Stars Of Chaos 杀破狼 Vol 1, Notes 2

I love Priest's supporting characters. I love how she started Stars of Chaos from supporting characters' POV, and then she keeps dropping in on them and making us love them more and more.

My one complaint is: why doesn't she write more (even more) Extras featuring her supporting characters? We care!

Brief Character Analyses and Spoilers for Stars of Chaos below...

Cao Chunhua 曹春花 / 曹娘子 Cao Niangzi:

曹春花， I love you! How did you get so good at languages and disguise and acting? Did you ever get to catch a nice young man? Or are you constantly catching nice young men in a serial fashion? Ahhh, our little 娘子 <3 I definitely want to read more about you and your adventures.

Li Feng 李丰, "Long An" Emperor, Chang Geng's unfortunate half-brother:

You tried so hard. I don't actually want to read more about you, but I want you to know that I appreciate that you did your best, and validate that you really were a lot better than your dad -- you were just unlucky, and, sadly, you had to die for it. Life is hard. And short, for you.

Fang Qin 方钦

Yah, life is unfair. I don't want to read more about you, either -- I just want to ruminate on how you were a fancy rich popular kid, but all you really wanted was to hang out with the nerds. The nerds were smart and fun and honest and doing cool things, but your fancy rich popular old-money family held you back. Too bad you didn't have any backbone.

Chen QingXu 陈轻絮 and Shen Yi 沈易

What an amazing couple. I feel like Chen QingXu is barely in the book at all, but every time she is mentioned it is with reverence and awe. My favorite scene with Chen QingXu is when she's chaining together Pipa melodies while a battle is literally going on in front of her, then elegantly floats away when her part of the battle is concluded...

And! And! When she figures out that the Spirit Mannequin is actually a "book" and clutches it "like she's never seen wood before," I swooned -- Chen QingXu is a scientist, through and through <3

Every time Shen Yi is mentioned, I know I'm going to have a good time, too. It is through his near-constant consternation at Gu Yun that we see how terribly fun (emphasis on the "terrible") Gu Yun is.

Poor Shen Yi, putting up with his crazy best friend. Accidentally rising to one of the highest positions in the land just because he doesn't want to go home and instead follows his best friend out to the far remote edges of the empire; and is totally willing to give it all up to be a house-husband for the girl he likes, once he gets up the courage to tell her he likes her. What a sweet guy <3

Yah, I want more Chen QingXu and more Shen Yi and more ChenYi.

Old Master Shen 沈老爷子

While we’re talking about the Shen family, I’d love to read more about Shen Laoyezi. He knows everything. His bird cusses out everyone. He’s pretty awesome.

Yao Zhen 姚镇 / 姚重泽 Yao ZhongZe (Chong Ze?) (I'm not so good when a word has multiple pronunciations)

I'm not super hungry for more Yao Zhen content, but I love every bit of Yao Zhen that I get to read. Poor man -- he just wants to hang out and enjoy life, but Gu Yun keeps giving him all these empire-critical, life-and-death-of-thousands responsibilities. The man knows what he wants! But Gu Yun just railroads past those clearly delineated desires and keeps raising him up to higher and higher positions of responsibility!

Living up to your true potential is overrated; sleeping 10 hours/day is the way to go :)

Huo Dan 霍郸

Oh, the stories that Huo Dan could tell... Poor man, having to put up with Gu Yun's peculiarities and Chang Geng's idiosyncrasies and I'm sure he learned very early on to always knock before entering any space that the two of them think they're alone in.

I want more Huo Dan stories ;)

That's pretty much it for me. I love Ge PangXiao 葛胖小 / 葛晨 Ge Chen, too, but I am satisfied with his story already. He's cool, he's sweet, but he's not mysterious like Cao ChunHua and Chen QingXu, or in an entertaining state of near-permanent exasperation because of Gu Yun's shenanigans like poor Shen Yi is. You do you, Ge Chen.

So, I’m getting to the very end of the novel 镇魂 Guardian by Priest, and I know that everyone is super worried that Chaos 混沌 is about to envelop the world, but the more I read, the hungrier I get…

What a difference one radical makes.

Still trying to figure out why I like this look so much…

Would you be willing to talk about how standards of masculinity and femininity in Asia differ from those in Europe/North America? I know, it's a ridiculously broad question but I think you mentioned it in passing previously and I would be really interested in your answer especially in the context of the music industry and idols. I (European) sometimes see male Asian idols as quite feminine (in appearance, maybe?) even if they publicly talk about typically masculine hobbies of theirs.

Hi Anon,

Sorry that it took me over a month to get to this question, but the sheer volume of research that is necessary to actually answer this is significant, as there is an enormous body of work in gender studies. There are academics who have staked their entire careers in this field of research, much of which isn’t actually transnational, being that regional gender studies alone is already an incredibly enormous field.

As such, in no way can I say that I’ve been able to delve into even 1% of all the research that is out there to properly address this question. While I can talk about gender issues in the United States, and gender issues that deal with Asian American identity, I am not an expert in transnational gender studies between Asia and Europe. That being said, I’ll do my best to answer what I can. 

