Just in case you enjoy bilingual signs and materials as much as I do, here are some from the Peabody Essex Museum's Lunar New Year event yesterday ♥

(Please note: These are text-heavy images without mouseover or screenreader text.)

( PEM English/中文 materials )

我想要推荐这个故事 ♥

书名：天青欲雨
作者：sannianbufei
字数：10 573
评级：M

概要~
魏无羡是个天上的仙君，更确切一点，是天上的龙君，一道天罚打下来，这才蜕成了一只蛟。

一百年后，大雨滂沱，山哭林啸，乱葬岗上来了个白衣人，步伐端方。

“含光君，这么巧。今天下雨，可是你想我了？”

Not a fluffy story, but I really enjoyed former dragon Wei Wuxian becoming the snake king of the demons completely by accident and just... never correcting them. Lan Wangji's arrival causes zero moral dilemmas for either of them, which I found both touching and refreshing. And I'm no skilled judge of Chinese erotica, but I thought the author did justice to their stated goal: "我要让全世界知道龙性恋的好。"

蛇漫画｜snake cartoon, by Tan Huay Peng~

( picture of cartoon )

"Fun with Chinese Characters: The Straits Times Collection," volumes 1-3, are compilations of cartoons by Tan Huay Peng, circa 1970, providing "imaginative and humorous interpretations" of individual Chinese characters.

龙年快到结束了，希望蛇年对我们都很好。有时候感觉时间过得很快，但进步不大。我觉得一定记住我们爱什么，我们想要什么，和我们能做什么很重要。

“没有人能做所有事情。每个人都可以做点什么。”

回想起来，我觉得自己其实做了很多事情。我照顾了两只可爱的小狗，看到了日全食，转了工作，而且用中文分享了很多同人作品。

你呢，你喜不喜欢龙年？可能你学到了很多很多中文！如果是这样，请告诉我你怎么做了，所以我也可以做。🙂

祝大家蛇年快乐！

春天快乐！或如果你在南半球，就祝你秋天快乐。

今天我学到了这个词，“春分点，”意思是"spring equinox."

第三、四个感恩的问题：
♥ 你最近学到了什么有趣的词汇？
♥ 另外，你喜欢什么季节变化的方面？

三月快乐！

根据最近的历史，我很难每天发帖文字游戏。现在我知道了！所以在三月，我打算每天分享。。。感恩问题？“gratitude prompts”（我有一本鼓励写感恩的日记，我还没有用。）你们可以回答这些问题，或者写任何你喜欢的事。

♥ 第一个感恩问题：你今天看到什么美丽的事情？可能是一个人、一个动作、一个动物、自然的东西、等等。

新年好，春节快乐，今天是大年初一！Happy year of the dragon, or year of the loong! *

This next game was going to be a matching game, involving common 4-character phrases used to wish people good luck and good health, where you connect the first half of the phrase to the second. But as with so many forms of expression, there aren't really any wrong answers, just less common ones!

So instead of one-to-one matching, I made it into a poll, so you can select as many matches as you want ♥



( poll answers )

*The following fun article gives a nice summary of the dragon/loong history and discourse, and includes what marcicat calls "words of wisdom for the year ahead" when it quotes Christina Huang's appreciation of the word "loong" as a design element: "You can always add more Os!"

♥ Happy Chinese New Year! May you live loong and prosper! by Yao Minji

Hooray! Thanks to everyone for being here for a whole month of writing prompts and polls! I had fun with them, and I hope you did too ♥

In February I'll post some word games in honor of Lunar New Year (the connection being largely "things that are fun"). The games themselves will rely on Chinese characters, words or sentences, but the explanations will be in English. Please feel free to write something instead of or in addition to playing.

Also feel free to share any recommendations you have from the week! I wanted to rec Chinese-forums as a resource last week, but they were in the middle of a server change. They're back now, and a fun source of camaraderie, opinions, and experience.

Someone at Chinese-forums also recommended Lingotrack recently, and I've started using it to log some of my language study. (It makes pretty graphs!) It's easier than I expected, and it's very much about individual user experience: the answer to "how should I describe or categorize [a particular] activity?" is generally "however you want!"

Thanks again for a great January, friends. I appreciate you, and I hope your 2024 is off to a fantastic start.

Writing prompt #26 ♥ 龙年快到了！兔年有什么你想留下吗？

。。。我想了想这个问题，不知道怎么回答。所以我加别的问题：兔年有什么你想记得或者继续明年吗？

(In case my Chinese is not adequate to this question: is there anything from last year you'd like to leave behind, or anything from last year you'd like to remember or carry forward with you?)

(Classic Questions for 外国人 2/3)

Writing prompt #24 ♥ 你是哪国人？你是学生还是有工作？*

*还是别的选择！