Friday morning I’ll be on a plane to Qingdao (青岛). I’ll have just missed the beer festival, but that doesn’t matter. I’m sure Qingdao is not out of beer, and the city’s still there to be seen. I’ll take Monday to do just that.
Tuesday I’ll fly out to Yinchuan (银川), capital of Ningxia (宁夏) Province. I’m told the agent is going to take us sightseeing there. Yinchuan is next to the Gobi Desert and mountains, and there’s supposed …
Recently I had a chance to tour three of Shanghai’s main universities as part of a last-ditch effort to find someone for my company ASAP. The idea was to visit schools with Chinese study programs, find the foreigners, and possibly recruit a qualified one. I chose a really hot day to do it. In one day I covered Shanghai Jiao Tong University (上海交通大学), then East China Normal University (华东师范大学), and finally Shanghai International Studies University (上海外国语大学). (Notably absent from this …
In order to become really fluent in a foreign language, it’s more than just a matter of learning vocabulary and grammar and stringing them together flawlessly. Some of the hardest aspects to master in order to sound truly native-like are intonation and accent. Usually there comes a point when, either through lack of effort or through linguistic inability, non-native speakers stop improving (look at Arnold Schwarzenegger). Linguists call this phenomenon fossilization. (The term fossilization is usually applied to …
My company is still busy preparing a bunch of short educational cartoons. They’re supposed to air on CCTV at the end of August, I think. (I’ll let you all know.)
Anyway, I seem to have been typecast. Last time I played the voice of a slow-witted pig named “Dudu” (the Chinese think this name is cute, and even after they found out what “doo-doo” means in English, refused to change his name!). For this recent run of cartoons, …
My company has decided that there’s too much work here for me to handle on my own, so they’ve asked me to find a second. Another person that can do my job. Only problem is, since I am quite busy, I don’t have a lot of time to look for someone. I just got back from Dezhou. Tomorrow I go to Fuzhou for 3 days. When I get back the next day I’ll go to Wuxi for 5 days. Then …
Japanese was my major in college, but I’ve barely used it in these three years (almost four) that I’ve been in China. A testament to the worthlessness of a language degree? Or of any degree? Or have I just chosen a “career path” which renders my major particularly ineffectual?
I remember in my final year at UF I won an award for outstanding Japanese major of the year (I beat out the three other people in my class), and I …
I mentioned recently that I’ve done the voice of an animated pig for a series of short educational cartoons at my company. Well, the first cartoon is done, and online already. If you’re interested, go to the …
They’ve been keeping me busy with lots of different tasks at work lately. I once complained that foreign teachers in China are expected to play the role of “singing dancing game-playing clown entertainers.” Working in Shanghai was supposed to get me out of that role and into more serious work where I could use Chinese. Ironically, while it has succeeded in that respect, it has also simultaneously brought me closer than ever to the “singing dancing game-playing clown entertainer” role.…
My company is looking to hire a few people for part-time or short-term work, and it has enlisted my aid. I decided to add a new section to my site: Sinosplice Jobs.
I wanted to have a blast in Hangzhou all weekend, but somehow it turned out to be largely about getting legal.
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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