When we consider the concept of “masculinity” and “femininity,” we must first begin with the fundamental understanding that gender is both a construct and a performance. The myth of gender essentialism and of gender as a binary is a product of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in each culture where it emerges.

What you must remember when you talk about gendered concepts such as “masculinity” and “femininity” is that there is no universal idea of “masculinity” or “femininity” that speaks across time and nation and culture. Even within specific regions, such as Asia, not only does each country have its own understanding of gender and national signifiers and norms that defines “femininity” or “masculinity,” but even within the borders of the nation-state itself, we can find significantly different discourses on femininity and masculinity that sometimes are in direct opposition with one another. 

If we talk about the United States, for example, can we really say that there is a universal American idea of “masculinity” or “femininity”? How do we define a man, if what we understand to be a man is just a body that performs gender? What kind of signifiers are needed for such a performance? Is it Chris Evan’s Captain America? Or is it Chris Hemsworth’s Thor? What about Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? Do these characters form a single, cohesive idea of masculinity? 

What about Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen? Miller is nonbinary - does their superhero status make them more masculine? Or are they less “masculine” because they are nonbinary? 

Judith Butler tells us in Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) that what we call gender is inherently a discursive performance of specific signifiers and behaviors that were assigned to the gender binary and enforced by compulsory heterosexuality. She writes:

Insofar as heterosexual gender norms produce inapproximate ideals, heterosexuality can be said to operate through the regulated production of hyperbolic versions of “man” and “woman.” These are for the most part compulsory performances, ones which none of us choose, but which each of us is forced to negotiate. (1993: 237)

Because gender norms vary regionally, there are no stable norms that coalesce into the idea of a single, universal American “masculinity.” What I mean by this is that your idea of what reads as “masculine” might not be what I personally consider to be “masculine,” as someone who grew up in a very left-leaning liberal cosmopolitan area of the United States. 

What I am saying is this: Anon, I think you should consider challenging your idea of gender, because it sounds to me like you have a very regionally locked conception of the gender binary that informs your understanding of “masculinity” and femininity” - an understanding that simply does not exist in Asia, where there is not one,  but many different forms of masculinity. 

China, Japan, and South Korea all have significant cultural differences and understandings of gender, which has a direct relationship with one’s national and cultural identity. 

Japan, for example, might consider an idol who has long, layered hair and a thin body to be the ideal for idol masculinity, but would not consider an idol to be representative of “real” Japanese masculinity, which is epitomized by the Japanese salaryman. 

South Korea, however, has a very specific idea of what idol masculinity must look like -  simultaneously hypermasculine (i.e. extremely muscular, chiseled body) and “feminine” (i.e. makeup and dyed hair, extravagant clothing with a soft, beautiful face.) But South Korea also presents us with a more “standardized” idea of masculinity that offers an alternative to the “flowerboy” masculinity performed by idols, when we consider actors such as Hyun Bin and Lee Min-ho. 

China is a little more complex. In order to understand Chinese masculinity, we must first understand that prior to the Hallyu wave, the idea of the perfect Chinese man was defined by three qualities: 高富帅 (gaofushuai) tall, moneyed, and handsome - largely due to the emergence of the Chinese metrosexual. 

According to Kam Louie:

[The] Chinese metrosexual, though urbanized, is quite different from his Western counterpart. There are several translations of the term in Chinese, two of the most common and standard being “bailing li'nan” 白领丽男 and “dushili'nan” 都市丽男，literally “white-collar beautiful man” and “city beautiful man.” The notion of “beautiful man” (li-nan) refers to one who looks after his appearance and has healthy habits and all of the qualities usually attributed to the metrosexual; these are also the attributes of the reconstituted “cool” salaryman in Japan, men who have abandoned the “salaryman warrior” image and imbibed recent transnational corporate ideologies and practices. 

[...]

In fact, the concept of the metrosexual by its very nature defines a masculinity ideal that can only be attained by the moneyed classes. While it can be said to be a “softer” image than the macho male, it nevertheless encompasses a very “hard” and competitive core, one that is more aligned with the traditional “wen” part of the wen-wu dyad that I put forward as a conventional Chinese ideal and the “salaryman warrior” icon in Japan. Unsurprisingly, both metrosexuality and wen-wu masculinity are created and embraced by men who are “winners” in the patriarchal framework. 

The wen-wu 文武 (cultural attainment – martial valor) dyad that Louie refers to is the idea that Chinese masculinity was traditionally shaped by “a dichotomy between cultural and martial accomplishments” and is not only an ideal that has defined Chinese masculinity throughout history, but is also a uniquely Chinese phenomenon.

When the Hallyu wave swept through China, in an effort to capture and maximize success in the Chinese market, South Korean idol companies recruited Chinese idols and mixed them into their groups. Idols such as Kris Wu, Han Geng, Jackson Wang, and Wang Yibo are just a few such idols whose masculinities were redefined by the Kpop idol ideal. 

