As of today, this blog is six years old. To quote the very first paragraph of my very first post on this blog:
I had been thinking about starting a blog for years. However, I never had ‘enough time’ to maintain a proper blog. Finally, I realized that I will never have ‘enough time’ to blog, so if I am going to blog, I have to do it now, when I don’t have ‘enough time’.
Six years later, not having ‘enough time’ still has not stopped this blog. Huzzah!
While I was writing and posting that very first blog post, I was reading the novel Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ for the very first time. Since it was only the second book I had ever read in Chinese, my reading speed was very slow, and since it is more than 1500 pages long, it took a lot of time to read. I spent about 2-3 hours per day reading, and it took me several weeks. On top of that, I was also spending about two hours a day studying Chinese in other ways, such as watching the classic Taiwanese TV show Meteor Garden, so that I would develop my listening and speaking skills, not just my reading skills.
The first time I read this novel, this was the edition I read. I preferred the editions which came in smaller sizes and only about 250 pages per volume rather than the editions with thicker books and fewer volumes because a) the smaller volumes were easier to carry around b) I was not confident in my Chinese reading skills at the time, so being able to complete a volume faster (because it was much shorter) gave me an extra motivation boost.
The fact that I was reading Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ and studying Chinese (as well as working at my job, sleeping, taking care of chores and errands, etc.) was one of the main reasons I did not have ‘enough time’ to start a blog. Somehow, I started this blog anyway.
At the time, I would not have predicted that I would be referencing Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ so often in this blog, even six years later. Heck, the post which was published yesterday mentions Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ. Meanwhile, I rarely (or even never?) reference Meteor Garden in this blog, even though that was the TV show I was watching when this blog started.
Do I reference Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ so much because of the Jin Yong Jolt? Partially, perhaps, but if that were the case, I would probably be referencing The Deer and the Cauldron, which is without question the most WTF???!!!! of Jin Yong’s novels, even more often. Yet I rarely mention The Deer and the Cauldron in this blog.
Do I reference Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ so much because I headcanon the protagonist as ace? That definitely has a lot to do with it, but I also have brought up Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ in a lot of posts which aren’t about asexuality.
Something about this specific novel really stays with me in a way that few novels do, and it’s been reflected in this blog for six years.
Oh, and I recently watched the 1983 TV adaptation of Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ. That means there are going to be even more blog posts referencing Shén Diāo Xiá Lǚ in the near future.
The Notes Which Do Not Fit 
Congratulations, that’s like 45 years in internet time! 😀
Thanks!
Congrats Sara!
I have a question. In one of your article you said that you read a Taiwanese version of a manhua. The manga you mention is a Hongkong manhua. Do you mean Taiwanese version is the translation of the Hongkong or you are able to read the Hongkong version because it’s written in Traditional?
I cannot be sure unless you tell me which manhua you are specifically talking about, but what I probably meant was the Taiwanese edition of a Hongkong manhua. They generally are not translated since the written language of Hong Kong and Taiwan are generally the same, but there can be differences, just as there can be differences between the North American and British editions of the same book.
I usually read the Taiwanese editions of manhua because that’s what I can usually get my hands on (even in the United States), but occasionally I’ve ended up with a Hong Kong edition. And sometimes there is only a single edition of a manhua, just as some books are only available in a North American edition or a British edition.