User Comments - dedsall78

Posted on: Chinese Birthdays and Local Hospitals

Congratulations, Amber.  Must be nice to be doing this for a year.

On the birthday part, I was told once that, in the north, they talk of age in the same way we do over in the States.  It's only down South that they "add" that extra year on to your age.  As I'm not a northern Chinese, I can't verify that one myself but that is what I was told.

As for hospital experience, I had to go to a Beijing hospital shortly after I arrived here in Beijing.  It was, not surprisingly, a pretty bad lung infection.  I had already tried Chinese herbs but the infection was too severe for them to help.  Had no problem even though I was at the hospital at 2 AM (couldn't sleep so decided to go to the hospital).  No problems, well taken care of.  Only recommendation is bring a pocket dictionary with you.  It is very helpful!

Oh, and if you ever take antibiotics here in China, they actually do not give you enough (at least they didn't for me).  Remember that you need to take 9 - 10 days worth or else you risk leaving the remaining strong bacteria alive in your body!  Even if you are feeling better, you MUST take those last couple days worth.

For some odd reason, they would only give me 3 days worth and I had to go back twice to have them refill it.  The second time I had insist they give it to me; they wanted to give me chinese medicine.  This concept of taking antibiotics for the whole duration doesn't seem to have caught on here.  My chinese was also very bad at the time so I couldn't talk with them very well.

Oh, and if your friend is feeling dizzy (especially if it is chronic), have her go to a good Chinese medical doctor.  Chinese herbs and probably some lifestlye and / or dietary changes can help with that problem.

Posted on: The 80/20 Rule

很难的对话可是我觉得对商人这个对话很重要。

And for those of us who aren't, it's still good to hear the grammar and try to understand what's happening.  I was just happy I could pick up terms and grammer here and there :-)

Posted on: On Location at the Beijing 2008 Olympics

Nice to hear you all made it to Beijing and enjoyed it.

The pollution here is quite bad, actually.  They just cleaned it up rather well during the Olympics (it is already returning to it's old state).  For those who were here last Saturday morning, you may have been woken up at 4 AM to the loud crashing and "lightning" of them sending the "water balloons" into the air.  If I hadn't of known it was the Olympics, I would have wondered if artillery were being fired into the city.  My building was shaking, literally (car alarms were set off as well).

Also, whoever was in charge of food at the games should be fired.  If you were at the bird's nest, you had access to real food, but other places did not.  All they had were chips, ice cream, and other snacks.  If you were at, say Tae Kwon Do from 3 PM - 9:30 PM, you had no dinner and you could not leave to eat and then return; many people were mad about this, including me.  And they ran out of what little food they had quickly; it was always 没有，没有，没有。  I rant about this because I have a high metabolism and get irate when I am hungry but have no good food :-)

Those two things aside, I really enjoyed the Olympics here!  Overall, a great experience, the Bird's Nest was amazing.  Opening Ceremony, amazing!  Very well organized, aside from the food part, and the volunteers were great.

I had a great time once in the subway where a foreigner, not sure where he was from, got a good part of the train shouting 中国加油!

I had a blast at the Athletic's event too.  Fortunate enough to get seats right up close.  Everyone was going wild there... especially when the Aussie (don't recall his name) broke the pole jump olympic record and the Jamaicans broke the world record in 4x100.

Posted on: Language Power Struggle

Not a bad lesson... rings so true sometimes. I still find it really funny that I am complemented on my Chinese after speaking one sentence. :-)

I have found that most Chinese, at least the Chinese I have met here in Beijing, are all too happy to speak Chinese.  They may initially speak English, if they can, but will change to Chinese as long as I continue to speak in Chinese.  I get the impression that Shanghainese people, in general, speak more English than the Beijingers do, though.

There are exceptions, though, and I have a friend who always speaks English even when I speak Chinese.  But that's because she's just as insistent on improving her English as I am improving my Chinese. :-)

And I find that doing a language exchange works great as long as you don't take the easy route and speak English when it's time to speak Chinese.  An easy habit for all of us to fall into.

Posted on: Here she comes

I chuckled a bit on this one.  Was a good review for me as my listening skills ain't so great :-)

And I never really thought about it until now but, yeah, Chinese really seem to like to text more than call.  I seem to have fallen into the same habit.

Posted on: Chinglish in Reverse and University Culture

Anyone ever watch that show Firefly in the US?  They cursed in Chinese in it...  I guess the reasoning was that some Chinese phrases would get mixed in with English :-)

A little advice for the guy who is going to study at Tsinghua.  Best to get there early if you want a single room.  I studied there last semester and arrived there the day they "said" was the first day you could arrive and all the singles were already taken.  People had arrived early, or had stayed from last semester, and taken all the singles already.

Posted on: Getting Internet at your Apartment

Yeah, the adds are actually pretty damn good if you ask me.  Can't go wrong with Mr. T.

And John, I think you are a little out of the loop.  There are just as many obsessed online game players in the US as in China. :-)

You may just not notice them as much since most stay at home and lose sleep rather than at the internet cafes.

Posted on: Fat Camp

Great lesson.  Useful information in this one and it did make me laugh a bit.  Coke and pototae chips are designed to be addictive.

I could go on all day about diet but I won't bore everyone.  Most of you have gotten onto a lot of the key things but there is one thing that no one has mentioned yet.

High fructose corn syrup.  This is in just about everything in the US.  In China, most people still eat at homes often while many Americans eat out often.  The children are getting fatter because they are adopting many bad Western habits.

High fructose corn syrup is in almost all refined foods.  Next time you go to a 7/11, check out all the drinks.  I challenge you to find one without high fructose corn syrup.  Even the "healthy" drinks like Gatoride has it as the #2 ingredient.

Some scientists / dieticians are now thinking that high fructose corn syrup is undigestible by the body and may be the leading cause of obesity.

Oh, and don't forget about trans-fats haha

If the Chinese follow in our footsteps, the obesity level will simply rise like ours.

Ok, rant over :-)

Posted on: Fortunate Cookies

I have a couple of questions relating to the expansion selection.

What are the differences between these two sets of sentences.  Or do they have the same meaning in this case?

来这里你可以吃到最正宗的新疆菜.

vs

来这里你可以吃最正宗的新疆菜。

我喜欢吃咬起来脆脆的苹果。

vs

我喜欢吃脆的苹果。

I don't quite get why 到 was used in the first sentence and wonder if there would be any difference if it was omitted in this case.

As for the second one, I don't really understand why 咬起来 was used.  Is it just for emphasis?

Thanks.

Posted on: Wang Wei's Diary: The Importance of Brains

Is there a difference in the usage of 以前 compared to just using 前 alone. It seems that the usage depends on whether it follows a noun or verb. Is this a correct assumption?