China’s “Bachelor’s Day” (光棍节) is becoming more and more internationally known. It is still, however, not what you might call “well-known” (that Wikipedia article, for example, is the shortest Wikipedia article I’ve seen in years!). Urban Dictionary offers this definition for “bachelor day“:
November 11, a day represented by four digits of 1, dubbed by young single Chinese. The “Bachelor Day” has been initiated by single college students and, although enjoys no
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By now I hope you’ve heard of Living with Dead Hearts, a documentary project spearheaded by Charlie Custer of ChinaGeeks which aims to spread awareness of a very serious social problem in China:
Each year, as many as 70,000 children are kidnapped in China. They are not held for ransom; rather, they are sold. The lucky ones are sold into new families who raise them like adopted children; others are sold into slave labor, marriage, prostitution, and lives on
…
Albert Camus was my favorite of the authors we read in high school; The Stranger (《局外人》 in Chinese) was my favorite book. Recently I was reading some of Camus’s famous quotes, and I was struck by how applicable many of them are now to modern China:
“At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.”
“Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.”
“The society based on production is
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There are a lot of buskers in Shanghai. I’m not sure how most people feel about them. I certainly don’t mind the blind guys playing erhu, or the guitarists in the park. But rarely do I actually really like their performances. I enjoy hearing this guy every time I catch him on the stairs of Exit 2 at the Zhongshan Park Line 2 subway station:
He plays piano music on his boombox, and then accompanies it on his (amplified) …
In the wake of China’s recent bullet train disaster, I came across this poll on 开心网 (kaixin001.com):
Transcription:
拿什么来拯救我们的国家？ (最多可选5项)
- 自由
- 关爱
- 文化
- 勤勉
- 责任
- 法制
- 经济
- 信仰
- 信任
- 教育
- 改革
- 武器
- 科技
- 公平
- 秩序
- 第七感
- 正义
- 资源环境
- 生命
- 没希望 不想救了
Translation:
What can save our country? (choose no more than 5)…
- freedom
- love
- culture
- diligence
- responsibility
- law
- economics
- faith
- education
- reform
- weapons
- technology
- fairness
- order
- the 7th sense
- justice
- natural resources
- life
- there’s no hope; don’t want
I’ve mentioned before that I occasionally indulge in the Chinese dating show 非诚勿扰. There’s another one of these reality TV-type Chinese shows that I watch from time to time called 非你莫属 (English name: “Only You”). On this show, each entrant is a job applicant given a chance to explain the type of job he’s looking for and interview with a panel of 12 bosses right there on camera. If all goes well, the bosses make offers to the applicant, …
The Chinese neologism 裸婚 (literally, “naked wedding”) came up in an AllSet Learning client’s lesson, and I think it’s an interesting word with social implications, worth taking a look at.
The word has its own page on the Chinese wiki Hudong: 裸婚. The brief explanation is:
“裸婚”指的是不买房、不买车、不办婚礼、不买婚戒，直接登记结婚的一种节俭的结婚方式。自古以来，婚姻一直都被人们看做是人生的头等大事，而婚礼的隆重与否直接体现了整个家族的地位。然而，近年来“裸婚”风渐渐盛行，成为“80后”最新潮的结婚方式。
And the English translation:
“Naked wedding” refers to not buying a house, not buying a car, not having a wedding ceremony, not buying wedding rings, and just directly registering legally for marriage
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As a result of a rather whimsical decision made by my wife, I found myself at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre for the first time last Saturday, attending a Chinese language version of the classic play Twelve Angry Men. I enjoyed it way more than I expected to.
To begin with, I was surprised by how “Chinese” the story seemed. The part about there being no air conditioning and the fan not working, and one of the guys wanting …
China is known to be a nation of heavy smokers. So I was taken by surprise when I overheard this exchange in a beef noodle restaurant in the Cloud Nine (龙之梦) mall by Shanghai’s Zhongshan Park:
Customer: 服务员，烟灰缸！ [Waitress, (bring an) ashtray!]
Waitress: 这里不可以吸烟。 [You can't smoke here.]
Customer: 有吸烟区吗？ [Is there a smoking section?]
Waitress: 没有。 [No.]
Customer: [grumble, grumble]
In case you’re not familiar with China, let me tell you what’s surprising.
The guy
I remember when a big new Carrefour supermarket opened down the street from my Shanghai apartment I was quite happy about it at first. The convenience! Everything I needed, including a few imports, and for reasonable prices, right down the street.
Photo by Ek Chin Tan
As it turns out, that Carrefour was too popular. It was absolutely packed, all the time. I never wanted to go into that madhouse. Eventually I learned that there were certain times when …
John has lived in China for
12.7
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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