User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 17, 2007 at 6:57 AMHi aert, As always, thank you very much for your intriguing stories. I’m happy to hear again that you love a Japanese artist Hokusai, and I am sure that you are much more interested in Japanese paintings than I am. I guess that is partly because your country Netherlands has produced a number of great artists such as Mondrian, Escher, Vermeer, Gogh, and Rembrandt, wow, even I know the names of those famous painters. As for me, I got acquainted with Hokusai-Manga through a mystery on the subject of works by Hokusai. The detective in the story investigates whether a newly-discovered volume of Hokusai-Manga is fake or genuine. Some European heroes kill a dragon, and conversely speaking, they become a hero by killing the legendary creature. On the contrary, you would be called 汉奸 (han4 jian1) , a traitor, if you killed a dragon in China. Be careful! BTW, Japanese children love “トンボ” (tombo, a dragonfly) very much. We also have a few very pretty dragonfly-themed folk songs in Japan, but I hear English-speaking people normally don’t like dragonflies due to the name! Hi auntie68, Another Kirin Beer story for you. In Japanese language, the word 麒麟 has two meanings, the Chinese legendary creature and a giraffe. In the latter case, you usually write it in katakana scripts, just like キリン (kirin). And unfortunately, some Japanese, especially younger generations, perhaps know only the latter meaning, a long-necked animal in a zoo. Some Japanese children may think that their dads drink “Giraffe Beer” every day.
Posted on: A Taxi for Tired Feet
December 17, 2007 at 5:10 AMMy chubby dog loves to take a bus, taxi. and trishaw. While I am taking her for a walk, she tries to get on them by herself! 打车去吧 (da3 che1 qu4 ba5) Let’s go by taxi.. 走着去吧 (zou3 zhe5 qu4 ba5) Let’s go on foot.
Posted on: Automated Phone Recordings
December 16, 2007 at 8:39 AMThe most unpleasant thing when receiving a call here in China is that some callers, often call the wrong number, shout “Who are you? (你是谁啊?)” as soon as I pick up the phone. You know, that IS just what I should be saying! I'm not demanding, so they don’t have to tell me their names first, and anyway I never ever expect such callers to do so. But at least I want to say, “please SHUT UP before I ask your name, and don’t call me when you are drunken!”
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 16, 2007 at 7:39 AMHi auntie68 Change’s Log, supplemental. Stardate 2007-1216. Alas, only Japanese brand beer I can get here in a small Chinese town is Asahi, though I love Suntory beer best among Japanese ones. If I lived in Shanghai, I would drink cold Suntory every day. I hear that Suntory brand is very prevailing in the metropolis. I envy Shanhainese. Let me show you another picture of 麒麟. I have no doubt that you will certainly love it very much, since the 麒麟 is sitting just in front of the Kirin-Brewery head office building in Osaka, Japan. Now, click on here and see the most drunken or beer-loving 麒麟 in history. http://462photoblog.com/j/2007/10/post_1077.html I have been to Singapore. I didn’t fail to go to the Marlion Park to see one of the most famous singa-singa in the world. I’m not sure if my dog can make friends with a guy of other species. Saya pergi ke Singapura dan melihat patung singa malion kira-kira dua puluh tahun yang lalu.
