User Comments - barryb
barryb
Posted on: The More Than One Child Policy and Taking Trains
August 12, 2008 at 2:06 PMOn the sleeper to Beijing I met a beautiful Chinese girl. We talked and we talked and she told me I was a typical Englishman. I apologised and read my book. On Beijing West she looked back and smiled, but I couldn't reach her in the crowd.
Another year, another girl and this time I kept on talking. She told me how tourists are drugged and dekidneyed. In the morning, I asked her for my kidney back. She smiled and she shrugged: the train was rocking and her hands weren't steady... but she didn't fool me, I've heard of keyhole surgery. I hope she looks after it.
Travel by train, it's fun.
Posted on: Tool Delivery
July 31, 2008 at 9:45 AM很好笑！Thank you. I loved this lesson! Your best yet? The Monty Python approach to language learning.
Jenny, sounds like it's time to recharge your batteries!
Posted on: Colors, By Degrees
July 27, 2008 at 9:07 AMThanks, Changye.
Looks like 铜 - tong2 is copper?
So, bronze = 青铜 qing1 tong2 = "greenish copper"? Makes sense.
青 qing1 appears again. Hard to pin down, but pops up everywhere.
Posted on: Colors, By Degrees
July 27, 2008 at 8:39 AMThere's a nice correspondence between tones for colours and Olympic medal rankings:
1. 金色 jīnsè - gold
2. 银色 yínsè - silver
3. & 4. 巧克力色 qiǎokèlì sè - chocolate (I can't find bronze. What is it?)
Posted on: Fat Camp
July 23, 2008 at 11:57 PMIn case some readers don't spot a1pi2's irony:
1) America invented the automobile and Lenin invented the helicopter. What did Herr Benz invent? Actually, this could be a Chinese first (this from Wikipedia):
"Others claim Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built the first steam-powered vehicle around 1672 which was of small scale and designed as a toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger, but quite possibly, was the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile')."
2) Americans' reputation for being fat comes from the USA having a very large number of fat people (the UK is catching up very fast). Here are the 2005 figures from the World Health Organisation. They estimate the obesity rate for women in the USA is (OK, was) roughly 7 times higher than in France: WHO (link to interactive chart where you can compare dozens of countries).
True, things are changing fast, France is now one of MacDonald's fastest growing markets: The Times
China's obesity rate is about one twentieth of America's.
It's interesting that the rates for the South Pacific islands are up to twice USA's (see Nauru). Culture or genetics? Don't know, but it doesn't look like wealth is so important.
Posted on: Golf
July 13, 2008 at 10:22 AMThe tones on gao1er3fu1 are shaped like a cross-section of the green: level on either side with a hole in the middle.
Posted on: Money Values and Beating the Summer Heat
July 11, 2008 at 8:43 PMAmericans spend, spend spend! Chinese save, save save! China now holds about US$1.4 trillion worth of foreign currency (that's $1,400,000,000,000), mostly USD.(1)
The US dollar is down over 40% against other "hard" currencies since 2002, and falling fast.(2) Hard-earned dollars down the drain. China can't swap its dollars on the markets without a worldwide stampede to dump. Foreigners, mainly China, Japan and the oil-exporters hold about US$7 trillion. The exchange rate would collapse.
Scary stuff! Will China try to spend its foreign currency on real assets, stuff, commodities? Would the world let it? Americans could be priced out. Sell the SUV!
If the Chinese, as a nation, spent more and saved less, couldn't they still work hard but keep the goods they make, instead of working hard and giving them to foreigners in return for dodgy paper?
$1.4 trillion could be inflated away to dust. Maybe that's the price of technology transfer and production know-how. Is that such a bad deal?
(BTW, this sour old limey knows Britain's historical record and current relative position is far worse than America's.)
(1) http://www.pbc.gov.cn/english/diaochatongji/tongjishuju/gofile.asp?file=2007S09.htm
(2) http://www.tfc-charts.w2d.com/chart/US/M
P.S. I've just seen the May 2008 figure: 1.8 trillion Chinese forex reserves!!!
Posted on: Money Values and Beating the Summer Heat
July 11, 2008 at 7:31 PMBazza's not joking. A cold wet summer in the UK. My red-brick house is turning green in the damp! (lichen? mould?)
我已经穿毛衣。 正要穿大衣！ Wo3 yi3jing1 chuan1 mao2yi1. zheng4yao4 chuan1 da4yi1. I'm already wearing a woolly jumper. Going to put my coat on!(Getting cold sitting here at the computer!)
Posted on: Lo and La （咯 & 啦）
June 5, 2008 at 10:03 PMScotland has a plural form of you: yous. Very common. So, Texas and Scotland have more in common than just oil and big scary cattle.
Posted on: Here she comes
August 20, 2008 at 9:25 AM紧张 - jǐnzhāng - nervous. When your nerves jingle-jangle.