate such rare species for the last 2,000 years. And it’s not as simple as just saying, well, Buddhism, right? Because there are plenty of Buddhist mountains that have not fared as well ecologically. The religious landscape is part of the answer, but there’s also all the messiness of material history that surrounds such a mountain.

With this grant, I am bringing together a group of scholars of religion, historians, as well as engineers working in conservation ecology, and we’re trying to figure out what makes some of these places religiously and environmentally distinctive. People come to the project with different approaches. My MIT colleague Serguei Saavedra in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering uses new models in system ecology to measure the resilience of environments under various stresses. My colleague in religious studies, Or Porath at Tel Aviv University, is asking when and how Asian religions have centered — or ignored — animals and animal welfare. Another collaboration with MIT’s Siqi Zheng in DUSP and Wen-Chi Liao at the National University of Singapore is looking at how we can use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and classical feng shui manuals to teach computers how to analyze the value of a property’s feng shui in Sinophone communities around the world. There’s a lot going on!

Q: How do you bring China’s unique environmental history and law into your classroom, and make it immediate and relevant to the world students face today?

A: History is always part of the answer. I mean, whether it’s for an economist, a political scientist, or an architect, history matters. Likewise, when you’re confronting climate change and all these struggles regarding the environment and various crises involving ecosystems, it’s always a good idea to look at how human beings in the past dealt with similar crises. It doesn’t give you a prediction on what would happen in the future, but it gives you some range of possibilities, many of which may at first appear counterintuitive or surprising.

That’s exactly what the humanities do. My job is to make MIT undergraduates care about a people who are no longer alive, who walked the earth a thousand years ago, who confronted terrible times of conflict and hunger. Sometimes these people left behind a written record about their world, and sometimes they didn’t. But we try to hear them out regardless. I want students to develop empathy for these strangers and wonder what it would be like to walk in their shoes. Every one of those people is someone’s ancestor, and they very well could have been your ancestor.

In my class 21H.186 (Nature and Environment in China), we look at the historical precedents that might be useful for today’s environmental challenges, ranging from urban pollution or domestic recycling systems. The fact we’re still here to ask historical questions is itself significant. When we feel despair about climate change, we can ask, “How did individuals endure the changed course of the Yellow River or the Little Ice Age?” Even when it is recording tragedies, history can be understood as an enduring form of hope. 

[akinformation]

Page 364

and I told him that I knew how. When I saw the mountain, I had this picture in my head, this feeling that someone once lived there. I looked at the mountain and saw a fragment from a movie about ancient times, gods, and Egypt. I was shown that the place where I stood was the ruins of an ancient civilization. I understood that I needed to build a pyramid, some kind of chapel, a thing that would work. What if it connected to the spires in St. Petersburg? I started to look at the height of cathedrals in St. Petersburg compared to the height of my mountain. And if my mountain were fifty meters high, then I would know that the idea that came to mind was wrong. But the mountain is a hundred meters high, and if I build this chapel, then it would be just right, all according to the feng shui. I was like,” Wo””. Right before discovering the mountain, I was told that all churches and architectural structures around the world are, in fact, alien. But they are discrete, hidden from people somehow, so people wouldn’t understand that these are antennas and actually cosmic mechanisms. It is imposed on people through movies that alien spacecraft are streamlined, shiny, and high-tech objects. In fact, all these ancient buildings are spacecraft. All chapels, churches, and mosques are built for a certain purpose. As if there are a whole bunch of beer kiosks all over the world, but in fact, each kiosk has a hundred-ton magnet inside. This kiosk structure creates magnetic fields. But we see them as beer kiosks. Are you with me? Same with the chapels and churches. They may look like chapels and churches, and people visit them, but in fact, they are large working mechanisms. The principle is the same, and people think that they are just holy places. But they all work in their unique way; they have different purposes. Some of them receive energy; some collect one kind of energy, some distribute another kind of energy. They are projectors; the sun shines over the Earth, and the energy goes into these devices all over the world. Then, they somehow cover us with the cloud of this frequency to which we are connected, and we operate under it as a projection. This is how I would describe it.

