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Here's what I've been reading an watch recently:
Lunar New Year Love Story written by Gene Luen Yang drawn by LeUyen Pham— This YA graphic novel about a Vietnamese young woman living in the East Bay. As the title suggests its romance focused. As a person who has spent most of my life in the East Bay I loved seeing familiar landscapes in this. I also loved the lion dancing! I also liked how the characters in this had community: friends, grandparents, uncles ect.
Marvelous City eps 1-4 — This is a Chinese show about cities. Each episode follows an actor/singer around their hometown as well as two ordinary residents. I found it a little hard to follow at first because it jumps between people frequently but I like cities and most of the actors. It got easier once I understood the format better, and started watching in slightly longer chunks. There’s an episode in Xi’an (aka Chang’an)! Otherwise I was not familiar with the cities featured. The Chongqing episode featured some really cool underground tunnels and also a cat falling asleep on Xiao Zhan! The whole thing made me want to eat noodles.
Ancient Detective eps 1-14 — I’d heard of this show but was under the impression that there were no women in it. But
satsuma mentioned that there are some awesome women, so I decided to check it out! It’s a very fun and tropey show, with a lot of wuxia and mystery tropes. There are several excellent women but I wish they had more screen time. The romances are very “we just met and now we are deeply in love” which is not my favorite, but overall this is a fun show. (content note: offscreen child death)
Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch by Julie Abe— I read this out loud to the kid at bedtime, which means it was more drawn out than my usual reading. A fun middle grade book inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service, about a young witch on a quest to become an official novice witch by living away from home and helping the town she’s been assigned. I thought it was charming. It ends on a cliffhanger though, so it’s a good thing I already had the second book on hand!
Once Upon a Unicorn by Lou Anders— The kid picked this out at the library and I read it out loud to her, but not at bedtime. It was fun! The narrator interjects a lot here, and occasionally that didn’t work well with the present tense story. I did enjoy the way this played with fairy tale tropes though.
Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany— This book was a challenging read for me. It’s very theoretical and coming from a religious studies tradition rather than history meant I was lacking some background that would have been helpful. Nonetheless I found it fascinating! It's about the socail roles that Xian (sometimes translated and immortals or transcendents) played
Our Song Season 1, episodes 9-14— A friend was able to help me get the missing episodes! I’m very glad I was able to watch all of these, because this show was an utter delight!
Lunar New Year Love Story written by Gene Luen Yang drawn by LeUyen Pham— This YA graphic novel about a Vietnamese young woman living in the East Bay. As the title suggests its romance focused. As a person who has spent most of my life in the East Bay I loved seeing familiar landscapes in this. I also loved the lion dancing! I also liked how the characters in this had community: friends, grandparents, uncles ect.
Marvelous City eps 1-4 — This is a Chinese show about cities. Each episode follows an actor/singer around their hometown as well as two ordinary residents. I found it a little hard to follow at first because it jumps between people frequently but I like cities and most of the actors. It got easier once I understood the format better, and started watching in slightly longer chunks. There’s an episode in Xi’an (aka Chang’an)! Otherwise I was not familiar with the cities featured. The Chongqing episode featured some really cool underground tunnels and also a cat falling asleep on Xiao Zhan! The whole thing made me want to eat noodles.
Ancient Detective eps 1-14 — I’d heard of this show but was under the impression that there were no women in it. But
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Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch by Julie Abe— I read this out loud to the kid at bedtime, which means it was more drawn out than my usual reading. A fun middle grade book inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service, about a young witch on a quest to become an official novice witch by living away from home and helping the town she’s been assigned. I thought it was charming. It ends on a cliffhanger though, so it’s a good thing I already had the second book on hand!
Once Upon a Unicorn by Lou Anders— The kid picked this out at the library and I read it out loud to her, but not at bedtime. It was fun! The narrator interjects a lot here, and occasionally that didn’t work well with the present tense story. I did enjoy the way this played with fairy tale tropes though.
Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany— This book was a challenging read for me. It’s very theoretical and coming from a religious studies tradition rather than history meant I was lacking some background that would have been helpful. Nonetheless I found it fascinating! It's about the socail roles that Xian (sometimes translated and immortals or transcendents) played
Our Song Season 1, episodes 9-14— A friend was able to help me get the missing episodes! I’m very glad I was able to watch all of these, because this show was an utter delight!
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