25
Jan 2004
Amusing Chinese Products #1
Here are some funny but real products I have found (and subsequently purchased) in the PRC. Click on the image for a fuller image, sometimes including additional angles.
1. Dr. Bang Liquid Soap
He’s Dr. Bang. That says it all, and leads us to…
2. “Sailor” Condoms
Look at how thrilled this guy is. “I’m gonna get laid!” He’s beaming. Some sailor.
3. The Douche Water Cup
I think this cup is for drinking water. Maybe.
4. “Crazy Toilet” Candy
This is a candy plunger which you use to dip into the syrup in the toilet bowl. Make sure to look at the instructions on the back in the full image.
5. Chinese Duracell Batteries rip off Energizer
Anyone who’s been in China long has probably seen this pathetic Energizer bunny ripoff. He’s plastered all over Hangzhou. Click on the pic for the Hong Kong site, which is just chock full of the little pink bastard.
22
Jan 2004Fix that Baopi!
Baopi is a Chinese word that means “foreskin.” You see the Chinese characters in the picture here. I am most familiar with the Chinese word in the context of foreigners’ propensity to mix it up with the word pibao (same characters), which means wallet or purse (literally, “leather bag”).
I was pretty surprised, then, to see these words jumping out at me from an ad on the Shanghai subway. Make sure to click on the picture to see the entire ad.
I’m not sure what baojing is. According to the characters, its literal translation would be “skin stalk.” If you want more information, you can go to this Chinese site, which provides nice graphical clarification. [WARNING: if you don’t want to look at male genitalia, don’t click on that link!]
Some other related terms are:
- 包皮切除 (bao1 pi2 qie4 chu2) – circumcision
- 包皮过长 (bao1 pi2 guo4 chang2) – redundant prepuce (literally, “foreskin too long”)
- 包皮垢 (bao1 pi2 gou4) – smegma
Anyway, I found all that amusing to see on a subway. The ad advocates immediate surgery. The nurse is a nice touch, eh?
21
Jan 2004Hangzhou Got Shorted
My sister Amy arrived last Thursday night, which just so happened to coincide with the arrival of rain and considerably colder weather in the Shanghai area. We haven’t done much so far in Shanghai, although we did get to meet Michael of Chairman Meow and Living in China fame and his friends. Very cool group of people. Then we went to Hangzhou.
I gotta say, any decent city in China requires at least a week of touristing. I foolishly only gave us 3 days in Hangzhou, and I regret it. We saw West Lake, Nanshan Road’s bars, Ling Yin Temple, the Silk Market, In Time Department Store, “West Lake Heaven and Earth” (西湖天地), ZUCC, and snow. On Sunday the weather was horrible (even if it did snow), so we shopped all day. Ugh. Then yesterday we went to the silk market and we spent 3 hours there. I wanted to die. I was translator and haggler. I really got some good prices, but I don’t particularly enjoy that.
Amy enjoyed meeting all my ZUCC co-workers and other Hangzhou friends. They’re all really cool people. I should have some pictures of her visit up soon. Got some good ones.
Last night we made the difficult decision not to go to Beijing. It’s the wrong time of year for it (too cold, and it’s the Chinese New Year holiday now), and we just wouldn’t have enough time there. Plus, Amy wouldn’t get to see much of Shanghai even if we went to Beijing for only 3 or 4 days. You can’t see three amazing cities in two weeks.
So tonight is Chinese New Year’s Eve. We’ll be spending it with my girlfriend’s family. Happy Chinese New Year everybody!
15
Jan 2004Shanghai Gloom?
Jocelyn at Speaking of China recently painted a rather dismal picture of life in Shanghai:
> I think of those 10 or so months I’d spent in Shanghai. Somehow staying in that “booming metropolis” had swiftly beaten much of the spontaneity out of my life. There’s something inextricably stifling about Shanghai. The people hardly smile at you. The shopkeepers at times seem reluctant to utter “Welcome” as you walk in the door. Most entertainment options offer little for those interested in something non-conventional. Oh, there is a multitude of cultural activities around the city, from traditional opera to music and theatre. But there are few “scenes” in the city that bring together a group of people with similar interests. I believe I grew tired of the little available and the difficulty of making friends there. I chose to become a “hermit” of sorts, finding pleasure instead in the small subtleties of everyday life. It satisfied me nevertheless.
(She wrote this in the context of a comparison of Shanghai to Taipei. Check it out, it’s good reading.)
