China According to the Chinese

Micah posts two hilarious maps of China (Chinese required):

Sorry, I’m a bit too busy lately to translate this, but it’s quite revealing culturally, so if you’re a student of Chinese, it’s worth it to get out your China map and a dictionary.

Unkind as it may sound, I got a huge kick out of the labels placed by both groups on the Wenzhounese. (I need to…

Digging a Hole to China: Fun with Antipodes

Watching the Simpsons Movie over the weekend, I was reminded of something I frequently heard as a child: “if you dig a hole straight down through the Earth, you’ll end up in China.” It’s not true, of course… you’d end up in China only if your tunnel totally missed the center of the Earth.

I asked some Chinese friends about this. Were they ever told that if they dug a hole straight down through the Earth they’d end up…

Best Interactive Flash Shanghai Subway Map

I am very impressed with the Explore Shanghai subway map. It features:

  • Instant English/Chinese language toggle
  • Audio recordings of the station names (in Chinese)
  • A color scheme matching Shanghai’s actual subway maps’
  • Instant station locator dropdown menu
  • Trippy “night mode”
  • Move the map by dragging on an empty spot
  • Get the fare and time estimate between any two stations by clicking on the starting point and dragging to the end point

That last feature is really killer. It…

Work Work Work

It is now Year of the Dog, and I find myself working during my vacation. What am I working at? Well…

  • This past weekend it was getting the site online at the new server. That’s now mostly done.
  • Now it’s a big freelance translation job. Ahhh, translation… the work I love to hate. It certainly pays well over Chinese New Year, though. (Supply and demand, you have been kind to me this once…)
  • Map editing. I took a freelance

Maps and Chinese

I like maps. When I was younger, I especially liked looking at maps of imagined fantasy worlds. I drew quite a few myself (although I was never quite nerdy enough to actually use them to play D&D or anything like that).

In high school, fantasy writer Piers Anthony‘s map of Xanth caught my attention because the geography was clearly (mostly) Florida’s, and yet so much was not the same. I think it’s a similar…

Shanghai Maps

Shanghai is big and its streets are confusing, so finding an exact location can be quite an ordeal. I recently found a great new resource to help deal with that problem.

You may know of Wang Jianshuo’s online Shanghai map. I have found it quite useful in the past. Its special feature is the ability to mark any location on the map, which creates a unique URL you can send to someone so they can view the exact location.…

Being a Foreigner in a Small Chinese Town

Being a foreigner in a smallish Chinese town is quite an experience. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you’re a spectacle. Everything is difficult for you. Nothing goes as expected. If you can speak any Chinese, your (near-constant) audience will be amazed and enthralled. Frequently being the center of attention of a group of non-English-speaking people can really spur one to improve one’s Chinese. A foreigner in a smallish Chinese town who can speak Chinese fairly well can quite quickly…

Sinosplice and all material found herein © 2002-2010, John Pasden. All rights reserved.
Sinosplice is happily hosted by WebFaction. Design by Dao By Design