User Comments - helzcurrah

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

I just listened to this dialogue and it's hilarious! I don't think it's supposed to reflect real Chinese women, but rather be a parody of the recent news story. In anycase I made a couple of observations:

1) There's no evidence in the dialogue alone that this women actually is shallow, since we don't know who she accepted the ride from, and we don't know if she accepted the car. It's not her fault if men keep falling over themselves to offer her stuff.

2) The men seem to have absolutely no self respect. They clearly don't think they are capable of winning a woman by personality alone, so they resort to more and more expensive cars.

Give me a poor man with a sense of humour and warm personality any day!

Posted on: Fast Cars and Shallow Women

1,000,000 RMB/ year+ - are you serious? That means almost nobody in China can get married! There have to be different scales for different social classes. Maybe for a peasant girl in the deepest countryside, height 150+, salary 10,000 rmb/year + and house (just a house) is enough?

Also, what are the requirements for a women beyond being good looking (that one's obvious!). Are there any?

Posted on: The 着 (zhe) Chronicles: Actions in Progress

什么方面？ I can be pedantic when native English speakers make mistakes in English. I also get annoyed at sci-fi films and shows when they get the science badly wrong. The worst example of this was a film called "Evolution", I was practically crying at the end because it was so bad! My only exception to this is Red Dwarf, because when you watch it, it's obvious they are not even trying to make the science look authentic, it's much more like a sitcom than a sci-fi show, and it just happens to be set in space in the future!

Posted on: The 着 (zhe) Chronicles: Actions in Progress

The stereotypes in Big Bang theory are extreme. Most scientists and engineers I know are pretty cool, well rounded people. But I do recognise a bit of Sheldon in me. However, I'd like to think my Chinese is a bit better than his......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ft1VZgsavg

Posted on: The 着 (zhe) Chronicles: Actions in Progress

As an engineer I used to hate it (especially since the only engineer in the show is the butt of all the jokes), but it's grown on me now.

Posted on: A Detained Package

So my plan is clear! If I give an impassioned speech full of rhetoric and no facts, then shout and scream at everyone to get working, I'll get results.....

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

I went to that hostel's bar the other night. It has a pretty nice view over The Bund and it's not (too) expensive.

Posted on: A Detained Package

Haha, yes dealing with tomorrow's problems tomorrow is familiar. And in my industry (I'm an engineer) I often encounter people solving the same problem over and over again with the same half-assed solution, instead of taking a bit of time and effort to solve it permanently and get rid of the root cause.

When I say "we could do this then this...and we would never have this problem again", they look at me like I'm crazy. They'll say "ah, but this costs money, we don't have time and it's not a high priority"!

Posted on: A Detained Package

This podcast includes something I experience often in China which drives me absolutely crazy. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me?

In the dialogue, the person receiving the parcel asks

      "Why do I have to pay duties?".

The other person replies

      "Packages all undergo random inspection. I guess yours happened to be checked."

This reply is very vague and useless as offers no more information other than that which is already obvious! If I asked this question, I would want to know which kind of items attract duty, what my mother should have done when posting to avoid this situation, or if this is happening due to corruption at the post office, how much should I bribe the guy, or how can I best package the parcel so that it doesn't appear to contain anything valuable! (By the way, if anyone happens to know the answers to these sub-questions, I would be very interested to know).

Every time I ask a question about why something happens in China, I get an equally useless reply, or worse, no reply at all. I then have to ask around 20 very specific yes/no questions before I can get the information that I was expecting when I asked the question. I feel a bit uncomfortable doing this as it feels like I am patronising the other person. But had I been asked the same question, I would have given all the information I have which I feel could be useful to the other person. Maybe it's just a difference in communication styles?

Posted on: Hostel Curfew

Wow, what a discussion! My traveling mates wanted to leave the cockroach trapped under glass, but in my view that is imparting the maximum level of cruelty. I think swatting it with a newspaper is far more humane, given that I am absolutely not prepared to allow it into my bed!

Anyway, my grandfather used to say it's ok to eat anything that's less intelligent than a sheep!