User Comments - bodawei
bodawei
Posted on: Visiting Taiwan
August 18, 2012 at 4:19 PMhi usr5623
just wondering ... have you got any robust information that backs up your claim that 'most people in Mainland China ... never learned traditional characters'?
It's just that I have never encountered anyone who could not read traditional characters (I've been here about four years.) I guess that the occasions this has come up the characters in question may not have been too much of a challenge, but my experience is that most people have no problem with traditional characters. (Of course there is a small prcentage of people who are illiterate.)
Truth be told, I have sometimes wondered how they learn them ...
My Chinese teachers always emphasised the ability of learning to read traditional characters ... they said it made you a more rounded, educated person. :)
Do you have personal experience of this situation?
Posted on: A Complicated Cab Ride
August 16, 2012 at 3:34 PMIt's funny that isn't it - Alice Springs is like that, about the same size, but important for how Australians see themselves.
Wow - kalgoorlie! Kalgoolie is in the world news every year at least because of the annual Gold Diggers Conference! (Boys behaving badly and all that.) I went to kalgoorlie once on a family driving holiday - great fun - my only ever trip to western australia.
Posted on: Visiting Taiwan
August 15, 2012 at 3:49 PMI reckon John posted this in haste; I think John meant 北面 but 背面 (the back of something) came up first on the pinyin IME. It did on mine.
Actually, in Australia, 北面 and 背面 would be not far apart. We might refer to 'the northern part' as 'the outback'. Even the back of Burke, but that is a bit esoteric.
Posted on: A Complicated Cab Ride
August 15, 2012 at 2:34 PMthen you don't live in the big city, kong_yi. But you live somewhere sophisticated enough to have taxis. :) One of sichuan's second tier cities? Provincial second tier that is.
Posted on: Noisy Eater
August 13, 2012 at 3:32 AMgood one, chris - I am also a pen and paper type of guy. I write out dialogues and expansion sentences too. It is hard for me to describe the benefits; I just enjoy the writing and look forward to mastering cursive. At the moment I push myself by writing each character in one movement. Obviously some characters you have to lift the pen but I aim to do it without a pause. Feels good.
Posted on: Unique Professions (Part One)
August 12, 2012 at 3:50 PM'crazy diversity of jobs here, including many that don't exist elsewhere in the world'
I still haven't heard the podcast but this catches my eye. If diehard pddies can't generate a 100+ thread of posts on this then they aren't really trying. What crazy jobs .. that don't exist anywhere else in the world' can you think of?
I guess I shouldn't be political but the jobs of Chinese President and Prime Minister come to mind.
Actually I just read about a good one. While finding the title of the book I referred to Baba above, I came across an interview with the author 余华 who says that after practicing as a dentist for 20 years he discovered a really cool job at a cultural centre that involved sleeping in to midday and then 'walking around the city for the rest of the day'. I quote:
' When I left the hospital for the cultural center, there were no less than a dozen or so huge red stamps on my documents. I decided to arrive two hours late for my first day of work at the cultural center. It turned out that I was the first one to arrive. I thought, “Boy was this the right place for me.”'
Posted on: Unique Professions (Part One)
August 12, 2012 at 2:10 PMHi floalvarez
'I have to take care of other things. Will be back tomorrow'
You are not yet an accredited ChinesePod addict if you let other things take over your life. :)
Posted on: Unique Professions (Part One)
August 12, 2012 at 2:08 PMYou might want to look at 《许三观卖血记》 a book by 余华 set in the 1950s and through the period of the cultural revolution. Quite a famous book but not really preferred reading by generation X. It has been translated into English apparently.
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 24, 2012 at 7:40 AMFrom my experience a rule of Chinese is to use as few characters as you can get away with. For those with suspect pronunciation (ie. many foreigners) we should be grateful for the unambiguous 公共汽车. The terms used here can substitute for one another, although I don't recall hearing helzcurrah's 汽车 for bus - but then I have never been to Tianjin. I can certainly imagine it - harking from an era when few people had their own cars.