Never Fully Dressed with Just a Simile
Back in August, Eric mentioned in one of his threads (I think it was Words) that he found similes in Chinese prose to be palpably awkward—that every time he came to a 就像 or a 跟什么什么似的 it gave him the elbow. At the time, I agreed with him, although now I’m not quite sure why. Such may be the case within the anti-之乎者也 literature of the past twenty years, but going farther back into the era when all those metaphoric particles from classical were still in common use—犹、如、仿佛 and the rest of them—uncovers a kind of flexibility in setting up similes which quite unexpectedly reveals the poverty of English in this regard.
Take this passage:
景泰蓝的天空给高耸的梧松勾绘出团员的大叶，新月如一只金色的小舟泊在疏疏的枝桠间。 粒粒星，怀疑是白色的小花朵从天使的手指间洒出来，而遂宝石似的凝固的嵌在天空里了。但仍闪跳着，发射着晶莹的光，且，从冰样的天空里，它们的清芬无声的霰雪一样飘坠。
By Canaan Morse, April 3, 10:30a.m.