reallycarlaost/emobank-single-binary · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 1 593 ⌀	label float64 0 3
Whole cities have been created in the New Territories, although the unimaginative architecture of these towns has been criticized.	2
There are many stories of refugees who arrived with nothing in their pockets, set up a small sidewalk stall, worked diligently until they had their own store, and then expanded it into a modest chain.	1
But it is also efficient, with one of the best transportation systems anywhere, and for such a crowded place, quiet — you don’t hear voices raised in anger, motorists sitting on their horns, or loud boomboxes.	0
Old customs are still followed: Fate and luck are taken very seriously, and astrologers and fortune-tellers do a steady business.	1
Before a skyscraper can be built, a feng shui (see page 68) investigation must take place to ensure that the site and the building will promote health, harmony, and prosperity.	3
You’ll also notice that gambling is a passion, whether it be cards, mah-jong, the lottery, or the horses.	2
Hong Kong has two major racetracks as well as an intensive off-track betting system, and on weekends the ferries to Macau are crowded with people on their way to the casinos.	0
Sightseeing in Hong Kong starts at sea level with the enthralling water traffic — a mix of freighters, ferries, tugs, junks, and yachts.	2
From Victoria Peak, Hong Kong’s highest point, or from skyscrapers and hotels, they are especially exciting at night when the lights are on.	1
The business and financial center and the signature soaring architecture are on Hong Kong Island.	2
Beyond, in the New Territories, are a mixture of high-rise suburban towns, ancient sites and walled villages, country parks, and farms with ducks and fish ponds.	0
Hong Kong’s other, less developed islands, Lantau, Lamma, and Cheung Chau, provide getaways.	0
You can also take a ferry to Macau to find an entirely different kind of city, a unique blend of Chinese and Iberian culture.	1
It’s anyone’s guess what may happen in the future, but for now Hong Kong bristles with energy and ambition, and for the visitor, this beautiful city with its contrasts and variety is an exhilarating experience.	0
Shopping never ends — there’s always another inviting spot just down the street.	3
You’ll find Hong Kong easy to get around, the people helpful, English spoken everywhere, and food that lives up to its reputation.	0
Exciting, mysterious, glamorous — these words have described Hong Kong for at least a century.	1
On 1 July, 1997 the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty as a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.	1
Which it frequently isn't.	3
But this post isn't about how melancholy I become when I haven't heard from her by 3 p.m. (which would be midnight over there), because anyone who follows me on Facebook already knows that and because this post concerns Urbino, not my daily descent into emo.	3
As you probably noticed, my wife is currently on vacation without me -— which is different than a vacation from me, although given how frequently insufferable I am, I could understand the appeal of such—in the le Marche region of Italy, which is immediately south of Tuscany and full of communists.	3
I've written about Urbino before , but because the wife is providing me with such dazzling photographs of the city, I feel compelled to do so again.	2
As I noted in that post, Urbino is not a "built" city so much as an "evolved" one.	1
"built"	3
"evolved"	1
(The De Landa seems to have become an unwitting theme of late.)	3
Of course it was built , but it was built vertically within the city walls, meaning that new buildings were constructed atop existing ones like so: The effect is the sort of architecture one only finds in dreams or representations of them, like the one in the finale of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , wherein Joss Whedon took advantage of contiguous three-walled film sets to depict Xander Harris moving seamlessly from the upstairs bathroom at Buffy's house:	2
Because without leaving officially sanctioned lanes of transportation, pedestrians can venture into and through outdoor kitchens, university departments, the central hallway of apartment buildings, and so on.	1
(This isn't technically true, but it accurately describes how it feels to those unaccustomed to the city's geography.)	0
"recognize the fingerprints of amateur photographers the world over who think a 'good' photograph is one framed in the most dull and predictable way possible"	3
'good'	1
I only mention that because in 2002 I visited the city with the wife and, as you probably guessed, the real point of this post was to indulge in a bit of vicarious vacationing before returning to a stack of ungraded papers that no amount of actual grading seems to have the power to reduce.	1
Wednesday, 26 May 2010	1
As evidence of how thoroughly corrupt the region is, I present a picture (courtesy of her) of the cabin she'll be staying in free of charge until July: That's the view she'll be writing her dissertation to the next two months.	0
*If it wasn't, even Homer nods?	3
No, but seriously, if that's not a picture I actually took, it's exactly the sort I relentlessly take, whereas check out the wife's chops above: the woman has an eye .	2
If she is working, she is not on vacation.	0
AND this time apart will make you stronger and make you realize marriage is work and you need to put some in or the marriage dies and you are left with an empty hole in your heart.	2
I know this is over kill, but you need to get out of the funk you are in and grade the papers and finish the course so you can get some down time and catch up on your sleep.	2
Posted by: alkau \| Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 11:11 AM	0
have a happy vacation that place looks fascinating I should get a passport	0
Posted by: happyfeet \| Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 09:57 PM	0
I'm having to live it through my beautiful, vacationing wife.	1
oh.	1
Sorry I got confuzzled.	2
I can't wait to get Alzheimer's so I can watch Buffy again like it was the first time.	2
Posted by: happyfeet \| Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 12:23 PM	0
So the only opportunity I have to talk to her (via Skype) is that last hour in the late evening when the loft cools enough to be habitable—provided, of course, that the wifi strength that evening is strong enough to establish and maintain a connection.	2
Readers of early versions of the story might have been cheering for the defeat of this demon disguised as a beauty, and would have enjoyed reading the stories for the lurid horror details and later her crushing defeat.	1
