NOBODY KNOWS ∘ 誰も知らない 2004, Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

[SHL] Zhou Zi Shu 周子舒 and Wen Ke Xing 温客行 name analysis

I know SHL is a small fandom but I feel like it deserves a names analysis post. I love how script writers have incorporated such beautiful, well researched lines of Chinese poetry from different time periods into the drama. The two main characters’ names are assigned couplets which we’ll explore below.

Zhou Zi Shu 周子舒

执子之手，坐看云舒（zhí zǐ zhī shǒu, zuò kàn yún shū）means “holding your hands, sitting and watching the clouds unfurl”.

It derives from two lines of poetry.

The first comes from the 《诗经》 Classic of Poetry, or Shih-ching, dating back to the Zhou 周 Dynasty (coincidence much?): 执子之手，与子偕老 means “holding your hand, growing old beside you”. It was a pledge said by a soldier to his wife whilst he was fighting a seemingly endless war. Nowadays, it is almost always used in a romantic or matrimonial context.

The second part comes from 《小窗幽记》 by Han Dynasty writer Chen Ji Ru 陈继儒: 去留无意，漫随天外云卷云舒 means “to be or not to be needs no hard decision, let nature takes its course and the clouds gather and unfurl at will”.

Wen Ke Xing 温客行

天涯孤鸿，无根行客（tiān yá gū hóng, wú gēn xíng kè）means “a solitary swan at the ends of the earth, a drifting wanderer with no roots”.

It also derives from two lines of poetry.

孤鸿 originates from 《咏怀诗》, written in the Three Kingdoms 三国 period by the poet Ruan Ji 阮籍. It means a lone swan, referring to the wild swan geese that formal monogamous pair bonds for many years. A solitary swan is known for its sorrowful cry, and the phrase is often used in poetry to lament one’s loneliness.

The second part comes from 《忆少年·别历下》, written in the Northern Song 北宋 Dynasty by philosopher Chao Bu Zhi 晁补之: 无穷官柳，无情画舸，无根行客 means “endless rows of willow trees by the road side, boats sweeping by heartlessly carrying drifting wanderers with no roots”. It is part of a poem written to depict the poet’s sadness when leaving Li Xia town, lamenting how when he next returns time would have flown by like a dream, leaving his loved one’s hair to turn white and no more vitality of youth.

Reflections

I can’t help but notice how strongly these two lines of poetry for each character match their personalities. ZZS has seen through the vanities of the world and has accepted whatever will be will be, eventually finding a soulmate he is willing to grow old with. On the other hand WKX hides his real name and motives, coping with loneliness and taking many trials and tribulations to fully trust even his soulmate. He masks his remorse and revenge behind a smiling and confident outer shell, until he slowly finds himself revealing his inner turmoil and vulnerability to ZZS.

pls tell me what ur great grandparents did for a living in the tags if u know... mine were dairy farmers, bakery workers and a security guard lol

cuteness overload

a lot of you hate historians and archaeologists, and i think that’s a problem

look, i fully recognize that there are reasons to be skeptical of history and archaeology. i am very on board with criticizing academia as an oppressive institution, and the way that researchers take their bigotry and bias with them to their work. i also recognize that academia does a pretty bad job of communicating what it does to the public, and that’s a part of why people’s hostility to it is able to flourish.

but i am disturbed by the pervasive narrative in online leftist spaces that people who research the human past are ignorant and bigoted, and i think we need to do more to combat that narrative.

historians being homophobic has become a whole meme, and it feels like people are just using historians as a homophobia scapegoat, when in reality the humanities are overwhelmingly left-leaning. people also keep blaming historians for erasing the homoeroticism of fictional literary characters, which is just… not what historians do. homophobic biases and erasures in the interpretation of history over the past few hundred years are a very real thing that’s important to learn about, but scholars have radically shifted away from that approach in recent generations, and these memes are not helping people outside the field to understand history and reception. instead, a lot of people are coming away with the impression that…

(source… really? nobody?)

this thread gets bonus points for the comments claiming that modern historians argue about whether achilles was a top or a bottom using homophobic stereotypes, which i can only guess is a misunderstanding of the erastes/eromenos model (a relationship schema in classical greece; i think people have debated whether achilles and patroclus represent an early version of it). also a commenter claims that the movie troy invented the idea of achilles and patroclus being cousins when no, they were also cousins in lots of ancient sources.

there’s this post about roman dodecahedra (link includes explanation of why the original post is misleading).

there’s this thread about how some thin gold spirals from ancient denmark look exactly like materials used in gold embroidery to this day but archaeologists are stupid and don’t know that because they dont talk to embroiderers enough. in fact, the article says they were most likely used for decorating clothing, whether as a fringe, braided into hair, or embroidered. so the archaeologists in the article basically agree with the post, theyre just less certain about it, because an artifact looking similar to a modern device doesn’t necessarily mean they have identical uses.

this thread has a lot of people interpreting academic nuance as erasure. the museum label literally says that this kind of statue typically depicts a married couple, giving you the factual evidence so you can interpret it. it would be false to say “these two women are married” because there was no gay marriage in ancient egypt. (interpreting nuance as erasure or ignorance is a running theme here, and it points to a disconnect, a public ignorance of how history is studied, that we can very much remedy)

lots of other conspiracy theory-ish stuff about ancient egypt is common in social justice communities, which egyptologists on this site have done a good job of debunking

oh, and this kind of thing has been going around. the problem with it is that there are loads of marginalized academics who research things related to their own lives, and lived experience and rigorous research are different forms of expertise that are both valuable.

so why does this matter?

none of these are isolated incidents. for everything i’ve linked here, there are examples i havent linked. anti-intellectualism, especially against the humanities, is rampant lately across the political spectrum, and it’s very dangerous. it’s not the same as wanting to see and understand evidence for yourself, it’s not the same as criticizing institutions of academic research. it’s the assumption that scholars are out to get you and the perception that there is no knowledge to be gained from thorough study. that mindset is closely connected to the denial of (political, scientific, and yes historical) facts that we’ve been seeing all around us in recent years.

on a personal note, so many marginalized scholars are trying to survive the dumpster fire of academia because we care that much about making sure the stories that are too often unheard don’t get left out of history… and when that’s the entire focus of my life right now, it’s disheartening to see how many of my political allies are just going to assume the worst about the entire field

キテ아빠の育児奮闘記④ (2022)

地下室から出されたファイを慰めようと抱きしめるが自分も泣いちゃうキテ아빠

twin grandmaster of demonic cultivation

- JYL dying early (with their parents at lotus pier) - JC, having nothing else to protect, followed WWX in using demonic cultivation - Both lost their golden core or one of them did and now they share one golden core

My meow meow Beau

testing gifs

#poetry

Dog Woman, Chris Abani