Saturday-ing

[extrapenguin]

I'm doing an infrequent attempt at gaming on Linux, using SteamPlay. Path of Exile didn't launch, so now I'm trying to see if Dynasty Warriors might, after it's been downloaded.

Chinese name gender guesser, for OC naming aid. I'm testing it with the Guardian cast, and it misgenders Zhao Yunlan, Lin Jing, Ya Qing, Zhao Xinci, Shen Xi, Wu Xiaojun (Butler Wu's son), Chu Nianzhi (Chu Shuzhi's twin), Guo Xiong (Guo Changcheng's mother), Professor Ouyang, and some of the one-offs, but otherwise it's OK. (I suspect it's calculating gender scores depending on how frequently certain hanzi appear in men's names vs women's names, and if % male is over 50, predicts it's a guy, so it's less that Zhao Yunlan has a feminine name and more that Zhao Yunlan's name is moderately androgynous/doesn't have strongly gendered characters in it.)

Zhang Ruonan, Wang Yike, Ji Xiaobai, Lai Su, Wang Qun, Dong Nan, Hua Yuzhu, Fu You. Skipped anyone who didn't have a surname (e.g. Jiajia). ETA: failure rate 9/48 (~19%) for men and 8/24 (~33%) for women. Women, I suppose, are more likely to be given masculine names than vice versa.

Further ETA: plugged in the MDZS names. Errors:
Wei Ying, Jiang Wanyin, Lan Sizhui, Wen Yuan, Lan Jingyi, Jin Guangyao, Meng Yao, Jin Ling, Jin Rulan, Mo Xuanyu, Jin Rusong, Wen Ning, Wen Qionglin, Nie Huaisang, Xue Chengmei, Song Lan, Chang Ping, Chang Ci'an, Ouyang Zizhen (19 out of 45 -> 42% error rate)

Jiang Yanli, Lan Yi, Qin Su, Wen Qing, A-Qing (5 out of 8 -> 63% error rate!))

I also did some baking (well, "baking") and now have dou sha baos in the steamer. Adding a bit of glutinous rice flour to the dough makes it much nicer to handle. Made poacked chicken in scallion ginger sauce on Friday and ate the leftovers – as advertised in the recipe, it tastes just as good at room temperature. Tomorrow, I'll make sesame oil chicken soup. We're not on lockdown, and I get to go to work (because only some of my job can be done from home), but I'm a homebody anyways. This'll keep me occupied, if nothing else.

Speaking of cooking, I want Shen Wei to feed Ye Zun. Shen Wei expresses love through feeding people, Ye Zun has some "keep people with him forever by eating them" thing going on that makes him very suitable for getting fed, boom, didi reformation. And speaking of Ye Zun, my Focus on: Ye Zun post is almost done. Tune in next week for various forms of villain wank! *g* (Or tune in this week for maggie33's Chu Shuzhi post.)

Comments

[trobadora]

Chinese name gender guesser, for OC naming aid.

Oh, that is neat! Thank you for the link.

[extrapenguin]

It's so potentially useful, even if it does have a failure rate!

[maggie33]

Speaking of cooking, I want Shen Wei to feed Ye Zun. Shen Wei expresses love through feeding people, Ye Zun has some "keep people with him forever by eating them" thing going on that makes him very suitable for getting fed, boom, didi reformation.

LOL, I like that idea. :D And I can't wait for your Ye Zun post.

[extrapenguin]

♥ Honestly, I'm pretty sure Ye Zun was just hungry. He didn't get enough food growing up, and he didn't seem to eat anything post-Pillar. Perhaps the whole thing could've been averted with some takeout? I seem to be on a Ye Zun redemption kick recently.

[nnozomi]

Happens in real life too! I worked with a gentleman whose first name was Xiaohong 小紅 for a while, and just about everyone who only knew him online misgendered him because of the characters... . (Also Guo Xiong's name does me in, how can 雄 be a woman's name...).
That sesame oil chicken soup looks EXTREMELY good, please report.

[extrapenguin]

I've heard that in some cases, kids are given an opposite-gender name to remedy a deficit in yin/yang, plus some other cases. ("Wishing for a little brother" as a woman's name, and giving a boy a girl's name because girls were seen as worth less and hoping to drive evil spirits away in a move similar to calling kids "little dirt" both come to mind, though idk if they're practiced in the modern era.) And I guess some names are fairly unisex? No clue about WTF was going on with 雄. Mom named her while high on painkillers still? Post name change trans man with a kid misgendered on his tombstone? Registry officials typo'd and they actually meant something like 雁 or 確 or 雉? Ah well.

Will report on the sesame oil chicken soup tomorrow! It looks very good indeed.

[rosefox]

Mmmmm, poached chicken. We made Hainanese chicken several years ago and still talk about "exfoliating the chicken". If I make it again, I'll definitely make this scallion ginger sauce to go with it.

[extrapenguin]

That sauce sounds intriguing! And the Hainanese chicken yummy, mm. This enforced boredom is bringing out an actual desire to cook in me. I doubt it'll last, but hey, food.

[tinny]

I love that it's harder than I thought to guess genders from names. I thought it was just me. :D

[extrapenguin]

I think the takeaway is that regular plebe names are easy enough, but xianxia really loves those poetic allusions, so the "gendering" is in the image it's trying to evoke/characters associated with the poem instead of just the characters of the name. Or xianxia goes for more androgynous names, and the guesser flips and flops badly due to not having an unisex option.