How come Veeky Forums never talks about modern Chinese literature...

how can you be expressive in modern chinese?

I barely read contemporaries and Chinese even less so but I've read Brothers by Yu Hua a couple years back, it was pretty good.

i didn't google translate it, i'm just a bad student in my first semester of mandarin. is it because i used shuo instead of whatever "read" is?

that guy is a dick, if you don't speak chinese why in the hell would you be able to read it?

how are you finding mandarin so far?
你喜欢不喜欢学汉语

Because it peaked at Dream of the Red Chamber

I'd argue Jin Yong's works are comparable,but preference I guess
There's a big difference between 不說中文 and 不會(說)中文。It's almost like you're trying to say "We know Chinese,but we will not speak it/refuse to speak it"
(also, >using simplified Chinese )
The Chinese language is extremely nuanced.Your sentence wasn't wrong per se,but it sounded robotic,like a direct translation of what the message you're trying to convey would be in English to Chinese.Almost like you copy and pasted from Google translate.But good on you for having a go at it.You'll get there.Godspeed.
Haven't read much Yu Hua.I've read 活著,didn't completely agree with his philosophies,but it was interesting.I'll look out for any copies of Brothers.
By not being an illiterate village dwelling rice farmer

Because there was only a brief window in modern Chinese literature that wasn't tainted by communist censorship, and that window took place during a fucking civil war that was temporarily interrupted by a war with Japan so there's not a whole lot of material worth talking about.

Fortress Besieged is amazing, though.

活著 seems like a rather serious book and Brothers is nothing like that, it's a satire on the transition from communism to capitalism in China, I rarely read comedy but this was really well written (only read in translation of course).

mandarin uses simplified chinese characters so thats what im going to post in

Now that sounds really interesting.China's "具中國特色的社會主義" is one big joke anyway.
Kind of ironic that it went 30 years without any copies being printed precisely because of the reform.But yes,great read.Anyway,the civil war authors aren't the only ones like that.Check out GuangDong and Taiwan literature
>inb4 HK and Taiwan are not China
It didn't use to.(pic sort-of related)

Why are your learning traditional characters?

I've read Northern Girls by Sheng Keyi and Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui. Both contemporary Chinese novels that got a rare translation into English. Not exactly the type of books read by Veeky Forums but whatever, I wanted to see how modern China is depicted. Shanghai Baby is utter trash, one of the worst things I've ever read. Northern Girls was better but nothing mind blowing.

I'm currently reading The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung. It's a "satire" but it eerily reads like the real China.

I'll say this. All three books, either at the start or close to the beginning, involve a full introduction to the character written just like a short story assignment from middle school.
>Hi my name is XXX, I am X years old, etc etc.
I asked my Chinese friend WHY and she told me that this 'style' is very popular in China. It does my head in.

IIRC True Story of Ah Q does that too- a parody of the fixed style of traditional short biographies.

For Ah Q, I'm sure it's a parody. For contemporary novels, I'm not sure. It's an awful trope that isn't necessary.
Have you read any Mo Yan? I've got a copy his Republic of Wine waiting to be read.

Not that guy, but I finished Republic of Wine and it was charming cocktail of neo-noir detective, epistolary novel and cultural guide to nastiness of Chinese people.

That's awesome. I can't wait to read it. I've actually got a number of books by Chinese authors to read.

Sandalwood Death in translation is one of my favorite books.

I havent been able to find a quality translation of Jin Yong, Gu Long or Liang Yusheng, but really want to get into that stuff.

How can I learn Mandarin? I don't have spare cash for a class and even then I doubt there is much rigor in finding Mandarin teachers.. Please friends, life might be less bad if I could even try to do this

>Why doesn't a board populated by white college kids who only read meme books and classics read contemporary mandarin literature?

Use your fucking brain.

>quality translation of Jin Yong, Gu Long or Liang Yusheng,

they don't exist unfortunately

I imagine there's lot of decent Mandarin literature, but I think the English translations probably don't even cut it. I imagine it's the same for a guy who knows only Mandarin trying to read Western lit classics.

I somewhat recall that a leading literary author and critic in China saying that Shakespeare was incredibly overrated. That just says it all.

Go teach English in China. Will solve your money, Chinese and general life problems in one tidy package.

How are chinese women as mates?

They're always up for a beer and a banter. I r8 them an 8

CHING CHONG MOON RUNES

RESPECT FAMARY

WORSHIP ANCESTORS

FORROW LAWS

BE GOOD PERSON

>follow laws
Heh. user who knows nothing about China detected.

T. Doesn't read any books at all

That's also one way to become the weird black sheep of your family

My theory is that people here read the same books that r/book reads but they are afraid to be called plebs, so they meme about people they have never read like Joyce, Pynchon, Gass just to keep the appearance of patricianness. That's why it's always the same books over and over. It's just memes.

>the classics are just memes because lots of people people like them
dont cut yourself on that edge