But please understand the difference between my thinking and yours. My information cannot be wrong. I want you to understand the essence of the information that I convey through reasoning and storytelling. You need to understand why Big Alexander is communicating with me. You see, when people

[lav-jjba-brainrot]

Ok, collecting my thoughts about Stone Ocean now that I have finished the anime.

Of course Major JJBA Spoilers under the cut/ "read more"

I really loved this ending arc, especially how emotionally charged Weather's backstory was and the final fight after Jolyne almost dies by C Moon and Jotaro's return and everything after that in part 6. Out of all of the parts thus far, it's my favorite ending by far.

Looking back at the episodes, I think it only starts getting good at the second batch, at least writing wise. But getting through the first batch is definitely worth it.

Other Notes/Comments:

I didn't mention this in my last post talking about part 6, but I don't really hate the Dragon's Dream fight. I find it's ability pretty interesting, and not as confusing as everyone argues it is. It's definitely me and me understanding more abstract concepts easily. I already had encountered Feng Shui, although briefly, through Animal Crossing. Basically, how I understood it, Dragon's Dream is simply pointing out unlucky directions in someone's or an objects behavior/stance, where they are vulnerable.

Although I do dislike Yo Yo Mama, I agree he is pretty creepy and icky

I also really enjoyed Rikiel. I did relate to Rikiel's anxiety, but mine is nowhere near intense as his.

Heavy Weather's ability is honestly more confusing/convoluted/makes less sense than Dragon's Dream. Like I get the idea of subliminal messaging, but I feel like using Weather reports weather control to make rainbows, that then have subliminal images of snail that then turn people into snails? I feel like it's a stretch, and I feel like it doesn't really make sense within Wes's character.

I'll have to comment on my thoughts on the other parts at some point.

Closing thoughts:

Overall, I think each batch, at least writing wise, gets better as it goes on.

As of now that I have finished it, I guess I'm trying to cope with the fact that there will be no continuation of this universe I've grown so attached to. It's been three years since I've started Jojo and it has become my special interest.

I'll have to post about my thoughts on the other parts here. I'm reading the manga now, starting with phantom blood.

How I discovered Jojo and why it's so important to me:

I was introduced to it by two of my old Minecraft friends, all three of us have moved on since then. (The server we played on died quite a long time ago.) One of them was a guy a handful years older than me. I'll call him 'Bob' here. The other was a kid about a year younger than me, who I'll name 'Red' for the sake of this post. There was also two other friends from what I can remember, but it isn't really important to this story. We hung out quite a bit, and got to know quite a bit about eachother.

At some point (I don't really remember) the two found out they both were Jojo fans, and they made references and memes. Both of them egged me to watch Jojo.

Just like now, I tended to watch it in spurts at a time. Because of that, I also saw/looked up memes in between when I would watch Jojo.

But I also saw major spoilers, including memes about Kakyoin's death before I even got to part 3. That in particular was completely spoiled/ruined for me. I didn't feel much about Kakyoin's death because I already knew it was coming and about the fight following.

Only now that I have done enough research about his character and connected to him after the fact can I truly appreciate his sacrifice and mourn his death.

Tangent about Jotaro

In addition, I didn't really like Jotaro until I watched analyses of his character. I personally feel like it's mostly the anime to blame. Even though he does show some emotion, it definitely isn't as noticeable as the manga. I know that Jotaro isn't a character who wears his emotions on his sleeves, but I feel like many people including me were unable to connect with him. I wish they would have made his emotions more clear, at least at the start of the anime. It was many western fans, including me, introduction to Jotaro, and I wish they would have done him full justice.

UPDATE in the middle of writing this:

If I were to recommend Jojo to anyone, I would recommend they read the manga of Part 3, at the very least the first few chapters.

I still had Bob in my Discord DMs, so I decided to shoot him a message (+friend request again so I could message him) about how I finished Stone Ocean; since he was one of the people who got me into Jojo. Luckily he accepted the friend request, and we caught up. I also told him about my parody Jojo characters, mainly Frank, since he seemed most entertained by him.

[angelcqre]

“..So.”

You’ve never really. Spoken with Simon much. He’s said it himself - he’s a man of action, not words, and so, as you sit in his living room clutching a cup of tea, you feel the weight of his gaze on your shoulders.

