User Comments - huan9
huan9
Posted on: Chinese Breakfast
January 8, 2008 at 4:34 AMAh, Chinese breakfast. In Mandarin it is 油条。In English I like to call them Oil Sticks. The Cantonese call them Yao Tza Guai (I'm not sure of the spelling.) It means Oil-Fried Ghost and I used to know a legend that goes with it...something about a couple jumping in to drown together? It explains why one 油条 is actually two strips stuck together. Does anyone know the story? The Cantonese have some good breakfast foods, especially if you count the Deem Sum 点心 that they eat when they yum cha (drink tea and eat brunch). They have all kinds of dumplings, chicken feet, turnip "cakes", cha siu bao (steamed buns with pork filling) and leen yong bao (buns with lotus filling) and dow sa bao (buns with red bean filling). The sorry mainland equivalent is of these buns is Man Toe, which I call Dough-filled Dough Balls. They are a similar white steamed bread, except chewier, but with nothing exciting in the middle. They do bounce well when you drop them on the floor, I admit. Casie mentioned 皮蛋 (pi2 dan4). They are very salty preserved duck eggs. When I lived in 成都 Cheng2du1 people gave those out left and right during some holiday, I can't remember which one, Duan4 wu3 jie2 maybe? (Dragon Boat Fest). I didn't have the heart to tell our generous friends and neighbors that it sort of put out my appetite when someone hands you a bag of something and you hear them say, "This is peed on. Eat it." One year we kept count and it was over 50 of them 皮蛋. That's about 48 more than a household of two waig'ren can consume. So we instigated the Eggers for Beggars Program. We were armed and ready to greet the beggars that hang out at the downtown church, waiting for services to get out. They seemed thankful that they didn't go away empty handed, but not as thankful as we were to be rid of the 皮蛋。 At Duan Wu Jie, Chinese people also gave us lots of zongzi, which I do like. They are heavy lumps of glutinous rice cooked in a banana leaf. There's a miniscule piece of pork fat or a peanut inside. Really, it's better than it sounds. And there's a story to that food too, also about someone jumping into the water to drown. Bon appetit!
Posted on: Baby Care
December 17, 2007 at 8:19 PMHow do you say "toilet training" in Chinese? As in... "I'm toilet training my daughter now." How would you ask a toddler, "Do you want to sit on the toilet now?"
Posted on: Feng Shui and Surgical Masks
December 10, 2007 at 8:26 PMI'm glad to read that people are not completely disregarding English teaching in China based on one person's experience. Some people have a bad teaching situation and others have a great one. Do as much investigation about the school and/or organization as possible before signing up. And do read the contract. I taught in China three times for a total of 5 years. I found it was hard work but very rewarding. For Christians who want to teaching English, Japanese or German in China, I highly recommend the Amity Foundation, a Chinese NGO based in Nanjing. They send teachers to colleges all over China to train future language teachers. Going with Amity had several advantages. Amity provides training in language teaching and Chinese language, and conferences twice a year to network with other teachers. They took us out to the countryside and up into the mountains to see their other projects (social welfare, medical, disaster relief, environmental, etc.) So we meet people and saw a side of China we would have never seen otherwise. Also, when I ended up with too many teaching hours and too many students, the Amity staff went to bat for me and negotiated with the school until I had a reasonable teaching load. The foundation doesn't want its teachers to burn out. And I met some wonderful friends from all over the world through this organization. As for compensation, I was paid enough to live very comfortably by Chinese standards. We were also given a travel allowance for vacations. My health insurance and round trip international airfare was covered. Housing was provided too. (At one school I worked at we teachers even got free lunch! ) Amity partners with various church denominations outside of China. (Note: This program is for Christians who want to teach English, share their culture, and learn about China and Chinese people, not for people who want to convert Chinese people to their religion.) Here's their website for those interested: http://www.amityfoundation.org/page.php?page=76
Posted on: Ordering Office Supplies
December 3, 2007 at 5:13 AMAmber: In what context would this sentence be used? Does it mean, "If we can't for sure get there on time we won't go at all." ?
Posted on: Ordering Office Supplies
November 24, 2007 at 12:40 AMWhat does this mean? 得不到时间上的保证我们是不会走的。
Posted on: Weather Forecast
November 16, 2007 at 3:48 AM明天全省有雨，局部地区中到大雨。 (Tomorrow every province will get rain. Local areas will get heavy rain.) This is a sentence from Expansion. Does 全省 mean every province or the entire province?
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 15: Uncomfortable Encounter in a Bar
May 28, 2007 at 11:17 PMI wasn't sure who was speaking. It would be easier for me to understand the dialog if you used the characters' names instead of A and B where the dialog is written out, especially because there are four people and I don't recognize them by voice. P.S. I'm hooked on Chinesepod!
Posted on: No Kidding
January 17, 2008 at 1:43 AMMaybe 废话 is like saying,"Duh!"