Reading something like that, I can’t help but feel a little bit anxious about my new life here in Shanghai. But then I think, HA! I’m going to kick Shanghai’s sorry big ass. I am going to have a damn good time here, I’m going to continue to improve my Chinese, and I’m going to make more Chinese friends here than I ever had in Hanghzou. And they’re going to be cool.
One of my secrets for accomplishing this will be in learning Shanghai dialect. Comprehension at the very least. I made friends on the bus yesterday with a Shanghainese guy. I was reading my book on the Shanghainese dialect, and he started talking to me about it. It’s really complex. The subject of me teaching him English for free never even came up. Anyway, I got his number. BOOM, new friend! It was almost as easy as getting a Chinese girl’s number. (hehe)
Then later that day my girlfriend’s mom gave me a lesson in Shanghainese. My Chinese name in Shanghainese sounds like “Poogie.” Haha! Awesome.
And my sister Amy arrives later today (wow, I need to go to sleep!). It’s gonna be a great 2 weeks!
15
Jan 2004Someone Listened?!
A while back, when SARS was the topic dominating the China blog neighborhood, I wrote about a letter I sent to the media. It sure seemed that nothing came of it. I have just discovered that it did produce at least one small mention in the media.
12
Jan 2004Why Shanghai?
A lot of people have asked me why I decided to move to Shanghai. A few years ago I would have laughed at the idea of myself making a home here. But, things have a funny way of working out…. Some of you might be wondering the converse, though — why not Shanghai?
When I first came to China, I chose Hangzhou (over Shanghai) for a number of reasons.
- Climate. Hangzhou is not too cold in the winter, and the winter doesn’t drag on too much. [Shanghai’s climate is virtually identical to Hangzhou’s.]
- Environment. Hangzhou is surrounded by green hills and wooded areas, and, of course, it also has the famous West Lake. [Shanghai has parks, but it is still the big bity. Concrete jungle.]
- Size. Although its population is close to 7 million, Hangzhou is a “mid-sized” city in China. In addition, the actual area the city covers is not really that large. Living there, you really feel that it’s not a big city. [Shanghai’s population, on the other hand, has topped 20 million. It is huge in all senses of the word.]
- Language. Hangzhou has its own local dialect which is virtually incomprehensible to those merely versed in Mandarin, but the dialect is not as widely used as you might think. Since Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province and also very much a “college town,” Mandarin is very widespread (if not always standard). This makes it a better place to study Chinese. [In comparison, Shanghai dialect is much more widely used in Shanghai, and knowledge of it is much more integral to success there. Also, there are many, many Chinese people that speak good English in Shanghai, which doesn’t help if you’re trying hard to learn Chinese.]
- Girls. Believe it or not, Hangzhou’s reputation for beautiful women was not a factor in my choice of Hangzhou. Furthermore, after being in China a while, I think it’s all a load of crap. Many places in China are famous for this reason (Hangzhou, Suzhou, Sichuan, Dalian, etc.). It’s just a variation on the “the grass is always greener” phenomenon. One thing Hangzhou does have going for it in this category is that it’s a college town, so there are tons of college-aged girls. [Shanghai women know how to dress well and wear makeup. They are hot, hot, HOT. It seems like the hottest ones are often either working girls or out for money, though.]
- Pollution. Pollution is a huge issue for foreigners in China, so I wanted to pick one of the cleaner Chinese cities. Relatively speaking, Hangzhou fits the bill (there are some nightmarish cities out there), but it’s by no means pristine. [Shanghai does not at all seem more polluted. I guess it’s because factories are largely located in the countryside (like right behind ZUCC).]
For the reasons above, as well as the fact that I never felt like a “city person,” I chose Hangzhou over Shanghai. It was an excellent choice. My number one goal here in China is attainment of a high degree of fluency in Mandarin, and Hangzhou has been a great place to pursue that dream. As my language proficiency pushes into the “advanced stage,” though, I have had to re-evaluate the situation.
As a university English teacher in China, I can’t justifiy the use of Chinese in the classroom, so my job (with the exception of the minor “foreign teacher liaison position”) was conducted entirely in English.
I’ve never been good at befriending my students, and I always found the language issue problematic. They want to practice English, I want to practice Chinese.
As my Chinese got better and better, I just felt that if my aim was mastery of Chinese, the most logical way to further my goal was to find a job where I could use Chinese on the job, all the time.
