Talk Talk China is a site devoted to whining about China. That sounds like a bad thing, but the guys that run it do a good job of keeping it entertaining. I also appreciate how they make no pretenses about what they’re trying to be. It says right in their sidebar: “Dan, DD, and Dawanr are 3 laowai that have been here for way too long (collectively over 45 years!!) and this is where we come to just let all …
29
Nov
2005
2005
Old Wang
I recently stumbled across this Chinese webcomic called Old Wang through Baidu. It’s an odd mix. It’s by Chinese people, about China, but in English. Not natural English. The home page makes these claims:
The 1st English/Chinese Theme Cartoon Portal
A Career Life Forum for the Commuting Tribe
A lot of the comics seem like an attempt at a Chinese Dilbert. But they’re not really funny, they’re just sort of… odd. And yet I found myself reading a few more …
28
Nov
2005
2005
Capitals and Entirety
At first I was going to call this another Chinese pun, but now I’m not sure if it qualifies. It’s orthographically dependent (it won’t work when read aloud), and it involves grammar as well. But it’s still pretty easy for students of Chinese to understand.
Central to the understanding of this pun is the notion of the 多音字: a character that has multiple readings. The one you need to know for this pun is the rather basic character 都. …
27
Nov
2005
2005
Slight Site Reorganization
Some of you may have noticed that the URL of my weblog has changed. It’s now /life/ instead of /weblog/. This is not because I think “Life” is a great name for my weblog, or because I think this is not a blog or something. I actually liked using the name “weblog” because it’s the simplest, most accurate description.
The reason for the change is Google. I had the word “weblog” in both the title of the HTML document …
26
Nov
2005
2005
Cold as Poison
I’ve been doing occasional translation work lately. It produced this IM conversation with Brad:
John: ARRGHHH… look what I have to translate into English:
学生：老师，有一个同学还没来呢。[Student: Teacher, one student isn't here yet.]
老师：他生病了。 [Teacher: He's sick.]
大家：啊？ [Students: What??]
老师：他昨天到家喝了冰的汽水，晚上就发烧，拉肚子了。[Teacher: Yesterday he went home and drank cold soda. That evening he came down with a fever and got diarrhea.]
Brad: hahahahahahahaha
John: I hate that [nonsense]!!!
John: fever AND diarrhea from a cold
…
25
Nov
2005
2005
学习中文的五个阶段
几年前我用英文写了一篇《The Five Stages to Learning Chinese》，为对外汉语做了我自己小小的贡献。好像有不少学习中文的外国人觉得我写的有道理。其中有Alex—一个住在台湾的澳大利亚籍朋友。他把我的文章翻译成中文，也加了一点台湾的味道。如果你有兴趣，请看看中文版：《学习中文的五个阶段》。…
25
Nov
2005
2005
A Look at Traffic
Traffic can be pretty crazy here. I think it’s not as bad in Shanghai as in other parts of China. Some countries’ streets seem even more frantic, however. And yet, amidst all the chaos, traffic still flows…
Traffic in Saigon:
…
23
Nov
2005
2005
Shanghai Book Swap #2
The first one was a success, so here we go again. The second Shanghai Book Swap happens this Saturday. Be there!
I have to admit, I haven’t had time to read the handful of books I got at the first book swap. I’ve got my hands full with work and school, so occasionally taking in pieces of Asimov’s Foundation series is about all the non-school-related reading I’ve been doing lately, aside from browsing God’s Debris. But it is the …
22
Nov
2005
2005
Thanksgiving Dinner in Shanghai
It has always been my policy in China that if I can’t be with my family for Thanksgiving, I should at least try to get in some good Thanksgiving eating. Last year I had my Thanksgiving dinner with Brad at a Sofitel Hotel in Pudong. At around 200 rmb, it was pretty expensive, and not fantastic. This year I made some more phone calls to find out which American hotel chains in Shanghai were having Thanksgiving dinners. …
21
Nov
2005
2005
Chinese Breakup
This is another Chinese “love story,” but without a happy ending this time. It’s called “My girlfriend got pregnant, but she won’t marry me.”
We had been together for eight full months, and our relationship was going great. But last month I wasn’t careful enough, and my girlfriend got pregnant. I felt truly sorry about that — we weren’t married, after all. When I found out she was pregant, I took a week off work to be with
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