If you met x and had the opportunity to ask one question,what would it be?

Hi 姚明先生

你平时穿的西服是几号的？

矮人没有生活的原因。

Ni xihuan qu ktv he chang ge Randy Newman de gequ ma?

下草草

Along those same lines I was thinking: Cheng I Sao (Ching Shih). They'd definitely be entertaining guests, that's for sure.

oh right,thanks for clarifying.I can see that now.

Hi kimiik

I think that you can also say "出了名的人".

"出了名的人" is not correct ?

你这么出名，感觉怎么样？

Hi bababardwan,

This sentence was an answer to your second question on the top of this thread : "if you got to meet some famous Chinese person and ask one question,what would it be ?"

I'm not sure if "你这个出了名的人感觉怎么样？" is 100% correct but it feels alright and I would translate it by "You, as a person who turned famous, how do you feel (about your celebrity) ?"

意思是？。。you to be put forth amongst these famous people ,how do you feel about it? Was this a correct interpretation of your question?...and was it directed to the person named immediately above...ie John?

http://petsociety.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/pretzelfish2.jpg

呵呵，当然John帖子：

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2002/09/18/laowai-4ever

。。不过那帖子是近五年前，所以我想要如果他还感觉这样。

我想问Jenny,到目前为止，你最后悔的事是什么？

哈哈，我的问题是：“你最喜欢中国人的什么？”

差不多了 ;)

ok, i'll bite. John Pasden isn't Chinese.....

呵呵，我们这里所说的一切都是玩笑，千万不要当真啊！“Matter of fact”用汉语怎么说我也不知道，不过我觉得“不在乎年龄”这么说就行了吧。

当然咯，我开玩笑。当然Jenny不是十六岁或者四十岁。在西方女人真的是敏感对年龄，不过我前觉得中国的女人多"matter of fact"【在中文怎么说？。。也许。。无论事实。。我不觉得】对这样的事 【也许我错了？？】，而且听说中国人对老人有非常佩服【毕竟，我是二千五百六十零年岁】。

但是，如果我的笑话得罪那么，我就真的很抱歉

“大概二十八岁”也不行！女人对年龄很敏感，你多说一岁会伤害女人的心。不过，仔细想想，最没有礼貌的还是我，最好不问女人的岁数！

呵呵，我说了“大概”。。左右。。差不多。。。加上或减去十二年

不对，我估计她还不到二十八岁！就女人的年龄来说，按周岁算才有礼貌，呵呵。

我觉得你应该是很高兴因为我可以告诉你。。。听说Jenny是在狗年生的，所以我猜她是大概二十八岁的

这好像是一个最不该问的问题。朱老师，您今年多大岁数了？

中国人通常用这个词"谢拉德"吗？如果没用了，什么词经常用？我要一个近翻译。

这是一谢拉德吗？

那是什么了？

整个武术电影业

你认为你的接班人是谁？成龙还是李连杰？

What was that?

thanks zhen,

"mothers and the way they love their children"

...this was of course central to the theme of her talk and the promotion of her new book,and reminds me of another anecdote she related.She told of a woman she interviewed who lived in the public toilets and used to use the water in their for her cooking,and had a very menial job.Xinran was asked by some why she interviews women such as this one.She was very hurt by this question and spoke of how hard this woman worked under such difficult circumstances to put her son through uni where he had graduated and now held a high position.She spoke of how China was emerging as a very strong and successful nation but that it was on the backs of such dedicated mothers and this needed to be recognised. I can't relate it as well as she did but I thought it was a powerful message.

thank you for sharing your thoughts, the longer the better

... Baba only you would ever say that to me. （＾ｖ＾）

On a more serious note, lately I've been thinking a lot about mothers and the way they love their children, thinking just how how difficult it apparently is for so many of us to give simple love (support, affirmation, friendship, forgiveness) free of any expectations. I've also been thinking a lot about our ability with words, our vocabularies and how their limitations limit our thinking and the way we can view life, how so many people are misunderstood and angry, trapped by their lack of words. Those who do have the ability to use words have a responsibility don't they, to help those who lack in that regard (I have a poor vocab and not much of a way with words, but find that even one like myself can occasionally help another), who have no voice, articulate and identify. It takes a lot of empathy, labor and sacrifice I'm sure.

And yeah totally agree with Xinran, that the story of China needs to be told by many people, in all colors.

Yeah,I feel very lucky,and I think she obliged because she is not only warm but very considerate and generous.A very giving and selfless person who is driven by a concern for others is the impression I was left of her.She mentioned that she has been getting only 4 hours sleep a night while on this tour.I think it must be very emotionally draining.

No ,thankyou for sharing your thoughts,the longer the better. Yeah,as this was all stuff discussed in a public forum and I think she want's her stories out there as she wants to give voice to these people, I think she would be happy this stuff is shared here.

Baba you got Xinran to take a look at the thread on China's Lost Girls! That's cool.

And I meant "But you got to do it" of course.