It’s hefty.

His home is.. spartan. Dark colors, bare walls, the essentials to live and not much else. The feng shui is awful. The living room needs a rug and a new lamp.

It smells like pine.

“..Did you have a nice trip?”

You sound awkward even to yourself, capturing your lip between your teeth, your gaze directed more to the dog currently upside down gnawing at a stuffed ghost toy. He growls every so often, chews, looks between the two of you to make sure you’re both exactly where he left you, and then repeats.

Simon laughs. The sound is.. sardonic, low, like there’s a joke you’re not in on. You can’t quite see the curve of his smile - the black medical mask he’s wearing shields that - but you can see the crinkle of his eyes, worn leather irises never leaving you.

“No. ‘M not big on travel.”

He’s a mystery. He’s always a mystery. Aloof and fascinating and huge, builtlike a brick shithouse. Handsome. You try not to think about that, instead focusing on his answer.

“Then why do you-“

“Work.”

“Oh. Well - I’m kinda glad. Buddy makes my apartment feel a little less lonely, isn’t that right, Bud?” You force a smile, reach down to scritch along the mutt’s ribcage, sighing softly when the dog moves to teeth at your fingers. Not quite a nibble. “He’s such a sweetheart, so handsome and strong and well behaved.”

Buddy straightens. Barks at you, head tilting, before moving in to lick at your cheek once, and you feel some of that awkwardness loosen from your frame.

“He chose me, more than I chose him.”

Your brows quirk, and you risk a glance up at Simon. He’s smiling again, his arms propped on his knees, feeling too large for life. His hands clasp together, fingers loosely entwined, and you wonder if they’re as rough as you imagine them to be. They certainly look it - look calloused.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmn. Rescued him as a pup from some rubble. Little man wouldn’t leave my side the entire time, snuck onto the transport back home. At the time-,” He pauses, drops to sit beside you, cupping at Buddy’s face and scritching behind his ears just right. The dog’s tail thumps on the ground and his tongue lolls, dropping to lay between the two of you. “I wasn’t sure I could, but I was on medical leave for a few months. ‘S been a year and a half, and he’s still just as big a baby.”

It’s almost a coo, the way he speaks to the dog, loosely grasping at his ruff and squeezing affectionately. The dog jumps to his feet, noses at his owner’s neck, practically tackles him in his eagerness to lap at his face.

“He’s just a little guy,” You say, laughing softly as Buddy gets his paws on Simon’s chest and knocks him over. “He’s a baby!”

Said baby is currently digging his claws into Simon’s chest, eliciting an over dramatic groan and strong arms around the dog. You wince. You probably should’ve trimmed those a bit, but Buddy is such a baby about it, and you walk him enough that they never get long enough to be worth the wrestling.

“He even ruins my dating life like a baby does.” The joke doesn’t quite land. You can see Simon tense, arms still wrapped around Buddy, fur tickling his face, worn-leather eyes flicking up to peer at you.

“S’that so?”

“Yep. Every time we’re out and somebody approaches, he all but tugs me away. He’s usually so good on the leash - I tried a harness with him and he pitched a fit, andI’m not gonna keep fighting him on it, so I just have to deal with the fact that he doesn’t like anybody but me.”

Simon’s gaze has turned.. strange, heavy, heated, but before you can look deeper, his eyes shutter, and he grunts, sitting up.

“‘S got good taste.” He says, and your heart kicks at it.

“Yeah, I mean, you know what they say about dogs having that sixth sense, and you know it’s honestly kind of nice to have a big scary dog. I feel like I can walk anywhere at any time which is super nice. You know, like, scary dog privilege? But Buddy isn’t that scary he just looks scary.”

You’re rambling. You’re rambling and you can’t stop, but Simon’s eyes stay crinkled and he looks amused, big hand resting on the dog’s head to pet it.

“Hmm.”

“I do think he’s saved me from a few muggings. He’s got that bark that scares the shit out of people. I think he’s got some Doberman in him - he’s certainly big enough for it.” You glance at the dog. Frown. Glance back at Simon. His eyes are half lidded, pale lashes at half mast as he looks at you, and Christ, his eyes are pretty. “He’s got that dobie growl.”

