How to really enjoy the Three Kingdoms part 2

Further on the campaigns of Khong Minh

On Google Maps. go to satellite view and find again Hanzhong. Then ask for directions to Tianshui. The programs will respond with three alternate itineraries, two similar to the two already mentioned in part 1, and then a third one going Northwest from Hanzhong. Now Tianshui (Thiên Thũy) is the second largest city in the province of Gansu (Cam Túc). In the Three Kingdoms, it is mentioned quite often in connections with the Northern campaigns of Khong Ming. It is in the region called Longyou (Lũng Tây). In one of the campaigns, Khong Minh was able to conquer three commanderies (quận) in this region but had to give them up. Tian Shui is also the hometown of Jiangwei (Khương Duy), the successor of KM. Lung Tay is often mentioned as a granary area where troops can go to gather food supply.

Now start again, and find Jiange (the one near Guangyuan, Sichuan) using Google Maps. Then ask for directions from Tianshui. The itinerary will show up as a line going toward Hanzhong then making a sharp turn toward Jiange. This is the classic invasion route from the North to Sichuan, and all through the Three Kingdoms armies go back and forth trying to attack and protect that route. Tao Thao took it to attack Hanzhong, KM took it in the other direction to attack the North, and Zhang He (Trương Cáp) followed it to his death in from of Jiange.

Jiange is one of the most evocative names: in Vietnamese it is Kiếm Các, or in English Saber Pass. It is the Northern entrance to Sichuan. So famous was it that Sichuan used to be called, for those who read the poetry of Du Fu (Đỗ Phủ), Kiếm Nam -- South of Saber Pass .

Now go back to the itinerary and zoom on the area near Hanzhong where it makes the sharp turn. You will see something called Dingjunshan (Định Quân San). This a famous area for two reasons:
1. This is where the decisive battle took place that gave Luu Bi the control of Hanzhong. At this site the commanding general of Wei, Hạ Hầu Uyên was slain by Hoàng Trung.
2. This is where the tomb of Khong Minh can be found. If you zoom in enough you can see it. Pay your respect.

OK, let me know if you enjoy this stuff. If you do next time I will tell you about Kinh Châu.

Lieu Trai Chi Di

In search of stress relief I was looking for completely escapist
reading materials. Searching the internet I came across an old
classic. After one page I was hooked. I read the Lieu Trai Chi Di as a
teen-ager; now rereading it I was struck by the richness of the
structure and the meaning. Back then, used to kiem hiep, I was rather
disappointed at the lack of action although I was a little intrigued
at the ghost stories. But now after a little bit more life experience
I just love the stories. This is definitely adult reading material.

The first meaning of adult material is of course SEX. And there is
plenty of it. Basically all stories in the LTCD involve sex, most of
the unnatural kind, meaning with vixen (female foxes) and ghosts.
Sometime there are couplings with male foxes too. Reading the stories
the latin words incubus and succubus (look them up yourself or ask the
many latinists on the forum) kept recurring in my mind. Most of the
encounters are not gruesome or unpleasant. As a matter of fact many of
the stories are true love stories: tales of devotion, sacrifice,
fidelity. It almost looked like the author, showing that the technique
is quite old, used sex as a hook to get readers to read further.

The second meaning of adult material is that it is subtle stuff, to be
understood in light of life experience. And that is to me the main
attraction. The different tales of the book produces an entire
portrait of society, with its richness and contradictions. There are
good and bad people; beautiful and ugly men and women; heroes and
villains. An entire 'Comedie humaine' a la Balzac enfolds itself. We
see the preoccupations of the literati: diplomas, good marriage, male
children, and the shortcomings of society: corruption, oppression,
prejudice, all masterfully evoked with a light touch.

The best part is this: a lot of this sound very familiar. The
interaction among some of the characters would not be out of place in
the Southern suburbs of Paris or in Orange County. It shows that a lot
has changed and a lot has not since the 17th century when the book was
written. To the extent our own culture took from China, some attitudes
and values have endured into present day Vietnamese society.

Which means that I fell in love with some of the female characters in
the book. Some of them are paragons of beauty and virtue whom one
definitely wishes to meet in reality. Alas that is why they are
described as spirits in the book. The author definitely loved women
and he seems to have delineated a series of female ideals.

