So now that I’m working on the academic side of ChinesePod one of the first things I want to do is start expanding the Chinese pedagogy resource library. There are all kinds of great resources out there, but what I want to focus on first is the more complete sets intended for formal education. I want to collect the best Chinese textbooks.
When I first began studying Chinese at University of Florida in 1998, we used a series by Yale …
Recently Andrea invited me to Douban. I had never heard of it, but I checked it out. My first impression was negative. Although it’s not a photo sharing service, the site’s design and “Web2.0″ social networking structure was completely ripped off of Flickr. But I explored a little.
I found that I really liked Douban! The site allows you to share what books you are currently reading, what books you have read, and what books you’d like to …
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 …
I’m announcing this late because I don’t want the story to be picked up by any major Shanghai websites. It’s an experiment, and we want to keep the numbers reasonable. If you’re a Sinosplice reader that lives in Shanghai, feel free to show up, though.
Thanks to Tien for all the help!
Update: Although we only had 10 people, we all had a good time, and we all did some swapping. I’d say it was a success! We’re all hoping …
As I understand it, the universtity, in conjunction with the Party, assigns approved textbooks to all courses. Students must buy these books. Then, when it comes to actually teaching the course, the professors choose how much those official textbook choices are used and how much other materials the professors personally select are used. The book I was so busy studying for a while, Modern Chinese (现代汉语, 上海教育出版社), is one of the ones chosen by the Party. That can …
I bought this book a while back solely because of its title: 老外也会喜欢你 (“Foreigners Will Like You Too”). The author was a twenty-something Chinese woman and, judging from the book’s cover (oops), the intended audience was Chinese women. It seemed likely that the laowai referred to in the title were male ones. Like me. This was going to be entertaining, I thought.
I was very wrong. Every time I tried to read the book, it failed completely to hold …
In my junior year of college I decided that I wanted to go live in China after graduation. Around that time I picked up a well-known book called Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman (1987). It was the story of an innocent young American with a love for kung fu who went to teach English in China in the early 80s. It was a simple story.
[Sidenote: While I found the story to be a reasonably entertaining introduction at …
Murakami Haruki (or Haruki Murakami to most of the Western world) is one of my favorite authors. His novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is probably my favorite book. I was introduced to his works in college Japanese class when we read the short story 「蛍」.
Micah is also a big fan of Murakami. He recently brought to my attention that the new novel Kafka on the Shore has been translated into Chinese and been …
What have I been doing for the past 2 weeks (besides trying to get my site back online)? It seems like a lot of nothing, but the list goes something like this:
You gave your life to become the person you are right now.
Was it worth it? –Richard Bach
Few quotes get me thinking these days like this one did. It’s easy to blow it off without pondering it, but I found it a very worthwhile rumination.
I found the quote in a blog called imo. Interestingly, two of the four quotes on that page are also on my quotes page. (Not the one above, though.) Good quotes.
I …
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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