Letters to the Editor
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firefly
Nothing profound, but I'm reminded that the characters in Joss Wheaton's short-lived series Firefly swear in Chinese...
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Firefly
Despite the Chinese swearing, there was a noticeable (and unexplained) lack of Asian characters in Firefly.
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Chinese games
I don't play games, but my son, 12, and my daughter, 9, (both Mandarin speakers and readers) do. And they inform me that Chinese games do, in fact, suck. They are expert gamers and I have to take their word for it.
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Cao Cao and Firefly rock
Cao Cao also said “The lives of men are limited, so drink your wine and sing your song.” Carpe Diem. Although Chinese people think this is a negative attitude.
The captain of Firefly cursed OK in Chinese. That navigator guy (who sadly died in the movie) couldn’t say anything right.
And the main online games Chinese people are playing in web-bars now (besides World of Warcraft and Lineage 2), are simple dance games and games that involve lots of chat.
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Just general nitpicking
And I can't even begin to imagine what the mature members of his generation will create to entertain themselves, and their children.
Probably clay figurines. The Dark Ages are always lurking around the next corner.
From time to time, I like to startle my friends by saying the Chinese equivalent of "speak of the devil" when someone whom I've just been talking about suddenly appears on the scene. The phrase is "Shuo Cao Cao, Cao Cao jiu dao!" and it refers to the great general Cao Cao (also written as Tsao Tsao), a major, and controversial, character in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms." If a Mandarin-speaking person is in the room, the moment of cultural contact is immediate. But everyone else looks blank, or a little alarmed.
Maybe they're alarmed because you're a crazy white man yelling "Speak fuck-fuck...!!!" (shuo1 cao4 cao4) at them.
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"Three Kingdoms" games
The irony here is that games--including turn-based strategy, real-time strategy, one-on-one combat, and even roleplaying--based on "Three Kingdoms" are immensely popular in Japan, and have been for decades.
For whatever reason, the story holds a strong fascination for the Japanese people. It's unusual to meet someone who hasn't read it. It's been adapted in numerous comic forms (at least four that I know of), there are several Japanese translations of it available, and references to it abound in popular culture. (Just the other day, I heard a politican use the phrase "When Kung-ming appears, his enemies flee", recalling the scene where a dummy of Kung-ming is erected on a cliff and the mere sight of it gives flight to his opponents.)
If you're looking for a good "Three Kingdoms" game, perhaps you should learn Japanese?
(Background: I have lived in Japan over thirteen years, did all my years of university there majoring in Japanese literature, and am a fluent speaker/writer.)
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political game play
That turn based strategy game has been done to death in Japan and is still extrememly popular in China.
But I got a question...why would it make a good online game? There are not different classes of soldiers. Not really different races. The story does not really acknoledge the existence of non-heros (at least in the Iliad everyone is a hero and there supposedly are no nameless support people), with peasants around just to supply the armies with grain. Not a lot of magic or spirits or such. Actually, I guess one thing that could be done with it is a political "survivor" style play. Three Kingdoms has lots of backstabing and politicing. I never liked it because even the "good" characters are sort of bastards. And there is so much repatition in it. But if you could introduce new game-play where real politics was a compenent of the game, it could be interesting and capture some more of the feel of the books.
BTW, I don't think Chinese people will think you are saying "speak f___ f___" just because you get the tones wrong. There are many words that sound like caocao. For example, (factory)operator is "cao4 zuo4gong1" and no one would think this means "f___ worker". To give it its curse-meaning, you have to say it like you would in English: "F___ you buddy"; "mother F_er"; etc.