What makes a person fat? The Chinese have a simple 4-part answer: 糖，躺，汤，烫
The charm of the answer lies in the fact that each of the four “causes” is pronounced in basically the same way, written “tang” in pinyin. Each one has a different tone, though, which makes it fun. When Chinese people hear the answer they have to think for a second, running through their mental dictionaries, matching up the proper tones to …
One
Overheard in the office:
Girl A: 索性的索是…？
Girl B: 索尼的索。
Girl A: 哦，知道了。
Girl A: Which 索 character is the 索 in 索性? [索性 is a not uncommon Chinese adverb meaning "simply."]
Girl B: The same 索 as in “Sony”. [索尼 is the Chinese transliteration for "Sony." Its characters are meaningless, chosen for phonetic value only.]
Girl A: Oh, got it!
Two
I recently had the 抽油烟机 in my apartment fixed. I’m not sure what it is …
A while ago Matt from Metanoiac asked me how I do my pinyin tooltips. I was too busy at the time to reply, but since maybe other people are interested in how I do it, I’ll give a public explanation here. (Warning: for those of you with no Chinese-related weblog, this is going to be a very long, boring post.)
“Tooltips” are the little text boxes that pop up when you hover your mouse on certain elements. The picture …
A while back I told you about my ayi (阿姨). Now I’m going to tell you some more.
My ayi comes from Hubei province. She has a son there attending Wuhan University. I don’t know more about her particular family circumstances than this, but knowing just this much it sounds like a difficult situation.
My ayi is probably in her early 40′s.
My ayi always calls me xiansheng (先生), something like “sir.” I’ve asked her many …
What have I been doing for the past 2 weeks (besides trying to get my site back online)? It seems like a lot of nothing, but the list goes something like this:
Sinosplice is finally on its new server. I never intended to take such a long break from blogging, but I needed outside help to do the transfer, and that involved quite a delay. In the meantime I didn’t want to blog because anything I wrote about my blog would just be more whining. I’ll spare you those “fascinating details.” Suffice it to say that there were way more obstacles than I anticipated, and I actually switched to two different hosts …
I’ve been whining quite a bit lately. First it was about not being able to find someone to work with me at my company. Then it was about the Great Firewall of China picking on me.
I’ve now found Micah to fill the laowai void at my company, but my internet access remains in a deplorable state. Thus the whining continues.
I was recently researching the problem, and I read what Wang Jianshuo had to say about it. (His …
The search for another kindergarten teacher trainer to work alongside me is finally over. Funny how these blog connections work, but the one who ended up taking the job is Micah Sittig, a long-time China blogger who has recently returned to China. Anyway, I’m looking forward to working with Micah and molding him in my badass teacher training likeness in the weeks to come. (I’m also looking forward to having someone to share my workload with. This past month …
The city of Qingdao is clearly making a strong statement against one of America’s most beloved forefathers, George Washington. Curious as to what could fuel such anti-Washington sentiment, I did a bit of research. Here is what I found:
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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