Conversely, the authors of the two stories examined here do not give readers motivation to wish for the death of Madame White Snake, so the pleasure of the narrative - to borrow appropriate phrasing from film theory - comes not from the death of the insubordinate, disruptive force, from watching the transgressions themselves.	2
In an essay on the femme fatale heroines of film noir, Janey Place argues that the strong behavior of the female characters supersedes the moral lessons supposedly imparted by their morals at the end.	3
She writes, “the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”	1
“the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”	0
‘lesson’	3
Early tales of Madame White Snake appeared in China as early as the Song Dynasty, and initially her portrayal was fairly direct, as a villainous demon who drains the life force out of her human husband.	0
Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir” in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 48.	0
“Women in Film Noir”	0
In these two stories, the femme fatale Madame White Snake is going to live on in the minds of readers not as the shrunken snake trapped under a pagoda, but the sexy, aggressive woman who took a weaker human man as her lover.	2
This resistant reading of the text may be too colored by modern viewpoints, since it is impossible to know for certain what readers in the past enjoyed about these stories.	3
However, consciously or unconsciously, these authors created a female character who fits the characteristics of a feisty heroine.	2
Just as the dangerous femme fatale of noir films has reemerged as a heroine in her own right, rather than the sexy death trap for the male protagonist, so too Lady White Snake should be reclaimed for her sexual assertiveness and life slightly outside the bounds of conventional social expectations.	1
Lai, Whalen. "From Folklore to Literate Theater: Unpacking "Madame White Snake"." Asian Folklore Studies 51, no. 1 (1992): 52.	3
"Madame White Snake"	0
The Chinese legend of Madame White Snake, the snake demon that takes human form and becomes the wife of a man, has exerted a lasting influence over East Asian folktales and fiction for centuries.	0
But over time, characterizations of her became more complex, and the persona of Madame White Snake became more sympathetic, and perhaps even a model of the ideal Confucian wife, particularly in “Pagoda”.	0
“Pagoda”	2
Whalen Lai notes, “She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man.	1
“She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man. She took on the virtues of a traditional Chinese female, particularly forbearance”	1
Ibid., 53.	3
But if she were really an ideal wife, why could she not live happily with her human mate?	0
Her dangerous sexuality is the key.	2
Femme fatale might seem an unusual term to apply to a character from pre-modern Chinese and Japanese literature who may exemplify the virtues of an ideal Confucian wife, since it is primarily associated with film characters, particularly those of the film noir genre.	0
But this term, which is relatively speaking, a neologism (The earliest uses were around the beginning of the 20th century Oxford English Dictionary, “Femme, ” Oxford University Press, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50083541/50083541se3?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=femme+fatale&first=1&max_to_show=10&hilite=50083541se3 ), is an apt description of the depiction of Madame White Snake and all her incarnations.	1
“Femme, ”	1
It refers to a woman who is dangerously attractive, and lures men to their downfall with her sexual attractiveness.	2
In both incarnations of Madame White snake, the authors depict her as bewitchingly beautiful.	2
Toyoo, her human lover in “Lust of the White Serpant” cannot shake the image of her beauty from his mind and dreams of her, and finds himself “disturbed and agitated” by her “ethereal beauty”.	0
“Lust of the White Serpant”	0
“disturbed and agitated”	2
Amanda Bates November 11, 2008 Madame White Snake: East Asian Femme Fatale of Old	1
“ethereal beauty”	1
Ueda, Akinari. Ugetsu Monogatari : Tales of Moonlight and Rain : A Complete English Version of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Collection of Tales of the Supernatural. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974, 162-164.	3
Two quintessential novellas, “The Lust of the White Serpant” from Ugetsu Monogatari by the Japanese author Ueda Akinari and “Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda” a traditional Chinese story, are both relatively complex and demonstrate not only the evolution of the White Snake figure to become a more believable human, but also what aspects may have given her enduring appeal.	3
In “Eternal Prisoner,” Madame White Snake’s bewitching beauty follows her lover Hsü into his dreams, and the next morning “he was so distracted that he could not concentrate on doing business.”	2
“Eternal Prisoner,”	2
“he was so distracted that he could not concentrate on doing business.”	2
“The Lust of the White Serpant”	3
“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.”	2
“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.” Trans. Diana Yu, in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories : Themes and Variations. Boston: Zheng & Zui Co, 1986, 358.	0
Both of these stories align negative connotations with her beauty, suggesting that her sexuality is the cause of their distraction.	2
In addition to distracting sexuality, the irregular characterization of Madame White Snake might be another trait her character has in common with the archetypical noir femme fatale.	0
In her essay analyzing the noir film from a feminist perspective, Christine Gledhill writes “Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”.	1
“Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”	2
Christine Gledhill, “Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,” in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 81.	3
“Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,”	1
“Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda”	2
She is a loyal wife to her husband as she has promised, but she also causes him to find trouble with the law and deceives him about her supernatural nature.	2
The complications in her character serve to undercut the ostensible didactic intent of these stories.	2
This is quite similar to the expected end for the femme fatal character in films - she is punished in some way so that social order and proper gender roles are restored.	3
In both stories, Madame White Snake’s secret is uncovered and a monk comes to exorcise her, and she is eventually rendered powerless and trapped under a pagoda.	3

