User Comments - tvan

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 5: Wang Tries to Excel at the Office

As a 会计师, I live in Excel.  It is one of those programs that an old guy like me can still show (some) youngsters a thing or two in.  (I'm like 老王 when it comes to chat and Facebook.)  

In America, 老王 would be trying to understand Excel's (and the rest of Office's) new user interface... along with everybody else.

Posted on: The Big Deal about Shenzhou 7

喀什=Kāshí=Kashgar= قەشقەر

Obviously, one of the issues with simplification is that you have more dual-pronunciation/dual-meaning characters.  Not a huge deal, since they are common anyway.  Still, there is a trade-off between simplification and clarity.

Posted on: The Big Deal about Shenzhou 7

For those interested, thanks to goulniky, additional Shenzhou material is available in Newsgroups.

Posted on: 张爱玲经典名句

cinzhang, my father fought in the Phillipines during World War II.   When World War II began, he had three brothers.  When it ended, he had one.  His ship sailed to Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, Japan and, after the war ended, escorted transports carrying Japanese troops from Shanghai back to Japan.  He has stories of the Huang Pu River being filled with bodies and desperate Chinese rushing armed warships.

So where do you get off saying that foreigners don't understand what happened in Asia?  How many countries did you fight in?

Posted on: Asking for Leave

In the U.S., though many employers offer some form of paid vacation/leave/holidays, the practice is strictly voluntary, at least for private employers.  It is very common for small businesses to have no paid holidays.

Posted on: 日本人的起源

changye, you are absolutely right about the negative connotations of 大陆人.  Three years ago I had an exchange studento from Macao/澳门 stay with me.  I used to kid him about being part of 大陆 (post-1999) because I knew he was sensitive about it. 

Of course, it always seems to me like every region of China feels it is superior to the rest of the country (e.g. Cantonese), so this is just more of the same.

Posted on: New Lessons, New President

user30118, the transliteration of Obama's name was discussed in this thread. I don't think there are any answers, but there are a couple of theories.  Did you actually see 歐巴馬, or was it 歐巴瑪?  I've seen the second one in Taiwan-oriented news, whereas 奧巴 马 seems to be prevalent on the mainland.

Posted on: 日本人的起源

changye, I went through the Korea thread carefully, and it is an interesting problem.  Especially interesting is Japan's unity with China and North Korea on the name for the Korean Peninsula.  

Last year, my Chinese teacher cautioned me about using the term 大陆, because it implies that Taiwan and China are separate countries.

Posted on: New Lessons, New President

edward1980, 是吗？好像你骗我们啊。欧巴玛的同父翼母的弟弟真的住在中国吗？

Posted on: Agreement on Exclusive Representation

I'll second chinkerfly's opinion.  This lesson seemed to fit upper-intermediate perfectly.  Especially, the expansion sentences were full of vocabulary that I found useful.

Of course, you need intermediate and elementary business lessons as well.  But, IMO, upper intermediate and advanced is where the CPod rubber meets the Chinese road.