He hums again, and you yawn. His home is - is cozy, almost oppressively warm, and it’s all too easy to want to curl up and nap, especially with Buddy moving to rest his face in your lap. You yawn.

Maybe an hour wouldn’t hurt. Just a little nap.

With all the talk of dogs I can’t help but thinking of being Simon’s dog nanny lmao

Dude spends half the year out of the house at minimum - and, at this point, you own Buddy just as much as he does. He’s a big thing, lax and calm, awfully protective of his owner and.. now, of you. Trained like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s extra money, good money, and all you have to do is occasionally text Simon photos of his dog to prove that Buddy isn’t dead when he’s halfway across the world doing god knows what.

(You don’t ask. You don’t want to know. He says one thing about the military and you firmly tell him that it’s none of your beeswax.)

He rarely texts back - mostly just ‘ok’s and the occasional ‘thx’ when you’re lucky. He’s a dry texter. You don’t mind.

Every time he comes home, you have to drop Buddy off, leave him with Simon, offering a smile and a few words before you’re off.

You usually don’t see how he looks at you when you’ve turned to grab Buddy’s food out of the boot of your car. How his gaze turns hungry and wanting, how he only barely stops himself from reaching out and touching you, pulling you back into his little home and kissing his claim into your mouth. Laving his tongue over your thighs and biting his marks into you, fucking some sense into you so you stop running off every time Buddy’s leash falls into his hand.

But Simon is patient. Simon is a patient, patient man, willing to wait until you get that pretty little head on right and realize that you practically belong to him at this point. Buddy helps - keeps you from getting too close to anybody who isn’t Simon and your direct family, he’s a good boy, well trained, obedient.

He grabs hold of your wrist on one such trade off, runs a thumb over the pulse point in your wrist. Holds it there. Smiles. He can feel the way your pulse jumps under his touch, watching your cheeks flare, and he holds your stare, stroking your wrist with an impossibly calloused fingertip.

“Come in for a cuppa. The mutt misses you when you run off so quickly.”

You can’t help but yield to the dominance, exhaling softly, nodding your assent. Buddy yips and laps at your free hand, bounding inside in a rare show of energy. He’ll enjoy having both of his owners home for once.

[thecureimcoldopensavdemo]

i have decided that failgirl week was due to bad mojo being thrown at me from 2 big ol mirrors (from my grandma) behind my bed (not a sex thing), which would potentially be ruining the feng shui of my room (another room essentially being right behind my head as i slept). no idea where to put them i think i need some kind of covering so they arent sending evil vibes at me. < totally normal thing to think

[insomtiny]

i just think that nose <3

[lierrelearns]

Note: Asterisks represent characters that I couldn't read or figure out. If someone is able to figure them out, please let me know so that I can amend my post. :3

伏見神宝神社 当社は、稲荷山を背にする古名丸山（まるやま）（笹山）に鎮まる社である。天照大神、稲荷大神、十種神宝を祀り、社名神宝は、神授十種神寶に由来する。祝詞に「布留部由良由良、玉響（ふるべゆらゆらたまゆら）かして死れる（まかれる）人も反りて生きなん」とあり、神山に抱かれ、五体に宿る魂魄(たましい）を振り起こす処に神徳を見いだす鎮魂の神社である。 神域には縄文弥生を彷彿とさせる磐境、神明造の社、竹の神明鳥居、叶え雛と称する願掛＊かくや姫絵馬が献ざられ、丸山笹論（まるやまさろん）の天井に深草産竹墨による天地自然を表す象形文字画月の座と題する螺鈿漆屏風、中世まで存在した社を描く屏風、拝殿に深草憧憬(ふくくさしょうけい）絵、記紀に神語る（かまかたる）墨書天井、神殿に源平盛衰記（十四世紀）に語る草童（くさのわらべ）人形��竹取の迦具夜姫（かぐやひめ）大土鈴、陽炎（かぎろひ）を表す鏡があり、事者（こともの）共に自然（おのずから）なら営みを表し、風水の循環を見立てる狛蘢（こまきゅう）、磐境、磊が存る、この社も応仁の乱後笹群磊磊（ささむらいらい）と化したが、昭和三十二年（一九五七）、社殿が蘇った。竹の下道に沿う最中伊笹群竹浅黄（たけあさみどり）清々しい静宮（しずみや）である。 京都市

