User Comments - tingyun
tingyun
Posted on: MBA
June 21, 2014, 08:44 PMI agree with most of what you say, but slight clarification, top consulting firms require an MBA OR any other relevant advanced degree (PhD, MD, JD) for entry into the full-consultant career path. I was a consultant at McKinsey with a JD, and it worked exactly the same as having an MBA (after a quick 1 month mini MBA program they put on). I think the MDs were honestly the ones with the best career prospects right off the bat, along with the chemical engineer PhDs and other such specialized fields, which would always make them especially qualified for certain cases. Since we had all passed the same interview process (demonstrating the kind of business insight that MBAs are expected to train), there wasn't much special about the MBA going forward.
But you are right to mention 'top school'. Hiring at top places is probably at least somewhat aware that the academics at MBA programs are basically a joke, and so a good deal of the real value of the MBA is the company borrowing the screening process of admissions to supplement their own hiring consideration. Thus, schools like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Michigan, and the like are extremely valuable at the top jobs, but lower ranked MBA programs won't be seen as proper qualification. Perhaps at the less competitive jobs it retains some value, but I wonder whether it would be worth wasting 2 years of your life to pick up a month's worth of knowledge, as well as missing out on the career advancement that would come from simply starting work 2 years earlier.
Posted on: Differing Attitudes to Medicine
June 16, 2014, 03:07 AMSeanoconnor,
There is certainly alot of unnessecary drugs prescribed in China, and it is particularly shameful the amount of antibiotics pushed onto patients that do not need them (and the strains of resistant bacteria that this is creating for the rest of the world). This is indeed often motivated by the desire of doctors and hospitals to make more money in China, and Chinese people need to learn that viruses, like the cold and flu, are NOT treatable by antiobiotics, and every unnessecary use of antiobiotics makes it more likely that someone who does need them will face a drug resistant strain and not have treatment. Such behavior is a perfect marriage of selfishness and ignorance.
However, you need to spend a bit less time with the wacko conspiracy theories regarding the US. There is not any kind of wave of doctors prescribing adhd meds to personally make money, nor any kind of system of kickbacks given to doctors. Besides, I think even the usual anti ADHD conspiracy nuts don't allege doctors receive direct 'kickbacks' to use your words, instead pointing to incentives in the school system and supposed bias in diagnostic tests. At any rate, there is certainly some overdiagnosis going on, but also a great deal of underdiagnosis, and ADHD is a real condition that (thankfully) we now have several effective, safe medical treatments for. The danger of these conspiracy theories is that they may convince certain patients or parents to avoid needed diagnosis and treatment.
Posted on: The World Cup in Brazil
June 16, 2014, 02:42 AMHi Mike,
举行 can definitely take a direct object, just as 举办. Not sure what they said in the lesson to give you this impression (I'm not a subscriber so i can't listen).
Here's examples from a dictionary for using each of the two words.
举行画展｜举行毕业典礼。
举办庆典｜举办奥运会。
If I had to guess, perhaps they meant 举行 can be used with the object as the subject of the sentence? Ie, modifying one of the above examples," 毕业典礼在some place举行" would work grammatically. But it can still take a direct object, its just that it doesn't always need to.
Posted on: Numbers in Chinese
May 04, 2014, 06:01 PMHo toianw,
On the right track but a little off - it is actually invoking a general pattern where larger number followed by one unit smaller number means "alot" generally. Examples, 万千, 千百 both are exaggerated ways of saying many, with some implied connotation in some contexts of being somewhere around the two numbers. Now you may point out that 亿 exceeds 万 by more than one digit, but this wasn't always true when the expression originated, over 2,000 years ago （For example, in 尚书 we have "受有臣亿万，惟亿万心". ）when 亿 would just as often mean 100,000 rather than the sense that transmitted to modern language of 1万万).
Thus, 亿万 is really just saying "alot", and if you were forced by context to nail it down to some sense of a more specific range of numbers (which is unlikely but possible), it would more likely mean something around 亿 or 万, not 亿个万.
The only exception would be in the context of talking about rich people - 亿万富翁, 亿万富豪 etc would all be invoking the sense of someone who has around 亿个万, perhaps because they are very colloquial, or perhaps because it is absurd to think of someone having around a 万 of money as rich. The same is true of 千万富豪 and such. (Though 千万, as opposed to 万千, is fairly likely to have some sense of 千 multipled by 万 anyway, despite usually just meaning "alot" and thus having little difference in implication)
Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese
March 19, 2014, 10:58 PMThanks podster, and the same wishes to you!
Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese
March 19, 2014, 03:00 PMHi Podster,
Looks like. Though I was probably having a little too much fun bullying them - most people have trouble acknowledging the limits of their competency, and while there is no logical reason to expect that teachers of Chinese as a foreign language would have a good education in literary Chinese, I can understand why they would be embarrassed. I could have done a little less antagonistic poking during my posts perhaps, I do have a rather aggressive style of debate.
To add to your recommendations, I'd recommend purchase of Rouzer's book, 'a new practical primer of literary chinese' from amazon, it forms the content of the first year classical chinese course here at Harvard, and will get people through the basics with english explanations. After that, if your modern Chinese becomes sufficient, then 王力's 古代汉语 is a great choice. And if one becomes ready for chinese to chinese dictionaries, either the dictionary at http://www.zdic.net or the 汉语大辞典 available through pleco will serve you well.
Posted on: Shanghai Home Stay
March 12, 2014, 03:38 PM好容易 is not modern colloquial, you get it alot in early vernancular.
