User Comments - matt_c

Posted on: Personal Ad

@Pete, @Bluealvarez One of my closest friends in Brisbane came to visit his boyfriend's family in Shanghai and stayed at his parents' house under the guise of being 'house mates' in Australia. The funny (or sad) thing was that his boyfriend's Aunty, upon hearing her nephew's foreign friend was coming to town, set up an introduction with her daughter. My friend had to play along with it, but was horrified when the Aunty said her daughter would learn English if he agreed to marry her.

At least they managed to maintain the status quo for his boyfriend's family. Continuing on that train of thought, there is a GLBT group in Nanjing that introduces male and female homosexuals - if they get along well, then they get married in order to maintain their exterior of being filially pious children to their respective families, and yet both parties are able to live their own private lives as they want, without breaking up a 'family'. I know that the fact that this even has to occur would horrify many outsiders, but it's a practical solution that works within the confines of Chinese culture and society.

My friend, at least, thought it was a cool thing.

Posted on: Personal Ad

@xemrac I've just asked our experts here in the office and apparently there are also a lot of women looking at ads of men. I assume there are also plenty of GLBT ads out there too, but not as mainstream here in China.

@Henning Thanks mate - I think it's actually one of Tricky's solo productions.

Posted on: Personal Ad

This was a fun one to make, thanks Zhengfeng and Gucheng for voices, Joy for editing, Jiaojie for script - excellent work peeps!

Music chosen by me  :)

Posted on: I Miss Daddy!

Gucheng was the voice of the child, Jinxin was the mother and Zhangfeng the father, editing by Joy. Thanks Guys!

Posted on: More News!

@hailun Thanks for yor constructive suggestion. :D

Posted on: Finance Segment on TV

I'm so glad that we invested all our spare cash into building a house back in 2007. We don't care about the resale value, we already had the block of land, we simply had a huge house built on it. Now we have a good solid house in which to live in whenever we are back in Lingbi, and it's big enough for the whole family to live in without feeling like we are living in each other's pockets.

As for finance and stocks etc- I'd rather invest my money in more tangible things at this point in time.

Posted on: More News!

I'd thought about asking for pinyin to be supplied with any Chinese writing in the elementary and newbie levels, but decided that due to all the hassle involved in writing, copying and pasting the pinyin into the discussion box, it would be unwise to ask our users to do so.

You'll see below in the discussion policy section that what we do ask, is for English translations to be written along with any Chinese characters or pinyin in the discussions for the newbie and elementary levels.

That means that if you choose to write in pinyin or characters, please add the English translations. It doesn't ask that you to add in the pinyin to go with the characters.

We ask this out of consideration for those users who don't yet feel comfortable taking part in straight Chinese discussions, so that they can still participate in our wonderfull online community of esteemed Poddies (That's you guys!).

:D

Posted on: 风水与五行

Personally I'm not into 风水 but I do like minature environments. Stone (scholar's rock - 奇石 qíshí) culture in China is quite prevalent amongst those who are culturally and aesthetically inclined. As you'll see in the article I linked to, 灵璧石 (língbìshí) are the most highly regarded of all 奇石. My wife happens to be from Lingbi and here's a picture of one of my babies:

NOTE: REAL Lingbi stones (like mine below) are naturally formed)

Posted on: Expired!

Not wanting to 'nag' but....

Esteemed Podders and Poddies, please note the ammended comment policy now includes the following sentence:

"Out of consideration for our Newbie and Elementary users, English translations should be provided with any Chinese (characters or pinyin) written in Newbie and Elementary lesson discussion posts."

Posted on: Expired!

We had a great time recording the dialogue, Zhang Feng and Gucheng doing a great job again as usual, not to mention Joy choosing a more minimal approach to the editing on this one in order to give it the white, spacious, ultra modern kitchen feel. Loved those 'running footsteps' too. :)