17
Nov 2005
Unsolved Mystery
It’s pretty well-known that Chinese college boys love computer games. When I taught in Hangzhou, I saw firsthand how those guys would spend every free minute in internet cafes playing CounterStrike or whatever the latest network game was. The reason for the obsession was hard for me to grasp.
Then I saw two eye-catching entries on Bingfeng’s Teahouse which offered a possible explanation:
Bingfeng’s large collection of “Chinese Internet Girl” photos (click on both photos above for more) — evidence of the proliferation of digital cameras, webcams, and internet usage in China — offers a compelling possible explanation for Chinese boys’ infatuation with the internet.
The thing is, I still think the vast majority of them just really like those damn games.
16
Nov 2005CBL: Bingfeng and RSS
Bingfeng of Bingfeng’s Teahouse did this week’s Top Ten List for the China Blog List. I think it’s kinda interesting to see which blogs about China–by foreigners–a Chinese guy reads. There you have it.
In other news, for the blogs that provided the URL, I have added RSS links to the lower right corner of the entries in the list… sort of. I can say for sure that it works in Firefox, but there’s an occasional 1-pixel lower gap. (Firefox, what part of bottom: 0; don’t you understand??)
The interesting (or maybe “interesting”) thing is that while the CSS doesn’t work in IE, it has absolutely no ill effects… the links are just totally not there. I have no idea why, or where they went. As is often the case with IE’s rendering, it’s a mystery. If anyone can take a look at the CSS and clear it up for me, I’d appreciate it.
15
Nov 2005Shanghainese Study Materials
I was recently asked to help someone find some study materials (books, tapes, CDs, etc.) for Shanghainese. Clearly, Shanghai is a good place to look, but I soon discovered that finding good materials was not as simple as going to a big bookstore in Shanghai. To assemble a rather complete collection of materials I had to visit seven bookstores in Shanghai. What is strange is that almost every bookstore had one or two books on Shanghainese, but almost every store’s books were different! For that reason I can’t be sure that there aren’t still some good ones out there, but I think I got most of them.
This will probably only be helpful to students of Shanghainese in Shanghai, but the following is a list of materials I found. I have not used these materials, nor am I fluent in Shanghainese (although I do understand quite a bit), but I think I understand a thing or two about what makes a good language textbook, so I have made a few key observations about each book. Note that the three books which I deemed the best got their own reviews elsewhere on Sinosplice. (Chinese Textbook Reviews now has a small section on Shanghainese.)
14
Nov 2005SPR Coffee
I spend an hour or two in a local coffee shop from time to time. The name of the place is “SPR Coffee.” I was a bit curious as to where the name came from, but I didn’t have to look far to find the answer. A sign told me “SPR comes from SPRING.” Yes, that’s right. They took the first three letters of the word Spring for their name. Bizarre.
Once again, Asians show us that they may be learning English, but they don’t have to totally play by our rules.
The store also has an interesting discount system for regulars. You can buy a 200 rmb pre-paid “coffee card.” It looks a lot like a credit card. I thought I knew this system. It would have a magnetic strip and a declining balance, and it would give me a discount. Nope. Wrong.
There is no magnetic strip. The numbers 1-10 are printed at the bottom of the card. Every time I use the card to buy a large coffee, the card is notched appropriately with scissors. Simple, but effective.
P.S. I’m always a little bit afraid to write about something like this, because for all I know this system is used all across the USA these days. I wouldn’t know.
14
Nov 2005Shanghai Dialect for Foreigners
Edited by 徐子亮 (Shanghai Haiwen Audio-Video Publishers, 2005)
Review by: John Pasden
14
Nov 2005A Chinese two-channel contrastive textbook of Mandarin and Shanghai dialect
Edited by 陈阿宝 (海南出版社, 2005)
Review by: John Pasden
13
Nov 2005Y.I.Y.O.
Wow.
