User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Missing Luggage
June 19, 2008 at 4:12 AMHi michele,
Your posting always gives me a fresh surprise.!
“行李箱 made out of plum wood” is just an amusing idea, which I have never though of. To tell you the truth, at first I though 行李箱 might have originally been a kind of container box for carrying plums (李), but never come up with such an idea “a case made out of plum wood ”!
Anyway, I suppose that “plum” has nothing to do with 行李, although the primary meaning of the character 李 is “plum” in both ancient and modern Chinese. 说文解字 (shuo1 wen2 jie3 zi4, 100 A.D.), one of the oldest Chinese dictionaries, says “李，果也”, which means that 李 is a fruit.
Posted on: Bangkok
June 19, 2008 at 2:34 AMHi guolanusa,
我去年在东北长春吃过很好吃的泰国菜，当然也喝了冬阴功 (Tom yum soup)。我没法知道那个泰国菜是否地道，不过我觉得只要好吃就行！ 大概二十年前我去过一次泰国，但很可惜，我把那时候吃的泰国料理的味道都给忘差不多了。我只记得冬阴功汤很辣。
Hi amfool,
Although I’ve almost forgotten how tasty the Thai cuisine I ate in your country more than twenty years ago was, but I sill clearly remember the beautiful scenery of 普吉岛 (Phuket island). In particular, the floating villages there were really impressive. Btw, I’m sorry for a small nitpicking, but 我住在曼谷附近 should be better.
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
June 19, 2008 at 12:31 AMHi sushan and tvan,
I’ve found several related articles on the net. I have no way to verify them, it seems to me that it was highly likely that Cantonese almost achieved the status of the national language (国语) of the ROC in the early 20th century. The ROC government was based in southern China, and most of its political leaders were also southerners.
1911年北京话以一票之差压倒广州话成为国语http://www.haoo.cn/Html/Article/2007/01/15/2566124.html
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4d844aa601000b0b.html
As for Sichuan dialect (south-west Mandarin), I’m still not so sure if it was actually almost 普通话, although I’ve come across the following “plausible” webpage which shows you the concrete voting result. I suspect that the vote might be one of top state secrets of the PRC, where its priority is always placed on the national stability. Just joking.
1955年票选产生普通话,北京险胜四川一票(附选举结果)
http://hi.baidu.com/mcshb/blog/item/67f4373d702048eb3d6d97af.html
And 百度百科 tells you that it IS just a rumor (讹传). Please look at the bottom of the page. Actually, I myself have never read about this Sichuan things in any 普通话-related books and web pages in Japan. Anyway, I think it is worth further research. As you know, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. At least, I hope so. It’s just interesting.
百度百科（四川话）
http://baike.baidu.com/view/115664.htm
Posted on: Bangkok
June 18, 2008 at 12:42 PMHi anniedamian,
我不是泰国人，而是日本人。
wo3 bu4 shi4 tai4 guo2 ren2,
er2 shi4 ri4 ben3 ren2.
我去过一次泰国。
wo3 qu4 guo yi1 ci4 tai4 guo2.
Posted on: Missing Luggage
June 18, 2008 at 12:30 PMP/S. I imagine that the word 行李箱 (xing2 li3 xiang1, a travel box) was used to mean “luggage” first, and later the character 箱 was omitted without changing the meaning of the word. Just a guess!
Posted on: Missing Luggage
June 18, 2008 at 12:22 PMHi aimwell,
Thanks for raising an interesting question about 行李. Japanese also has the same word with the same meaning, but I’ve never thought about its etymology before. Let me give it a try. I’m looking up every dictionary I have!
Firstly, in ancient China, 行李 had a different meaning, i.e. “a messenger” (使者, shi3 zhe3), which was already seen in a famous history book 春秋左氏传 edited around 4th century B.C. Wow, this word has a very long history!
Secondly, 行李 later obtained a spin-off meaning, “travel” (旅行, lv3 xing2), and then its meaning again changed into “luggage”, which is a plausible and understandable alteration, considering its original meaning, “a messenger”.
Thirdly, the Chinese character 李 (li3) had another meaning, “an official”, in old Chinese, and that is just why 行李 (go + official) meant “a messenger”. In old Chinese, 理 (li3), as well as 吏 (li4), also had the meaning “an official.”
Those three characters, 李(li3)，理(li3)，吏(li4), have the same pronunciation “li” both in modern and in ancient Chinese. In particular, 李 and 理 were sometimes used interchangeably since their sounds were completely the same.
Posted on: Bangkok
June 18, 2008 at 8:27 AMHi dvdd8n,
Thank you very much! Judging from your info, it looks like the Thai name of the capital, "kruangthep". is not a direct equivalent of the English name "Bangkok". According to Wiki, the Thai name "BaanKook" doesn't indicate the capital city, but just indicates other area close to Thonburi. And surprisingly, the formal ritual name of the capital is;
กรุงเทพมหานคร บวรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์
Is it the longest city name in the world?
Posted on: Bangkok
June 18, 2008 at 7:34 AMHi tucsonmichael,
I guess that 堵车 (du3 che1) is more commonly used than 塞车 (sai1 che1) in China. The pronunciation “du3 che1” sounds much more “crowded and clogged” to me than “sai1 che1” does, and more importantly, I’m afraid that 塞车 (sai1 che1) might be ironically mistaken for 赛车 (sai4 che1, auto racing) !
Posted on: SBTG: Confucius
June 18, 2008 at 7:06 AMHi Brian,
I also love the verse that contains “未能事人，焉能事鬼” from the Analects of Confucius (论语), although I remember only the latter half of it, i.e. “未知生，焉知死”, which means “Not knowing about life, how is it possible to know about death?” 孔子 is just cooler than Humphrey Bogart, isn’t he?
http://www.confucius.org/lunyu/ed1111.htm
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
June 19, 2008 at 4:51 AMHi auntie68,
You might be right.
Having read your comment, I also begin to think that fact might NOT be stranger than fiction. So let me revise as follows; “ I hope so. ＞ I wish so.” And as you pointed out, Sichuan dialect is actually similar to Beijing dialect.
I read about that on a web page I found this morning, and that is why I wrote “Sichuan dialect (south-west Mandarin)” in my previous posting. Anyway, this kind of “side trip” in learning Chinese is really good fun! Tks.