User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

This better be my last say ... I don't mean the last say ... but ust that I need to go to bed. Sentient means, among other things, the capacity for sensation (eg. pain). It may also mean self-aware but as I say I am still unsure of all that is involved there. So when I disagreed, I was expressing the view that certain bugs could have sensations - eg. if you point a fan at a cockroach it will run away. They hate wind ruffling their ... wings. That is sentient. Whether it is also self-aware I do not have a firm view because I don't know the science.

If you agree that my wind on cockroach example involves sensation (I have found that a lot of people less in tune with cockroaches than myself are not aware that they can get rid of cockies simply by setting up a fan) but you still think that they are not sentient, then we may have a problem with terminology.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

'Left turn Clyde'

the Internet is as sure about this term as scientists are about whether bugs are sentient. the first hit on google says 'you say this when you want someone to hang a right'. The next hit says the opposite: 'you say this when you want someone to hang a left'. I'm going with the first (right) because it is urbandictionary.com, and because this is from a film about sentient beings who obviously understand irony. Monkeys.

Wrong - again. Orangutans. Pre iPad.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

'how can I argue with a guy that thinks bugs are self aware?'

Go easy on me, I'm not even sure what 'self aware' means exactly, I haven't read the theory of mind test. I'm pretty sure I didn't say that bugs are self aware, but then you are good at researching stuff I said that has left my ken. I did intimate that they may not like being squashed.

'We project more onto animals than is really there'

Undoubtedly - just today I saw a poodle down the road wearing a ... um two pairs of shoes. It's quite common around here - they don't want their dogs stepping in any doggy doo.

'One is no different than all the others.'

I am not really in an argumentative mood but I know this one is wrong - doesn't evolution depend on differences?

They do make pets, great I am not sure of that - certainly not much trouble. Kids in Australia keep native cockroaches as pets.

I'm not sure about languages - but after meeting a ferret I am going to be cautious about what languages animals speak. Dogs are good at listening comprehension of human languages.

I don't like insects in my bed RJ - there I have drawn a boundary.

'Left turn Clyde'

???

I think most animals are too busy eating and copulating to play games - but there you are, some do SEEM to play games, don't they. We project this on to them no doubt (see - i am learning) - they are learning behaviour when they 'play', socialising. Pretty much like humans, when we play, actually.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

'Science is not even sure that ... monkeys are self aware'

Now surely you have seen news reports about orangutans using iPads to communicate with their colleagues in other zoos. Oh wait, I'm not sure that proves my case. :)

Actually macacque monkeys (as on Emei Shan) are even more adept, having mastered the iPhone. Well, I can personally attest to their love of mobile phones.

I also read that when the orangutans tire of email and chat (or ordering their meals on-line) they play Angry Birds. Self-aware? I guess the jury is still out.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

Ha ha, you are so right. Also, remember the story of 哪吒 Ne Zha (recent BST) - he was extracted from a ball of mud that his mother gave birth to after a three year pregnancy. Father launched himself at the blob in rage with a sword and cut it in two, and out popped our hero, miraculously unscathed. You never know.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

'You are confusing 枪 and 抢'

I am indeed - thanks RJ. The cockroach killer product is showing 枪手 (someone that uses a firearm) - my blurb about popular goods is a complete furphy, sorry about that.

Still have a question about that idiom - an explanation does not leap to mind. Except maybe 'hired gun' - bit of a stretch as there is no hint that a person carrying a firearm is a hird gun.

'bugs are not sentient at all'

Well that comes as a complete surprise to me (and the rest of the scientific community - see below). I have clearly been over-influenced by the deep ecologists, some of whom argue that every living thing is sentient. Even rocks should be respected in that universe, but they make a special argument about sentience in all living creatures. I would have thought that if there is a nervous system there is a capacity to experience something. Maybe a biologist (even better a deep ecologist) will leap to the rescue.

You are causing me to re-think my world - why would insects avoid being squashed if they felt nothing, one way or another? Obviously there is some kind of survival instinct - the genes are doing their work, trying to perpetuate the species somehow?

Having done a quick survey of the scientific community on this subject (thank you Google) I conclude that they don't know anything much for sure - no surprise there - and while doubt exists I'd like to avoid inflicting gratuitous violence on my fellow creatures. For the record, science via Wikipedia suggests that some bugs do in fact feel pain, or at least some kind of emotional distress when being hunted down and killed. Or did I just make that up? I do worry sometimes about Wikipedia - there could be people less responsible than myself making entries.

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

'debate about whether it was "proper" to kill the cockroach we found in our room '

We have this debate too; for my wife it makes her quesy, but for me it is mainly laziness. We believe that we should be able to co-exist (all God's creatures and all that) but the cockroaches take advantage of this pholosophy and soon they peeking at you over the rim of your coffee cup. We relented and bought little bathplug size devices that stick on any surface - called 杀蟑饵盒 shā zhāng ěr hé (a container of cockroach bait) with 抢手 qiǎngshǒu (goods in popular demand) in bigger characters on top. These little fellows are quietly lethal - they emit a death ray or something, and the cockies just lie down dead, so cool. I can't say whether Buddhists would approve, but since the worst toilet I ever saw was at a Buddhist monastery I have been skeptical of a number of Buddhist beliefs. They certainly see no advantage in hygiene.

I had to look up 抢手 - before I did so I reasoned it might mean hand gun, but a pistol is actually the characters reversed; 手抢 (literally hand gun.) I'd love to know more about 抢手 qiǎngshǒu - the meaning attached to goods is not evident, idiomatic, and there is another idiomatic meaning: someone passing themselves off as someone else to take an exam, an elite (many are called, few are chosen) but still somehow popular sport in China.

Posted on: Repeat after Me

I am 99% sure this is what she means boahn2007, I was just seeking confirmation too. Lujiaojie's post was just a little ambiguous, except that I have noted in my communications with Chinese speakers that there is a preference for answering the question at the top. (In this case, reading on in your question suggested you were asking for a comparison between the two expressions.)

Posted on: Repeat after Me

Hi lujiaojie

You've thrown me - you are not saying that 你再说一遍吗？is incorrect are you? I learnt this in chinese 101 and have been saying it for years; admittedly I never ask it as a question, 不要‘吗’, more a demand.

Posted on: Talking about Illness

oh you are right, (thanks to zhenlijiang too) - my sentence really translates as 'I will feel much better once I've taken the/some medicine.' And your sentence is a better way to express the sentence I wrote in English. Thanks guys.

I've had trouble with 会 in the past (oh, still do, right) ... I used to notice it dropped by native speakers all the time and didn't quite get the many uses, but I shouldn't use it here.