The Halloween Special: Calling Back the Souls

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

Here is my Halloween special!! I tried to put on a gothic makeup but I am afraid I am not very successful! Hope you all enjoy this video and leave a lot of comment for me!!

[@neophytedubious]

I think the look is great, and I love the "gothic" theme, I'm excited to learn more!

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

@@neophytedubious Thank you!! Yes, there are a lot of stories of "gothic theme" in Chinese folklores. I am certainly going to tell more stories.

[@chelseaxxxxx1111]

I love that you used miasma to translate ghost rain! In old Rome there was a similar concept to ghost rain and was considered societally healthy to happen at a small scale fairly regularly to ensure the virtue of officials. An old holiday which captures a sense of the concept is Saturnalia :)

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

There is also quite a bit discussion about translation of many of the characters used in Li He's poem in this video. The way he uses words are very peculiar which is very hard to interpret and translate. Hope to hear your views about our interpretation and translation.

[@dth92301]

So nice to get caught up on your video presentations. ❤

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

Great you enjoyed this video!! Thank you for your support!

[@theorivas1]

Thank you for the great effort and energy you put into your fine videos. I noticed at 30 minutes, the perfect photo to describe the eeriness of the topic. I will certainly watch the video again. Also, I noticed that you discuss at length your translation choices with various colleagues. Thank you so much for that.

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

I am so glad that you like this video so much. I would love to hear about how you feel about this video. I admit the video is a bit intense because I packed too much into this one video. But I think this is the point. For my kindred spirit, it worth to watch more than once. Yes, I spent quite a bit of time to search the perfect photo for the scene I feel Li He was trying to describe. David and I also spent quite a bit time discussing about various translation. Li He's poetic style is very different from all the other poets from his time and even poets hundreds of years after him. This unique tradition was late continued not in poetry but in drama and novels from the Song Dynasty on. There are quite a few plays and novels with this “gothic" theme. Maybe I should make a video about the plays and novels about ghost stories. I think these are good points I would like more people to see so I am also going to post it in the community page. Thank you for this thought-provoking comments.

[@theorivas1]

@@dr.gaosclassroom Speaking of novels, I am on the last volume of Journey to the West. I want to buy my next classic Chinese novel. I’ve read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Story of the Stone, and Outlaws of the Marsh. Genji is Japanese but seemed to have a heavy Chinese influence. What should I read next?!

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

@@theorivas1 The strange tales from Liao zhai might be a good option. It tells a lot of ghost stories and other supernatural entities. Another one is The Scholars which tells stories of the pitiful lives of scholars who spent many years trying to pass the civil service exam to gain a position in the government but failed.

[@theorivas1]

@@dr.gaosclassroom Many thank you’s! Hmm…..🤔

[@theorivas1]

@@dr.gaosclassroom The Scholars is out of print in English. But, I found one inexpensive copy!

[@daniell8843]

Thanks for this video! 祝你万圣节快乐!

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

谢谢，也祝你万圣节快乐！

[@arturcamara931]

非常感谢！非常有趣！

[@dr.gaosclassroom]

谢谢🙏