Friday 15 November 2013

Nicky Wu and Liu Shi Shi are dating!!!

They're finally dating! Pix from Nicky's weibo


Okay, I really need to work my deadlines now, but I just cannot stop myself from doing this:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

Nicky Wu Qi Long and Cecilia Liu Shi Shi are dating! Nicky acknowledged this fact on 13 November at 2:06 am (Shanghai time, I think) from his weibo, and Liu Shi Shi confirmed it three minutes later (see this post from Dramamusing). They are officially dating, and they have actually been dating for quite a few months now! And no one, NONE of their fans (including myself) suspected this!

Okay, we hoped, of course. We rooted, of course. But they were never seen together other than in film festivals and awards and promo shoots, so we were like, yeah... never gonna happen (but it would be great if it could...). Totally missed this one news in August 2013 when someone spotted both of them buying ice cream together etc, but I might just dismissed it back then, for fear of getting my hope crushed.

But now apparently, they do!


Immortals of Meluha: the Indonesian translation by Mizan



I received very good news last Tuesday when Bebe, one of my best friends in Bali, told me that The Immortals of Meluha (Book One of the Shiva Trilogy) has been translated to Indonesian by Mizan. Better, the book has been read by her friends who in return became big fans of the Trilogy, or at least its first book. Intrigued, I searched for the book at the local Gramedia at Kuta last Wednesday and was happy to find that it was prominently displayed there. I usually avoid reading the translation because we tend to miss the nuance in the translation, not to mention cases of really bad translations that left me with no choice but sourcing the English versions online. 

I’m glad to report that this is not the case with The Immortals of Meluha. I dare say translator Nur Aini was doing a very good job at this, such that I recommended the book back to Bebe (who had only seen it without purchasing/reading it). I also went to the Denpasar Gramedia today just buy two extra copies. Turns out, they have only four copies left, and I couldn’t find them in the store. The store assistant said that this book is a bestseller, so it runs out quickly. Well, there you go.

So anyway, I thought I’d better give a review of the Indonesian translation of Meluha. Because I’d like my fellow Indonesians who don’t usually read English find this post, from here on I will switch to Indonesian language. But just to give my impression of the book in an English nutshell, I think Mizan (the publisher/translator/distributor) did a good job at translation and re-designing the cover (tho I still think the original cover is very powerful). I’m surprised that we didn’t detect this version earlier tho, for it was first published in April this year. Better late than never, I guess.

Immortals of Meluha: impresi saya

Jadi ceritanya, selama hampir 1.5 tahun saya dan Bebe telah jatuh cinta dengan Shiva Trilogy. Bermula dari bulan Juli 2012 saat saya menemukan buku tersebut online dalam bahasa Inggris, saat sedang keluyuran di dunia maya mencari komik apa saja tentang Shiva. Sebenarnya yang saya pertama temukan adalah YouTube-nya, yang saya muat di sini. Sejak saat itu, saya dan Bebe membaca ketiga buku dalam rentang hampir setahun (paling susah menunggu keluarnya The Oath of the Vayuputra, buku ketiga). Susah juga carinya, karena Amish, walo jagoan marketing, ternyata karena satu dan lain hal tidak menjual bukunya secara luas di luar negeri. Jadinya saya harus mengontak teman saya di India untuk membelikan buku-buku tersebut untuk kami. Untungnya harga buku di India murah banget, jadi kami bisa beli beberapa sekaligus (ada teman kami yang lain yang juga suka).