User Comments - sydcarten

Posted on: Talking Numbers

I'm familiar with the Yale romanization of Cantonese, but I've never heard of Sidney Lau.

Do you have any links I could look at?

Posted on: Blown Fuse

When I was working in Saigon some years ago I used to frequent a dusty, poky, old-fashioned bookshop.

The old man who owned the shop soon got to know me well.

One day while browsing down an isle in the back of the shop we had a sudden blackout (they were common all over the city)

I was standing there contemplating how to feel my way out of the shop - yes, it was THAT dark - when I suddenly saw a flickering light approaching me.

The old shop owner came up carring 2 lit candles, one for him and one for me, then he motioned for me to continue browsing.

Posted on: That's Not Your Food

Galore, I presume

Posted on: Mother's Day

@ Zhenlijiang

I wasn't offended by your statement, I just strongly disagreed with it.

As I said previously, it is how the listener interprets and reacts to a statement that is important, NOT what the speaker may have intended by it.

When I speak about having my feelings mocked or discounted I am referring to my own childhood experiences.

At the time my mother used to threaten to send me to an orphanage I was only 5 or 6 years old. I was devastated by the thought that my parents may have been capable of withdrawing their love and support of me, and terrified at the prospect of I might possibly lose the only place I had known as my home.

By the age of 11-12 I had become more sophisticated and realised that it was only a ploy to make me behave. Nevertheless I felt it important to communicate to my parents that their threats had seriously traumatised and upset me at the time, no matter that they never intended to carry them out.

My parents reaction varied at different times. Sometimes they simply denied that any such threat had ever been made. Other times they told me to 'suck it in and grow up', which I felt to be a denial that my feelings and emotional experiences mattered as much as their own.

Posted on: Mother's Day

//Do you really believe learners here are going to see that sentence and think Chinese mothers would seriously withhold their love unless their children behaved?//

It works like rules on sexual harassment. It doesn't matter how the speaker intended his/her statement to be taken.

What matters is how the listener interprets that statement, and how they react emotionally to it.

My mother said similar things to me and I felt traumatised by it at the time, because I BELIEVED her.

A person shouldn't be mocked or have their feelings discounted, simply because they were innocent enough to believe what they have been told, rather than assuming that the speaker must 'obviously' have been lying.

Posted on: Mother's Day

of course, the majority of Indonesians don't celebrate Christmas.

Posted on: Mother's Day

tanggal 22 Desember

here's a fairly comprehensive list:

http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Ibu#Daftar_Negara

Posted on: Mother's Day

Yes, I was caned a few times, not always deserved either.

Once, the PE teacher caned ALL the boys of our year, once a day, for a week.

He was attempting to force 2 boys to own up to booing a visiting school sports team.

Eventually complaints from parents started to roll in and he had to stop.

We never did find out who the real culprits were.

Posted on: This is outrageous!

Confusing!

If you are scrolling thru the lesson list at the Intermediate level you will find that lesson number 322 - This is outrageous

is not located in it's correct lesson number order.

Instead, it seems to be sandwiched in between these two lessons:

137 - Stop speeding!

144 - How's business!

Not a big deal I guess, just something I noticed just now while doing a data cleanup of my files.

Posted on: Mother's Day

I'm reminded of my mother.

I found out when I was very little that I had been adopted, and every time I was naughty my mother used to say to me, "If you don't behave then we'll send you back where we got you from!".

That made me behave all right, it scared the shit out of me!