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375 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2022
a. the very first entry is “xīngān”. first of all, where are the characters (心肝, if you’re wondering)? the pinyin doesn’t tell me shit. secondly, you don’t hear these kinds of endearments being used in historical settings. you’re more likely to hear diminutives (and some other terms) instead of endearments like 宝贝 / baby and 心肝 (a possible translation would be sweetheart).
b. the number of endnotes that are just “first name meaning; [insert meaning here]” is laughable. no characters are given. not even the pinyin is given so the reader can narrow it down to the dozens of characters with the exact same pronunciation.
c. “one soul, two bodies” is a phrase that is apparently “taken from a chinese proverb describing one's soulmate”. which is just fascinating to me, because i’ve never heard of such a proverb, and a quick look at my handy dictionary app only gives me 灵魂伴侣 (which could be translated as spiritual partner) as a result for “soulmate”.
d. “achak” does not mean “spirit”. “achak” isn’t even mandarin, which i’m assuming is the language klein is using. i did a quick google search for “achak”, and the only result that could explain why klein believes it means “spirit” is that it is supposedly an algonquin name with that meaning, which would tie in to how klein lists “noelani” (hawaiʻian) as meaning “heavenly mist” and “zephyr” (greek) as meaning “light refreshing wind”. oh, and these are names for temples, by the way. :)
e. i’m not daoist, so i’m not going to go into the butchering of the daoist elements in xianxia, but suffice it to say that said butchering did occur and was evident to someone who isn’t even daoist.
