User Comments - baifameizhong

Posted on: China Fruit and Pre-Marital Sex

Hi haikeyi

Obviously I am careful in making any judgements about such a situation because I don't really know the circumstances nor do I know the people.

I would, however, say that in a way it doesn't really matter whether she has a boyfriend or not if his aim is to take the relationship to that physical level. Either way, she doesn't seem to want to sleep with him. Why this would be is difficult to judge and probably only she knows the real reason. It can well be that she doesn't have a boyfriend but still doesn't want to sleep with him. For instance the circles in which my (Chinese) wife moved (conservative middle class) viriginity and chastity are considered a big deal.

If your friend is interested in a serious relationship (including marriage some time) he should a) talk to the girl and make sure that that's clear and b) be aware that even then she might not want to take that next step before certain things marriage wise are arranged.If she is interested in your friend in such a way she she will either leave her boyfriend or she might admit that there never was such a boyfriend.

I really don't know in what situation your friend is and what his plans and ideas for the future are.

Although there are stories around of Chinese trying to get married to foreigners just because they (think they) are rich (and there surely are such people around) I know for a fact that there are also many who just take relationships incredibly seriously. For them you either don't have a relationship or you are married. Regardless of nationality of the partner.

Regards

David

Posted on: Argument over Garbage (1)

that is what I meant :)

thanks pete

Posted on: Argument over Garbage (1)

pete,

在饭馆不但应该把瓶子弄坏了，而且应该把没吃的饭给弄一各乱七八糟。你不做的话，有饭馆它们把那个饭给林为一个客人。

{希望我写得清楚。请你们给我帮忙告诉我写对了有。谢谢}

Posted on: Argument over Garbage (1)

for everyone who is interested some more trash talk and can't wait for the next of this series, there is that pod where two basketball players have a go at eachother. that's also the one Jenny was referring to when she noted that the term  有种 had already once come up.

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/one-on-one-basketball/discussion

some of the terms in that basketball dialogue are maybe a bit strong for certain conversations (my wife nearly fell off her chair when tried them a bit) but it's a great lot of fun all this wearing....reminds me of when I was in China the very first time and on my second day asked the guy showing me around what he thought made Chinese special. He answered that Chinese is special because it has the most swear words.

Posted on: Leaving Luggage with the Hotel

i don't know about that guy...but I have seen guys like that in a documentary. the fun thing about that was how they were talking about how "talented" they were...I can understand if you are talking about a talented guy because he learnt how to speak Chinese like a native, but a bodybuilder??

Posted on: The Big Deal about Shenzhou 7

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away..

Posted on: Battling Internet Addiction

I was just relistening to the dialogue today and realised the husband was doing something my wife says I should do more often. Namely, I should remain calm not matter what the wife is saying.

According to my wife that is the stereotype that a good husband should live up to (别误会, I don't lose it as such, but I have also got annoyed about certain arguments).

I noticed that this husband is definitely taking it quite calmly (i.e. his wife is talking about quitting her job, moving to another city to 管儿子 and telling him that 他不是你儿子).

Is it just my wife who has that stereotype of a husband (staying calm is of course in general considered to be good, but a wife is allowed more leniency...)? And a question I am even more interested in is how do you lead a conversation when the other person is not being reasonable and still make that person listen to you? (obviously in this dialogue the father wasn't making a lot of progress).

David

Posted on: Battling Internet Addiction

I had a look at it and from a psychological point of view it does lack empirical data (one of the sites it refers to does actually have some such data, but it isn't very meaningful as it only checks for significance which in and for itself isn't wrong but with the amount of people included pretty much anything becomes significant).

That doesn't mean that it is wrong, it just means there isn't really any proper empirical data to confirm it.

perltowerpete:

I definitely agree that for many people gaming is seriously unhealthy in many ways (socially, in respect to their future, their actual physical health...). Although I am not the biggest fan of the phrase "everything with moderation", it would do a whole lot of people a lot of good to heed it.

The point I more meant to emphasize was that for some reason someone who watches 15 hours of tv per week is considered to be quite normal whereas someone who games 15 hours per week (and instead maybe doesn't watch tv) is considered to be ehm...well, definitely not the same as someone who watches tv.

David

Posted on: Battling Internet Addiction

I don't really have much insight to how much certain youths play online. What I do know is that, at least with several Chinese, online gaming has got a really bad reputation.

I myself occasionally play a bit online (with a bit I mean 2-3 hours a week, less if I don't have the time) but my wife (who is Chinese) frequently told me how bad it is (same thing with a few of her Chinese female friends she's got here).

What I find intruiging though is that there is no such idea about watching TV.I always put the two things (gaming and watching TV) on the same level. Both can be done a bit to relax, too much of either is generally speaking not a good idea...

Anyone else encountered such ideas?

David

Posted on: My Foreign teacher

that was some remarkable input, xiaohu!

Something that logically follows from what you wrote but on a regular basis still surprises people is that more often than not you can (only) do what you practiced (I know, pearls of wisdom:). What I mean is that if you practice writing, you will mainly able to write. If you practice listening, you will mainly be able to listen. 

Many people have the idea that if they can write and pronounce certain words (=know the pin yin) they can understand them in a conversation as well. Admittedly, they will be better at understanding them than someone who didn't study them in any way, but they won't be as good as someone who practiced those words (or should I say characters) orally in dialogues.

Creating synergies between the different dimensions of the language (i.e. that you can understand a word on TV because you just spent 15 minutes writing that one character again and again) is possible but not as easy as one might think.

Xiaohu's post provides an excellent guide about how you can maximize such synergies.

David