User Comments - pretzellogic

Posted on: 神话故事之女娲造人

I also noticed that there's no way to post questions to the boards on openlanguage, or interact with other users.

Posted on: 神话故事之女娲造人

great questions baba. I was thinking about spanishpod on openlanguage, but I would be concerned that if there were any problems at all with the lessons, or the site, that I wouldn't get help. And of course, every once in awhile, I'd have questions on the lesson content, and I'd be concerned the questions wouldn't get answered.

Posted on: Chinese Medicine for Hot Weather

Off! is still the best.

Posted on: The Tea Scam

"Most of them occur in built-up Beijing and Shanghai, say broadly in amongst 30 million people out of 1300 million people – 95% of scams are in cities populated by less than 2% of the Chinese population. Stay away from Beijing and Shanghai."

Amen, bodawei. I lived in Lanzhou for a year, and never got scammed. I went into the villages/small cities in Gansu province (maybe 10 times over 10 days) and never got scammed.

Posted on: Reserving a Taxi Cab by Telephone

In Beijing, it's pretty common and easy to stand on the side of the road to flag down a taxi, and it will stop for you:

1) if you're within 4th ring road. Outside 4th ring road, taxis will still stop, but then taxis are likely more sporadic on the road.

2) shift change isn't going on

3) unless its obvious that you're going someplace the taxi driver doesn't want to go (like you have two giant suitcases with you, implying you want to go to the airport).

Same problem in Beijing, Lanzhou as in NYC; don't think it will be easy to flag down a taxi in the middle of rush hour, and/or when its raining/inclement weather.

More I think about it, the time you really need to call and reserve a taxi is when:

1) you're taking a taxi to the airport at some ungodly hour (like 3am) to catch your silly American Airlines or Delta Airlines flights back to the US departing Beijing at 6am.

2)shattered by your first mandarin speaking experience, you want lots of handholding for your cab rides.

3) you're in the countryside, where you see taxis once every 10 minutes.

Posted on: The Tea Scam

Copying a master's painting might be standard practice in China, and that might be ok in the art world in China. I was under the impression that for the rest of the world, an art student focuses on creating their own original work and sells their original art. I was also under the impression that if you copied a master's art work, you spent your junior high/high school years copying art work. University tuition was spent learning things about art you couldn't learn on your own easily.

Posted on: The Tea Scam

Girl and/or guy or combination thereof, approaches you in Wangfujing, or Tiananmen Square. Speaks in good or decent or broken english, but after a couple of welcoming remarks, asks if you like art. You naively say yes, and start waxing eloquent about Rothko, Motherwell, Diebenkorn and other artists. They express glee, and ask if you would like to see their art. You say yes. They take you to their gallery. Instead of seeing the next budding DeKooning, you see the same print over and over and over again painted relatively amateurishly by earnest students charged with selling their paintings. These paintings are really copies of other paintings and may or may not be that good. But you buy anyway. At least you have a souvenir to take home.

Posted on: The Tea Scam

Ha.  There needs to be a lesson for "the art scam".

Posted on: The Snail Maiden

I've often seen Chinese stories started with 有一天。

Posted on: Preparing for the Ironman Race

Cpod, would you create another lesson, or lesson series that addresses triathlon training? And in this lesson or series, could you address increasing performance during the run, swimming and biking portions?