User Comments - bodawei

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bodawei

Posted on: Awkward Silence
April 1, 2011 at 5:45 AM

This is a Chinese joke mate, deep cultural undertones. A classic lesson.

Posted on: Awkward Silence
April 1, 2011 at 5:39 AM

Ha ha - it's a trick - what we hear as a ding Chinese people describe as 当 dang. 当当网 (Chinese version of Amazon); makes me think of the Avon lady. :)

They deliver to your door, I think that accounts for the 当当网的当。(But I'm not sure of that.)

Posted on: Awkward Silence
April 1, 2011 at 5:13 AM

Do I pay good money to listen to this rubbish!!!@@@###!!!??? The whole thing lacked authenticity from beginning to end. What is the likelihood of getting into a lift and only one other person is travelling with you?? This is China! And that DING - I have NEVER heard a DING like that - not where I live. All the lifts here go DANG! 当当当！You sure it wasn't an American lift? And I think it was David and Dilu doing the voices .. the least you could have done was get a couple of authentic voices from the Shanghai street, Mister and Miss China, to demonstrate what happens in a REAL Chinese lift! And really I don't think we need an English translation .. I mean just the odd word here and there could have been translated for us..   Just enough to follow the conversation. I mean .. I mean .. 我不能说话的。。

Posted on: Chinese Fruits
March 31, 2011 at 4:25 PM

'looks like there's some water on the left and grass above'

This reminds me of my personal goal to become literate about 偏旁 ..:) I am repeatedly frustrated being unable to describe a character properly in Chinese. Eg. talking to someone who has no English language.

I got some practice today when someone was telling me about the famous dancer 杨丽萍; to clarify the final character they said: 草字头，三点水 (there is no need to identify the position of 三点水 because it is always in the same position.)

For most characters you can identify the position of the 偏旁 in one of three positions: 上下还有左。 A relatively small number of characters require different words. I haven't learnt that language yet but it is on the list.

But on the meaning - I'm wondering if originally it meant 两 (some) 草 (grass) and 水 (water) - maybe that was 'sufficient' for survival in the old days. :)

Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 31, 2011 at 6:20 AM

哈哈， 可以啊，叫帅爷比爷爷好。

Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student
March 31, 2011 at 5:06 AM

Hi Dilu

You can maybe call me 帅哥, it would be a nice change from 爷爷。 :)

Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel
March 29, 2011 at 3:39 PM

'45 kuai in the mini-bar for Qingdao. Even standard size bottled water is 35.'

RJ, we clearly move in different circles. But I love the pricing philosophy - if you are going to be especially rapacious, put the big mark-up (+3,000%) on the essential item. That assumes that beer (+1,200%) is relatively discretionary - maybe it isn't for some people. Chinese pricing of consumer items is generally very clever.

Chinese hotels I've been in have the hot water on tap - one dispenser on each floor. Or a place to fill up your own Thermos.

Oh - and you did blow my story out of the water, good work. We could save it by just shifting it to the Bizarro China category.:)

Posted on: Houyi and The Ten Suns
March 29, 2011 at 3:25 PM

'it's an equivalent idiom'

Thanks for that Jason. I see your point, up to a point; both idioms have origins in executions, and now both mean dying of natural causes. The logical problem with this is that the story you are translating relates an act of execution, not dying of natural causes.

It's one of those cases I think where translating goes too far, trips over itself. It's UI - I would be in favour of no English translation at all. Or a footnote reference to the Qing Dynasty origins. Or leave it to be raised in the comments section, if learners are interested.

I think maybe (having had my say) I better keep my nose out of translation for a while - leave it to the experts. :)

Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel
March 29, 2011 at 9:57 AM

Just talking about this last night. A bottle of Chinese beer is about 3.5 at the shop around here, 10 in a restaurant (about 3 x shop price.) I'm guessing restaurant and mini-bar prices would be similar. It doesn't seem to matter how many stars in China. The beer is more expensive at a 4 or 5 star hotel mainly because they serve foreign beer I'm told. We'll have to check with RJ whether he is drinking foreign beer. He could shoot down my story with a single post.

That mark-up as a percentage seems to work for bottles of wine too, around this part of China. A really really bad bottle of Chinese wine is about 100 RMB in the restaurant.