User Comments - Tal

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Hey daniel, thanks for the humorous vote of confidence, it's good to see you around on the boards, always a pleasure to see another long-term user and contributor on the 'long march' of Chinese study. FWIW I have a new personal rule, I will make no attempt to debate or exchange with egocentric posturers and the insecure, the truth is I really have no time for such people.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Gee, what a fine bunch of knowledgeable, gentle and cultured souls I seem to have offended by simply stating an opinion forcefully, and by (apparently) using English names for things in the same way that most people naturally do. I'm even getting a bit tearful to see so much back-patting and male bonding going on.... *sniff*.

Having said that, I feel I must make some kind of response to certain posts which attempt to put words and attitudes in my mouth which I do not believe were ever there. Bluster? Ignoramouse? (sorry, ignoramus). Not checking my sources? Ahem. I do not believe there was any gratuitous name-calling or tendency to insult in any of my posts above. I do believe that began with other gentle and cultured souls.

As for the link I posted I do believe that the words "Norway rats and house mice belong to different species. A species is a group of related individuals or populations which are potentially capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. So Norway rats and house mice belong to different species and cannot interbreed. Humans and orangutangs, chipmunks and red squirrels, bottlenosed dolphins and killer whales, all belong to different species" appear very clearly towards the beginning of the article, and my assumption was that this basic classification could be acknowledged even by those with "nuanced understanding of taxonomy".

My posting of the online quiz was actually an attempt to introduce a note of levity and humor, as well as to give other poddies a chance to consider what makes a rat a rat, and a mouse a mouse. My 100% score at first attempt (which I remain thoroughly proud of - hehe) was not based on any criteria of cuteness/squeamishness, but on the info in the link and my personal observations of countless 'muroid rodents' making merry in Chinese trash cans, with nary a pied piper to charm them.

It occurs to me maybe we should call chimps and humans the same animal then, as an alien biologist might. After all they are so closely related, and their behavior has much in common. (I wonder if in fact humans and chimps are more closely related than rats and mice?:) Cute the way chimps can pick fleas off each other and cuddle up whilst simultaneously sharing hooted derision at some perceived loner/nonconformist in a social group. Yeah, something to think about there.

Anyway cultured and gentle ones, actually I don't mind if you wanna argue black is white or if you wanna have different words for all 6 genera of the Murinae or whatever. Maybe you're mistaking me for someone who could care less! Doubtless you'll be setting out more bait, but barring further abuse I'm done here.

Posted on: The Play's the Thing

Also, Shakespeare's characters are extremely compelling. He seems to have great insight into the human mind and emotions. Characters like Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, and Falstaff I think speak to the modern mind in an all too familiar way. There have been many foreign language productions of Shakespeare (including China), and so I venture to suggest that educated/culturally aware people of any human culture are able to appreciate him.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

I guess next you'll be saying frogs and toads are the same thing. No, the difference between a rat and a mouse is not 'purely arbitrary'. I have seen enough of them jumping out of trash cans in China to form a clear opinion. Maybe some kind of online poll would assist you in this interesting question of semantics, so here we go poddies, who's up for the challenge? I scored 100%!

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

What happened to the naked girls? Surely tragic if they didn't manage to get their togs on before the ambulance arrived? Think of their poor mothers.

Posted on: Hamsters, Snakes, and Owls

Actually they are not the same animal, they are entirely different species. How to differentiate in Chinese? Well, as far as I know all you can do is say 大老鼠 for a rat and 小老鼠 for a mouse, just another example of the imprecision of this language. Anyway you'll see plenty of both if you spend any time in China.

Posted on: Sending a Large File

I am also unable to hear any sounds from the webpage using a work computer running Windows XP. On a home computer running Windows 7 there seems to be no problem.

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

That's a pigeon? o_O

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I liked the puppy! Rock on Rachel. ;-)

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

Rachel, I can't entirely agree that recent lessons have been overly concerned with 'the battle of the sexes', but you've made me think. My basic take is still that the lessons you've mentioned do give us a valid insight into China (as it is now), and so as well as teaching us the language they tell us about the social and cultural life.

Longing to possess expensive shiny cars, (the more the better), is certainly one of the hallmarks of China's new super-rich, and even just the rich. For me its part of how China relentlessly envies and imitates the west, and continues to fulfil the great human mission to screw up the planet and our long-term future as a species.

But status symbols are nothing new, and women who focus on men who possess them is not new either. It's just that in China, women have for generations married (or been concubines) for financial security and/or an easy life, and really this has not changed much. In cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou there are large numbers of women who live as concubines, supported entirely by guys with disposable income who like most Chinese men are utterly hypocritical about sexual morality, guys who like their fathers and grandfathers before them consider having a mistress or two as a right, not a luxury. I guess many of these women are unconcerned about romantic love, they just like the easy life. Maybe they don't even think too much about the day when their provider tires of them, (maybe they figure by then they'll have 'put enough by' to continue a life of ease, or find another sugar daddy.) "...selfish, shallow, manipulative ladies..." you say. Yep, that describes a very real side of perhaps the majority of Chinese women. But hey, that's one of those very significant cultural differences, (like it or not), and in a society like China can we really blame them?

Getting back to lesson content here at CPod I have always thought the lesson creators do a great job. They combine supremely good language teaching with creative dramatic situations, and maybe sometimes they are not even aware of just how accurately their creations express the 'spirit of the age' in Chinese society.

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

Sadly, in China, 'icky gender tropes and stereotypes' are actually the stuff of life.