I thought I’d heard some pretty cheesey Chinese pop, but I think this song by “Y.I.Y.O.” tops them all. It’s called 《嫁给我好吗？》 (“Marry me, OK?”). As if the singers themselves looking as cheesey and lame as possible wasn’t enough, they took their nauseatingly saccharine lyrics and merged them with 50’s-style doo-wop! The result is mind-blowingly horrible. At the risk of my own sanity, I did some checking up and discovered that the group only seems to have made one song in this craptacularly awful style. Check it out:
Y.I.Y.O. – 嫁给我好吗？(Flash)
[lyrics link]
I have a morbid fascination with horrible music. Sorry for bringing you all down with me.
12
Nov 2005All Apologies
A Chinese story:
> At 8:40am I called her on her cell phone. “Are you headed off to work?” I asked.
> “Sure am!” she laughed back.
> Choking back a sob, I said to her, “Wen… I’m sorry.”
> After a moment of stunned silence, she replied, “why are you apologizing to me?”
> “It’s nothing,” I explained.
> “Xiao Nuo, you…” she started, but I quickly hung up.
> At ten minutes past noon I dialed her office number.
> “Why isn’t your cell phone on?” she demanded emotionally.
> Stammering, I finally got out, “I’m sorry…”
> She asked me, “why did you send me a check at work?”
> “Wen, I really love you,” I replied.
> Her voice suddenly rose in volume. “If you want to break up with me, just say it. Don’t give me some kind of breakup money!”
> After a few seconds of silence, I hung up.
> At exactly three in the afternoon, she answered the phone coldly. “Your feelings have changed?”
> I changed the topic. “I’m here with your parents.”
> She cried in surprise, “why are you meeting with my parents?”
> I simply replied, “I just feel I need to apologize to them.”
> She took a deep breath, trying hard to suppress her emotions. “Just what is our relationship to you?”
> I slowly replied, “I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me…”
> On the other end she was all choked up. This time she hung up on me.
> At 8:40 in the evening my cell phone vibrated. I pressed the receive button, saying, “you’re home!”
> She asked, “Where are my mom and dad?”
> I answered guiltily, “Wen, I’m sorry!”
> She roared back, “I don’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry!’ I just want to know why!”
> Feigning calmness, I said to her, “I apologized to your parents because you’re their dearest baby girl, and I asked them to allow you to marry me. I apologized to you because I know I can’t be without you, but I’ve never been good at looking after people, so I hope that in the days to come you’ll be with me, looking after me. I’ve given you all the money I have left. I’m making the down payment on our new home, and your parents are helping us pick out the furniture. Wen, I’m sorry. Please marry me!”
> To my amazement, her attitude immediately softened completely. “Xiao Nuo, where are you?”
> Full of joy, I answered, “I’m right outside your door.”
> I later married Wen…
> But that day I proposed, I verified one other thing: it really does hurt to be whacked upside the head with a broom.
This story was originally posted in Chinese. Yes, it’s a cute story, but I have to say… not only does it strike me as a very un-Chinese way to propose, but it seems downright cruel! What guy could do that to his girlfriend?
I let my girlfriend read the story. There’s no way she would put up with that crap. No question. I wonder how many Chinese girls would think it’s romantic. I don’t think any American girl could.
09
Nov 2005A Look at Chinese Bloggers
Micah recently did a summary of the Chinese Blogger Conference. Then he updated it with a link to Rebecca MacKinnon’s thoughts on the matter. Wow. I thoroughly enjoyed her post, and was glad to be able to read a condensed list of key ideas. I recommend you read her whole article (blocked in China), but here are some key quotes to represent what I considered the most interesting ideas:
- Web2.0 is potentially a very Chinese thing.
One of the most important words in the Chinese language is “guanxi.” It means “relationship.” Whatever you think about the term “Web2.0”, the point is that social networking and relationship-building are at the core of today’s most exciting web innovations. The Chinese happen to be the most natural and skilled social networkers on earth.
- Individual empowerment with Chinese characteristics.
