http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/studybooks/mutant-mandarin-a-guide-to-new-chinese-slang (still in the process of migrating to WordPress... generic theme will change soon) Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:24:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/studybooks/mutant-mandarin-a-guide-to-new-chinese-slang#comment-14581 Kim-Ha Albert Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:10:47 +0000 http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/studybooks/mutant-mandarin-a-guide-to-new-chinese-slang#comment-14581 <p>The book by Zhou Yimiin & James J. Wang is "outrageously" USEFUL! Alas! Finally there is in print a very worthwhile book that reveals the termonology that real Chinese use everyday, many times a day, all the time, in Karaoke bars, in restaurants--in Central Committee meeting rooms of the Communist Party; these are not "dirty", they are the beautiful components of a language which has a 5000 year history, is very much ALIVE, full of pep and vigor, and wake the hell up and smell the jasmine tea kind of expressiveness! I was so happy to find it ON A SHELF at CSU library (the only library in America in which I have SEEN it!) back in 2003 without any committee of "concerned parents" protesting all the way to the US Supreme Court, to have it removed. The book clearly illustrates the wonderful elasticity of the language of Ba Jin, Lu Xun, and other writers who are well aware that no language, unless it is Xi Xia or Latin (i.e. "dead") evolves and changes, changes made to it by the people who use it. Language serves humanity in the ability to think, to express, to vent, and to touch upon with the precision of a probe while dissecting a frog, EXACTLY what it is you are touching, and without such tools, and the means of expression, are vocabulary would consist of "nail writing" carved on stones in Persepolis, able to express only basic things and in the most cumbersome manner! I pop a top of my Qing Dao "bier" to these two mavericks, and heartily rejoice, with "Gan Bei, wen sue!!"</p> The book by Zhou Yimiin & James J. Wang is “outrageously” USEFUL!
Alas! Finally there is in print a very worthwhile book that reveals the termonology that real Chinese use everyday, many times a day, all the time, in Karaoke bars, in restaurants–in Central Committee meeting rooms of the Communist Party; these are not “dirty”, they are the beautiful components of a language which has a 5000 year history, is very much ALIVE, full of pep and vigor, and wake the hell up and smell the jasmine tea kind of expressiveness! I was so happy to find it ON A SHELF at CSU library (the only library in America in which I have SEEN it!) back in 2003 without any committee of “concerned parents” protesting all the way to the US Supreme Court, to have it removed. The book clearly illustrates the wonderful elasticity of the language of Ba Jin, Lu Xun, and other writers who are well aware that no language, unless it is Xi Xia or Latin (i.e. “dead”) evolves and changes, changes made to it by the people who use it. Language serves humanity in the ability to think, to express, to vent, and to touch upon with the precision of a probe while dissecting a frog, EXACTLY what it is you are touching, and without such tools, and the means of expression, are vocabulary would consist of “nail writing” carved on stones in Persepolis, able to express only basic things and in the most cumbersome manner! I pop a top of my Qing Dao “bier” to these two mavericks, and heartily rejoice, with “Gan Bei, wen sue!!”

]]>