Tag: chinese

Two Little Red King Sample Chapters

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Two sample chapters from the novel Little Red King are now available. The first deals with John’s introduction to expat nightlife. It’s found here.

The second is LRK’s first real chapter, following The Seven Year Laowai 1. It’s found here.

Set in 2008 Wuhan, Little Red King is more or less about the doomed romance between a new foreign teacher and a Chinese graduate student. The never-sent query is here (or the post right below this one), and the structure of the book goes 7YL1, Ch 1, 7YL2, Ch 2…and so on, with the 7YL departing midway through while the main story takes over and returning at the end to help tie everything together.

More sample chapters are coming. The next one will be about a bad baijiu hangover, based on a true story of a certain former expat who had the bright idea of mixing Sprite with ricewine, to mute the taste. Unfortunately, it worked.

I said it in a Facebook message and I’ll say it here and I’ll say it again and again: I want Little Red King to be a fucking gut punch. So, while things will start out innocent enough, keep in mind this is a doomed romance. I want the sense of doom to set in, and I want it to set in quickly. I want this story to linger in people’s heads for years.

I want a lot of things. Right now, what I want most is for people to read the damn thing.

So feel free to have a look, and yes, I am open to feedback. Some four to five years on, the book remains a work in progress, though less of a work in progress than last time. So what do we call that?

Progress?

Shoes Turn Into Children

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I can understand more than I could three years ago.

Part of it’s from listening to my wife talk to our daughter. Sometimes it’s just easy to predict what’s someone’s saying and another part might be “attention to detail”, that old military teaching tool.

I still can’t follow every word. Mealtime conversations quickly turn into trainwrecks of sounds, the wreckage rising in direct proportion to the amount of baijiu consumed. Another problem is this place. This dialect.

The local dialect.

It’s easy to hear the difference between the local Hubei-bred Hua and the CCP-approved brand, easier than it was three years ago. The local dialect sounds faster — when people know each other, for whose benefit would they slow down? Also, it’s louder, naturally, here in the home of the “nine-headed birds”. The number of tones are the same.

Here’s a short list of differences between Mandarin and the local dialect. This is spoken in a small Hubei town. Suggestions and corrections are welcome:

hē 喝 “to drink” = huǒ

xué 学 “to study” = xuó

gěi 给 ”to give” = gě

ne = ni (as in: Baba ne? becomes Baba ni?)

bào 抱 “to hug” = pào

chī 吃 “to eat” = qī

zāng 脏 “dirty” = āo zòu

yī diǎn dian 一点点 = yī kār

And everyone’s favorite:

Shoes = Children

:)