Being under the weather and feeling quite low. Literarily reading only 5 minutes before falling asleep exhausted. Not a good way to end Warm Winter Reads. 😦
Watched the 2022 movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” on TV. I honestly didn’t know the film exists until we accidentally bumped into it. It is amazing how the Harry Potter world has evolved throughout the years. Yet, as demonstrated by the recent Children’s Book Week dress-ups at our local primary school, J.K. Rowling’s books are still among our young generation’s most favourite reads.
Did some research on Qilin, of course, which led to some reading about the emphasis on the “Culture of Auspiciousness” in classic/traditional Chinese literature. Historically, Chinese emperors loved hearing about the appearance of auspicious creatures such as Qilin, as it signified Heavenly Approval of the current ruler (according to that ruler, anyway). It is interesting how this idea is used in the Fantastic Beasts movie.
Meanwhile, Chinese author Zhou You’s 420,000-word historical fiction Qilin (2022) appears to be deliberately challenging this “Culture of Auspiciousness” by having a Qilin roaming around the Southeast Chinese city of Zhou and killing people. While trying to track down this book, I also found the 2023 Chinese movie Creation of The Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, which is partially based on the 16th-century Chinese fantasy novel Investiture of the Gods.
(Image credit: Changjiang Literature & Art Publishing House Co., Ltd, publisher of Zhou You’s Qilin.)
(Day 91 #WarmWinterRead #WWR25 via @librarieschangelives)
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 