Yeah I think that's always something you have to commit to if you've committed to telling stories that matter to you and are in the fortunate position of being able to reach worldwide audiences, whether you're writing books or are a filmmaker or playwright or whatever. I don't have personal experience, but guess that it shaves years off a director's lifespan to make an important film. But having done that, he still then has to go and do the promo upon the film's release, has to talk about what he has just given years of his life to express in the work itself, over and over again. He has to travel overseas, be confined to hotel suites to endure countless inane, irrelevant interview questions through interpreters ranging from fine to terrible (true in Japan unfortunately. apparently literate journalists are quite scarce here, English-speaking ones even more so). Intelligent discourse is not possible so he begins pointedly addressing those few he knows must be somewhere in the audience, trying desperately to keep his contempt at bay. I would think for an author a book tour (maybe physically more grueling with more traveling, and reading in addition to interviews), is hard in the same way; you get asked to articulate over and over again what it is that you've put yourself through such pain to express already in the work. But you go to do it, these people understand. We the general public are unaware and often disinterested, preoccupied with ourselves. They know they have to penetrate that lack of interest and get through to us for their work to make any difference. Still, I think if I were an author or filmmaker the PR part would drive me insane. So your impressions of Xinran and how warmly she engaged with you the audience, how earnest her replies, tell me how deep her commitment to her stories. Of course it is much better speaking to a group of about 50 people whom you know have come because they're interested in you and your work, than to some TV personality primarily concerned with how he looks interviewing you. Sorry for the rant! I really do appreciate your sharing this with us Baba, am envious that you got to speak with Xinran. Thanks.

ok,now another thing Xinran raised was about women's roles once they're married. She came across these young Chinese and Japanese women in London with what she described as crazy hairstyles [dyed pink and all sorts of colours] and when she questioned them why they styled their hair that way ,they explained that while they were single they were free to do as they pleased and so they were making the most of this while they could as they would not have that freedom once they were married.She seemed to express surprise that this was also still the case for young Japanese women [I think she referred to what a modern advanced society Japan was and yet these traditional roles seemed to persist ..at least that was her impression].

我十分佩服Xinran的热情，真诚，爱，以及她尊重和关怀的态度她回答了听众的问题

Xinran spoke of how she initially didn't want to go on a book tour [she was here on a book tour promoting her latest book "Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother"] as she found it too painful [as it was too personal..she emotionally referred to her Little Snow] ..and she had put it all in the book and wanted to leave it at that.She then talked of how she met/heard stories of people in Europe who had also been orphaned [eg after WW2] and of talks with European editors [I think she mentioned a Norwegian one] and how there were only about 5 books that told the story of these unfortunate folk.She made the point how history is the story of the victors ,the winners,but there is rarely a voice for the losers and the victims,and this is what changed her mind to go on a book tour to give voice to these Chinese mothers.

其实，我感觉非常幸运因为上周我见到Xinran在这里【布里斯班】和我问她：

"Moving forward ,what do you think the Chinese Government should be doing to improve the lives of women in China?"

简而言之她的回答是：教育

Now I hope I don't misquote her or miss an important point,so these are just my recollections and impressions of what she said,and I apologise to Xinran if I've got anything wrong here.

She went on to elaborate how the level of education was linked to the standard of living and that in large cities like Shanghai and Beijing these were comparable to standards in the West,but that one had to only travel 5 hours west of Shanghai to a place like Anhui and there was a stark difference with the level of education of the women being very poor,with this being the case throughout rural China.She gave an example of a time when she was travelling around China and she heard of a young girl being abused by her father in a nearby village so she decided to go and see if she could help save the situation.She met with the mother and they talked about it over a meal.This woman poisoned her and she had internal bleeding and had to be taken to the hospital.The police arrested the woman and asked Xinran whether she wanted her thrown in a local gaol or one in Xinran's hometown.Xinran decided to go and speak with the woman and ask her why she had done it.The womans reply was that husband was her god and that Xinran was trying to come between her daughter and her father.So she made the point about how traditional values in rural China were affecting women and how a change had to come from within the women themselves and how this could be achieved through education.She also seemed to be saying that she thought the Chinese Government was open minded and was trying to do a good job in this regard but that sometimes there was a problem with implementation at the local level [I got the impression she was saying that there was resistance to change at the local level due to traditional values].

我会问她：

如果您有女儿（Xinran 有一个儿子吧），能给她传授的
只有一条最重要的事情——作为母亲，而作为女人，您会向她言传身教的是什么？

那 Baba 你呢？有机会和 Xinran 女士面对面的话，你会问她什么问题呢？

hehe,the one person I was seriously posing this question about was Xinran, and it's the only one a don't have any suggestions for. In fact it was because of Xinran that I thought of this thread.

您没有留任何备用副本，任何机会吗？

毛主席，您一共到底有多少个孩子？

您是儒家还是道家，或者是法家？

Ni tingshuo le ma? Xianzai CPod is the way to go.

mafan ni,wo mishi le,ni neng show me the way?

我说了“我有喉炎，请停止问我那么多的问题“

刚才“子曰”什么来着？

哈哈哈

ni kanguo zhe bu dianying jiao "afanda"? Name re jiu xianzai !!