CanadianContent discussion

Hi all - It is hard to believe that tomorrow is New Year's Eve!! This year has been challenging in many ways but there have been many highlights to celebrate as well.

This group continues to be a supportive space that feeds our love of books (and perhaps grows our TBR piles)! I am grateful for my book friends from CC and wish everyone a happy and HEALTHY new year!!

As we end the year... check out the Seasonal Section for "the Best of", "Secret Sender" and "reading resolutions.

What book are you ending 2021 with? What are you starting 2022 with? What is next?

Happy New Year's to all!!!

Happy New Years to all as well. I will be ending 2021 and starting 2022 reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck, one of my faves. This has been on my TBR list for many years, suggested by my sister in law, Allison.

Reading always sounds like a great way to end/start a year. Sarah, that book has been on my TBR for ever!

I finished off Twenty-One Cardinals yesterday and am still pondering it. I have loved all her books but my favourite remains And the Birds Rained Down. Her books are so dense and character driven!

Yesterday I reread The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse - it is a book meant for EVERYONE!! it is short, has beautiful art and the messaging that we all need, right now, every day, as we end 2021 and as we start a new year. if you have not read this book, I suggest getting a copy (not an ebook) so that you can enjoy everything about it. it is now a book that I will gift to new babies, people struggling, for birthdays.... everyone can benefit, no matter how old we are!!

Following my books on living Danishly and Hygge, I am reading Minimalista: Your Step-by-Step Guide to a Better Home, Wardrobe, and Life. I have also started Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance which I received for Christmas and am hoping that, during my vacation next week, I get to An Audience of Chairs and start Winterlust: Finding Beauty in the Fiercest Season

Happy New Year everyone, my New Year's Reading resolution is to read some of the books I have owned for a long time. Also to be honest with myself if there are some I really will never read-to pass them on to someone who will appreciate them more. Things I have picked up in mystery grab bags as sales and such.

First on the list is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

@ Sarah-I also have East of Eden on my shelf, and hope to get to that one soon

Happy New Year! I wish everyone here a happy and healthy 2022.

This week I finished Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City, which was a great read and an impressive work of journalism. I also finished The Obelisk Gate, which wasn't as fun as the first book in the trilogy but still made me look forward to book 3. I also read an interesting novella, Permafrost.

I'm still working my way through the stories in We Want What We Want, which I'm enjoying very much.

Hoping to read more books that I own in 2022 - it's time to go look at my shelves!

This year I am determined to read less than I have since 2019--this sounds backward, but normally I read 100-150 books per hear. In 2020 with the shutdowns, everyone home (so stress) and an intense, reading heavy team game I read over 400. This year over 200. Fun but now that my life is returning to normal I am going to try to limit myself to 1-2 books per week for the first few months of the year.

I have three books I just started, but in January my Canadian book is going to be Midnight at the Dragon Cafe by Judy Fong Bates. I grew up in BC and a bit in California (and a year in Europe when I was small and my dad did a residency there) so while I am very familiar with the history of Japanese and Chinese immigrants as well as Canadian born from the 19th and early 20th century (so mostly Cantonese speaking Chinese) plus other people from Asia, I know very little about other Chinese immigration to Canada, especially back east in Ontario, etc.

Happy New Years! I completed two more books for Bingo this this week.
The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life by Robin S. Sharma is an excellent book! Great motivation to change some behaviours to have an amazing 2022. I have this on audible and I expect I will be listening to this again and again.
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury was also awesome! I had seen something on the news about an author in Sudbury releasing her debut novel. The book is set in Toronto. For anyone who likes young adult urban fantasy I recommend this book.

Now I began to read Canadian literature from the perspective of a Hongkonger. As other Hongkongers, I have relatives and friends who are living in Canada. But I do not know much about Canada. People here always confuse a Canuck with an USAer. This is similar to Hong Kong. People uses to mix up Hongkonger with the ‘Chinese’. And in the past 20 or 20 years, Mainland China imposes their view on Hong King and spread it over the world. Therefore, Hongkongers struggled hard to tell their own true story. On this position, by reading Canadian books, I want to know the true story of the Canadians.

I began to read L.M. Montgomery‘s “Anne of Green Gables”.

This Anne is of course famous. We have already made acquaintance with her by the TV series “Anne with an E” or the 1979 Japanese anime “Redhead Anne”, thought her a Brit or an USAer.

But now I shall read the original. At first I considered to read a Chinese translation. But there are at least three versions in different ‘countries’:

清秀佳人(literally ‘The Fair Lady’), popular in Taiwan.
紅髪安妮(literally ‘Redhead Anne’): popular in Hong Kong.
綠山牆的安妮（literally ‘Anne of Green Gables’: a Mainland China translation.

Finally I chose a HarperCollins copy because I don’t want anything lost in translation — as long as there are different versions coming from different regions, I am afraid that they contains their specific ideologies.

Thanks for sharing the other titles/movies about Anne of Green Gables. This is one of my favourite books and there sure are many options for you to read!!

She seems to be popular around the world!!

Yanlaptak wrote: "I began to read L.M. Montgomery‘s “Anne of Green Gables”.

This Anne is of course famous. We have already made acquaintance with her by the TV series “Anne with an E” or the 1979 Japanese anime “R..."

Are all three Chinese translations in the same Chinese dialect, or is the one popular in Hong Kong in Cantonese? It makes sense that Chinese translations, particularly in mainland China, would have ideologies added, so it's great that you can enjoy it in English.

I started Midnight at the Dragon Cafe by Judy Fong Bates and so far, so good. I am not familiar with the name of the Chinese dialect her main character speaks, though.

Hi Karin, all Chinese translations are written in standard Chinese. But they are different choices of words and sentence structure. For example, as ‘gable’ is not common in Hong Kong, therefore the translator chose not use it as the original did, they prefer ‘roof’ than ‘gable’.

Yanlaptak wrote: "Hi Karin, all Chinese translations are written in standard Chinese. But they are different choices of words and sentence structure. For example, as ‘gable’ is not common in Hong Kong, therefore the..."

Yes, thanks! This I knew.

This novel was written in English from the first time because the author immigrated to Canada with her family as a child in the 1950s. What I mean is that I have never heard of the Four Counties dialect before.

When and where I grew up in Canada I had no idea that Cantonese is a minority dialect group. The number of Cantonese speakers far outweighed Mandarin until within the past 10 years--also that there are other Chinese language groups because in Canadian demographics they are recorded separately.

I also know that what we call Mandarin is a dialect group of Chinese languages and that it has 4 tones whereas Cantonese has 9. But this is all I know other than that the name Mandarin is not translated directly from the Chinese name for it.