This chapter is the nail-biting kind of exciting, with duels all around and hundreds of spectators watching. Readers get a glimpse of Liu Bing Yi finally standing up, taking the limelight and commanding respect. It is very interesting how the foreshadowing works here in this passage, with Liu Bing Yi and Liu Fu Ling on the highest point, overlooking the crowd, defeating Ke'er Dada as allies.

Ignoring the fact Liu Bing Yi will be evil later on in the novel, he is really quite likeable here as he shares a comfortable camerederie with Yun Ge, able to tease her and know she wouldn't get pissed off. I really enjoyed reading this moment he shared with Yun Ge, all gruff and manly 'no-I-certainly-do-not-care' facade on, I found it really adorable.

Updated 26/5! I actually managed to rush out a tiny section, yay me! No prizes for guessing who screamed

( Continue reading )

And heave, ho here we go! The exciting set up for the dragon slide fall begins. It's a very short chapter so I'll try to post updates throughout the day as and when I'm done with a part. Should be done before I need to leave for dinner, methinks.Yessss, finished this with time to spare. I need a bath.

Everyone should be shitting bricks for Yun Ge right now, but there she is, still oblivious, enjoying the night, her moment with Liu Fu Ling. Sigh. The next chapter is going to be very long (almost twice as long as normal chapters), but also very exciting, so hold on tight!

Update: CHAPTER COMPLETE


( Continue reading )

This chapter sets us up for the next three chapters, as the players slowly move into position, ready for war. The following passage shows that Shang Guan Xiao Mei isn't stupid, there's this underlying meaning to her words. She knows who that 'beautiful flower' is, and at this time, her emotions are all jumbled up. She wants to be loved, but she has accepted her lot in life, knowing she is doomed to rot away in this palace, unloved....or has she? Yun Ge isn't showing blatant disregard for palace rules, she just wants Xiao Mei to come out of her shell, to live life as it ought to be lived, not as the Empress, but as a girl, as a woman. She treats Xiao Mei like any other girl, not an Empress, refusing to walk on eggshells around Xiao Mei, and Xiao Mei feels it too, since she drops the royal 'I' when talking to Yun Ge.

This chapter is truly Xiao Mei's turn to shine, and gives more insight to Huo Guang's life after Huo Qu Bing and Yu'er's death.

Update: CHAPTER COMPLETE


( Continue reading )

Bestie and I went cafe hunting one day and stumbled on La Vie Tropicale, on 125 Telok Ayer Street. It's a relatively new cafe, having only opened about 2 months back, but exudes this really nice, European rustic charm. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, and their mocha is to die for. We tried their big breakfast set (scrambled eggs, ham, toast, jam and butter), a  homely treat, and their croissant (two thumbs up!) which I'd highly recommend. Owner is French and really friendly. He even popped the croissant in the oven to bake it on the spot for us after we finished the last one and craved for more. ♥♥ Pop by more often and maybe he'll dispense some life advice to you too!

YAY! More adorable interactions in this chapter. Yun Ge and Ling gege spend the night together, though chaste, no one knows better and it causes a huge stir. Liu Bing Yi steps up, and starts to dip his toes into politics; Yun Ge continues to avoid Meng Jue, Liu Fu Ling remains wonderfully understanding.

My copy of YZG has 6 volumes, if volume 1 was the set up, volume 2 about Meng Jue and Yun Ge, then this volume 3 would be for Liu Fu Ling and Yun Ge. Volumes 4,5,6 are just angst, angst ,angst. Enjoy the happy while it lasts.

Update: CHAPTER COMPLETE. Enjoy! Ahhh, this chapter is too cute, felt it again as I was translating this chapter - probably why I managed to churn it out so quickly- they have this unspoken bond with each other, almost like some sort of  ESP.

I'll be updating this everyday until the chapter is complete before creating a new post.(Think of it as Yunzhongge-a-day) This post will be updated tomorrow and I'll post a update notice. Also, anonymous comments have been screened to prevent spam comments but I have lifted that screening feature. We'll see how that goes, if this blog attracts loads of spam, I might have to add a captcha.
( Continue reading )

I know that Koala has temporarily paused translating and have been getting requests for translations, so I've decided to pick it up. It isn't going to be an easy project, so bear with me as I try to unravel olden Chinese and phrase them in plain English. I'll try to post a part a day (thank goodness for chapter breaks!), continuing in the post I've left off until a chapter is complete, so hopefully that will ease the wait a little.