A key theme of the whole conference was how the semantic web empowers and amplifies individual voices. On Sunday afternoon, Blogger “zuola” described how his blog is his personal platform for his own ideas. Blogging, he believes, helps us understand our lives better. Chen Xuer, one of the bloggers who volunteered to work on the conference, said he started blogging and reading blogs because he wanted “to hear the truth and speak the truth.” Sound familiar?
- Web 2.0, just like Web 1.0, is not going to spark a democratic revolution in Chinese politics any time soon.
People here find it annoying that the Western media keeps framing the Chinese internet story within the question of whether the internet will or won’t bring down the communist party. The real story is about the cultural and social implications of the semantic web as it continues to spread among China’s fast-growing pool of internet users. In the very long run, cultural and social change may have political implications, but to people here any attempt to speculate on that is counter-productive.
Just read the whole thing. I can’t quote it all.
P.S. If you don’t know what Web 2.0 is… well, sorry. You’re just not geeky enough.
08
Nov 2005Shanghai Bloggercon Revealed!
Just in case your inner geek is the least bit curious about what went down at the Chinese Blogger Conference in Shanghai over the weekend, Micah offers a fairly extensive account.
So yes, I was curious how it went. Did I read Micah’s whole account? Yes. Do I wish I had gone? No. (I had to beat Shadow of the Colossus over the weekend! Man, that is a truly awesome, ground-breaking game.)
I think we can expect another account of the Bloggercon from a different angle out of Chinawhite very soon.
This is a pretty crazy week for me; I may take a short break from blogging. After that, I’ll be tackling some subjects/projects on Sinosplice that I’ve been postponing for a while…
07
Nov 2005Things I learned last Friday
Last Friday night my friend DJ Carl was spinning so I went to check his set out at La Fabrique with my girlfriend. While there a kind soul gave us tickets to see Scott Bond at DKD so we did that too. I learned a few things:
1. A girl can look pretty hot with her hair up and chopsticks in her hair.
2. The chopsticks in her hair are not actually to be called “chopsticks.” That would be silly. They are actually “hair accessories.”
3. Girls with chopsticks in their hair do not belong on the dance floor. Someone could lose an eye.
4. I’m getting old. Even despite Carl’s numinous performance the club thing holds little appeal for me anymore. (I’m not sure it ever did, but I used to be able to fake it, at least.)
06
Nov 2005Two Ways to Trust
My friend Wayne likes to come up with interesting questions and then pose them to his friends. His latest question was, “How do you make someone trust you?”
He posed this question to a male Chinese friend. That friend’s answer was:
> There are two ways:
> 1. You can tell that person all your secrets.
> 2. You can give that person all your money.
Hmmm…
One of Wayne’s past questions can be found in the entry Versions of Truth.
03
Nov 2005blog中文翻译
I recently received a new submission for the CBL called blog中文翻译 (“blog Chinese translation”). It doesn’t qualify to be listed on the CBL, as it’s almost entirely in Chinese, but it’s a good idea nonetheless. The author starts an entry with a link to an online English article, then translates it.
It could be very useful to Chinese readers as well as to advanced students of Chinese. The topics all seem to be geeky tech topics. I haven’t yet taken the time to judge the quality of the translation.
There are some terms in the translations which I would not be at all sure how to verify. For example, in one article the author translates “semantic web” as “语义网.” 语义 is indeed the Chinese linguistic term for “semantic” or “semantics,” and 网 clearly means “web,” but is that the official translation for “semantic web?” In this case, it is. However there have to be plenty of cases where a convenient translation standard doesn’t exist.
I don’t envy the Chinese translator his task…
02
Nov 2005The Woman Taxi Driver
The other day I got in a taxi to discover that my driver was a pleasant middle-aged woman. Female taxi drivers are not exceedingly rare in Shanghai, but they’re not common, either. I was feeling gregarious, so I started chatting her up. (That’s one of the things I love about China… barring language barriers or extreme psychological blocks, foreigners can talk to pretty much any Chinese person about anything, and that person will be happy to respond.)
First I asked her a linguistic question: “Can I call a female taxi driver 师傅?” (I was pretty sure I could, but I still get a very male feeling from the word, so I wanted to confirm.)