Whole cities have been created in the New Territories, although the unimaginative architecture of these towns has been criticized.

2

There are many stories of refugees who arrived with nothing in their pockets, set up a small sidewalk stall, worked diligently until they had their own store, and then expanded it into a modest chain.

1

But it is also efficient, with one of the best transportation systems anywhere, and for such a crowded place, quiet — you don’t hear voices raised in anger, motorists sitting on their horns, or loud boomboxes.

0

Old customs are still followed: Fate and luck are taken very seriously, and astrologers and fortune-tellers do a steady business.

1

Before a skyscraper can be built, a feng shui (see page 68) investigation must take place to ensure that the site and the building will promote health, harmony, and prosperity.

3

You’ll also notice that gambling is a passion, whether it be cards, mah-jong, the lottery, or the horses.

2

Hong Kong has two major racetracks as well as an intensive off-track betting system, and on weekends the ferries to Macau are crowded with people on their way to the casinos.

0

Sightseeing in Hong Kong starts at sea level with the enthralling water traffic — a mix of freighters, ferries, tugs, junks, and yachts.

2

From Victoria Peak, Hong Kong’s highest point, or from skyscrapers and hotels, they are especially exciting at night when the lights are on.

1

The business and financial center and the signature soaring architecture are on Hong Kong Island.

2

Beyond, in the New Territories, are a mixture of high-rise suburban towns, ancient sites and walled villages, country parks, and farms with ducks and fish ponds.

0

Hong Kong’s other, less developed islands, Lantau, Lamma, and Cheung Chau, provide getaways.

0

You can also take a ferry to Macau to find an entirely different kind of city, a unique blend of Chinese and Iberian culture.

1

It’s anyone’s guess what may happen in the future, but for now Hong Kong bristles with energy and ambition, and for the visitor, this beautiful city with its contrasts and variety is an exhilarating experience.

0

Shopping never ends — there’s always another inviting spot just down the street.

3

You’ll find Hong Kong easy to get around, the people helpful, English spoken everywhere, and food that lives up to its reputation.

0

Exciting, mysterious, glamorous — these words have described Hong Kong for at least a century.

