User Comments - davidfong

Posted on: ID Check at the Internet Cafe

Thanks Pete! Another useful phrase I'll commit to memory!

Posted on: ID Check at the Internet Cafe

For those of us who look Chinese, and even blurted out a few words of Mandarin at the counter, it would be handy to know how the service person would ask "Can I see your identity card?" and then "I don't have an identity card, I come from Australia!" (This happened to me when I was trying to buy a mobile phone SIM card).

Posted on: Fat Camp

This was a fun lesson! Great to hear some straight talking!

Does ying2 营 always have martial/disciplinary overtones? Are recreational camps also described as ying2 营?

I agree with theblindseer, there is a rising incidence of type 2 (maturity-onset, insulin resistant) diabetes in China and in overseas-Chinese societies. Let me check my lecture notes...it is estimated that China will have 100 million diabetics by 2010. As usual, without pro-active case finding by health services, three-quarters of those diabetics will not know they have diabetes!

As for genetics, the Chinese are not so lucky either. Here in Australia, I have been given a tape measure to estimate when men/women/Caucasian/Asian are at risk of metabolic syndrome (leading to diabetes etc.) based on waist circumference. And Asians are at risk with lower waist circumference!

And one need only look at Chinese students overseas to see that for many bad habits settle in quickly. Or perhaps compared to those back home many 有钱 and all are 想家.

Posted on: Tattoos, TV and the Stock Market

Actually, one of the CCTV-9 news presenters is Edwin Maher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Maher). Well beloved by the Melbournians of Australia he, to my memory, won several awards from Hearing Impaired societies for his clear diction during his time presenting the news for ABC Melbourne. 'Cos only Australians and New Zealanders know how to speak English! Some ABC listeners may be a little shocked to hear the way certain stories are presented in his news broadcasts, though!

Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Date with a Nerd

How negative is 书呆子 shu1dai1zi? Other than meaning some-one who reads books all the time... 1. is it always disparaging? 2. does it suggest the person does not use the knowledge they have read? (that is what my father thinks. BTW - my father is a dentist, I have a paternal uncle who is a dentist, I have two paternal uncles who are doctors, I am a doctor, my brother is a doctor, and I have three paternal cousins who are doctors, so perhaps my family has a different idea about how to disparage someone by calling them 书呆子)

Posted on: Sailing

Since sailing small boats is such a strange activity for most mainland Chinese, I have found that they are not sure how to say the verb 'to sail' in Chinese! I am tempted to say fan1 fan1chuan2 (帆帆船), but fan1 is a noun, not a verb, and perhaps, as earlier mentioned, it just suggests that I am capsizing 翻 the sailboat instead! One person suggested that the word used for rowboats hua2 划 is commonly used for sailboards 帆板 fānbǎn, even though it is a poor description for the activity of sailing.

Posted on: The Clogged Toilet

Thanks for providing HTML versions of the dialogue transcript, as well as the PDF. At last, we can copy and paste from the dialogue! I assume the HTML version is created using something like LaTeX2html, so part of the problems from using pdflatex have been circumvented... I can't help but mention that the character 拔 also appears in the phrase 拔萃 (ba2cui4), which I am told is the motto of Diocesan Boys' School in Hong Kong. It means something like "stand out from one's peers", where cui4 means something like 'gathering'. An older meaning is the high level of examination for civil service officials, an appropriate motto for an academic high school!