Thus Shanghai. Hangzhou has very little call for foreigners that speak Chinese. The fact that jobs in Shanghai pay way better is a small added bonus, but far from a driving factor for me.
Often in jest, expats in China sometimes refer to foreigners living in Shanghai as having “sold out.” I’m sure many do come here for the pay. You can earn a Western salary here (if you’re lucky). And I remember when I first came to Hangzhou and met other expats who had been here longer, I learned about the phenomenon of foreigners abandoning Hangzhou in favor of Shanghai after they’d been in China a while. And I remember thinking to myself, “Not me! Hangzhou is the city for me.” Whatever “the real China” may be, Shanghai is most definitely not it. So I can’t help but ask myself, “have I sold out?”
The answer is, of course, NO. But I have to make sure I keep focused on my goals. I wouldn’t be the first disillusioned Westerner to embrace the mystic, ascetic East for whatever reason, in all its third world charm, merely to get caught up in this new red capitalism. I wanted out of the rat race, not merely into a new “race.”
So I guess that about sums it up. Yes, my girlfriend also lives in Shanghai. And yes, that was also a factor (and a catalyst). But of course it wasn’t that simple. And I will definitely miss living in Hangzhou.
09
Jan 2004Back Online
So I finally got my ADSL access today. I am proper satisfied. It’s very fast, and I can even upgrade to twice this speed for a mere extra 10 rmb per month (I currently have to pay 130).
So now I can get back on top of my e-mail. Still, if you sent me any e-mails these past few months, there’s a good chance they were lost in my hard drive crash, so please e-mail me again. I’m using Thunderbird as my mail client now, instead of Microsoft Outlook. John B tells me it’s better for Asian language support. Hopefully it’ll work out.
Just in case you were looking for something China-related that goes even beyond my own existence here, I got something for ya. So tell me, do you know the difference between a Chinaman and a chink? Go find out.
Related note: Ever hear of the Chink Bros?
08
Jan 2004Coming Soon…
Happy New Year, everybody. It’s been a while since my last entry, I know. In the meantime a lot has happened (although really, not much).
I have completely moved into my new apartment in Shanghai, and it’s awesome. My ZUCC co-worker friends were all going to help me with the final move, but they all bailed on me at the last minute for lame reasons like “no money,” except for Greg. He was a great help, and strong as an ox, that lad. Alf tried to placate me by later showing up with a potted plant for me. What a charmer.
Anyway, I don’t hold grudges, so I’ll be happy to put any of them up should they feel like coming to visit me in Shanghai. Those guys are great, and I’ll really miss them. Sometimes it’s hard for me to explain even to myself why I would voluntarily leave such a great community of people.
I also met the notorious Brad (of BradF.com) recently. Very chill guy. Much more into music than I expected (if you read Chinese, make sure you check out his ideas for his new band!). Hopefully I’ll be hanging out with him again soon.
I finally bought a new hard drive yesterday. 80 GB of Seagate goodness. Works like a champ so far. I’ve actually found that I didn’t lose as much data as I thought I did, due to my inadvertently backing important documents up in the past for various reasons. That includes my book, to my extreme relief. My publisher has just recently informed me that they’ve finally made the official decision to publish it. Cool. Only took 3 months.
Hmmm, every paragraph is beginning with the word “I”. But not this one.
My ADSL internet access will be installed tomorrow, and then I can finally quit with this internet cafe hanky panky.
I paid a huge wad of cash for my apartment on Christmas Day. My new job doesn’t start until after Chinese New Year. I was getting paid very little all last semester because I was teaching very few clases to make time for my full-time Chinese studies. That all amounts to me being pooooor. My older sister Amy is coming for a visit next Wednesday. Fortunately she’s bringing funds. Everything’s gonna be cool, I’m sure.
Things are looking good. I have lots of ideas for Sinosplice in the months to come, but I’m gonna need that internet access first. Expect more pictures. My new surroundings have imparted new inspiration to me.
30
Dec 2003Hard Drive Dead
Oh man, I am pissed. I know I should have been backing up my hard drive all along, but I’ve got remarkably good luck with computers. But John B and Carl convinced me to reinstall Windows using XP Corporate edition in English, since the language support is all there anyway. I also wanted Office XP. I also wanted to reformat my hard drive and get off of the FAT32 file system. So I had to back everything up.
Well, wouldn’t you know it… right when I’m starting to back everything up, the hard drive dies. I’m not a hardware expert, but hard drives have these little thingies inside them that spin around at very high speeds. They must spin. It seems some of mine have fused together. So instead of doing its job, my hard drive makes a sad clicking noise, and my CPU fails to recognize any hard drive at all.