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 16, 2007 at 3:40 AMHi aert and auntie68, Thank you for raising an interesting problem again. I think that 凤毛”鳞”角 is just one of those typical spelling mistakes which even native speakers sometimes make. The followings are the search results by Google China, 凤毛”麟”角 (758,000) / 凤毛”鳞”角 (135,000). And Google kindly warns you “Do you mean : 凤毛麟角 ” Interestingly, this spelling error is not completely groundless, as auntie68 has pointed out, because legend has it that 麒麟 (qi2 lin2) is normally covered with 鳞 (lin2, fish scales) . It is also worth noting that European “unicorn” is not a precise equivalent for Chinese 麒麟, as is always the case with language translation. As you know a unicorn was created in the image of a horse, perhaps a white horse, but on the other hand the appearance of 麒麟 clearly has significant similarity to that of a deer. And more importantly, I hear that some versions of 麒麟 have two horns! In that case, you have to call 麒麟 “a dicorn”, not “a unicorn”. The same can be said for European dragons and Chinese 龙 (long2). Those two words are not perfectly interchangeable with each other. The former probably has somewhat, or rather, evil image, but the latter is a great symbol of good fortune in China. Lastly, let me show you some pictures of those legendary creatures. 麒麟 (qi2 lin2) http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~higasi-k/page_thumb34.htm Unicorn http://www.britishlife.co.jp/picture40031.htm 龙 (long2) http://www9.ocn.ne.jp/~artdiki/koubou/tubuyaki/ukiyoe.html Dragon http://www.hobbyjapan.co.jp/dd/news/epg/0221_02.htm FYI, the picture of 龙 is a work by 葛飾北斎(katsushika-hokusai) , a famous Japanese Ukiyo-e artist. I believe you know the name. P.S. Hi auntie68, you do have a good point!
Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers
December 15, 2007 at 7:27 AMGee...., I am not so diligent.
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 15, 2007 at 6:11 AMHi henry123, 我也好像在哪听说过金瓶掣签这个制度。 无论是宗教还是政党只要有权利就腐败。 中国当局坚持金瓶掣签制度会有些道理。 这样做才能不让僧人堕落到无耻的地步。 正像你说的那样外部牵制和监督很关键。 讽刺的是共产党本身并不拥有这种制度。
Posted on: Buying a Bouquet of Flowers
December 15, 2007 at 4:41 AMIf your wife asks for the moon, sorry, it would be still impossible to satisfy her extravagant demand even if you were a NASA astronaut. Then, what if she asks for blue roses (蓝玫瑰, lan2 mei2 gui5) ? You don’t have to worry anymore, only if you are a rich man. Now, go to Suntory Ltd. (三得利, san1 de2 li4) and get a bundle of blue roses for your demanding better half. As for me, even Suntory beer（啤酒, pi2 jiu3） is still difficult to find here in a small Chinese city, and of course, blue roses are far from my reach and beyond my purse. http://www.florigene.com.au/news/news.php
Posted on: 藏传佛教
December 14, 2007 at 1:21 PM朱琦老师！ 作为一个日本人我非常荣幸看到 日本最有名的偶像机器人阿童木， 但恐怕是其他男性听众会有意见。 看不到你的笑脸朱琦迷就要疯了！
Posted on: A Taxi for Tired Feet
December 18, 2007 at 5:19 AMHi aert, Thanks, you always inspire me to look anew at familiar things. Let me try to answer to your 麒麟 related question. Firstly, I would like tell you that “Chinese legendary unicorn” is still spelled as 麒麟, not 其粦 or something like that, in modern Chinese dictionaries published in the PRC. The national list of simplified Chinese characters promulgated in 1964 includes only 2,235 characters, which means that other several thousands characters remain unsimplified/unchanged apparently because some of them are inherently simple and most of them are very rarely used. As you said, the radical 鹿 was eliminated then, at least not listed in the table of radicals designed for 简体字, but I think the rule was applied only when characters are simplified. In other words, you can still use this radical for other characters than simplified ones. Sorry my explanation might be tricky. Eliminating the radical 鹿 in the simplification procedure does not necessarily mean you have to erase 鹿 from all the characters which traditionally have the radical in them. Not all the characters used in mainland China are simplified ones. There are more 繁体字 than 简体字 in dictionaries. 新华字典, the most authorized character dictionary here, contains several thousands formal/official characters used in China. And you can still find more than ten 鹿 related characters in it, such as 麒，麟，麋，麓，漉，鄜，麝，麈，麀，麕，麑，of course they are all shown without parentheses. Luckily enough for 麒麟, those two characters were too minor to be simplified! In this way, our venerable legendary creature 麒麟 managed to survive the simplification of Chinese characters, although, alas, other two good-fortune creatures 凤凰 (phoenix) and 龙 (dragon) could not.