User Comments - mark
mark
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 28, 2012 at 2:51 AMBodawei, my comment about experience was more about the society's experience with driving, than about any individual driver. For example, I think the strict rules about drunk driving in China are relatively recent, or recently enforced. Last time I was in China (this spring) I still couldn't find any seat-belt in a cab. The first time I took a cab in China (Nanjing 2002), when traffic was congested at a traffic light, the driver would cross the median and drive against the flow of traffic on the other side of the median. He evidently had not yet had any customer or peer pressure that this was not a good idea.
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 27, 2012 at 6:36 AMI think unsafe driving practices in China may have something to do with the relative newness of people having cars. In the 50's and 60's in the U.S. we had "muscle cars" without seat-belts; it was all good fun until you ran into something and slammed into the dashboard. It took us, as a society, a while to realize our mortality, and decide safety had its place. I also think the general circumstances in China encourage a lot of improvising, and this extends to driving practices.
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 24, 2012 at 3:55 AM公交 was the most frequent way to describe a bus in Beijing, at least among the people I hung out with while I was there.
Posted on: 孔子标准像
August 23, 2012 at 6:17 AM雕塑能体现什么？青铜不是温柔，‘仁’和‘礼’对圆雕没有意义，那种东西有后裔很可怕。我能相信孔子曾经有非常可亲可敬的样子，而且不必说他的思想博大精深，但是我怀疑发起标准刻像是否有用。
Posted on: Manly Beards or Pretty Boys?
August 23, 2012 at 6:10 AMFellow grey beard RJ, we're probably both better off "sticking with the one we're with". I suspect the competition for being a 帅哥 has gotten rather stiff.
Posted on: Romantic Movies and Real Life
August 22, 2012 at 1:34 AMI think she is playing, and hope he enjoys the game.
Posted on: Romantic Movies and Real Life
August 22, 2012 at 1:31 AMI think I am more likely to fall behind with phrases that put me off. I don't practice them and get feedback on my odd usage, and I stop listening to people that use them, because they sound borish. So, I was really surprise to hear Jenny cheerfully calling something a "chick flick". It has long been a phrase that makes me think a “色狼” or “咸猪手” is speaking.
Actually, there was one other notable time when I was caught completely off-guard by a commonly used phrase. I first encountered "politically correct" as a catch phrase used by hard core communists, the kind who believe politics is a science that has right and wrong answers. It most often came up when I was about to get a diatribe on why some schismatic communist was walking in the weeds. So, imagine my surprise when I first heard some relatively conservative Republican type personage talking about something not being politically correct. After the momentary ironic thrill of thinking Rush Limbaugh had gone Marxist, it dawned on me that I had stopped listening to how people used this phrase.
Anyway, I think it is interesting how language evolves. Maybe, I should spend less time studying Chinese and catch up on my English, now and again.
Posted on: Romantic Movies and Real Life
August 21, 2012 at 4:46 AMI found some supporting evidence for my understanding of "chick flick":
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chick-flick.html "Origin
The use of 'chick flick' to describe the films with appeal to women began in the early 1990s. For a few years prior to that 'chick flicks' were the sexually exploitative films, like those made by directors like Russ Meyers, which were designed to appeal to male sexual fantasy.
The Bergen County Record, October 1988 included this comment:
"Films like Russ Meyers' 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' (1970) and 'Twilight People' (1972) ... Corman's 'Black Mama, White Mama' (1972), another chick-flick set in a slammer in the Phillipines. [sic]"
chick flickThe transition in the commonly understood meaning of the term came with a spate of films that had particular appeal to women. Foremost amongst these was the 1991 film 'Thelma & Louise', starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis."
I obviously didn't pay attention to the evolution of the terminology in the 90's
Posted on: Romantic Movies and Real Life
August 21, 2012 at 4:04 AMRJ, no, I was angling for the community mediator position. Official authority to meddle in peoples' personal lives seem pretty 厉害。;=) Anyway, the particular example is interesting to me in the same way as the corruption of 同志 in Chinese. Perhaps, English, too, changes according to time and place.
Posted on: 入伍当兵
August 31, 2012 at 3:47 AM我上高中的时候美国跟越南征战，按照生日的几月几号十八岁的男孩会被选到逼迫入军。不过很近我十八岁的生日这个规律被取消了。那时我很高兴因为我觉得那个战争没有道理，不想去越南浪费生命。