Long Legged Fly is at it again with his Onion-style articles. (This has been done before, most notably by the not-updated-since-2006 Gou-rou.com, but I especially like the ones that Long Legged Fly chooses to write.) This time it’s CHINA DISCOVERS DEMOCRACY ACTUALLY INVENTED IN CHINA.
An excerpt:
As with their invention of the modern game of soccer, the probability that two different civilizations could separately invent such dauntingly complex things as voting or kicking a ball around
…
Remember how my visa went 144 days overdue, then when I got it renewed, I only got a 2 month visa? Well, I got my new passport, then I finally got my new visa. Today. Looks like I’ll never need to apply for a student visa again. For me, that is a satisfying conclusion.
Speaking of satisfying conclusions, I’ll soon be able to put closure soon on another story I once told here on this blog. Can anyone guess …
My end of the term pragmatics/semantics paper looked at the use of the English word “my” in certain constructions and compared it with the corresponding “我的” constructions in Chinese.
When you say “my X” in English, it could actually mean a variety of things, but we generally expect it to mean something like “the X that belongs to me.” Such is the case for “my book,” “my blog,” my hand,” etc. When X is a societal unit or …
I’m a bit late in calling attention to this, but it looks like I got my name on a Chinese crayon. Well, a Sinocidal crayon, anyway.
What they call “John Pasden Gator Green” is affectionately (?) referred to by my friends as “Sinosplice Green,” or, to the slightly nerdier, #336633.
I’ve been pondering a redesign lately. I won’t have time to do it until late summer, but I’m thinking… Less green. More white. More space. Wider than 800 pixels.…
Roddy of Chinese-Forums.com brought to my attention 小i, a Chinese chatbot. Roddy had some amusing exchanges, but 小i has a less cute side as well.
When the subject of Japan or the Japanese come up, 小i responds:
不怎么样，非常恶心的 (it’s not too great, really disgusting)
坚决打倒～～ (resolutely overthrow)
没去过，但是他们说日本人挺恶心的！ (I’ve never been, but they say the Japanese are quite disgusting!)
When the subject of the Taiwanese comes up, 小i responds:
我不喜欢台湾人，太小气了 (I don’t like the Taiwanese, they’re too stingy)
…
There’s not much to do while waiting for the subway other than look at the ads (and also wonder if a crazy person might ever push someone else onto the track in front of an oncoming train). Here’s the worst one I’ve ever seen:
Just looking at it makes my intellect hurt. Never mind that I’m not the target audience… this is simply horrific.…
In lieu of a real post, I will link to a ChinaDaily article about some foreigner in China that probably thinks he’s hot stuff.
We bitter expats in China hate guys like this.
(Hmmm, could lack of posting correspond to my recent acquisition of God of War 2? Nah… I’m busy, I tell you!)…
I recently went to my local video game store and asked when God of War 2 was coming out (yeah, I’m a little excited about this game). They told me March 15th. Well, this past week at ChinesePod was really busy, working hard to implement all kinds of new features.
Yesterday (March 16th) after work, I met my wife for dinner. She asked about God of War 2. I had forgotten about it. We rushed over to a …
I had the following conversation with a woman this morning after she called my cell phone for the second time:
Woman: Hi, are you Pan Meihua?
Me: No. You’ve got the wrong number again.
Woman: Are you sure? What’s your name?
Me: Yes. My name is Pan Ji, not Pan Meihua.
Woman: But do you know Zhang Jie?
Me: What?
Woman: Zhang Jie! Do you know her?
Me: Well, I know a “Zhang Jie,” but it’s a pretty common name…
…
I’ve been doing work for “Version 3″ of ChinesePod for quite a while now, but it was sort of not public so I couldn’t really say anything. Now the fabulous news is coming to light. Ken and Hank are blogging about it. The latest is: Brand new look. So if I’ve told you “I’m really busy at work” recently, this is why. (Also because new hire Adsotrans Dave is wreaking havoc in the office and stealing my pens.)
In …
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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