伏见神宝神社 本神社位于背靠稻荷山的古名丸山（笹山）。祭祀天照大神、稻荷大神、十种神宝。神社名词中的神宝、来源于神授十种神宝。 祈祷词中这样写道：　”布留部由良由良、摇响宝玉、赤可使人从生死边界苏醒过来”。这是一个被神山环＊的鎮魂神社、其神德在于能唤醒宿于五体的魂魄。 应仁之乱后、该神社化为竹林中的廀墟、１９５７年、神殿重建。沿竹着林中的小路、伊笹丛竹青＊欲滴、令人神清气＊、伏见神宝神社静静地坐落其中。 京都市

후시미 칸다카라 신사 당 신사는 뒤로 이나리야마 산올 가진 옛 이름 마루야마(사사야마)에 진좌하는 신사다. 아마테라스 어미카미, 이나리노 어카미, 도투사 칸다카라를 모시며 ‘칸다카라’라는 신사명은 신수 ‘도쿠사 칸다카라’에서 유래한다. 기도 문구에 ‘후루베 유라유라 구슬이 울려 생사의 기로에서 헤매이고 있는 사람도 되살아난다’ 로 되어 있고 신령한 산에 감싸여 오체에 ���드는 혼령을 불러 일으키는 데 효헙이 있는 진혼의 신사다. 오닌의 난 이후에 페허가 대나무 숲이 무성하였으나 1957넌에는 신전이 복구되었다. 대나무길을 따라 서 있는 이사사 대나무숲의 푸르름이 상쾌합을 주는 신사다. 쿄토시

Fushimi Kandakara-jinja Shrine This shrine is set on the mountain Sasa-yama (Maru-yama by the old name), with the mountain Inari-yama rising in the background. It is dedicated to the deities Amaterasu O-Mikami and Inari-no-Okami, and to Ten Treasures (Tokusa Kandakara) given by the deities when they descended from the heavens. The shrine name was derived from the treasures (Kandakara). A Shinto ritual prayer given at the shrine asks the deities to care for the souls of the deceased and to restore life to those people who are wavering between life and death. Fushimi Kandakara-jinja fell into ruin after the Onin War in the 15th century, but was restored in 1957. It is a quiet shrine, nestled within the light green of the surrounding bamboo forest. Kyoto City

京都市では、健全な森づくりを進めるため、市内で育った木「みやこ杣木」の活用を推進しています。 「京の森づくり」はこちら 使う 植える 育てる 伐る 健全な＊]づくり＊＊中 市内産木村 ＊証マーク みやこ杣木　京 この名所説明立札（＊札）は、豊かな＊育てる府民税を活用して設置しました。

