Monday 10 September 2018

Stubbornly waiting

We resume the waiting theme with the Min Nan song 望穿秋水 | Bāng-tshuan-tshiu-suí, "Stubbornly waiting". It says here that I met this «presumably sometime in spring» in year 2 of Chinese study, i.e. spring 2013. I only translated it to English way later, at 9:58 on Jan 11 2018. The original «being awake at night», corrected 16/9/18 00:46, was due to interpreting too-tshī as too tshinn, which Quora advised me against. As I captioned this, I realized "stubbornly waiting" is nonsense, a terrible translation, but I'm leaving the title as is for historical purposes. That was on 9/10/21, and at 16:19 I change "stubbornly" -> "full of hope" (but at 18:28 I remake the whole "I each day full of hope just pine for you"), and at 16:26 I realize "stop wandering at night" is also nonsense and I fix it to "enjoy myself". Maybe I'll remake it entirely at some point. Or maybe make a French version. In any case, I'd like to make a version with rhymes. The current English version loses all those. Let's see it!


春去秋来又一年
北风吹树叶离枝
每日望穿秋水
思念你
想见面知等何时
看着咱两人的相片照片
六神无主暗伤悲
是否你已经来
将我放袂记忘记
移情别恋流连夜都市
为你来耽误青春期
Tshun khÌ tshiu lâi iū tsi̍t nî
Pak hong tshue tshiū-hio̍h lī ki
Gún muí li̍t bāng-tshuan-tshiu-suí
Su-liām lí
Siūnn kìnn-bīn m̄ tsai tán hô-sî
Khuànn-tio̍h lán nn̄g lâng ê siòng-phìnn
Lio̍k sîn bô tsú àm siong-pi
Kám kóng lí í-king lâi
Tsiong guá pàng buē kì
Î-tsîng pia̍t-luân liû-liân iā too-tshī
Uī lí lâi tam-ngōo tshing-tshun-kî


Spring's gone, here's fall: one year's gone
North wind blows, leaves all fall down
Each day, eyes full of hope,
I pine for you.
Don't know when we will meet again
Looking at photos of us two
I lose my senses, I'm so sad
Will I say that you have
Already forgot me,
Move my love, enjoy myself at night?
I'm wasting puberty for you

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