Shortly after I moved to Shanghai in early 2004 I decided to hire an ayi (housekeeper/maid) to do some cooking and cleaning. (Her last name was Zhou, so I’ll call her “Zhou Ayi.”) I really enjoyed having a cook, and I wasn’t shy about expressing my great satisfaction with Zhou Ayi. Things were great for a while.
Over time, our relationship worsened. I find it difficult to explain exactly how or why, but I’ll try.…
Kid art! Dontcha just love it? I mean, how can you not get some interesting results when you combine children’s undeveloped fine motor skills, a severely incomplete understanding of the world in virtually every aspect, and ART? It’s a clear recipe for entertainment, I say. Sure, you may get the occasional four-year-old’s disgustingly pathetic attempts at cubism, but you also get some real gems.
About a year ago, a kindergarten gave me a pack of postcards which were made from …
Have you ever heard of Exploding Dog? It’s a website where Sam Brown, the artist, takes suggestions for titles, then turns them into simple, awkward drawings that can leave quite an impression. I’ve known about Exploding Dog since way before my more recent affair with webcomics, and I’ve even linked to it here once (wow, that old entry feels a little embarrassing now…).
Exploding Dog
Anyone at all familiar with Exploding Dog knows that although the drawings are very …
Recently I was discussing the Chinese education system with a Shanghainese friend, and she told told me a story. [Note: This is just one person's story, not a blanket generalization. I'm sharing it because I found it interesting.]
When I was in fifth grade, there were two girls that were at the top of the class. One of them was my friend. The other was the teacher’s favorite. I remember that there was a big test, and my friend
…
About a year ago I presented a Hakka version of Jingle Bells and a lot of people enjoyed it. I thought this year I’d share another Chinese take on the Christmas classics. This time it’s a band called Cookies (曲奇) singing in Cantonese (so to me it sounds almost as bizarre as the Hakka song). You have to listen to a bit of Canto-pop before they get into it, but at the 1:26 mark they start singing to …
Recently I set up the little artificial Christmas tree my girlfriend bought for my last year. When I went to put the Christmas lights on it, I found that one of the wires had come disconnected from the switchbox. I probably wouldn’t be able to fix it without a soldering iron. Since I didn’t have time to get new Christmas lights, I just left the tree plain.
The next day my ayi came over and I pointed out the Christmas …
In the past few months I’ve discovered a weird new kind of tea. At first I thought the people drinking it were just freaks. I watched some people scooping out spoonfuls of what appeared to be jam, schlopping it into mugs, adding hot water, stirring it up real good, and drinking it. I was shocked by this behavior. Clearly, jam is meant for bread and crescent rolls and such, not hot water.
Citron Tea
These people explained to me, …
I was talking to John B recently about his latest project: chengu.info. It involves chengyu (成语), those special (usually) four-character Chinese idioms. It got me to thinking about the study of chengyu and their relevance to Chinese study. I’m of the opinion that chengyu study is not crucial at the early stages, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to pick a few up early, either. I view chengyu as sort of the icing on the Chinese ability cake. …
Assuming that you’ve given it some thought and decided to hire an ayi (housekeeper), you might still be unsure how this whole thing works. I’ll try to answer a few questions based on my own experiences.
How do you find an ayi?
The first way is the referral system. People that have found a good ayi usually love to recommend her. Most ayis need multiple jobs to make a decent living, so they welcome the introductions. People also …
2002年我建立了China Blog List（“中国博客表”简称CBL）。CBL上的博客都是关于中国，用英语写的博客。有的是中国人写的，但大部分是生活在中国的外国人写的。原来CBL在华结这个网站上，但今年它已经独立了，有了自己的网站。
CBL独立之后有些新加的内容。首先它现在还有非英语写的博客，和英语写的博客分开。大多数是用法文写的，但还有用西班牙文、德文等写的。其次这个月也加了汉语为第二语言（Chinese as a Second Language，简称CSL）博客表。现在有十多个外国人用中文写博客，我不过是其中一个，也并不算写得很好的一个。请大家看一下CSL表。其中有不少好的博客，他们启发了我多写我的中文博客（亲爱的读者们，你们别绝望！）。
最后我还想解释：CBL没有中国人写的博客，除非他们用英文写（像王健硕、冰风、Leylop）。对不起，中国人写的博客实在太多，我一个人承不了那么重的担！…
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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