User Comments - tvan

Posted on: Los Angeles

I'm up for a lesson on coffee, probably Intermediate.  Though, if you want to be inclusive, you'd have the straight, black coffee drinker wonder why everybody pays $6.00 for a cup of joe at Starbucks and $1 to $2 more than that at Peets!

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

Priscilla, both of my sons (Californian half-Chinese) have lived in China at various times.  According to them, people always took interest in their Chinese blood but, ultimately, considered them to be foreigners.  Note, that doesn't imply bad treatment.

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

To add a little perspective on China's perception of overseas Chinese, when the PRC first opened up to tourists, it had four levels of ticket prices:  Lowest priced tickets for PRC nationals, second lowest prices for residents of Hong Kong and Taiwan (HK hadn't reverted back to PRC then), next lowest prices for overseas Chinese and, of course, most expensive tickets for non-Chinese.

I understood the different pricing structure for Taiwanese and Hong Konger's, given the PRC's political stands.  However, I think the special treatment afforded even long-standing overseas Chinese is informative.  I am commenting strictly as an outsider but, the fact that this bond even overcame the psychotic and paranoid tendencies of the 1980's Chinese Communist Party indicates a deep cultural affinity.

Posted on: 输入法

Changye, I think I can answer your question on English phonetic symbols.  Native speakers don't pay any attention to them.  I learned them in elementary school and haven't used them since.  I think that all languages have these "standard" systems (e.g. Mandarin), but that local variation is enough to make them useful only to learners, not native speakers.

I agree with your last comment on retention of Chinese characters.  It would be a travesty to lose the world's oldest extant written language. (Obviously, I'm preaching to the choir here.)  

I've also heard that more mainland schools, particularly around Guangdong, have reintroduced traditional characters.

Posted on: The My Minefield

I recently referred to my wife as 妻子 to a student I just met from Taiwan.  She informed me that this was too formal and somewhat awkward.  Her suggestion for polite usage was 太太  with 老婆 being reserved for informal conversation.

Also, somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I am correct in saying that the proper term for ex-wife is 前妻; at that point everything becomes formal.

Posted on: 磁悬浮

xiaohu, I made my "vinegar" comment with only the best of intentions.  You are one of the relatively few posters here who provide genuinely informative posts, especially in Chinese.

Posted on: 磁悬浮

Xiaohu, as usual your comments are thoughtful and worth pondering, albeit with your customary dose of vinegar.  I think it might be worth starting a new (shorter) post along these lines, both to get away from the distraction of this posts' negative emotions and, as shiqiangdan points out above, allow this post to focus on lesson content.

Posted on: 磁悬浮

Respect:  尊敬。

Calkins, I heartily agree.  Still, with a couple of exceptions, CPod is better than most.  Earlier this year, I engaged in parallel discussions on Tibetan politics here and at an international affairs forum:  the people here (mostly Henning and Auntie68) politely agreed/disagreed, whereas the international affairs forum required sorting through a bunch of large red character/letter obscenities posted by people who mistake vehemence for intelligence.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 2: Welcome to the Team

在对话的后面大家都说，“耶”。那个，“耶” 是不是从英文的 “Yeah" 转写的？

Posted on: 磁悬浮

xiaohu, with all due respect, I beg to differ.  (Notice the big red bow?)  I think staff has an obligation to deal with justified criticism.  However, criticism that attacks the person (e.g. senile geriatic) rather than a specific teaching methodology hardly qualifies as a reasoned critique.  Rather, that sort of post deserves to be ignored or, as suggested above, dealt with privately.