Character roundup
The things I find. The first character this week is 烂 ( làn ) which I saw in one of those magazines that's so popular among school children here. This was one of the small-format magazines with the picture of some cover model pretending to be a school girl, but looking more like Chinese jailbait. The story at the start of the magazine seemed to be all about some guy getting into Beijing University (北京大学) as far as I could tell. Further on, the header of the magazine had 星光仙烂 ( xīngguāng xiān làn ). I can actually read the first three characters, although I'm wary about saying that they mean X without consulting a dictionary. I didn't know 烂, though. That's composed of the fire-radical and the character for "orchid", which suggested something jolly romantic. [ Jolly romantic? I'm feeling queasy. –ed.] Actually, 烂 turns out to be a bit of a tramp with meanings such as "sodden; rot; messy; worn-out". I've seen the pejorative phrase "a worn...