User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Unique Professions (Part One)

Hi Baba - I just posted on 牌子 (Signs) a few hours ago about donating blood. I haven't listed to BST yet, and hope I don't spoil a good story, but in the three cities I have spent some time, donating blood (for free) is a let's say 'regular' activity. You see blood bank buses on the streets (I have posted a photo in the past) and signs appealing for blood donations. On campus students are encouraged to donate blood - there are campaigns a couple of times a year.

But selling blood to make a living is part of the national story telling .. perhaps when they put it on the blog I should listen to BST.

Posted on: I Haven't Seen You in Ages!

Wow RJ - a new avatar! You strike me as a man who doesn't change his avatar very often.

Posted on: Say It Again, Please

This was discussed just recently in http://chinesepod.com/lessons/what-does-this-word-mean. You're missing the Newbies Mark ... :)

There are two threads at this address commenting on 念 niàn - one started by Tal and another started by floalvarez.

Posted on: Petty Chicken Idioms

yeah, 就是。

Posted on: Petty Chicken Idioms

Ignore the foreground - you are looking at the range of hills in the background. Imagine a woman lying on her side ... head on the left ... under a very thick blanket which might disguise most of her surface anatomy. I can only see her head and her bum, but I am not steeped in this art of seeing something out of nothing.

Come to think of it, all ranges of hills look like this. :)

Posted on: Petty Chicken Idioms

See below for photo of the sleeping beauty. Any doubters can send a typed complaint to Yunnan Tourism Commission with a stamped self-addressed envelope for your reply.

Posted on: Petty Chicken Idioms

Maybe this is the sleeping beauty - you need an imagination: 

Posted on: Big Numbers

如果 can be omitted.

Posted on: A Private Money Changer

Well, mafanni, your name is mafanni, right? :) I don't know how serious your scenarios are but if you are concerned or bothered I guess you must live in China, right?

My take would be if you are not up for the adventure then steer clear of these kinds of exchanges. (For what it's worth the 'knife' scenario doesn't sound much like China to me.)

It's interesting - the longer I live here the less worried I am by scams, threats, violence, and over-pricing. It's like I've lost interest - I wish I still had the passion. I used to studiously avoid those scamps who accost you at the railway station and want to find you accommodation, and then one day I said to myself - you know let's see where this leads. It was all quite pedestrian and functional - I got good accommodation at a reasonable price.

Posted on: Petty Chicken Idioms

Hi baba, belated answer, I was taken up by watching the 花样游泳 (and RJ thinks SW China is bizarre). The mountains are not in the shape of chicken and the horse (as far as I know) but the chicken is ... how do I put this ... the hip of a beautiful reclining woman - that is the highest point. The reclining woman (sleeping beauty) is portrayed in a fountain on Yunnan University campus but I don't know how old that story is. There is a related story about the escarpment that the woman/sleeping beauty lies on. It took 72 long years to build the steps up the escarpment replete with pagodas and temples. A man is completing years of painstaking work on sculptures and breaks a pen in the hand of the final sculpture. He is so distraught he throws himself off the cliff, and when his girlfriend finds out she weeps so many tears they form lake 滇池 Kunming is built on. Her body is the sleeping beauty on the escarpment. That story, however tragic, seems to be a recent re-writing of the scriptures - because the steps were built only 200 years ago. You will find other versions, unsurprising given that the city is around 2,000 years old. Stories laid over stories.