User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Children's Train Ticket

'Everytime I learn 1 thing in Chinese, I find there are 10 more things I don't know........ I'll be using CP for a long-time'

Well said DaveCragin. I feel the same way.

Posted on: Fake Beggars?

'just make money on begging'

This got me thinking .. in my view people only beg when they are in an absolutely desperate situation. (I am only talking about China). It is hardly an 'occupation' that you would plan to pursue. If it is a 'business' it has fairly poor returns, and so not many people are attracted into it. If people are begging, for whatever reason, they probably deserve our sympathy.

One reason I assume that there are very few beggars where I have lived is that food is extremely cheap, and some restaurants just let beggars take food leftovers.

There is also the municipal social security but in some situations it would not be enough to live on.

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

袍 pao (a kind of robe) .... Reminds me of 红袍茶 a famous tea from I think 福建省。

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

I just looked it up in Pleco, to answer my own question. 'old) (a member of) a reactionary gang in southwest China before liberation.' Seems that it is one of those old expressions that lives on in the 21st century.

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

Actually my answer was saying that it is age dependent - sorry that point was lost. Now I think about it these kinds of words are also regional. In 四川 you can say 袍哥 for a close mate, someone who would fight on your behalf. ... :) Either a man or woman can say this. Gee I hope I have right characters - maybe someone can check and correct me if I have this wrong. Not so cute out here.

Posted on: Asking to Be Paid Back

‘Can females ever use this for close male friends?‘

I can't answer your question Baba, in fact haven't even listened to the lesson, but I was out tonight with a dozen of my adult students, average age around 30, and I was struck by the difference between this age group and university students around 20 and 21. In the younger group the men seem to be terrified of the women (they will crowd five students onto a bench made for three rather than sit next to a woman). Men and women have to be pushed to work together.

Then something happens - I noticed that my 30 something group - all work mates - are very comfortable in each others' company - it seems the females do have very close male friends, in a way that seems impossible in the younger group.

I say all of this because it is in stark contrast to what I observed with my children growing up in Australia. My children had very close friends of the opposite sex (but not boyfriend/girlfriend) from say the middle years of high school on. Actually, from younger, come to think of it.

I wonder why this happens so late in Chinese society. My wife has wondered if it is because the Chinese parents hang on so tight to their children until they have graduated from university. It seems that they purposely delay their maturity.

However, from tonight's experience, it seems that it all works out in the end. The group tonight seems very close - around half are married, but they came out without their spouses.

Posted on: Lessons Per Week

'I am saying with certainty that Putonghua and Mandarin are not exactly the same thing. '

Mr Trendy, this discussion has become a little messy, particularly for elementary learners.

Is Chinese the only language where one is not sure what language they are learning I wonder? :)

Anyway, I'm sure you got your information from a reputable source, but I found the 'with certainty' statement as well as the presentation confusing, mainly because the Chinese does not match up with the English translation in the list.

Most people here are learning Mandarin, which is an outdated term according to authorities in Australia (yes, what would they know?) The Englsih term now used is Standard Chinese.

This equates to Putonghua when distinguishing it from other 方言 fāngyán Chinese dialects. We use the term Putonghua when communicating about the dialect.

Putonghua is based on the Beijing dialect but that does not mean that it is the same. This piece of information is not particularly useful to anyone except linguists.

In normal conversation we can call the language 汉语 or 中文 - in my experience either is used, but native speakers I have come across generally favour 中文, even though we are taught that this includes the written form of the language.

A Chinese person asking how a local describes something will say something like A 你的方言怎么说？ Those categories again might be interesting to linguists but ordinary native speakers are quite vague about that stuff. It is all quite a murky area,

Posted on: Buying High-Speed Train Tickets

Unfortunately there aren't many real boat trips left in china - I've gone Yantai - Dalian and Dalian - Incheon (overnight) - and back. Recommended for low environmental impact and quite good fun.

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

Discovered today that my wife has been frequenting a 'bakery' near her work - they have bread, cakes, coffee and sandwiches. Well SANDWICH actually - if you want a sandwich, they only make one kind. One half is tuna, mayonaisse and red onion, and the other half has fried egg, tomato, lettuce and cucumber - tasty apparently, and take it or leave it. But it also doesn't call itself either 蛋糕店 or 面包房. It is 嗨呗可 and perhaps hails from Hong Kong, or has expanded there. So now I have located seven chains around here:

好利来

九十度

巧思

米旗

Ｍｏｒｉ(sorry can't recall the characters)

沁园

嗨呗可　

(Phew! That was a lot of legwork!)

That is seven chains, none of which use either 蛋糕店 or 面包房 in their business name or on their hoardings or advertising. It's like no-one wants to step out of line, like almost every Thai restaurant in Sydney has to have a name that is a pun (eg. Bow Thai).

Posted on: Difficult Cake Choices

'I had put it on too thick'

No, mate ... you should put it on even thicker. .. :)

RJ, I gather that you never went to boarding school. Vegemite was the high point in my day.