User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Opinions on Poetry
October 17, 2007 at 12:43 PMHi oolung, The book “The Grand Titration” seems very interesting. I hear that printing technology, paper, compass, and gunpowder were all invented in ancient China. The strange thing is that such a world-leading technology power failed to develop modern scientific spirit in the past several hundreds years. The situation was more or less the same in Korea and Japan, countries that had been deeply influenced by Chinese culture over long periods of time. To put it the other way around, my question is why only Europe succeeded in the scientific revolution. Was that attributed to religion, social structure, or just a matter of mere luck or chance? Anyway, this philosophical theme is too difficult for me, who is no more than a secular pragmatic guy. Now, let me go back to watching anime!
Posted on: Familiar Face in Jizhou
October 17, 2007 at 12:40 PMHi Lydia1981, That’s why I love Chinesepod! 我在此隆重向大家宣布、 今天这一集的内容和我 上次预测的差不多一样。 看样子这系列好象是向 悬念片的王道大步迈进。 我现在最担心的是工作 人员怎样才能设计一个 让听众出乎意料的结尾。 即便放弃靠外星人解决、 也千万别把忍者牵连吧。
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Date with a Nerd
October 16, 2007 at 8:59 AMEvery time I listen to a monologue in this series, I somehow feel a kind of terror. This diary series seems to be more chilling than mysteries by Stephen King.
Posted on: Opinions on Poetry
October 16, 2007 at 2:47 AMIt was very ironical that “毛泽东”, a leader who loved Chinese literature, insisted on romanization of his mother tongue. A famous Chinese linguist “王力”, who greatly contributed to research on classical Chinese, also advocated the proposal by 毛泽东. That was an ideological trend of that time. Those people would certainly read their beloved Chinese classics in secret at home even after accomplishing the objective. I know their idea was based on goodwill, but I still don’t like their way of thinking, that is, “I’m smart enough to read hanzi, but sorry you aren’t.”
Posted on: Opinions on Poetry
October 15, 2007 at 12:02 PMHi kyle, ＞ Is 'A' by Japanese the same ＞ as Chinese Classical Chinese? Yes, it was basically the same as classical Chinese, but of course you can find some grammatical mistakes and sense “Japanese flavor” in those “A” Chinese. I am happy to hear you are going to study my native tongue. If you learn both Chinese and Japanese, it would be easier for you to study classical Chinese Its grammar is related to modern Mandarin and the meanings of hanzi are very similar to those of Japanese kanji characters.
Posted on: Opinions on Poetry
October 15, 2007 at 9:17 AMHi kyle, In general, classical Japanese literature falls into five groups based on what language and character are used to write. A. written in authentic classical Chinese. B. written in highly Japanized Chinese. C. written in Japanese with only Hanzi D. written in Japanese with only Hiragana E. written in Japanese with Hiragana and Hanzi A/B/C are very difficult to read. Most ordinary Japanese people only understand a fraction of them. D is naturally easy to read out but not so easy to understand them. E is relatively easy for modern Japanese, especially the works written after 15th century. Surprisingly, a lot of Chinese intelligentsia tried to uproot Chinese characters in the first half of the 20th century. Chinese government nearly decided to abolish hanzi in the 50s. Pinyin system was originally introduced to achieve the objective proposed by Mao Tse-Tung. Japan also had similar movements in the past, but of course all of them failed. Japanese language has a great number of loanwords from Chinese, so it is not readable without hanzi.
Posted on: Opinions on Poetry
October 15, 2007 at 4:05 AMI really envy Chinese people for having innumerable Chinese characters and classical literary works. At the same time, I suspect the cultural heritage might have been a big burden to Chinese society, because there are way too much things to memorize for people, especially, intelligentsia. The burden of Chinese characters has possibly been suppressing the development of other cultural areas such as science. Chinese scholars have long been too busy learning and studying the heritage of the past. It would be a good idea to recite some classic poems in advanced or intermediate lessons.
Posted on: 八卦周刊：梁朝伟另结新欢
October 15, 2007 at 2:38 AM据说在中国报纸杂志等传统 媒体之间的竞争很激烈所以 不少报社靠丑闻和怪闻促销。 并且言论自由难免受限制的 情况下非政治敏感性的话题 都变成了一种言论自由特区。 我看都是不可避免的反作用。 因此中国的黄色新闻很精彩。
Posted on: Speaking and Writing
October 14, 2007 at 7:37 AMHi marcosbento, You guessed very right, my chubby dog loves bones. Btw, 骨 is very interesting to me. In Japanese, the small 口 in the big 口 is located on the right side, but on the left side in Chinese. This character looks same in both languages, but not completely. You can find a lot of those looks-same-but-a-little-different Chinese characters, which sometimes confuse Chinese-learners in Japan, me included. The chronological change of the position of small 口 in “骨” is as follows. Looks like some stupid guys moved it from right to left after 5th century. 甲骨 very different from modern 骨. 金文 perhaps similar to 甲骨文 大篆 similar to 小篆, no small 口 in the hanzi. 小篆 right side (the same as Japanese 骨) 隶书 right side 楷书 mainly left side 简体 left side
Posted on: Phone Call for the Boss
October 18, 2007 at 4:04 AMThe best way to make identifying your ring tone a lot easier is to select most ordinary old-fashioned ringing sound for your phone.