1

On 1 July, 1997 the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty as a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.

1

Which it frequently isn't.

3

But this post isn't about how melancholy I become when I haven't heard from her by 3 p.m. (which would be midnight over there), because anyone who follows me on Facebook already knows that and because this post concerns Urbino, not my daily descent into emo.

3

As you probably noticed, my wife is currently on vacation without me -— which is different than a vacation from me, although given how frequently insufferable I am, I could understand the appeal of such—in the le Marche region of Italy, which is immediately south of Tuscany and full of communists.

3

I've written about Urbino before , but because the wife is providing me with such dazzling photographs of the city, I feel compelled to do so again.

2

As I noted in that post, Urbino is not a "built" city so much as an "evolved" one.

1

"built"

3

"evolved"

1

(The De Landa seems to have become an unwitting theme of late.)

3

Of course it was built , but it was built vertically within the city walls, meaning that new buildings were constructed atop existing ones like so: The effect is the sort of architecture one only finds in dreams or representations of them, like the one in the finale of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , wherein Joss Whedon took advantage of contiguous three-walled film sets to depict Xander Harris moving seamlessly from the upstairs bathroom at Buffy's house:

2

Because without leaving officially sanctioned lanes of transportation, pedestrians can venture into and through outdoor kitchens, university departments, the central hallway of apartment buildings, and so on.

1

(This isn't technically true, but it accurately describes how it feels to those unaccustomed to the city's geography.)

0

"recognize the fingerprints of amateur photographers the world over who think a 'good' photograph is one framed in the most dull and predictable way possible"

3

'good'

1

I only mention that because in 2002 I visited the city with the wife and, as you probably guessed, the real point of this post was to indulge in a bit of vicarious vacationing before returning to a stack of ungraded papers that no amount of actual grading seems to have the power to reduce.

1

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

1

As evidence of how thoroughly corrupt the region is, I present a picture (courtesy of her) of the cabin she'll be staying in free of charge until July: That's the view she'll be writing her dissertation to the next two months.

0

*If it wasn't, even Homer nods?

3

No, but seriously, if that's not a picture I actually took, it's exactly the sort I relentlessly take, whereas check out the wife's chops above: the woman has an eye .

2

If she is working, she is not on vacation.

0

AND this time apart will make you stronger and make you realize marriage is work and you need to put some in or the marriage dies and you are left with an empty hole in your heart.

2

I know this is over kill, but you need to get out of the funk you are in and grade the papers and finish the course so you can get some down time and catch up on your sleep.

2

Posted by: alkau | Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 11:11 AM

0

have a happy vacation that place looks fascinating I should get a passport

0

Posted by: happyfeet | Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 09:57 PM

0

I'm having to live it through my beautiful, vacationing wife.

1

oh.

1

Sorry I got confuzzled.

2

I can't wait to get Alzheimer's so I can watch Buffy again like it was the first time.

2

Posted by: happyfeet | Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 12:23 PM

0

So the only opportunity I have to talk to her (via Skype) is that last hour in the late evening when the loft cools enough to be habitable—provided, of course, that the wifi strength that evening is strong enough to establish and maintain a connection.

2

Readers of early versions of the story might have been cheering for the defeat of this demon disguised as a beauty, and would have enjoyed reading the stories for the lurid horror details and later her crushing defeat.

1

Conversely, the authors of the two stories examined here do not give readers motivation to wish for the death of Madame White Snake, so the pleasure of the narrative - to borrow appropriate phrasing from film theory - comes not from the death of the insubordinate, disruptive force, from watching the transgressions themselves.

2

In an essay on the femme fatale heroines of film noir, Janey Place argues that the strong behavior of the female characters supersedes the moral lessons supposedly imparted by their morals at the end.

3

She writes, “the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”

1

“the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”

0

‘lesson’

3

Early tales of Madame White Snake appeared in China as early as the Song Dynasty, and initially her portrayal was fairly direct, as a villainous demon who drains the life force out of her human husband.

0

Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir” in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 48.

0

“Women in Film Noir”

0

In these two stories, the femme fatale Madame White Snake is going to live on in the minds of readers not as the shrunken snake trapped under a pagoda, but the sexy, aggressive woman who took a weaker human man as her lover.