(Update: CHAPTER COMPLETE)

This is the chapter where the ties that bind the characters are brought to light, as they meet face to face. Yun Ge realizes who Liu Bing Yi truly is, and Liu Bing Yi realizes that he can't keep running any more. Liu Fu Ling continues to be perfect and understanding as always. Seeing how kind Huo Guang can be humanizes him, which makes it even more of a pity that he didn't know/ had yet to acknowledge Yun Ge as his goddaughter. He has tender sides to him too, not just some one-dimensional moustache twirling villian.

I must say this is one of my favourite chapters, love how Liu Fu Ling and Yun Ge can communicate without words, how adorable they generally are with each other, and how she trusts him completely, implicitly. Most of the pivotal characters made an appearance in this chapter,
( Continue reading )

Waffling between the roaring 20s and 1999, this book tackled very interesting characters in one of the most significant periods in history. 1920s: Life was just going on after The Great War, women working, classes merging, new inventions emerging, the period of uneasy peace in between wars and preceding the Great Depression of the 30s.... and 1999 was when the world was on the cusp of a new millennium. I loved "The Forgotten Garden", and the fairy tales interspersed throughout the book so I was hoping we'd get to read one of R.S Hunter's poems if only to get a glimpse of his mind. Kate Morton doesn't seem to like her male characters very much, they always are either side characters, never really delved into. Shame really, because if R.S Hunter's poems were anything like Wilfred Owen (another war poet from the Great War), it would have added more flavour to the book.

Hannah Hartford, one of the main characters in the book, really reminded me of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler - stuck in the confines of old thinking, wanting to break out and be free, full of ideals but discovering ideals aren't reality in the end. Grace, who serves the Hartfords from 1914-1925, sees all as a servant coached to be in the background, never to be noticed, is our narrator. Her purpose is to narrate and narrate she does, but there is a certain disconnect between her and the reader. I was never as interested in her story as I was in Hannah's and the Hartfords, and while there are perfunctory glimpses given to her back story, her as a character didn't seem fully fleshed out.

The opening lines are a homage to Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and takes on the same themes of Gothic, mystery, crime and romance. Secrets are the main theme of the book, birth secrets, secrets characters keep from each other, all coming together just in time for The Big Reveal. Morton always does The Big Reveal very satisfyingly, the only problem I had with this book was that it was too long at times. Descriptive prose is pretty but if it doesn't add anything to the book, it merely serves as decoration.

Note: I've translated Meng Jue's backstory and it's in the comments [Chapter 50 of YZG]
For the past few days, I’ve been deeply engrossed in reading Yun Zhong Ge (雲中歌: Song of the Clouds) – a 6 volume epic of love, political machinations, and growth. All characters feel like complex, real life people that you’re meeting as you journey with them through this book. None of them are cardboard cutout villains or heroes. They each have a good and bad side, some might tread along the path of grey but it doesn’t mean they are evil per se, because in this world, you’d understand their motivations for doing what they did, despite not agreeing with the actions, and sometimes even hating the character for a period of time.

This is Tonghua’s first novel in third person so it didn’t draw me in as much as BBJX did at first. The problem about the third person narrative is that even though you get a bird’s eye view of the entire story, you aren’t inside any particular character’s head, reading his/her thoughts, living his/her life. Later on, it doesn't matter any more as you get swept along for the ride, hurting, loving, smiling, crying along with these beautiful characters.Tonghua crafts this story with amazing detail, seamlessly referencing poems and songs from the Han Dynasty, bringing the sights, sounds and even tastes of the Han Dynasty alive.

"Who can understand my overflowing grief and pain?"


( characterizations/ minor spoilers )

I never imagined, when translating this, that it will turn out to be a 10,000 word essay split into 4 parts. I tried to do justice to the original as best as I can but the Chinese version still captures nuances that I can't in English and can be found here . I've read other essays on Ruoxi's relationship with other princes but they aren't as long nor as touching; feel free to request though. Note: the last few paragraphs of the essay where written by the author of this essay, and not Tonghua, the original author of the book. As usual, anything in quotations is extracted from the book

Q4: Where did the limits of their love lie?

Towards the end, there's no way you can approach their love unilaterally because the two of them have entered the most painful stage of any romantic relationship; if they endured through it, it would mean a lifetime together. If not, a lifetime of hurt awaited them.

( love does not claim possession, but claims freedom )

Here's the 3rd part of the series. I've added the interpretation of the poem 4th prince wrote Ruoxi as well as the various reasons Ruoxi gave regarding why she picked the 4th prince among the rest of the princes. The author of the post wrote this post assuming that the reader has read the book so I'll try my best to include anything that doesn't seem to make sense to a non-reader (:

Q3: What was their love story like?

( their story )