What practical impact do the big slogans have on 老百姓?  I see this one, 构建和谐社会, literally everywhere. It's in the buses, on TV adverts, notice boards, and even at the entrance to my 小区.

Category: Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant

hey all you.. peoples, dogs, w/evers-

some people think that chinese is one of the hardest lang. out there.. are they right? you answer...

yea chinese is mostly about the culture, wealth, and they use there lang. as symbols to deff. the word they are saying. i can hardly speak a sentence, but let me say-

i liked this one guy from china, and we talked... and talked... and talked for like 2 monthes THEN he stopped. just out of the clear blue sky BOOM! lol haha well i'm over it- thats what i get, we have never met and met over the internet (stupid) (kind of), but the thing is is that some people think that chinese people don't have that much emotions than Americans- is that true???

you can answer....

i have never been to china, ive had one friend he was nice, and SEEN a couple of chinese people. but never been there, i eat chinese food. :) and i watch alot of chinese movies..:) but YEA.

seeing the lang. looks hard, some say that if ya know spanish it helps out alot with diff. languages... WRONG! chinese has no comparrasion wat so ever (my understanding) to spanish HOLA NIHAO!.. no.

-Jlynn B.

 P.S- if i spelled hello in chinese wrong, you can deff. tell how much i suck at it, but whats the fun in being sucky... thats why i'm learning it. :)

Once in a while I get a (often hand-crafted!) spam message in my CPod Inbox.

There are two types:

• "Let's become language partners"
• "I am a good looking girl! Contact me!"
  

But once I received something that I interpreted as a hybrid (athough I am not sure)! It was classic - definately worthy of a DA! I will share it in anomyized form:

Hello, compliment of the season to you, how is life> with you, i hope fine good. how ever i,ll like to introduce my self to you.i am [English girl's name],a healthly and beautiful lady.i am interested in having you as my friend/partner and to exchange language .so if you are interested contact me,i will send you my picture>and> full profile as soon as you contact me immediately.you can contact me with this email address:::::::: [email]. THANK,s Miss [name]

Now what caught my attention was the introduction of being "a healthly and beautiful lady". "Beautiful" might help for language exchange. But "healthy"? "

By the way: Of course I responded in a most delighted manner. As I am currently not in need of a language partner, I invited her to join the 红楼梦-group and help us out there. Too bad she didn't. We could really need some healthy and beautiful native speakers with motivating avatars over there.

This is on National Geographic music paired with Calabash Music by Sa Ding Ding, "Alive"

I thought I would share the above resource and post a question.  My current Chinese learning project is to improve business vocabulary and, to that end, I purchased the pictured textbook, 實用商業會話/实用商业会话 at National Taiwan Normal University's bookstore last month.  I've always been very happy with the quality of 台大's texts, and this one is no exception.  Like most texts, it starts with a conversation, and then proceeds with vocabulary, substitution drills, etc.  There are twelve short chapters (115 pages total), with each chapter covering a businessman/woman from a different country in a different situation (e.g. Japanese setting up a meeting, Saudi dealing with non-alcoholic banquet, etc.)  The level seems to be upper-intermediate-ish (mostly Chinese except for the vocabulary), though within the range of a solid intermediate-level learner.  There is also a similar second volume.

So, for my question, are there any other poddies out there who are studying/have studied business vocabulary?  What tools outside of CPod do you use?  Any ideas/recommendations?  This book is around seven years-old and uses traditional characters, so it's not for everybody.  What simplified texts exist?  Anyone run across a book designed for self-study (i.e. one with the answers)?

ok, I usually don't ask such questions in this type of forum, but here goes....

Has any cpodder seen an African or African-American in any of these hair salons? would any cpodder recommend/suggest a good barber/stylist anywhere in China for a black person?  As an African-American, I've seen zillions of hair salons, at least in Lanzhou where I used to live.  But since there were few black people in Lanzhou, I never saw any black guys getting haircuts.  I'm wondering what Chinese barber/hair stylist might have done to my head, had I been brave enough (or drunk enough) to let one experiment on me.  Or would it have been an experiment?  Maybe in Beijing or Shanghai, there's one place where all the black people are getting their hair styled/trimmed/shaved/braided, and it's being done by the Chinese employee at the Kenyan embassy or something that was familar with how to deal effectively with a black person's hair.  Maybe that Chinese person would have been skilled enough to braid Carmelo Anthony's hair when he wasn't playing basketball during the Olympics. Maybe i'm just paranoid.  Thoughts? You didn't even think this was an issue?

chinaseite.de hat ein Buchprojekt initiiert, um das gegenseitige Verständnis zu fördern: http://forum.chinaseite.de/ftopic6125.html

Es werden verschiedene Fragen gestellt und daraus dann

Das Buch soll ein wertvoller und vor allem auch zeitloser Ratgeber für die verschiedensten Situationen im Leben werden, in denen ein interkulturelles Zusammentreffen zweier oder mehrerer Menschen erfolgt. Somit ist dieses Buch ausdrücklich an Chinesen und an Deutsche gerichtet. Durch die Erfassung verschiedenster Aspekte im Leben soll somit der Fokus dieses Buches auf die unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen, Auffassungen, Erfahrungen liegen.

Mir gefällt die Idee und auch die Fragen sind ganz nett.

Leider kann ich (noch) nicht auf Chinesisch antworten. (Auch wenn das etwas überflüssig wäre ...) 

Here's a link to a new Chinese reading project developed by Cynthia Ning (University of Hawaii) and Michael Everson (University of Iowa) and managed through the National (U.S.) Foreign Language Resourse Center.

From the website:

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, these Read Chinese materials were developed to provide online e-learning reading lessons aimed at beginning and intermediate students of the language.

The materials respond to a rapidly growing interest in Chinese language study among American secondary school students. Using a variety of topics selected to interest high school students, the materials also reflect the national standards established for Chinese by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, as well as the latest principles in online instructional design. The materials may be easily used by individual learners studying on their own or by teachers assigning them for individual or group study.

Each lesson is available in both the Simplified characters used now in the People's Republic of China and in the Traditional "Full-Form" characters that are still used in Taiwan, in Singapore, and many overseas Chinese communities.

Using this service, Chinespod, I wonder at times, how people of the different language groups of the  華人 consider the theoretical nature of Chineseness. History, language, food, writing system, customs? All seem to vary a great deal within Greater China and its communities worldwide.

Some aspects of history can be a point to think a certain degree of familiarness to what it is to be Chinese. This question could be thrown the other way, what is to be European/Western, Latino, African,  etc.  Until about 500-600 years ago, the Japanese were proud of their Chineseness, but division of "race" ( forgive the archaic word which is meaningless in scientific terms, but still socially used) had further been reinforced with European colonial powers.

This could call for another lesson, but I would like to hear some insights on the concept of Chineseness.

How do you say 'stereotype' - as in the following sentence:

'It is unwise to rely on stereotypes to judge people from a different culture to your own.'  

Dictionary definitions I have found seem to convey the sense of 'outmoded or old-fashioned ideas', which is not an accurate translation of the English.