Yes, they both mean 'not easy'. This is actually an exception from the more general tendency, where the 好不-- pattern is the same meaning as the 好-- pattern, and both mean the affirmative. Ie:
好不快活 usually means 好快活 means 快活
好不可怜 usually means 好可怜 means 可怜 (very possibly in a sarcastic manner)
In other words, the exact opposite of the situation with 好不容易,好容易, where they mean the negative 不容易.
But outside of the 容易 formulation, you don't get this pattern that much in modern chinese, so the exception to the 好不 pattern's meaning actually probably feels more like the rule to most people. At any rate, all of these are just usual patterns - a speaker could say 好容易啊and mean 'that was very easy!' (In fact, in modern usage that might be more common), or use 好不 to mean the negative - so really any interpretation is possible, and you must decide by context.
At any rate, all are colloquial expressions, in the sense of the vernacular that emerged some 700 years or so ago. Hence nothing really set in stone.
It is not hard to understand why we have these meanings - essentially, they are a form of sarcasism that is used to emphasize your meaning (or they were, originally - and just have become somewhat more of set expressions after centuries of use, though they still retain a feeling of appropriatness when used sarcasticly). In english we might say "oh, how sad" and likewise could mean either the affirmative or a sarcastic negative. Maybe sarcastic is too strong a word - but the idea, present also in english, is that one saying the opposite of one's meaning can actually emphasize the meaning. Anyway. Here's a random example of early vernacular usage, notice the lightness of the language and the emphasis given by saying the opposite at the end (ie, 好不生烦恼 is a stronger statement of causing angst than 好生烦恼 would have been)
小夫人自思量：我恁地一個人, 許多房奩, 却嫁一個白鬚老兒, 好不生煩惱！
As for the second question, yes, 洁癖 is properly given a 3rd tone but is commonly given a 4th tone, due to a general mistake in people's pronounciation of this character. 癖好 is another example where it is commonly mispronounced. Good to see Cpod emphasizing standard reading over common misunderstanding - reading it correctly usually means everyone understands you while still sounding well educated. Only thing you would want to purposfully mispronounce is 嫉妒 (correct is ji2du4, common mistake is ji4du4, but you have the pronounce it wrong if you want to be understood).
Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese
November 18, 2013, 03:54 PMHmm no cpod reply yet, does that mean RJ is right, and "mute" is the only response forthcoming?
Or, in a more hopeful note, perhaps time is being taken to check the dictionaries and do some careful research to confirm the error? ;)
Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese
November 18, 2013, 03:40 PMHi Doodle,
Actually, I should make this clear - I only used language like 'tyrant' and 'bloodthirsty', which is loaded with modern moral sensibilities and judgments, to satirize the silliness of looking at these sorts of historical figures and assigning positive modern moral judgments like feminist and woman's liberation. My point was that if you look at any of these conquering emperors from a modern moral perspective, you are going to cringe, not say "you go girl!" - but that does not mean I think any such moralizing about the past is useful (I do not).
As for your question about interesting reading, since we broached the subject of moral judgments, have you read the concluding moral evaluations of wu zetian contained in the Tang histories? Always interesting to see how the ancients dealt with such historical judgements, and what implicit moral standards they chose to use, as well as where they chose to praise and where they chose to condemn.
《旧唐书》：史臣曰：治乱，时也，存亡，势也。使桀、纣在上，虽十尧不能治；使尧、舜在上，虽十桀不能乱；使懦夫女子乘时得势，亦足坐制群生之命，肆行不义之威。观夫武氏称制之年，英才接轸，靡不痛心于家索，扼腕于朝危，竟不能报先帝之恩，卫吾君之子。俄至无辜被陷，引颈就诛，天地为笼，去将安所？悲夫！
昔掩鼻之谗，古称其毒；人彘之酷，世以为冤。武后夺嫡之谋也，振喉绝襁褓之儿，菹醢碎椒涂之骨，其不道也甚矣，亦奸人妒妇之恒态也。然犹泛延谠议，时礼正人。初虽牝鸡司晨，终能复子明辟，飞语辩元忠之罪，善言慰仁杰之心，尊时宪而抑幸臣，听忠言而诛酷吏。有旨哉，有旨哉！
赞曰：龙漦易貌，丙殿昌储。胡为穹昊，生此夔魖？夺攘神器，秽亵皇居。穷妖白首，降鉴何如。
《新唐书》：昔都孔子作《春秋》而乱臣贼子惧，其于杀君篡国之主，皆不黜绝之，岂以其盗而有之者，莫大之罪也，不没其实，所以著其大恶而不隐欤？自司马迁、班固皆作《高后纪》，吕氏虽非篡汉，而盗执其国政，遂不敢没其实，岂其得圣人之意欤？抑亦偶合于《春秋》之法也。唐之旧史因之，列武后于本纪，盖其所从来远矣。夫吉凶之于人，犹影响也，而为善者得吉常多，其不幸而罹于凶者有矣；为恶者未始不及于凶，其幸而免者亦时有焉。而小人之虑，遂以为天道难知，为善未必福，而为恶未必祸也。武后之恶，不及于大戮，所谓幸免者也。至中宗韦氏，则祸不旋踵矣。然其亲遭母后之难，而躬自蹈之，所谓下愚之不移者欤！
Posted on: MBA
June 22, 2014, 07:54 AMIt did teach me alot, perhaps because I was new to business, though in the end I found the work less intellectually engaging and challenging than I had hoped. A bit too much sitting in meetings, monkeying with excel, and obsessively editing powerpoint presentations. ;)