User Comments - Tal
Tal
Posted on: What do Foreigners Like?
April 20, 2009 at 11:13 AMCheers mate, I did try saying 滚 (gǔn - get away; beat it) to another of these characters one day, maybe a little too emphatically as he didn't seem to take it too well! He tailed me for rather a long way glowering until I entered the bookshop I had been heading for anyway!
Oh, 对了 (duìle) on the subject of those 5RMB DVDs! Down here in provincial Guangdong I'd got used to paying the extortionate (j/k!) 25RMB for the best quality knock-offs, and even then one always seems to end up taking them back to the shop (about 3 or 4 times out of 10) when they won't play or freeze half-way through! Shanghai friends laughed at me paying such prices! So I did buy a few of the cheapos in the end, (not from the aforesaid pesterers though, but a charming lady in a 饺子 (jiǎozi) shop who had a few on display behind the counter!) Ah, what disappointment when I got them home and was almost deafened by the static on the soundtrack and driven crazy by the picture endlessly switching from colour to black and white! Most of them ended up in the bin.
Posted on: What do Foreigners Like?
April 20, 2009 at 9:46 AMAh yes, 老外 can never get enough watches, bags and DVDs, all enterprising Chinese know this. I was in Shanghai a couple of years back for several days and I must have been 'asked' at least 10 times a day if I would like to purchase by those importunate young men who patrol the streets across the big road near 人民广场 (rénmín guǎngchǎng = People's Square).
If you're a foreigner like me who was conditioned from childhood to refuse politely with a smile and a 'no, thank you', you'll find that they'll jog along aside you for a block or two trying every variation of the patter.
Just ignoring them doesn't always work either, in my experience. I can't forget one particularly persistent fellow who trailed me for at least 100 yards, unable to believe that I didn't want something! Finally he played his trump card: "How about a girl? Direct to your hotel room? Big breasts!" Unable to keep silent any longer I chuckled with both embarrassment and scorn, (how dare he assume that foreigners required such attributes!) "I'm not joking with you" was his response, with palms spread wide and a foxy grin, as I tried once more to make my getaway!
Posted on: Jizhou Mental Breakdown
April 16, 2009 at 1:40 PMI've been going through this series and enjoying it a lot. I second the views of all those asking for similarly creative storylines and those who remark on how it makes the study seem lighter.
I can certainly see how the TV show Lost must have played a part in the creation of this series. I remember how I became fascinated with that show a couple of years ago, enjoying (even if at the same time seeing through) the endlessly looping questions and mystery piled on mystery.
Anyway, seemingly one episode away from the end of the story, I have to confess to a certain disappointment at the mundane nature of the denouement, and a feeling that one or two loose ends are being swept under the carpet (regulars here should be used to my mixed metaphors by now! lol) because they can't be explained or don't make sense.
I mean why for example is Jian Ming surprised in the first part when he hears the spooky flute? And what's the point of him hearing that anyway? Jia Yan and Zhao Lu don't hear it (which makes us, the audience think it's supernatural, but in the end it's not, 对不对？) and actually it seems to have nothing to do with his disappearance.
So he's come to Jizhou just to abandon Zhao Lu without a word of explanation? To run off to his Kong Luo friends to evade the cops? It's an ending that is failing to quite satisfy me I'm afraid. I think Jian Ming should have really taken Jia Yan's advice about that shower.
Posted on: Rise and Shine!
April 16, 2009 at 7:13 AMIn Chinese one always says 在世界上 (zài shìjiè shàng) to mean 'in the world'. It's a standard collocation, every language has them.
Thus your sentence: 中国是世界上人口最多的国家 (Zhōngguó shì shìjiè shàng rénkǒu zuìduō de guójiā) means that China has the largest population of any country in the world. In English there are several acceptable ways to translate that of course. You should notice as you 'process' the sentence in your head that you cannot translate it 'literally'! Learning Chinese (just like any language perhaps) simply requires that you accept these (to westerners) unusual ways of expressing something.
Posted on: Toilet Types
April 12, 2009 at 6:50 AMI couldn't resist posting these up for skedzinger! (from the links supplied in the last post)
Posted on: Picking Up 拿
April 12, 2009 at 3:59 AMWenlin's ABC Chinese-English Dictionary is pretty useful all round though.
[Sorry, the link was not working in previous post, don't know why!)
PS. A nice review of the paper version here.
Posted on: Picking Up 拿
April 12, 2009 at 3:35 AMchangye, yes I know what you mean actually, students (and my wife!) sometimes use English words that flummox me. When they see my puzzled face they'll pull out a dictionary reference to show me words I've never encountered before! (So many odd words and expressions in the widely used 金山词霸 for instance).
Wenlin's ABC Chinese-English Dictionary is pretty useful all round though. It's also used in Pleco, which I also find extremely useful.
Posted on: Picking Up 拿
April 12, 2009 at 2:23 AM@miantiao - good advice mate, cheers.
@jenny - *bows* - I stand corrected! (But it is in Wenlin, seems the compiler of the ABC dictionary managed to get more than a few uncommon expressions in there!)
Posted on: What do Foreigners Like?
April 21, 2009 at 8:00 PMSorry to interrupt miantiao and bodawei's online male bonding (j/k fellas!) but equally off topic is this news that the best whiskey no longer seems to actually come from Scotland. Reminds me of the time (many years ago I'm sad to say) when I made the acquaintance of a few young Japanese fellows on a cross-Channel ferry, (the first time I left Blighty behind in fact.) One of them was the son (or was it grandson? damned if I can remember now) of a whisky maker from the land of the rising sun, and as he happened to have a bottle on him at the time, he was kind enough to share it around, which meant that we all passed the journey carousing and arrived in Paris early the next morning in a somewhat inebriated condition.
Ah, sic transit gloria mundi! I can't stomach the stuff now to be honest, and would take one of Pete's nymphs (don't mind if I take one off your hands I hope dude?) over a smoky malt any old day of the week.