Sam Flemming does a great job on the China Internet Word of Mouth Blog, but I have just run across my favorite article yet: Netizens find new channels for self expression.
Sam explains how net-savvy Chinese have re-appropriated the character 囧, using it for what it looks like (a distraught face), rather than for what it originally meant (“bright,” apparently). Sam explains various dimensions of the phenomenon on his blog, but this is really cool for linguistic …
My friend Illy passed on to me a link to the blackout poems of Austin Kleon. Here’s the one that most caught my eye:
The craziest thing is that I actually had this idea before. I tried to do it with stories about China, and I failed miserably. I’m not sure whether it was the material I had to work with or my own lack of creativity at fault. Cool to see that Austin has more than pulled it …
It’s been a while since I last wrote about sign language, but some interesting YouTube videos by Alice (胡晓姝) recently pulled me back into it.
Below is the video that I found most fascinating. It’s subtitled in Chinese, but worth a watch even if you don’t read Chinese. I’ll sum up the main points in English below the video.
Before I list Alice’s main points, I need to first explain some background. In the video, Alice discusses …
Some good things I recently came across:
Gladder: an auto-proxy addon for Firefox. Very convenient! Unlike TOR, it’s not either “always on” or “always off.” Just works for the sites you need it to work on. How did I not find out about this sooner?? (Via JP)
Olympic Game Piracy. Shameless. The best thing to do about this is to spread the word when it happens and turn up the scorn. (Via Dave)
OK, I’ve gotten over this annoying message I see anytime I try to access a Google Video:
I’ve gotten over it mainly because I don’t ever use Google Video. YouTube has everything. Today, for the first time, I got this:
(Text reads: This video is not available in your country.)
Thanks a lot for spreading this helpful practice to YouTube, Google. This is so annoying. Has anyone else in China gotten this? Fortunately I’ve only gotten it once, …
This video via Micah, via Shanghai Eye.
Urge to make cynical smartass remarks… nearly overpowering… URRGGgg…
All right, I’m OK now. But seriously, that video is just begging to be made fun of.
On a positive note, it’s a nice collection of everyday Chinese scenes (set though they may be in a parallel harmonious universe).…
A recent post on LanguageHat called Bad Language got me thinking about the laowai (老外) issue again. Yes, it’s a rather tired (often overly emotional) discussion, but I think that LanguageHat’s very rational view on the topic offers a new perspective on the matter.
Basically, LanguageHat’s view is this:
Taiwan-based blogger Prince Roy visited Shanghai recently. It’s weird, because I’ve “known” the guy for about five years through the internet, but we only just met face to face.
On his blog he writes about his impressions of Shanghai in one post, and his encounters with John B, Micah, ChinesePod, and me in another post. Prince Roy talks about food a lot, so I’m happy that he wasn’t disappointed with the Hunanese restaurant I took him …
A while back John B introduced me to a blog called All Japanese All the Time, in which the author describes how he became fluent in Japanese while living in the States, in a relatively short amount of time. The key, as the name implies, is to immerse oneself in Japanese as much as possible. In our world of digital media, it’s not too hard to find listening material for a language like Japanese. Load this stuff onto your …
Years ago I wrote about tiny Chinese food refrigerator magnets. Chinese food has returned, this time to grace our cell phones. My friend Kris spotted these in China a few weeks ago, and recently gave an update with a better picture:
For a detailed run-down of what the food is, check out Kris’s entry on it. He also comments:
They are basically rubber, but after inspecting a few I’m still not convinced the hongshao rou is not the
…
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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