Over the years, one of the most popular features on Sinosplice has been the Junk Food Review that Wilson and I did at ZUCC in 2002. There have been calls for an encore, but since Wilson went back to San Francisco it’s been a little hard to coordinate. Well, the trip to Taipei was a perfect opportunity. Here it is:
The new design is sort of an experimental “comic book feel” I came up with. The …
I honestly believe that Shanghai is the Chinese government’s testing grounds for internet filtering/blocking. The speed of the internet overall, as well as the number of sites blocked ranges so widely and changes so frequently that I’m not sure what other explanation there is. For the past few days, here in Shanghai a significantly higher number of sites were blocked than usual. Not my site, or del.icio.us, or Metafilter, but about half of the links I clicked on …
正常的孩子都能自然学会他们母语的发音。其实他们根本不用“学”，因为在成长的过程中，孩子都会不知不觉习得母语最基本的语音。但是在这个方面我并不正常。
我还不到两岁的时候由于意外失去了两个门牙。虽然我没有门牙的样子挺可爱，但是缺失门牙影响到我学习母语的发音。因为我的舌头习惯了没有门牙的多余空间，所以当我的成人门牙终于长出后我在发音方面出现了许多问题。
小时候发音不准确听起来较可爱。长大了以后就是口齿不清。我父母当然不希望我有这样的问题。我还很小的时候他们就带我去看发音矫正专家。那个时候我的[s]，[l]，[r]，[ʃ] (sh)，[tʃ] (ch)，[dʒ] (j)音都发得不对。不过，在十岁之前我已经掌握了[s]，[l]，和[r]的音。上了高中后我还继续接受发音矫正因为我的[ʃ]，[tʃ]，和[dʒ]引发得不对。虽然大家都能听懂我的话，交流没有障碍，但是我的舌头的位置不对，说话好象气太多了。那时我觉得我的发音还凑合，很想放弃矫正训练。我妈妈却不让我放弃。她总是说谁也不知道我将来的工作会是什么，也许我的发音很重要，不能凑合。
作为高中生，去看发音矫正专家是很尴尬的事。我不断地跟我妈妈争论它必要与否。这样过了一年，我的发音还是没有什么进步。我妈妈总算妥协了。看来我的发音总是会差一点儿。
读大学的时候我对外语和语言学开始产生兴趣。我当了兼职对外英语老师。可是我的发音问题仍然存在。我很在意，但是没办法。
直到我来中国以后这种情况才有所改进。刚到中国时我学习中文非常认真，特别是发音。我花了不少的工夫学会拼音q，x，和j。学会了这些音我才懂了它们和sh，ch，和zh的区别。这个区别搞清楚了以后我才掌握了它们的发音。之后，我惊奇地发现：我终于会发[ʃ]，[tʃ]，和[dʒ]的音了！那天我实在太高兴了。过了那关后我感觉别的语言方面的挑战就没那么难了。
现在想想，我妈妈本来说得就对，但当时我没有耐心接受她的明智的建议。后来是中文给了我机会成功。而且正是因为在语音方面的成功才使我有自信往语言学的方向发展。这也是我觉得我和中国很有缘分的原因之一。…
Apparently there are evil smirking foreigners around every corner in Taipei, just waiting to pounce on unsuspecting Taiwanese girls who have just withdrawn money from an ATM.
Wilson pointed this poster out to me. It’s posted all over Taipei right now.…
I just got an e-mail from my friend Katherine, whom I met up with in Hong Kong on Friday:
You should definitely come back to HK and we’ll eat some real food. There is this place i was thinking of taking you for dim sum, and yesterday afternoon this hit man carried out a killing right in the restaurant! How crazy is that? Who carries out hits in HK??? in the middle of the afternoon in a dim sum restaurant??? …
When I bought my tickets I arranged for a day and a half in Hong Kong on the way back from Taiwan. I wanted to take in as much of that Hong Kong glitz as I could in 36 hours. To my dismay, I was totally robbed of the Hong Kong experience. Prepare yourself for some extended whining.
My last night in Taipei I must have eaten something bad. I think it was the Korean food, although it’s hard to …
I’m in Taipei, staying at Wilson‘s apartment and still kinda just hanging out and getting a feel for this place. We’ll start some trips around the island tomorrow.
Some observations…
There are large men here. It used to be that back in Hangzhou I could just look for the big Chinese guy and that would be Wilson, at 6 feet 1 inch tall and 200 lbs. Here in Taipei I’ve seen quite a few guys as big as Wilson.…
It’s now the year of the cock. (The Chinese like that word.)
Just like last year, ridiculous “safety laws” did nothing to dissuade the Shanghainese from unleashing a hellstorm of fireworkery within my very own apartment complex. The constant dull roar coming from outside led me to believe every residential community in the area was under similar siege from 11pm until 12:30. Here’s a shot snapped from my roommate’s window which shows my balcony taking the brunt of the pyrotechnic …
Remember Alf? He used to keep a blog about his life in Hangzhou. Well, ever since Blogger became practically impossible to use in China, Alf has gone on hiatus. So, with his permission, I’ll share one of his recent photos.
Alf and Greg recently acted as European soldiers for a Chinese TV series. Altogether, there were only six foreigners to represent a British and a French army. How did they do it? Well, only one army was shown at a …
I’m leaving for Taipei on February 9th, the day after all the Chinese New Year’s Eve festivities. I inquired about the “direct flights” (which actually still go through Hong Kong airspace, they just don’t land), but apparently only ̨°û¡¡(Taiwanese citizens) can get those tickets. Good thing I got that info, because a clueless travel agency was trying to sell me those tickets. That would have been unpleasant when I showed up at the airport with tickets for a flight …
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
All Posts