Such a sweet dialogue

Have been reading (on and off) Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by British writer Susanna Clarke for more than a month now, but am still only halfway through the 1000 pages or so. In any case, I'm not really in a hurry to finish it, cos it's just fun to pick it up now and then to enjoy the most bizarre but highly original and entertaining contents of this ingeniously written historical + fantasy novel. That the English is (intentionally) Jane Austenish also adds to its charm... :)

Anyway, I came across a really sweet bit during my commute this morning -- a conversation btwn Jonathan Strange (one of the main characters in the book, who's a magician) and his wife after he returns from a war. This story is set in the early 1800s...

The next morning they still had not said a hundredth part of all they had to tell each other.

"Sit there," said Strange to Arabella.

"In this chair?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So that I may look at you. I have not looked at you for three years and I have long felt the lack of it. I must supply the deficiency."

She sat down, but after a moment or two she began to smile. "Jonathan, I cannot keep my countenance if you stare at me like that. At this rate, you will have supplied the deficiency in half an hour. I am sorry to disappoint you, but you never did look at me so very often. You always had your nose in some dusty old book."

"Untrue. I had entirely forgotten how quarrelsome you are. Hand me that piece of paper. I shall make a note of it."

"I shall do no such thing," said Arabella, laughing.

Perhaps I am mad, but I thought the sentence in bold was terribly cute. :P

This is another one of my random TV posts... And this time round, I'm recommending the 聊斋奇女子 that has been showing on weekend evenings on Channel 8... I watch it on and off, cos not always home to catch it on TV... but yeah when I manage to watch it, usually get quite glued. I like it not only cos it has good plots (Fann Wong starred in the first story, but she was bleah...); also 'cos it has such tasteful period costumes! It's just eye candy for a very visuals person like me... Last of all, it has such beautiful Chinese dialogue... this I only realised last night, when watching the 辛十四娘 story... The characters speak so poetically and beautifully it made me fondly remember my love affair with Chinese in sec sch... now all 荒废了。And that's also how I got my latest quote hehe. Anyway, just to share the 成语故事 behind it, I'm pasting an explanation from some googled website:

成语“精诚所至，金石为开”，意思是说，如果做事肯花心血，就连像金属、石头那样坚硬的东西都能被打动、被敲开。形容只要有恒心、有毅力，没有什么事是做不到的。这个成语来自“飞将军”的故事。

西 汉时期，有一个著名将领叫李广，他精于骑马射箭，作战非常勇敢，被称为“飞将军”。有一次，他去冥山南麓打猎，忽然发现草丛中蹲伏着一只猛虎。李广急忙 弯弓搭箭，全神贯注，用尽气力，向老虎射了一箭。李广以为老虎一定中箭身亡了，走近前去，仔细一看，没想到被射中的竟是一块形状很像老虎的大石头。不仅箭 头深深射入石头当中，而且箭尾也几乎全部射入石头中去了。学者扬雄知道了这件事，评论说：“如果诚心实意，即使像金石那样坚硬的东西也会被感动的。”“精 诚所至，金石为开”这一成语也便由此流传下来。

这个成语现在常用来鼓励人们，为了理想和目标努力奋斗，不怕遭受挫折。如：“这次失败没有什么大不了，‘精诚所至，金石为开’，你继续努力，就一定会成功 的！”这个成语的使用范围非常广，工作、生活、学习，甚至追求爱情，都可以用到。

Actually this story is a bit *scratch-head*, cos what has mistakenly planting arrow into stone got to do with skill/perseverance?! But I suppose the idea behind this 成语 is still pretty inspiring lah :P

Late this week I got rather upset over someone whom I felt was/has been a smiling knifer... Perhaps such people are commonly found in the corporate world; and perhaps I have been working with ppl who are real sincere and helpful, the (long suspected) existence of such a person has conjured feelings of disgust and helplessness. Disgust 'cos I just hate ppl who are fake and harbour ill intentions, yet appear to be very nice on surface; helplessness 'cos I am not street smart/experienced enough to know how to deal with such ppl. Then again, I also ask myself whether I have been too sensitive and misinterpreted a series of events that led me to make such a conclusion? Whatever the case, I guess I'll still be civil to suspected knifer and all should be well as long as I wen4 xin1 wu2 kui4... And I have to keep reminding myself, tsm, some ppl are not worth your getting upset over... Though it's one of those easy-to-say-difficult-to-practise kinda things.