Wow. People have bought my books from Smashwords. Thank you. 🙏🏼
You don’t understand the spell I’m under to these Chinese novels. (It’s some kind of obsessive disorder 🤷🏻♀️. Once I start something, I’ve got to finish, even if it completely derails everything else.)
The thing about the Chinese novels is that I’m enjoying them through a (somewhat shady) machine translation site one chapter at a time. For like 1200+ times -_-; for some stories.
So I’ve got to constantly go to the next page and restart my read-to-me function. It’s a bit inconvenient.
And also, I keep emphasizing "Chinese novels" because the settings relate to Chinese culture, whether past, present, or alternate universe. And I don’t speak or read the Chinese language, so the novels are machine translated, which means there’s usually (a lot) of Engrishu happening.
And it’s fine. I’m not angry. I’m enjoying Chinese novels and there’s a price of convenience to be paid. It’s just that I’m having to listen to them at 1x speed rather that my usual 4x. And it’s because the language issues means I have to concentrate more on absorbing content…
I find Chinese novels to be more understandable than Japanese novels(, and manga are the most easy to understand. And then animes show the most understandable content.). There’s a bigger gap in culture?
Like, nobody is cutting off my fingers. Or any other part of my body.
For reals: Why would you work for a boss that would permanently disable you? Like, you’ve watched the dude murder-death-kill dozens of people (some your own men!) and while you never want to think that you’ll fuck up like that… events transpire.
Plus, in a lot of movies, it turns out to be their own kid or their coworker’s kid starting a series of events that the person is then drawn into. Stuff they get punished for not stopping happen.
Like, when your boss has a history of brutally punishing people to protect their (usually adult-)child: Why would you work for that person?
That is a person lacking in social conscience.
Which means they’ll maybe feel a little remorse 50 years later… While in the moment they’ll make "the hard" decision. That’s a kind of person you don’t want to work for.
I mean, that kind of person is bad enough in everyday life. Having that person as your boss? In some way in charge of your access to money? Yikes.
Speaking of bosses and unfamiliar cultures, I found a Saudi Arabian version of The Office (20 episodes). The first episode sticks fairly close to the first episode of the U.S. version (the Jim-analogue puts Dwight-analogue’s stapler in a jar of honey), but there are some adjustments for culture. Malek (Michael-analogue) pretends to fire Basma (Pam-analogue) as a joke and makes her cry, but she doesn’t ask him why he’s such a jerk like Pam did.
There’s also a scene where Malek calls everyone to mid-day prayers, and makes a clown of himself by praying so loudly and demonstratively. And one where, after the announcement of possible downsizings, a worker is praying in the break room with his palms uplifted “O merciful God, let me keep my job. Let this downsizing pass me by!” — and his coworker says “What — you’re praying against all the rest of us???”