2

This resistant reading of the text may be too colored by modern viewpoints, since it is impossible to know for certain what readers in the past enjoyed about these stories.

3

However, consciously or unconsciously, these authors created a female character who fits the characteristics of a feisty heroine.

2

Just as the dangerous femme fatale of noir films has reemerged as a heroine in her own right, rather than the sexy death trap for the male protagonist, so too Lady White Snake should be reclaimed for her sexual assertiveness and life slightly outside the bounds of conventional social expectations.

1

Lai, Whalen. "From Folklore to Literate Theater: Unpacking "Madame White Snake"." Asian Folklore Studies 51, no. 1 (1992): 52.

3

"Madame White Snake"

0

The Chinese legend of Madame White Snake, the snake demon that takes human form and becomes the wife of a man, has exerted a lasting influence over East Asian folktales and fiction for centuries.

0

But over time, characterizations of her became more complex, and the persona of Madame White Snake became more sympathetic, and perhaps even a model of the ideal Confucian wife, particularly in “Pagoda”.

0

“Pagoda”

2

Whalen Lai notes, “She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man.

1

“She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man. She took on the virtues of a traditional Chinese female, particularly forbearance”

1

Ibid., 53.

3

But if she were really an ideal wife, why could she not live happily with her human mate?

0

Her dangerous sexuality is the key.

2

Femme fatale might seem an unusual term to apply to a character from pre-modern Chinese and Japanese literature who may exemplify the virtues of an ideal Confucian wife, since it is primarily associated with film characters, particularly those of the film noir genre.

0

But this term, which is relatively speaking, a neologism (The earliest uses were around the beginning of the 20th century Oxford English Dictionary, “Femme, ” Oxford University Press, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50083541/50083541se3?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=femme+fatale&first=1&max_to_show=10&hilite=50083541se3 ), is an apt description of the depiction of Madame White Snake and all her incarnations.

1

“Femme, ”

1

It refers to a woman who is dangerously attractive, and lures men to their downfall with her sexual attractiveness.

2

In both incarnations of Madame White snake, the authors depict her as bewitchingly beautiful.

2

Toyoo, her human lover in “Lust of the White Serpant” cannot shake the image of her beauty from his mind and dreams of her, and finds himself “disturbed and agitated” by her “ethereal beauty”.

0

“Lust of the White Serpant”

0

“disturbed and agitated”

2

Amanda Bates November 11, 2008 Madame White Snake: East Asian Femme Fatale of Old

1

“ethereal beauty”

1

Ueda, Akinari. Ugetsu Monogatari : Tales of Moonlight and Rain : A Complete English Version of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Collection of Tales of the Supernatural. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974, 162-164.

3

Two quintessential novellas, “The Lust of the White Serpant” from Ugetsu Monogatari by the Japanese author Ueda Akinari and “Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda” a traditional Chinese story, are both relatively complex and demonstrate not only the evolution of the White Snake figure to become a more believable human, but also what aspects may have given her enduring appeal.

3

In “Eternal Prisoner,” Madame White Snake’s bewitching beauty follows her lover Hsü into his dreams, and the next morning “he was so distracted that he could not concentrate on doing business.”

2

“Eternal Prisoner,”

2

“he was so distracted that he could not concentrate on doing business.”

2

“The Lust of the White Serpant”

3

“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.”

2

“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.” Trans. Diana Yu, in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories : Themes and Variations. Boston: Zheng & Zui Co, 1986, 358.

0

Both of these stories align negative connotations with her beauty, suggesting that her sexuality is the cause of their distraction.

2

In addition to distracting sexuality, the irregular characterization of Madame White Snake might be another trait her character has in common with the archetypical noir femme fatale.

0

In her essay analyzing the noir film from a feminist perspective, Christine Gledhill writes “Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”.

1

“Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”

2

Christine Gledhill, “Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,” in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 81.

3

“Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,”

1

“Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda”

2

She is a loyal wife to her husband as she has promised, but she also causes him to find trouble with the law and deceives him about her supernatural nature.

2

The complications in her character serve to undercut the ostensible didactic intent of these stories.

2

This is quite similar to the expected end for the femme fatal character in films - she is punished in some way so that social order and proper gender roles are restored.

3

In both stories, Madame White Snake’s secret is uncovered and a monk comes to exorcise her, and she is eventually rendered powerless and trapped under a pagoda.

3