Besides losing my entire addressbook AGAIN, I’ve lost a bunch of pictures, which really bums me. I can try to recover data from the crashed HD, but I’ve been advised not to get my hopes up too high.
I had to take Carl back to the computer market today to swap out his motherboard for a working one. My original plan was to buy a new hard drive immediately, but I had a fateful telephone conversation with my girlfriend last night.
Why is it that girls pretend to be strangers to logic most of their lives, blithely prancing about their affairs of shopping and gossip, but then can cruelly whip it out at the opportune moment and spear a vulnerable man with it?
“Why don’t you wait until after you move to Shanghai to buy a new hard drive? That way if anything goes wrong, it’s a lot easier to return it?”
I can’t argue with that. So I’ll be without a computer for a while. The final move is scheduled for January 4th.
28
Dec 2003Christmas.
So another Christmas has come and gone. Despite my feeling that “Christmas just doesn’t exist this year” I still tried to celebrate it somehow. I knew I’d be in Shanghai on Christmas Day forking over the first three months’ rent to my new landlord, so I wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve with my ZUCC co-worker buddies. It was my idea to go to Banana Leaf, a relatively new addition to Hangzhou’s restaurant scene.
Banana Leaf is a chain, but it rules. I first had the pleasure of dining at this lively Thai establishment in Shanghai, and I absolutely loved the food. Banana Leaf is very much going for atmosphere, though, so they don’t stop at just good food. The place is decorated to look kind of tropical jungly, and there’s a singing dancing staff doing roving performances throughout the restaurant in Chinese, English, and even Spanish (“La Bamba” is the one that I recall most readily).
Anyway, that’s the place I chose for all my co-workers to eat on Christmas Eve. Not everyone made it, though. It was Carl, Greg, Russell, Wayne, Alf, two Chinese friends, and me. Since it was Christmas, the performing staff were all dressed up in Santa suits, and one of them even had the full beard going. Thai Santa Claus. They were amazingly enthusiastic and bubbly the whole time, singing dancing, going by in congo lines. What really kept us amused was how one of the guys kept poking Russell in a flirtacious way. Some of the other guys were making eyes at us. These are all Thai (?)* guys dressed up in Santa suits, mind you. So it was pretty damn amusing.
Everyone liked the food, even if Greg was a little disappointed that the half a roast pig never showed up. They ran out.
After that it was a bit of an adventure getting a taxi. Who’da thunk all of Hangzhou would be out for a night on the town on Christmas Eve? I guess Chinese people are getting into it. It’s a good enough excuse to go out, anyway.
Then we were off to Reggae Bar (which was inexplicably left off of Greg’s Brief Overview of Hangzhou’s Nightspots, to my dismay). Reggae Bar was all decked up Christmas-like, with a full-on Christmas tree and Christmas lights strung throughout the bar. It was also packed. Standing room only. A good mix of foreigners and Chinese, as usual.
Lenny tried to entice me with the bottle of vodka he had bought, but I stuck to beer all night. There was much dancing and merriment. I had a pretty good amount of alcohol, I think. At one point I wouldn’t let Alf stop dancing. The funny thing is it actually worked; he kept on dancing as if somehow compelled by me insisting and blocking the exit.
Surprise, surprise, I missed my 9am train the next morning. I had already bought the ticket and everything. I was awakened just after 9 by an international phone call from my good friend Paco. So I zoomed off to the bus station and caught a bus to Xu Jia Hui that was leaving in 10 minutes. It all worked out.
My new Shanghai apartment is pretty badass. It’s on Nanyang Road (南阳路), right behind the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel on West Nanjing Road. So I’ve got a Taco Popo (decent Mexican food in China!) right around the corner, as well as a pizza delivery joint, and a Starbucks, and several bars, and lotsa Chinese restaurants, including a cozy little Guilin joint that sells rice noodle dishes for 5-6 rmb! Jing An Temple is a 5 minute walk away. I’m loving it.
OK, that’s all for now. I still have lots of moving to do. Ugh.
*I think many of them may have been Filipino.
P.S. Happy Birthday, Illy!
21
Dec 2003Christmas?
It’s hard to believe that last year at this time I was arriving home in Florida for a surprise visit. Prior to last Christmas, I had been in China two Christmases in a row. Yet this year I feel more divorced from this “Christmas” thing than ever before. This year Christmas is just that Western holiday between the HSK and my move to Shanghai.
