User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Using a VPN

'One person's post on CP won't change what the government blocks' - you mean that I am not going to offend anyone by mentioning social networking sites that work here. Of course you are right. Probably. Actually, blocking has been socially beneficial, I think. It has given a boost to a number of competitors, promoted innovation, and effectively brought down costs (eg. time wading through ads) for the consumer.

The main point of my post was to undermine the importance of the vpn.

Posted on: Using a VPN

' in China it's an absolute necessity if you have any intention of using international networking sites' 

Is this an oxymoron, a tautology, a malapropism, or what?  .. :) 

Actually, the pedant in me wants to point out that this is actually also untrue - the best-known, Facebook, and Twitter, are blocked, granted. Tragic. But there are other social networking sites that work fine, I won't name any here because I don't want to draw attention.  For those of you who have transcended Facebook you should know what I mean.  

Posted on: Using a VPN

'You can't download it IN China,'

You don't need to; just get it off someone, it's free.

Posted on: Visa Issues

You have had a taste of what it is like for a Chinese person trying to get a visa to do something similar in the US or Australia, although getting a 6 month one for sitting down as we say in Australia is unlikely, you did well ... :) [Sorry - not sure where you are from originally.]

The idea of reciprocal arrangements is not all bad. We have helped Chinese people get visas in the reverse situation.

Hope you are enjoying your time in China.

Posted on: Visa Issues

user23060 - sorry this conversation petered out at my end; my subscription ran out. Just on your final question - most English teaching contracts that support a work visa say from 12 - 16 teaching hours per week, but sometimes teachers get less in practice. 6 - 8 is possible. I have had as little as 3. They are not likely to write these lower commitments down in contracts though.

Trust your visa troubles are now over.

Posted on: Braised Pork in Soy Sauce

I wonder if they were difficult to see clearly because of the quality of the video? You need to see the different sizes of 'spoon' - the sugar one is smaller than the 'oil' one (not that I have ever seen a Chinese cook use a spoon in either case before!)

I watched the previous two off-site; they were higher-quality video than this to my untrained eye. I see Baba refers above to the 'high quality' versions off site. Hopefully they will put up a link like last time.

Posted on: Braised Pork in Soy Sauce

用料酒腌一下的腌 works with vegetables as well, as in 腌菜 (n. pickled vegetables). To pickle or to marinade, same verb. Any difference between 泡菜 and 腌菜 - I don't think so; maybe regional expressions for the same thing? 

Posted on: Braised Pork in Soy Sauce

I agree - it has the usual ChinesePod touches that I like. The washing of meat (I would have liked a demo - a vigorous scrub required to get rid of human hair, etc.) and the adding of sugar. Cooking tip - keep those little paper sugar sachets for cooking Chinese at home - just pop one in every dish. :)

Posted on: Braised Pork in Soy Sauce

Ok, I see that now (this is the first video lesson I've used on the site - I watched the others on Youku) - it was a photo at first, and now there is a play button and a small window.

I don't know about .flv files but as I say QQ (the QQ 影音 application) plays them. Yes, the link name needs to be changed - were the earlier video lessons the same?

Posted on: Braised Pork in Soy Sauce

Hi helzcurrah

What do you mean by 'watching without downloading'? When I click on the link it downloads - what am I missing? I use QQ to play it and there I can choose the playback size up to 200% - it does stop short of 'full screen' but on my laptop it is a bit fuzzy at 200% so that is a reasonable limit I think.