Footnote 2:According to this source from UMass (and a few Chinese articles), soil water potential is a measure of how much energy it would take to draw water out from the soil. In other words, it's a measurement of how much work the water will need to do in order to leave the soil. It's usually measured in bars (unit of pressure, 1 bar = 100kPa [kilopascals]).
The greater the potential, the more work is needed to draw the water out, aka the drier the soil. A soil water potential of 0 means the water does not need to do any work and is willing to be drawn out; this, then, means that the soil is completely saturated with water. From what I understand (aka this Chinese source), China may use negative numbers to indicate soil water potential? Either way, I'll speak of it in positive numbers so it's easier to understand. (Interestingly, this source gives positive numbers, so I'm not sure what the proper notation is anymore lol.) Normal plants grow with a soil water potential of 0 to 15 bars (again, 0 being the wettest and 15 being the driest). When Luo Fengcheng says that 'normal underground water cannot cause this amount of potential', the original sentence was smth like 'normal underground water cannot potential that's this high', possibly owing to the fact that China could use negative numbers to indicate potential (and -3 is pretty close to zero, aka 'high'). Either way, he means that the soil here is very wet, and I translated it vaguely on purpose because notation differences suck ass. Tl;dr: Luo Fengcheng means that the soil in this place is so wet that normal underground water could not have caused it, which means that they must be near a legit source of water. Wow, physics ( ´ ∀ `)ノ~ ♡ (jk jk this is more environmental science/agriculture).
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Footnote 2 (elaboration):To explain the 'pale' bit: in olden days, the only kind of people who were pale were the rich kind because they didn't have to do manual labor in the sun. Hence, being pale used to signify that someone was spoiled or rich (or both). Nowadays, you don't have to be super rich to be pale, but the general reason for wanting to be pale is still because it signifies that you have an office job and don't have to work manual labor. Alternatively, working an office job makes a lot more money than working manual labor, so it still signifies that you're rich in comparison to those who labor. People who are 傻白甜 don't have to be rich, but it sort of comes with the definition. If you're rich and spoiled, you're obviously going to be sheltered from the world, which means you'll most likely be naive. People who are poorer won't have that kind of blessing :( they'll likely experience the harshness of the world much sooner. That was a long explanation, but anyway, calling Li Wen a 'naive rich kid' isn't exactly wrong. He drives a Maserati lol. Footnote 3 (elaboration):This term is a little hard to translate... the word 作 (zuo, fourth tone) means 'to make'. However, the slang term 作 (zuo, first tone) means something akin to 'high-maintenance', 'dramatic', 'fussy', 'bitchy'... you get the point.
作死 (zuo1 si3) usually means something like 'you're asking for death' (ex. 你作死啊!--> You're asking for it!). In this context, since Li Wen is a 'naive rich kid' (see note above), Tang Mo was worried that he'd do smth dumb and end up getting himself killed. Footnote 2Da-ge = 大哥 = older brother. While it's true that ge already means 'older brother', the single character is used mostly in familiar settings. Adding da adds a layer of respect and distance (which is why if you read webnovels with gang/mafia/clique settings, the leader will often be referred to as da-ge).
Outside of gang settings, just in normal life, it recognizes that you know the person you're talking to is older than you but that you're not familiar with them. For example, you might call an older man da-ge if you're asking a random stranger for directions. A notable exception to this, though, is if you have multiple older brothers. Then, to differentiate between brothers, you would call your oldest brother da-ge (big older brother), your next oldest brother er-ge (second older brother), and so on. The same goes for older sisters as well; even if your oldest sister is younger than your oldest brother, you would still have to call her da-jie (oldest sister). *Note: Family relationships are quite complicated in China, and it has a lot to do with the region you grew up in and the ways they do it there. If you've heard something different from what I've said here, don't worry about it because it's likely both are correct in their respective regions! |
PurposeMiscellaneous things. Maybe I need to explain some things, maybe I just wanted to say something. ArchivesCategories |