User Comments - geiwotangba

Posted on: Getting Picked up by a Driver

I remember my time spent in Tokyo getting picked up by a limo sent by the Vice President of a fashion company I was teaching business English to in the Nikkei Stock bubble years, the roaring 80's. It was a souped up Toyota Crown complete with a bar and TV and phone, which was a pretty big deal then. Japanese cars, taxis and limos are such a sight to behold, spotless and immaculate and the drivers all wear white gloves. 

Nowadays, in China, I also get picked up by taxi by some schools I teach at. Down south I guess native English teachers are a rarer commodity and we get treated well and the full potential of our reach is exploited as much as possible.

Posted on: Getting Satellite TV

Yeah, I like watching old TV shows from the eighties and back, now computers, cell phones or internet back then. Things really have changed so quickly.

我喜欢看老电视节目，从八时期以前，电脑，手机，网络都没有。我觉得真老了，社会变化从那个时间怎么这么大！

Posted on: Getting Picked up by a Driver

China was supposed to change and become more liberal when it became a more active participant in the world economy. Funny thing though, the world around China has changed more, they are becoming more socialist, piggy-back riding on China's just recently built up industrial infrastructure and labor, while China is maybe changing a little, relatively speaking. China, like every other country depends on growth of the world economy. Japan has just been taken off the grid with the earthquake and nuclear disaster creating serious supply disruptions. Every country is printing money like crazy with no real productive growth accompanying this rapidly increasing money supply. Wage inflation is about to take off, I know a few factory owners and they talk of the rising pressure to raise wages and the utter inability to raise their product prices. It's a little easy to be an entrepreneur in the good times, but we are about to see who the real entrepreneurs are real soon.

Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?

I like buying DVD's and listening to the Chinese while following the subtitles in hanzi. I found some of the Pixar movies to be the best, as the story lines and themes can be quite sophisticated and enjoyable and the translations match up quite well with the subtitles, which isn't always the case for many movies. Like the person said before, cartoons can be good for drilling with the most regularly used words in conversations as well as be quite entertaining. I also went over the translation of 'The Incredibles' with my Chinese teacher (although, she seems more interested at times in the accompanying English script I also write down for easy reference...LOL), for what it's worth, she thinks the Chinese used in the translation is pretty worthwhile to learn too.

Posted on: Help with the Baby

Having an extended family is priceless. Not to mention the the value of their knowledge and exprience the older folk bring to the table for the children in their developmental stages. When I get older, I hope to offer my kids the same help when they have to raise their children.

Posted on: Awkward Silence

that's interesting. Everywhere I go, I hear a chorus of hellos from factory workers, school children, anyone, all alert to the one different person that just walked or road his bike nearby. As for elevators, always try to take the stairs, it's healthier in more ways than one. I used to work on the eleventh floor of a bank, and I'd take the stairs everyday. I looked on it as a free membership to a health spa.

Posted on: Awkward Silence

A lot of my Chinese elementary students came up to me pointing out the significance of this day. What a disappointing look I got from them when I simply shook my head and said I didn't know what they were talking about. The Chinese really go out of their way and study every nook and cranny of Western/American culture...! But with inflation heating up along with revolutions spreading due to our great economic leaders believing they can print prosperity and peace...we'll, I just think these Chinese are making a huge effort in trying to understand intellectual zombies.

Posted on: Awkward Silence

This lesson is lame. But, gotta admit, it's alot like some of if not most of the conversations I have with native Chinese.

Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel

Sometimes I like to leave my school dorm to take an early morning walk, but I will change my mind as I know I'll most certainly have to wake the security guard at the gate.

Other times I'll decide to take the 4 am track run within the school. The guard on his rounds will come by and become a bit startled, flash a light in my face and then relax, as I am the only foreigner around in a 20 mile radius, crack a joke in Cantonese that I may or may not understand and then let me be.

What really sucks is when I come back from some place and want to get back in and the guard is either on a 'WC' run or maybe fast asleep in a hidden place.

I don't know about up north, but I finally figured out why the Chinese refer to a public toilet as 'WC'...it must be from the old English phrase, 'Water Closet', it's the only thing that makes any sense. I've tried asking about it to some of my students, but they don't really know what 'WC' stands for either. I fell upon this trivia by accident as I was doing some investigative research about 'John Crapper' today for I dialog I was going to give to my classes this week. He apparently had an invention that greatly advanced toilet technology for his day. The idea behind the mentioning of John was to get them accustomed to the phrase...'cut the crap...'

When I first came to China I was lucky to get to stay in a Government Hotel, where they had western bathrooms and toilets. But venturing out into the real world, I found this country has given real meaning behind the world 'TOILet', you'know the kind where one has to squat...

Posted on: Checking out at a Hotel

this is weird, a Cantonese blog has their lesson on leaving a hotel today too...must be some bloggers talking points memo going out today.