Anyway for those of you (male) guys who have to stay late sometimes at
the office, maybe one night when you are alone a strange and exquisite
woman will appear in the middle the night and without further ado
engage in mind-blowing sex. If that happens report it to me. (It's OK
but just remember not to overdo it so as not to drain your vital
forces with the vixen). I will write an addendum to the LTCD. In the
meantime just enjoy the book.

Kafka without Greek

At last here is my promised analysis of Kafka's Metamorphosis without using Greek words. It is idiosyncratic (sh... a Greek word !) but here it is nevertheless.

The book can be read at different levels. It can be understood as a science fiction novel a la The Fly: person suddenly turned into monster, and how his family and friends react to it. From sympathy to pity to disgust and finally relief when he dies. At that level it is powerful enough. As a matter of fact there is a PBS special with Christopher Plummer playing a professor delivering a lecture on Kafka that ended up exactly like that, exploring the horrors of a monstrous change.

But there is a deeper level of understanding. The monstrosity here can be understood differently from just the Frankenstein kind. Can a person become a vermin overnight? Yes. Think of the Jews in Germany and then the rest of occupied Europe  at the coming of the Nazis. Suddenly respected human beings become nothing, little more than vermin to be exterminated in camps. These people's neighbors react to them is different ways, including all the the sentiments shown by the insects's family in the book.

It is not only the Jews. Think of a high official of the old government in Vietnam after 75. How the old relationships changed in a reeducation camp setting. Or less dramatically, we have all experienced I am sure colleagues who suddenly lost their jobs. Notice the pall and unease that suddenly descended on them. People find it hard to talk to them and tend to avoid them. These are the kinds of metamorphoses that come to me when I read Kafka.

It is so easy for a human being to turn into  a vermin overnight. Maybe Kafka with his Jewish background had a premonition of the 20th Century. His book nevertheless is a devastating reminder of the human -- or is it the insect -- condition.

That is why Kafka is so disturbing.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

I just came across this review that I wrote some time ago, and no it is not Christmas yet but I will post the review lest I forget about it again:


What's really nice about Christmas vacation is that you can really slow down in that blessed period between Christmas and New Year and enjoy a good book. This year for me it's a discovery: a novel called "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" by Mario Vargas Llosa. I did not really know Latin American literature beyond Gabriel Marcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa is a revelation.

I knew of him of course as the loser in the presidential race of Peru against Alberto Fujimori. It  is a pleasure to discover a writer and a work that resonates at so many levels.

While it is not obvious at first, the novel is about madness: the madness of art and the madness of love. The narrator relates events from his youth. They involve two main narratives: the love story between the narrator and an older woman "Aunt (actually only related by marriage)" Julia; and the role of a radio serial scriptwriter whose characters spring to life in intervening chapters. The action get more and more crazy and more and more picaresque until it is hard to tell which is crazier: the attempt of the real-life lovers to get married or the completely fantastic happenings of the make-believe characters whose creator ends up in an asylum.

The action takes place in Lima, Peru, a universe that is remote and yet familiar to this reader, Unlike the seemingly classless society of American novels, here is a heavily stratified society governed by tradition, religion and family. Something oddly similar to old Saigon, especially its plethora of aunts and uncles who seem to be everywhere, reminiscent of the innumerable tontons and tatas whose existence and opinions  sometimes forces one into an invisible carcan of conformity. The effect of the love story between the narrator and the Aunt lends a delicious sense of irreverance to the whole proceedings.

Parallel to that, the several stories spun out by the scriptwriter seem to coil end enmesh themselves into more and more fantastic tales, subtly reminiscent of the Arabian Tales. In the main narrative we are led to believe that these are serials over the radio that were the most popular in Peru ever. Something like Nous Deux meets Fellini. It is easy to believe that as the reader is really taken in by this whole set of fantastic tales. There are touches of magical realism or maybe surrealism. There are incest, a priest whose ideas scandalize the hierarchy, a rapist who goes for old ladies, a Lolita, a legendary singer in love with  a carmelite, carnivorous rats, social decline, disastrous soccer matches, earthquake, and love.

Love that transcends all: age, class, destiny. Love of persons and love of art, which can transcend a prosaic profession of small time actors and produce artist.

All of which leave a reader with a numbness similar to what happens after a roller coaster ride. You can't really describe what happened but it has been a hell of a ride, and a lot of fun. It also helps that the author keeps peppering the text with reference to the fifties (of age) as the peak period of one's life.


Highly recommended read.