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
With that warm-up out of the way, I got right down to it: “As a woman taxi driver, what challanges or difficulties do you face on the job?” I imagined all kinds of responses… getting ribbed (or mocked) by male taxi drivers, getting rejected by passengers who don’t want a woman driver, etc. It turns out my speculations were all a little silly, I guess.
Her reply: “The only thing that makes it any harder for a woman taxi driver is that it can be hard to find a bathroom when I have to go.”
Wow. My guesses were a bit off the mark. Disappointed by the near complete lack of social insight her frank answer provided me, I decided to try again.
“Compared to other Chinese cities, are there more female drivers in Shanghai?” Shanghai is arguably the most modern city in mainland China, so you might expect women in Shanghai to have gotten into more jobs traditionally held by men.
“There are fewer female drivers in Shanghai than other places,” she told me. Then I thought about that. I thought about some of the other cities I’d been to in my travels. Thinking it over, I realzied that even in my own limited experience I could remember seeing more female taxi drivers in other places such as Shandong, for instance. I also realized that considering how so many Shanghainese girls just want to act like princesses, they’re probably not eager to take on jobs like cab driving. Being “modern” by no means need include “socially progressive.”
Then she continued: “Female taxi drivers usually take day shifts, though, because it’s not safe for them to drive the night shift.” I reflected on that.
Sensing that I was out of questions, she looked at me with that gleam in her eye that I knew so well. Then I proceeded to dutifully answer her questions about where I’m from, how long I’ve lived in China, how old I am, what my job is, how much I make per month, if I have a girlfriend, where my girlfriend is from, and if I like Chinese food.
I think I lost. I should have had more and better questions.
01
Nov 2005Blame it on John B
A while back I decided to try an experiment. I said that I would begin posting one entry every morning (China time), Monday through Friday. And I’ve been doing that, for over 14 weeks now. So how do I feel about it?
Well, it wasn’t that hard. My inspiration (or desire to write uninspired posts, as the case may be) comes in spurts, and during those times it’s pretty convenient to write up a bunch of posts and schedule them for the next week or so. I like that.
The problem is that for the past two weeks or so I’ve been really busy. So when I thought of something I wanted to write about, I would think of a title, make a note or two, and save it as a draft. Then I would still end up writing the actual full entry the night before, in most cases. Sometimes that can be pretty inconvenient.
But what’s the point anyway? I don’t think it improved my readership or my content. It improved the quantity of my content, maybe. But big deal.
So I’m going to stop with the clockwork posting. I’ll probably post just as often, on average, but my rests won’t always be on weekends. And my new entries won’t always appear sometime from 7am to 10am Shanghai time.
Why blame it on John B? He was the one who mentioned he liked my weblog (to at least appear) more spontaneous. I think I agree now.
31
Oct 2005Unblocking Google Cache
I got this in my e-mail today:
> Firefox extension unblocks Google Cache in China
> Chinese users of the latest version of the popular Firefox extension CustomizeGoogle are happy. A new feature modifies the Google Cache urls so that they are no longer blocked by the Chinese firewall.
I don’t have time to give it a try today. If anyone else within China has time to verify it, that would be great.
Update:
OK, I got a chance to try it out. It was easier than I expected, but the results were less than impressive. It works something like this:
1. Go to CustomizeGoogle and install the extension. (Note that this may require adding customizegoogle.com to Firefox’s list of safe sites.)
2. Close and reopen Firefox.
3. Under Tools, you will find the option “CustomizeGoogle Options” has been added. Select it. An Options window will pop up.
4. Under “Google Web Search,” the next to last checkbox should be “Add links to WayBackMachine (webpage history).” Check that box.
5. Now go to Google.com and do a search. I recommend you add “site:blogspot.com” to the search to guarantee you’ll get pages that are blocked in China. In the search results, you will notice there is now a link to “Filter” and “History” to the right of the “Cache” and “Similar” links.
