The Bird is a Metaphor

So in this linguistically intractable but fascinating novel I'm trying to translate, an Uyghur character refers to the eastern parts of China as 内地. Translations I've seen, both from Chinese and Japanese, run to something like "interior, heartland"; that book I like Taiwan Travelogue, adopting colonial-era terminology, also uses it (to refer to Japan), and the English version uses "Mainland." There is a definite overtone of "suzerain." I'm at a loss how to do it in the (modern-day) "non-Xinjiang parts of China" sense, though, since "interior" is geographically confusing, "mainland" likewise, and "heartland" sounds emotionally wrong... maybe something like "the eastern cities" or even just "China"? Any ideas?

Like everything else oh dear (still), the question above also brought my farmboys to mind: the one who hails from Xinjiang likewise says 内地 on camera at one point, with the same meaning as in the novel. However, the program subtitles tend to be more politically cautious than the speakers, and what they said at that point was not 内地 but 疆外其他城市, other cities outside Xinjiang. This also happens for Hong Kong: in conversation everyone says 香港, like normal people, but the subtitles invariably say 中国香港, Chinese Hong Kong. (There are other less political and funnier subtitle weirdnesses, mostly related to the poor subtitlers having to cope with innovative uses of English, but I’ll save those for another day.)

Thanks mostly to halfcactus’ very helpful advice, I actually succeeded (well, mostly) in making a video of my own and putting it up on B站. I’m not linking anyone to it because the quality is so bad, between my terrible Chinese accent and the awkward manual subtitling (with at least one subtitle in the wrong place altogether…). Eventually when I get better at these things maybe I’ll revise and repost it, but for the moment I’m ready to go ahead and try another one, well, in a little while when I catch my breath. I wish I was more intuitively good at technology in general. As always the scale of Chinese fandom is just plain alarming, though, a hundred and fifty people watched this awful little video! (Although maybe they all back-buttoned after the first thirty seconds, I wouldn’t blame them.) It’s all experience, one way and another.

Lately at the Saturday juku I’ve been busy with seventh-grade Juki, who is Miss Moods, either low-energy and grumpy or sparkly and chatty depending on the day, with very strong opinions of her own on why she should not have to learn English (although like her older brother she’s bright). Physically she is small and adorable-looking with a long, thick ponytail and/or braids, in spite of which she favors the aggressively masculine first-person pronoun 俺.

Y was prowling around online and discovered the Sawada Mansion (= apartment building), which is...something else. It was built by Sawada Kano (I wondered if he was named for the Kano_baseball_team, same characters, but he was born just two years too early) with no qualifications and no training, getting his wife and ten-year-old daughter to run the heavy equipment on occasion. (More alarmingly, Sawada married his wife Hiroe, whose family was among his tenants, when he was about thirty and she was THIRTEEN. The police came and investigated whether he’d kidnapped her, Hiroe refused flat-out to go back to her birth family, and from all accounts they had a long and happy marriage, oh my god.) The building itself is illegal in all kinds of ways (although apparently safe) and the authorities at all levels have been throwing their hands up at it in despair for over fifty years. Originally it was meant to house single mothers and other people under social stress. The apartment numbers are more or less random and always have been, because the residents like it that way, although the postmen resent it. Overall it’s one of those things where the further down the Wikipedia page you read, the more your jaw drops. This photo (from a picture-book-to-be) gives it a rather Yamaguchi Akira slant (note the old-fashioned carp flags for Boys’ Day all flying from the roof, rather than on individual balconies the way people mostly do now).

Silly Chinese from a-Pei: in Taiwan underground floors are generally referred to, in descending order, as B万B兔B三 (I think the last one should be B伞).

Oh man, I spent half of today making 栗の渋皮煮, chestnuts stewed with brown sugar (kind of the Japanese version of marrons glacés), and it really does take half a day. I make it every year and every year I forget what a pain it is: you have to peel the chestnuts in two stages, boil and simmer them five different times… (and then clean up the sugar syrup that spills on the stove, and…). Ingredients-wise it’s very simple, just raw chestnuts, baking soda, a splash of dark rum and a horrific amount of brown sugar, but it’s a nightmare. Still, now I have delicious sweet chestnuts in syrup in the fridge (some for me and Y, some for his parents).
It was really such a Japanese afternoon, peeling the chestnuts while watching the NHK junior high school chorus competition on TV, the finalists from all over the country on stage with their winter uniforms, often adorable sailor suits, and solemn expressions and hours and hours of rehearsal behind them. They always sing THE MOST BORING SONGS IN THE WORLD—I heard this year’s set piece a dozen times today and I can’t remember one single thing about it, and most of the free-choice songs aren’t much better. There is so much good choral music out there, why??? (Also I have quarrels with the practice of making music into a competition to begin with, especially when things like conservatory places or professional careers aren’t on the line; during my one unrewarding year as assistant advisor to a school wind ensemble, I remember seeing my students weeping bitterly over getting silver rather than gold, and wondering why the hell they just didn’t stick to concerts and not bother with these competitions in the first place, it’s not like music requires winning and losing, unlike sports where it’s usually built in.)

Photos: quite a lot? Two views of Koron-chan, big round butt and big fluffy belly. Some Japanese lanterns, not lit yet (these three photos copyright Y).
Sunset with electric pole (also very Yamaguchi Akira, come to think of it). My lemon tree against the veranda goza, also at sunset. 金木犀, ah, fragrant olive? Osmanthus something? Not very exciting to look at but I wish I could send you all the lovely delicate sweet-citrus scent.
Boiled-egg plant, which produces pickled eggs as they ripen (honestly I don’t know what this is. Yellow eggplant? Yellow egg-plant?) Purple heart. Cat imitating an octopus.
River view from up high. Café menu because the name made me raise a brow (also it is not clear to me why the list of desserts includes a chicken and mushroom sandwich). Today’s chestnuts ready to go into the fridge.

Be safe and well.