Back to 1942

I was looking in a DVD rental store, and this movie caught my eye. It was a Chinese movie. "Back to 1942" it said, with a cover that hinted of a good production, with good costumes. The title intrigued me since I did not know what was so good about 1942. Maybe subconsciously I was thinking of the delicious movie "Summer of 42."

In any event I just finished the movie, and it affected me deeply, so much so that I had trouble sleeping afterwards. It is about an unknown event in history, a great famine in 1942 in Henan, China that killed three million people.

The movie was not well reviewed but based on my own reaction I think it was just not well understood in the Western media. One criticism was that it was too Hollywood. What's wrong with that? 1942 is a sprawling epic with a cast of literally thousands, the kind of movie Hollywood cannot make any longer except with computer generated figures. But China still can. Another criticism is that it overdramatizes. Well, how can you overdramatize dying of hunger.

Actually I thought the story was well told, focusing on the vicissitudes of a landlord during the famine. A King Lear-like figure, he has to witness the slow death of his family one by one until he was forced to sell the last member, his beloved and hitherto protected teen-age daughter into prostitution for a few pints of grain. The scene of the daughter on her first day at the brothel was what upset me greatly, maybe cultural resonance (Kim Van Kieu?).

The famine was caused by drought exacerbated like throughout history by war, greed and corruption. The political accusation I thought was muted and the portrayal of Chiang Kai Shek was never disrespectful. (Actually I detect in recent mainland Chinese movies a kind of awe and respect for Chiang). there were actually sympathetic KMT officials. Even the Japanese did not come across too badly. As a result the focus was not on the politics but on the tragedy.

Famine is still a taboo subject both in Hollywood (how many films about that subject matter have you seen?) and in China. So the film can be seen as a breakthrough. The big question that hangs after the taboo has been broken is what about the greatest famine of the 20th century, the one under Mao as a result of the Great Leap Forward. Between 1958 and 1962 more than 40 million (yes!) people died in China of famine as a result of stupid economic policies. Well maybe someone will make a film abut it someday.

In summary, this is a good movie, well made, very educational, but definitely not a pleasant movie.

How to really enjoy the Three Kingdoms with Google Maps

Many people are fans of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Tam Quốc Chí ). However, a lot of the action in the novel feels distant because of the overwhelming number of characters and localities.  The number of characters is of course one of the charms of the novel, but to you can actually enjoy the novel a lot more if you use Google Maps to deal with the localities.

This is possible only because the Three Kingdoms is based on historical events. Moreover, and this is a tribute to the millenary traditions of China, many localities have not changed their names after these millennia.

Let us start with one example. Go to Google Maps, set up satellite view (with labels) and search for Qishan. If the program wants to know whether you are asking for 'Qishan, Baoji' say yes.  The program should respond in an iffy. If you are in a town-level view, zoom out so you can look at an area let say of ten miles across.

You are looking at hallowed grounds, or at least legendary ones. Qishan is no other than the famed Ky` Sơn as in “lục xuất Ky` Sơn.” Here was a fortified city many times occupied by Khổng Minh in his repeated attempts to attack Wei (Ngụy). Here is the battleground where he and Tư Mã Ý dueled with wits and strategy. Qishan is now a small town. To the North of it is Mt Qishan, núi Ky` Sơn, and to the South of it you can see the horizontal trace of the Wei River (sông Vị). On the southern bank of the Wei directly to the south you may see Wuzhangyuan. This is the mythical Ngũ Trượng Nguyên, the Wuzhang Plains where Khong Minh died. If you zoom in you may actually see a temple to Khong Minh on a hill, maybe the same hill where he tried unsuccessfully to postpone his death by magic.

A litle to the West of Wuzhangyuan you can see Chencang. This is Trần Thường where a famous siege took place during the second invasion of Wei by Khong Minh.

Now to get the flavor of what these military operations involved, go back to the original search for Qishan, then ask for Google Maps directions. You should ask for directions from the city of Hanzhong (Hán Trung). This was Khong Minh’s base. Google Maps will answer with two suggested itineraries, one straight North-South and one toward the Nort-East and Xi’an.

Now present-day Xi’an is the former Changan (Trường An). The N-E route is what was suggested by Wei Yan (Ngụy Diên):  a straight commando raid directly to Changan. KM turned the suggestion down, preferring to occupy Ky` Sơn as a forward base first. Hence the North-South route.  Even today you can see what that involves, crossing a huge mountainous area, the Qinling (Tần Lĩnh) Mountains.

Anyway let me know if you like this kind of stuff and I will tell you more.

DTL