I've been watching the Dream of the Red Chamber DVD with my mom over the winter break... I read the story when I was in 6th grade, the year when I read more than I can ever count... I read a lot that year, almost spent all the time I could in the bookstore whenever my parents went shopping in the mall (which is almost every single weekend) or took a bunch of books out from the library (the world classic novels and those sherlock holmes stories). I remember sitting there for hours and finishing a couple of books... I used to read fast, like a book in 2 hours or so.

I remember taking that book out from the library wondering why people say it is the classic... the language was pretty hard for a 12 year old... it is pretty hard for an average adult, i think. I read the the "translation" of the book and skip most of the old chinese (skimmed through it)... (in case if you don't already know, it is written in old Chinese...actually not that old, it was in the last Chinese dynasty, but it is already very different from the modern Chinese. I think it is harder than reading Shakespeare) I finished the book...wondering...why on earth would this be considered the classic. it was about a guy falling in love with a sickly young girl...and a bunch of the what not small events that happened in the family... i didn't understand the essence of the novel.

after watching almost the entire DVD series now (currently, i am just waiting for the girl to die...it is getting really predictable. everyone dies at the end or become a nun/monk at the end, or get married to a "barbarian king" or getting married and lead an unhappy life)... i am still wondering what the actual story is about. I can totally see the theme of jealousy, of "destiny" and death, of sin, of being a woman, of an old wealthy yet crumbling family, of pride/money/power, etc. i think there is more to it...otherwise it wouldn't be one of the greatest novels in Chinese history.

I think my spring semester project in conjunction with my chinese class will be reading the thick volume of this novel (if i have time)...and try to understand what it is all about.

have you ever notice that the book that you read as a child is very different from the same exact book that you read as an adult? i think i want to reread all the books that i have read so far into my life...and learn again...try to see things from a different perspective and to really study the meaning/lesson of the contents. to study literature the way they are are supposed to be read and digested... one of my best friends (now a civil engineering major) in taiwan who used to live upstairs of us and I shared a lot of time reading on her bed in her cozy room for the whole entire afternoon. ha. we just read the days away like that... her place became my 2nd library... i think i read the translation of White Fang as a 5th grader... and got my own Chinese translation of Moby Dick as a 6th grader and read Wuthering Heights too...

oh yeah...the original work is ALWAYS better than the translation... ALWAYS. the original is always more powerful...

i just want to be able to wake up early in the morning, sit on the porch in a rocking chair...with a blanket wrapped around me and a cup of good tea...and start to read under the shining morningn sun, into the afternoon and stop right before the sun goes down...so i can watch the sunset... no food is needed if i can feed on the world of fantasy and imagination and live there...

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A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. -Robertson Davies, writer (1913-1995)

If you know only one language, you're a prisoner, stuck in the tyranny of that one language. -Andrew Cohen, professor of linguistics (1944- )