Japanese 当社（とうしゃ） this shrine 稲荷山（いなりやま） Inariyama 背にする（せにする） to turn one’s back to 古名（こめい） old name, former name 笹山（ささやま） Sasayama 鎮まる（しずまる） to become quiet 天照大神（あまてらすおおみかみ） Amaterasu Omikami 稲荷大神（いなりのおおかみ） Inari Okami 十種神宝（とくさかんだから） ten sacred treasures 神宝（しんぽう・かんだから） sacred treasure 神授（しんじゅ） divine gift 十種神寶（とくさかんだから） ten sacred treasures 由来（ゆらい） origin, source 祝詞（のりと） riutal prayer (Shinto) 五体（ごたい） the whole body 宿る（やどる） to dwell, remain 魂魄（こんぱく） soul (hun and po) 振り起こす（ふりおこす） to stir up, stimulate 処（ところ） place 神徳（しんとく） divine virtues 見いだす（みいだす） to find out, discover 鎮魂（ちんこん） repose of a soul 神域（しんいき） Shinto shrine precincts 縄文（じょうもん） Jomon 弥生（やよい） Yayoi 彷彿（ほうふつ） (bearing a) close resemblance, vivid reminder (e.g. of the past) 磐境（いわさか） shrine (archaism) 神明造（しんめいづくり） style of shrine architecture based on that of Ise Jingu 神明（しんめい） deity; Amaterasu (as an enshrined deity) 鳥居（とりい） torii, Shinto shrine archway 雛（ひな） young chick; fledgling; hina doll 願掛（がんかけ） making a prayer (to a god or Buddha) 絵馬（えま） votive tablet; wooden tablet usually filled out with one’s name and hung up at a shrine or temple (originally a picture of a horse as a stand-in for a live horse) 献ず（けんず） to present, offer, dedicate 墨（すみ） ink-stick 象形文字（しょうけいもじ） hieroglyphics 題する（だいする） to be titled (e.g. a book), named 螺鈿（らでん） mother of pearl 漆（うるし） East-Asian lacquer 屏風（びょうぶ） folding screen 拝殿（はいでん） front shrine; hall of worship 記紀（きき） the Kojiki and Nihon-shoki 墨書（ぼくしょ） writing in India ink 源平盛衰記（げんぺいせいすいき） Genpei Josuiki/Seisuiki, a 48-book extension of the Heike Monogatari 土鈴（どれい） earthenware (ceramic) bill 陽炎（かぎろひ） heat shimmer, heat haze; the glow of dawn [archaic] 風水（ふうすい） feng shui 循環（じゅんかん） circulation, rotation, cycle 見立てる（みたてる） to (see and) choose; to liken (to), to treat as 磐境（いわさか） shrine [archaic] 磊（らい） many rocks 応仁の乱（おうにんのらん） Onin War [civil war from 1467 to 1477; initiated the Sengoku period] 社殿（しゃでん） (main building of a) Shinto shrine 蘇る（よみがえる） to be rehabilitated, restored 下道（したみち） road shadowed by trees, mountain, etc. 浅黄 [浅葱] （あさぎ） pale blue-green [in this context] 清々しい（すがすがしい） refreshing (feeling, scene, wind etc.) 健全（けんぜん） healthy, sound, wholesome みやこ杣木（みやこそまぎ） lumber wood cut from trees raised in the capital (Kyoto) 伐る（きる） to cut down (trees) 立札（たてふだ） bulletin board, notice board

Chinese 本 (běn) this 神社 (shénshè) shrine 位于 (wèiyú) to be located at/situated at 丸山 (Wánshān) Maruyama 来源于 (láiyuányú) to originate in 祈祷 (qídǎo) to pray/prayer 这样 (zhèyàng) this kind of, so, like this, this way 宝玉 (bǎoyù) precious treasures, jade 人从 (réncóng) retinue, hangers-on 生死 (shēngsǐ) life or death 边界 (biānjiè) boundary, border 苏醒 (sūxǐng) to come to, awaken, come to consciousness 过来 (guòlái) to come over; to manage, handle, to be able to take care of 在于 (zàiyú) to be in, lie in, consist in, depend on 唤醒 (huànxǐng) to wake someone, to rouse 魂魄 (húnpò) soul 应仁之乱 (Yīngrénzhīluàn) Onin War 后 (hòu) after 竹林 (zhúlín) bamboo forest 神殿 (shéndiàn) shrine 重建 (chóngjiàn) to rebuild, reconstruct 小路 (xiǎolù) trail 丛 (cóng) thicket 竹青 (zhúqīng) bamboo bark, bamboo green 坐落 (zuòluò) to be situated/located (of a building)

Korean 신사 (Shinto) shrine 당 this 가지다 to have 진좌하다 to be enshrined 유래하다 to originate 기도 prayer, wish 문구 words, phrase 구슬 bead 울리다 to ring, toll 생사 life and/or death 기로 crossroads, turning point 해매다 to wander, roam 되살아난다 to revive, be brought back 신령하다 to be divine 감싸다 to cover, wrap (up) 오체 the whole body, frame 혼령 soul 불러일으키다 to cause, rouse 효헙이 있다 to be effective, do good 진혼 repose of souls 오닌의 난 Onin War 대나무 bamboo 무성하다 to be lush, thick, overgrown 복구되다 to be restored, recovered 푸르름 greenness/blueness 상괜하다 fresh, refreshing