- It's terrible to be uneducated!

Charlotte was very depressed about Charlize's misunderstanding. However, he also understands that in the early nineties of the twentieth century, RB's influence in the world was much greater than that of China. At this time, when Europeans and Americans saw an Oriental, most of them would habitually ask if the other party was an RB person, and this situation would not be completely reversed until twenty years later. And there are indeed a lot of kanji in Japanese, and in this case, it is not surprising that Charlize at this time saw kanji and habitually thought it was Japanese.

Of course, although it is not surprising, the misunderstanding still has to be solved.

"On these three pieces of paper, the content is actually the same, and they are all two Chinese characters '神荼'. ”

“shen-tu？”

These two words have no corresponding meaning in English, and Charlize certainly couldn't understand them, so Charlotte had to explain further:

"Shen Tu is one of the earliest door gods in ancient China, and the so-called door god is the guardian god of the house. People carved the name of the door god on a wooden board made of peach wood and hung it on the door to ward off ghosts and evil spirits from invading their homes. ”

"I see!"

Charlize nodded, and understood,

"But why are there three different ways to write the same name?"

- What are the three ways to write, and there are four ways to write the word back!

Charlotte continued to complain in her heart about the cultural level of Westerners. Of course, this is also thinking about it, and if you really say it, you are looking for a fight. He organized his language for a moment before he explained:

"Sally, do you sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner Never Falls'?"

"Isn't that the national anthem of the United States?"

Charlize nodded, very dryly,

"I can't sing. ”

"Ah???h

"What's so strange about me, I'm in Hollywood, but my nationality is South Africa, so what's so strange about a South African girl who can't sing the American national anthem! What's more, the lyrics of that song are so difficult that many Americans themselves can't sing it!"

“...... You have a point, I can't argue with it. ”

No way, this example is useless, Charlotte has to change another one,

"Then let me ask, have you read Shakespeare's original book?"

"Read. ”

Saying that, Charlize's face was a little red,

"Read, read...... Several. ”

- In English-speaking countries, Shakespeare can be said to be the originator of the actor and the literary world, although for actors like Charlize from the bottom of society, they are not required to be able to recite many of the great writer's works skillfully like a drama actor from England, but if you have only read a few articles, it is really a little unreasonable, no wonder Charlize is embarrassed.

"Just read it!"

Charlotte didn't use this to expose Charllotz's shortcomings, he went on to explain,

"Now that you've read the original, you should know that Shakespeare's works are indeed a bit difficult for modern people to understand. ”

"Yes. ”

Charlize nodded, agreeing with Charlotte's statement,

"At least when I watched A Midsummer Night's Dream for the first time, there were a lot of things I couldn't understand. ”

"A Midsummer Night's Dream? I thought you would say The Merchant of Venice!"

"Shut up, Sherlock!"

“...... In short, the reason why Shakespeare's original works are obscure is actually because they were written in Old English. ”

Charlotte touched her nose and stopped making fun of Charlize,

"Shakespeare's works, which were known for their fluency and beauty, are often obscure to us now, because these works, like The Star-Spangled Banner, were written in Old English, which is naturally not easy to understand in our eyes today, and this situation can be said to be inevitable in the development of language. The history of Chinese is much older than English, and it has gone through more stages in the process of development - the three ways I wrote are the two characters '神荼', which are written in three specific stages. ”

As he spoke, he pointed to the white paper that had been pasted on the wall.

"The top layer is the script used by the Chinese now, simplified characters; while the lower layer is traditional characters, which are a type of script they used hundreds of years ago, and the difference from simplified characters is not very big; and the bottom layer is Yin rune, a script that appeared in the Tang Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, but has been lost for a long time. It was through a very special channel that I learned this kind of writing. ”

At this point, Charlotte paused. He picked up another piece of paper—this time not a blank piece of paper, but a painting of a yellow-faced ancient general holding a pair of strange bamboo-like weapons in his hands—a painting that Charlize knew, a painting she had bought from Chinatown today, when she and Charlotte were preparing. At the time, Charlotte said that the general in the painting was-

"This is Qin Qiong!"

Charlotte pasted the drawing on the three sheets of white paper that had been pasted before, covering the handwriting on them.