6. Click on the “History” link. (The actual “Cache” link still doesn’t work any better than it did before.) Chances are, the page you want can’t be found in the WayBackMachine’s archives. You should be able to find some page from the blocked site if you click around, though.
So basically, this extension adds a link to a proxy of sorts to all Google search results. That in itself is cool. The problem is that the WayBackMachine is not likely to have the exact page you want to see archived. Not so cool.
Update 2:
Shortly after posting my update, I received this e-mail:
> This feature is only available in CustomizeGoogle for China available here: http://www.customizegoogle.com/zh-CN/
> The feature is not optional. Everyone that uses CustomizeGoogle in Chinese will get this feature automatically.
> This is how it works: All links to Google Cache, from the Google search result, are slightly modified. The Great Firewall doesn’t recognize the new links as Google Cache links, and therefore they are accessible for everyone.
> Also note that the feature has nothing to do with the History feature (WayBackMachine).
Ahhh, that further explanation was needed.
Still, I can’t get it to work. I uninstalled the English-version CustomizeGoogle extension, but when I tried to install the Chinese version, I got an error message:
> Firefox could not download the file at
> http:// www.customizegoogle.com/customizegoogle-0.34.zh-CN.xpi
> because: Not a valid install package
So I’m waiting for the next e-mail now…
Update 3:
It now works. Google cache links actually open for me! (The CustomizeGoogle Options menu is now entirely in Chinese, though.)
31
Oct 2005Simon's Halloween Treat
“Superhuman Linking Machine” Simon of Simon World has recently put together a Halloween treat for you. You won’t need a costume to join the fun. You don’t have to go door to door and beg for it. You don’t have to scoop out pumpkin innards or create fire hazards in the name of tradition…
It’s the Simon World’s Top Ten List on the China Blog List “Recommended” page!
Happy Halloween.
30
Oct 2005Snobbery, Guilt, and Good Will
I admitted to Micah the other day that he was a part of the inspiration for the 老百姓 snob I wrote about recently. I didn’t mean it as an insult or anything… it was just an observation of his lifestyle in Shanghai.
Micah recently responded:
But let me say a few words in defense of the 老百姓 snob. I think the reason I put forward the effort to be this kind of snob is because I reject the status boost I might get from the stereotypes that Chinese hold about Western folk: they’re educated, creative, high-flying, party hard, and come to take charge. Consequently, I have to actively try to frame myself back into the same “social status” that I would have had back at home: just your average college graduate working his way into the middle class, feeling out of place in places like Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, considering his pocketbook when he dines out, and still having a warm spot in his heart for the street food and home-cooking of his youth. It’s not that the 老百姓 snob is absurd, it’s that he’s more sensitive to taking advantage of people thinking he’s something he’s not.
Not that I don’t realize I’m different; I will take advantage of being a foreigner abroad by taking English-teaching or translating jobs, but taking a higher salary just because I have a white face is something that weighs on my conscience. Maybe a useful metric to live by would be, if I was an immigrant from Nigeria would I have this option (of taking this higher salary, being invited to this party, being asked to take part in the filming of this commercial)?
On the one hand I kind of admire Micah’s stance. I, too, have felt the sort of “guilt of the privileged” on many occasions while living in China. I see it differently, though.
(more…)29
Oct 2005White Bear
Imagine a Klondike Bar without the chocolate shell. Just a nice thick square of vanilla ice cream. That’s basically what White Bear (白熊) Ice Cream is.
The picture shows a spoon, but who needs that? The wrappered slab of vanilla fits in your hand comfortably, no utensil required. The ice cream is pretty good… rather creamy for a Chinese brand. It costs 5 rmb. I think I still prefer 大块头 ice cream at only 1 rmb, but I don’t have a scan for that.
Apparently in Chinese you can say either 白熊 (literally, “white bear”) or 北极熊 (literally, “North Pole bear”) for “polar bear.” My dictionaries don’t indicate a distinction between the two terms. Based on my own experience, 北极熊 is more common, but I can’t say I’ve really had many conversations about arctic animals in Chinese.