User Comments - Tal
Tal
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 31, 2009 at 10:10 AMI'm a typical Brit in one way, I grew up drinking tea. Black tea of course, with milk. (In China it's called 红茶 - red tea.) As a child I would want it extremely sweet, but adulthood of course means saying goodbye to such things, and now I never add sugar.
In England I used to use the Typhoo brand. My parents always did, (am I imagining it or do I recall TV commercials from childhood showing comely Indian girls deftly picking leaves off bushes on a sunlit hillside?)
Anyway in China I bring a little taste of home into my life with Lipton Yellow Label Tea (立顿黄牌精选红茶), widely available in Chinese supermarkets.
Here is the raygo method for making the essential morning cuppa, characteristically contrary and solipsistic, (or is that my iamgination too?)
1. Put teabag in empty mug, (and I do mean a mug.)
2. Pour on boiling water to within a half-inch of the top of the mug.
3. Allow teabag to steep for a maximum of 13 seconds. If in the mood the bag may be gently agitated with a spoon, (but must not be squeezed against the edge of the mug or nicked by the spoon edge allowing leaves to escape into the hot water.)
4. Lift teabag clear of the water and remove.
5. Add milk. (It is important not to add milk until this point to achieve the desired shade of tea colour. I don't like it too dark or light. Also of course the level of tea in the mug is a factor here.)
6. Give 2 stirs with the spoon to ensure a good tea and milk intermix.
7. Drink the tea.
8. Err... that's it!
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 31, 2009 at 1:55 AMUm... well if anyone's still interested in the content of this lesson, I'm happy to share another of my rough podcast transcripts here.
By the way I'm sure there are errors and omissions in it, (it's just a rough guide to the podcast that I put together as I study, with a few of the less common but useful words annotated.) 让你们见笑了！
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 28, 2009 at 11:32 AMHenning, that's true, an odd number! But, I'm not sure that even-odd number thing has held true after Star Trek VI. The first movie featuring Picard et al. was number VII by that reckoning right, and that was pretty good!
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 28, 2009 at 9:49 AMHi pete! Couldn't agree more about those awful Star Wars prequels, but at least watching them didn't break my heart! Yeah the actor playing McCoy did a wonderful job channeling DeForest Kelley's 'Bones', and Scotty was also amusing, (even if it was more difficult to imagine him turning into the guy always yelling 'she just can't take any more captain' in TOS!)
BUT, (and this is where you'll be grinning and seeing me as one of the characters from your Onion clip!), the heart of Star trek was gone. The idealism and poetry of Roddenberry's vision was totally absent, and such appalling liberties were taken with both characters and continuity (Spock's Vulcan father would never have spoken in that way) that it's no exaggeration to say that watching the movie left me sad and depressed. Surely the world already has enough headlong thrill-a-minute action movies all ready to be turned into computer games. Star Trek was always supposed to be so much more than that, (imho).
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 28, 2009 at 2:32 AMbaba mate, how can you forget that Monkey wrote: The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, was here!!
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 28, 2009 at 2:16 AM@pete - yeah dude, just watched your hilarious Onion clip. Those guys can really talk about movies, their own effort went (deservedly) straight to DVD right?!
@baba - 哈哈！ I was trying to get 2 @s for the price of one! Anyway you of all people should understand the image below and agree that I have the right to speak of myself in the third person!!
As for 五十步笑百步
wǔshí bù xiào bǎi bù - a little book in my possession gives the literal English translation: 'It's like a 50-step escaper laughing at a 100-step escaper'. - lol
Posted on: Tea Tasting
May 28, 2009 at 1:16 AM@pete @me (哈哈)
dude, it sucked. Young Kirk nonchalantly eating an apple while taking the Kobayashi Maru test? Sarek confessing to his son that he loved his human wife? Vulcan destroyed? I'm afraid I tend to completely agree with the guys letting off steam here.
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
May 28, 2009 at 1:07 AMHmm... curiouser and curiouser. Thanks calkins!
Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 11: Wang in the Doghouse
May 28, 2009 at 12:35 AMbaba, I'll tell you how it works. It doesn't! 哈哈！
When I first saw that button I thought, oh great! That's a good idea! But after multiple clicks and not a single notification email, I was just like: oh well... *sigh*.
Posted on: Introducing Shen Yajin (Helen)
May 31, 2009 at 10:49 AMpete, thanks for all your hard work on the poetry section. I am looking forward to returning to it when my Chinese is more developed. Oh, and don't ever change.
Shen Yajin, welcome to Chinesepod. I have a new avatar for you.