"He was a general during the Tang Dynasty in China and one of the two most familiar door gods in Chinese. Take pop music as an analogy, if Shen Tu is Elvis, then Qin Qiong is Mike Jackson. ”

"So he is a door god who is more modern than the god you said, and closer to what everyone knows now?"

Charlotte's metaphor made Charlize understand in seconds, but at this time she turned into a problem baby,

"But he is obviously a general, why is he regarded as a door god by people?"

"Well...... this"

Charlotte touched her nose,

"Unlike the gods, who were regarded as door gods as soon as they were born, Qin Qiong was just a real historical figure at the beginning. He was a general under Tang Taizong. Do you know Tang Taizong? Well, forget it, in short, he was a very powerful emperor in ancient China! You can imagine Caesar and Napoleon!"

Once again, using analogy to popularize Chinese history, Charlotte continued,

"Tang Taizong won a lot of wars and built a huge empire. However, the war and political struggles caused him great psychological pressure, and he often had nightmares in which the ghosts of the people he had killed before asked for his life. This frightened the otherwise brave emperor, and he thought of a way to ask his two most trusted generals to guard the door for him while he slept—Qin Qiong was one of them—and since then, he has never had a nightmare. Although it seems to us today that this is actually a psychological problem, in ancient times a thousand years ago, people thought it was very magical, so they put the portraits of these two generals on the door, hoping that they could help them defend themselves against ghosts like the emperor. ”

"So, Qin Qiong has become a door god like this?"

"Yes, until now, the Chinese have often pasted his portrait on the door, as they have done in the past. ”

"It's a magical legend. ”

Charlize sighed,

"So, you put on his portrait in the hope that his power can protect me?"

"Sort of, although the exact usage is a little different. ”

"But why do you know this? These strange Oriental techniques always make me feel weird!"

"There's no way, whoever taught me to hunt ghosts and exorcise demons is a Chinese!"

Moreover, Lao Tzu was originally also Chinese, so what is strange!

Charlotte complained in her heart, but her eyes looked at the opposite wall,

"On the poster opposite Qin Qiong, the one riding a motorcycle and holding a shotgun is a T-800, right? If you want to paste the door gods, you have to paste a pair, you can take this poster down as well, we have to paste the other two door gods corresponding to Qin Qiong and Shen Di here. ”

"Okay!"

Knowing Charlotte's intentions, the blonde girl became very cooperative, and she quickly removed the poster of the future governor, and then watched as Charlotte first pasted three blank sheets of paper with strange handwriting in her original place, and then a painting of a black-faced general.

"This is Wei Chigong, that is, in the story I just said, together with Qin Qiong, another general who guarded the door for Tang Taizong. ”

Seeing that Charlize seemed to be interested in the portrait, Charlotte explained along with her,

"In ancient China, the gates were all on the left and right, so the door gods also had to be paired to play a role. The counterpart to Qin Qiong is Wei Chigong, and the counterpart to Shen Di is Yu Lei, and on the three blank pieces of paper behind him, his name is written. ”

Speaking of this, Charlotte looked left and right, and felt that it should be okay to be symmetrical, so she breathed a sigh of relief, pinched a strange finger in her hand, and began to think:

"Thousands of households always replace the new peach with the old one. ”

Then, he let go of his fingers, and a faint whirlwind suddenly appeared in the bedroom, which quickly dissipated—a phenomenon that Charlize felt amazing.

"Is that a success? You just recited a spell, right?"

"It's a spell, but in fact, these are two verses, like Rabindranath Tagore's 'Life is as brilliant as summer flowers, and death is as quiet as autumn leaves'. ”

"Poetry, can poetry also be used as a spell?"

"Absolutely. Most of the so-called incantations are actually psychological hints to the user and the used, and from this point of view, compared to the Guladin text that most people can't understand in the movie, poetry, proverbs and other popular modern languages are more suitable as incantations. As for this poem specifically, this is the work of Wang Anshi, a great writer of the Song Dynasty in China, and I think it is very suitable for the current situation, so it is used as a spell. ”

"So, then, the incantation you just recited has a beautiful rhyme like a poem. ”

Charlize laughed dryly,

"Although, to me, it's actually the same as the Guradin Bible used by the exorcists in the movie - just as incomprehensible. ”