User Comments - tvan
tvan
Posted on: Chinatomy: Chinese Gods and 'Shanghai Diaries'
June 12, 2008 at 1:37 PMaric, who is "fair and balanced"? Besides myself of course...
What foreign news networks are broadcast to the general public in China? I've always watched CNN but, of course, that is in a hotel.
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 11, 2008 at 1:26 PMChangye,
John Wayne never played in "Journey to the West", but in "The Conquerer" he starred as another influential character in Chinese history, Genghis Khan. Highly recommended if you've always had a burning desire to see John Wayne with a "Fu Manchu" mustache, listen to classic lines such as, "We'll chase them like rats across the Tundra" and, sadly, see a movie made at a time when Hollywood didn't (generally) allow Asians.
Did Chinese ever make films about Western figures using locals? Say, Napoleon Bonaparte starring Jackie Chan?
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
June 10, 2008 at 1:33 PMSushan,
Great video. I scored 20% or about what anybody could do guessing. I find that these various dialects that are listed as "close to Mandarin" are often quite difficult for a non-native listener.
Posted on: SBTG: Sun Yatsen
June 10, 2008 at 1:13 PMDave,
Given the richness of this historical topic, I think a fair amount of knowledge is necessarily omitted from a 3-4 minute dialog. Perhaps others here can post some further reading suggestions.
On the vocabulary, if you have questions, I suggest you post a few specific items/questions. I think you're guaranteed a positive response.
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 2:55 AMderek,
Western Sichuan and Northwest Yunnan are great mountain biking resources. There are many old horse trails, including one particularly famous one that the Tibetans used to trade tea for horses... 200+ miles of glorious Himalayan single track and dirt road with inns every 30 miles of so. However, it's undeveloped, nobody speaks English (or sometimes Chinese), the trails don't have guard rails, and you have to be ready to cover all contingencies yourself.
I believe there are some tour operators that run mountain biking trips in the area, but I usually go the independent route; hence, I cannot comment.
Posted on: Hiking
June 10, 2008 at 1:22 AMderek, To answer your first question, mountain biking isn't the same as 爬山。On mountain biking, this elementary lesson covers cycling and lists mountain biking as 山地赛。However, the lesson was regarding the Olympics, so I believe that the 赛/賽/Sài refers to a competition versus general mountain bicycling. I do know that a mountain bike can be referred to as 山地自行车/ShānDìZìXíngChē
Posted on: Preparing to give an Interview
June 9, 2008 at 2:51 PMChangye,
你的眼睛很厉害！怪不得那位女秘书帮那个位人选，是她的爱人。但是图片里她忘记穿她的蓝色的裙子。
我希望 Cpod 会继续这个连续课程. (Is that correct?)
Posted on: Hiking
June 9, 2008 at 1:14 PMI am an avid hiker and, while not a true mountain climber, have enough technical knowledge to take the easy routes up mountains less than 20,000' (~6,000 meters/metres). There are indeed more technical terms in the sport than presented here. However, whenever I take off on one of my jaunts, my wife tells her friends that I've taken off to "爬山".
The term seems entirely appropriate as used in this lesson.
Posted on: Chinatomy: Chinese Gods and 'Shanghai Diaries'
June 8, 2008 at 2:06 PMSharon Stone, Richard Gere... they're actors. I take comments in their fields of specialty, acting, seriously. Insofar as the rest, who cares... unless you live in China, of course.
Given my age, the point Aric made about growing up after the cultural revolution resonated with me. Some of the anger you sense (from Chinese bloggers) is of not being given credit for huge, wrenching, largely beneficial changes made since Mao.
On biased reporting, sure CNN, Fox, etc. have all their problems. But, as I pointed out in a Chinese blog, for the real McCoy, go to 新华.
Posted on: Taipei
June 13, 2008 at 1:12 AMJeff,
If you put "trad" in between the end of the file name and the pdf extension (e.g. chinesepod_C0889.pdf becomes chinesepod_C0889trad.pdf), you can retrieve traditional PDF's for any lesson.