The above photos were shot in my apartment community's inner courtyard. Yes, all these tiny bits of paper and red plastic wrappings in the top two photos were from firecrackers (鞭炮) that had been lit during the previous evening(s). The bottom photo, of course, is all the boxes and garbage from the firecrackers, piled against the community's small guardhouse.If last year's Spring Festival is any guide, this mess will be cleaned up quickly enough. But from January 25th through the end of the month, the firecracker wrappings literally covered the ground like shell casings from some fierce wartime battle. And during that week, my neighborhood sounded like a war-zone.
Actually, I really didn't mind the noise all that much. And the fact that so many people were setting off firecrackers in the courtyard and on the streets lent a distinctively disorganized Chinese air to the whole proceedings.
Moreover, the cold snap, which I wrote about in an earlier blog post, finally eased a bit on the evening of the 26th. I finished watching THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (十面埋伏) a bit before midnight and went out to the enclosed balcony that off my master bedroom to watch the show (since the enclosed balcony's walls are very thin, it can be quite chilly during really cold weather).
I'm on the third floor, so I had a pretty view of the fireworks (焰火) exploding over the siheyuans (四合院) on the opposite side of the Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie. The show matched or exceeded any 4th of July celebration I have ever seen back in the states. And that’s really not surprising—the Chinese did, after all, invent gunpowder and firecrackers, so why should I have expected anything less than the spectacular?!
The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.
鞭炮 (bian1pao4).
十面埋伏 (shi2mian4li3fu2). These characters mean “10” (十), “face/sphere/area” (面), and, according to a Chinese friend, 埋伏 can be translated as ambush. In any case, the Chinese and English names for this Zhang Yi Mou (张艺谋) film are completely different.
焰火 (yan4hou3).
四合院 (si4he2yuan4).
2 comments:
I have the same feeling like you as I was in the war-zone in the southern part of Dongcheng district these nights.
If you don't mind, I would like to propose a slight amendment to the name of the movie:
the name of the movie is 十面"埋"伏 (shi2mian4mai2fu2)instead of "理"伏 (li3fu2)."埋"&"理"looks very alike with only a slight difference in the recognised component of the two characters, "土" and "王" (on the left of the characters)
"埋" means "cover up"; "埋伏" could be translated as a single term, meaning "ambush".
you may imagine the meaning after watching the moving, in which the main characters in the movie were combating in the bushes. so the name actually describe situation that the combatant is staying. the name of the movie is taken from a famous old chinese classical.
I really appreciate your observation and passion in chinese culture. looking forward to reading more articles from you.
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