It is now Year of the Dog, and I find myself working during my vacation. What am I working at? Well…
I’m in the process of moving my whole site to a new server. What a headache. I think it will be worth it, though.
Anyway, you won’t see any new entries for a little while, and if the site goes down at all, you know why.
Please don’t comment until I say that everything is working on the new server, or your comment may be lost. Thanks.
UPDATE: I have hit a major snag which will probably delay the move …
I’ve been looking forward to seeing the new movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I read (or was read) all those books when I was in third and fourth grade, and enjoyed them immensely. I don’t remember them very well, so I was looking forward to rediscovering some of that feeling when I saw the movies.
I watched the movie with my girlfriend, who is Chinese. She was not familiar with the stories, and was not raised in …
Windows is a “chain” of bars in Shanghai. The original Windows bar was so successful that Windows Too was opened, followed by Windows Tembo and Windows Scoreboard. A segment of the Shanghai population considers Windows trashy, and not without reason. I still think Windows is not bad at all, though, for the following reasons:
The drinks are really cheap. 10 rmb gin and tonics! All drinks are 10 or 20 rmb. (Drinks in most Shanghai bars start at 30 or
A scene I imagined, based on real events:
The middle-aged woman knocked on the dingy office door. “Shei ah?” an impatient man’s voice cried from within. “What do you want?”
“I was hoping I could get a job,” the woman replied. “I have experience selling on the streets, and my friend Xiao Li told me you need DVD vendors.”
The door opened and the woman was admitted. “Yeah, we do. Not just any DVDs, though. These are adult
…
It’s time for a special treat. In fact, today you get two great treats in one: Flash animation and modern Chinese propaganda! It’s cheesey. It’s trippy. It’s got music, a disembodied constitution-procuring hand, voting, lime green birds, and a scene stolen directly from Disney’s “It’s a Small World After All.” Perhaps most mystifying is the fact that for all the people that appear in the cartoon, there is exactly one nose. Check it out for yourself.
…
Wendy’s Ad
While reading an article (via John B’s latest blog) about how awesome my alma mater is at basketball this season, I came across this Wendy’s ad.
My first thought was, “Wendy’s would have a hard time succeeding in China.”
My second thought was, “I hope, for the sake of my own health, that Wendy’s never comes to China.”…
About a month after saying goodbye to Zhou Ayi (the housekeeper that went bad), I found a better job that once again enabled me to be home evenings for a cooking ayi. I was not at all discouraged by my previous bad experience; I was ready for a new ayi (and so was the apartment).
I used the “agency method.” When I walked into the little office, there was a woman at a desk, several middle-aged woman …
How is living in China like an RPG? You’d be surprised at all the similarities. Examples: “It takes place in a magical world where people believe in mystical concepts like qi and fengshui,” “The people take legends very seriously (even 5,000 year old ones),” and “The word ‘peasant’ doesn’t seem out of place.”
什么叫民族精神？去年在“西方语言学著名选读”课上我们讨论了德国哲学家洪堡特。洪堡特认为语言是民族精神。所谓“民族精神”就是德文里的Geist。但是它到底是什么？
如果你说民族精神是一个民族骨子里（甚至DNA里）的东西，我不相信它存在。每个民族都有它的文化，从古至今代代相传。我不觉得有什么神秘的“民族精神”。一个民族的特征全都能用文化、地理、历史来解释。
“民族精神”这个概念往往成为政治家的工具，用来操纵大众。可怕的是“民族精神”经常是战争、矛盾发生的原因。多么荒谬，为了政治家的某些欲念那么多人愿意恨、愿意打、愿意死………
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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