Once that crossover occurred, China’s idol image shifted towards the example South Korea set, with one caveat: such an example can only exist on stage, in music videos, and other “idol” products. Indeed, if we look at any brand campaigns featuring Wang Yibo, his image is decisively more metrosexual than idol; he is usually shot bare-faced and clean-cut, without the “idol” aesthetics that dominate his identity as Idol Wang Yibo. But, this meterosexual image, despite being the epitome of Chinese idealized masculinity, would still be viewed as more “feminine” when viewed by a North American gaze. (It is important to note that this gaze is uniquely North American, because meterosexual masculinity is actually also a European ideal!)

The North American gaze has been trained to view alternate forms of masculinity as non-masculine. We are inundated by countless images of hypermasculinity and hypersexual femininity in the media, which shapes our cultural consciousness and understanding of gender and sexuality and unattainable ideals. 

It is important to be aware that these ideals are culturally and regionally codified and are not universal. It is also important to challenge these ideals, as you must ask yourself: why is it an ideal? Why must masculinity be defined in such a way in North America? Why does the North American gaze view an Asian male idol and immediately read femininity in his bodily performance? What does that say about your North American cultural consciousness and understanding of gender? 

I encourage you to challenge these ideas, Anon.  

“Always already a cultural sign, the body sets limits to the imaginary meanings that it occasions, but is never free of imaginary construction.” - Judith Butler 

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York, NY, Routledge, 1990. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York, NY, Routledge, 1993. Flowerboys and the appeal of 'soft masculinity' in South Korea. BBC, 2018,  Louie, Kam. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 71, Issue 4, November 2012 , pp. 929 - 943 Louie, Kam. Chinese, Japanese, and Global Masculine Identities. New York, NY, Routledge, 2003. 

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 8/8, pages 370 - end

The story is progressing!!!

“muttered into... ear" in Chinese here is 咬耳朵道, "bite ear said." Totally lets you know where Gu Yun is when he's talking to Tan Hongfei, yah?

Chinese for the entire 长庚 quote: 可惜没有长花容月貌，掷果盈车的大帅不肯要。

花容月貌 - flower appearance moon appearance (it sounds good in Chinese, trust me)

掷果盈车 - throw fruit fill carriage. There was this famously beautiful man name 潘安 Pan An (247-300 AD) who was so famously beautiful that when women saw his carriage coming, they would link hands and slow it down just to get a peak at him, and then they would throw flowers and fruit at him in appreciation, so that by the time he got home, his carriage was full of fruit and flowers. Famous Chinese Beauties <3

启明 Qiming -- Pleco: "Classical Chinese name for planet Venus in the east before dawn"

混账. Pleco: Noun. Vulgar. "scoundrel; bastard; son of a bitch"

But you can't say the latter two to Chang Geng, and I don't want to talk about body parts like that between Gu Yun and Chang Geng, so I think we should all read this as "Unreasonable Impudent Scoundrel."

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed learning about heel ropes and pills of immortality and historically significant hotness with me. I learn huge amounts of (Chinese and) Chinese culture every time I pick up a Priest book, and I hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do.

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

Thank you, Butterfly!

all right so here's the schedule of when dracula daily will be updated, as gleaned from the archives

please share this, it was a pain in the ass

People on this website will really see others enjoy the complexity of an epic novel full of political intrigue longer than the entire LOTR trilogy featuring a canon gay couple who literally defy death to end up together and they’ll say “these fetishistic sickos only like the novel over the idol drama censored adaptation because of the existence of those, like four sex scenes and one dub-con kiss”. 

Do you all know 杨可爱Yang Ke’ai yet?

She does lots of popular covers and mash-ups and “how to memorize 5-50 Chinese poems via music” songs in a Classical Chinese style (chinoiserie?) with a UKULELE. If you’re not watching her beautiful videos of her singing and playing music in full hanfu, you’d think she was playing a Pipa or a Guzheng or even a Guqin, but, no — that’s a Ukulele.

Anyway, have you all heard her Mo Dao Zu Shi mashup yet? 14 songs from Audio Drama, Donghua, and Fan Music (a lot of the creators of which were also part of the Audio Drama and Donghua).

It’s awesome and deserves many many views. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/plf5KFqvUhg

For all the people out there who are dealing with insane amounts of pain on a regular and frequent basis.

One of my friends fixed her endometriosis by changing her diet according to a Tibetan Healer’s recommendation.

Another fixed her debilitating monthly pain by cutting one ingredient out of her diet on an acupuncturist’s offhand advice.

And another finally went to her normal usual western doc and got some hormonal medication that makes it so she doesn’t pass out from pain anymore.

There is a solution! Find your cure!

whenever i have those brutal searing being-dissolved-from-inside period cramps during school or work i pretend i am a viking warlord who has been stabbed in the abdomen but i killed the assailant so i’m the only one who knows im injured and i have to carry on normally til the end of the battle to keep up my mens morale

drunk lan zhan being a cutie in every adaptation (x)

some baby kermit gifs to brighten your day 💚