Speaking of the HSK, I think I did “OK.” I think I’m borderline between 7 and 8. Maybe it was unrealistic to expect to be able to learn enough vocabulary in one semester to get an 8 when I don’t read literary Chinese all that often at all. In any case, I’m not getting my hopes up too high for that 8.
So now I have that huge HSK weight off my shoulders, and a whole three days between today and Christmas. But I have to give my students final exams those three days.
We have a pretty decent-sized foreign teacher community here at ZUCC, but I don’t think any of the younger crowd is celebrating Christmas in any Christmassy way. No Christmas trees, no Christmas lights, no Christmas songs, no gift exchange. And there’s sure as hell no eggnog. There’s Christmas mass even in Hangzhou, but it just doesn’t feel the same.
I might even run off to Shanghai on Christmas Day to check out my new apartment there*. My girlfriend’s mom is awesome — she found me a killer pad at an amazing price (and she also knit me a cool cap). But I have to go hurry and check it out to close the deal. As chance would have it, Christmas also happens to be one of the few days my girlfriend isn’t working. So that’s that.
The thing is, I’m not really bummed about any of this. China does not really have Christmas, it just has enough little reminders everywhere to alert you to the fact that Christmas really is going on again elsewhere in the world. So my co-workers’ attitudes, rather than seeming all bah-humbuggy to me, seem perfectly natural. Enlightened, even. Why bother to celebrate Christmas?
I guess to me, Christmas is something that happens at home. And when it happens at home and I’m actually there for it, like last year, it’s just all the more special.
So does the fact that I’m fine with there being no Christmas for me here in China mean I’m more adapted to China? Does it mean China has really become a second home for me? Or am I becoming a soulless Scrooge?
Rather than dwell on those questions too long, I think I’ll just go get me an apartment in Shanghai. Merry Christmas.
*Oh yeah, I got a good job in Shanghai — more on that later. This post is supposed to be somewhat “heavy” and “introspective.” No room for good news here!
20
Dec 2003Thank you, Korea!
I have a new favorite piece of software, and the Republic of Korea to thank for it. It’s called NPC TV. The technology isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it provides me with a very welcome breath of fresh air here in China. You see, NPC TV lets you view live digital broadcasts from countries all over the world, in one easy application. It’s really quite amazing. Here is a list of countries with broadcasts currently on NPC TV (and the numbers of channels offered):
Korea (62), USA (63), UK (12), Canada (9), Australia (5), Netherlands (11), Italy (15), Japan (17), China (28), Brazil (9), France (5), Germany (7), Spain (18), Russia (5), Turkey (11), Thailand (10)
The quality of the video feeds varies greatly. Some channels don’t work at all, others work great (even at my less-than-speedy DSL connection speed). Some are so good that they look great even in fullscreen mode. (NOTE: In a few cases, Realplayer is required.)
A warning about the USA channels though — there’s no CNN, no ESPN, no Comedy Central, no MTV. In fact, they seem to be mostly religious channels. There seem to be a good number of public access channels and there are several C-Spans. There are several Home Shopping channels. My favorite American channel is “Fighting TV – the first 24 hour extreme fighting television network online.” It’s a really fast connection, and looks great even at fullscreen.
The UK offers BBC World (yes, BBC World, and it works great even in China!) and Bloomberg. Bloomberg is actually available through several countries’ feeds.
Australia’s the Basement is pretty cool.
France offers a bunch of channels with French people talking all snooty-like in French.
I tuned into one German music channel, and I got Ja Rule. (No, not in German!)
If you like Japanese music, you can get lots of it in Japan’s channels. Great quality too, I was watching it for a while last night. There are also several Japanese news feeds.
I’m not sure if any of Russia’s feeds actually work. They haven’t yet for me.
Oh yeah, there’s also radio (BBC News, anyone?) and Korean flash animations.
Anyway, if you’re one of those rare individuals interested in the world outside your immediate environs, you gotta check out this program! It grants new validity to the concept “anything I need to know about the outside world I can learn on TV” by combining it with its new relative, “anything I need to know about the outside world I can learn online.”
Of course, the program isn’t perfect. It’s not even a full release. As far as I know, it hasn’t gotten any attention yet (in English) online. When I search for “npctv” or “npc tv” all I get are Korean sites and a few sites about the National Press Club. The developer is Npcsoft. You’re not likely to find the homepage very useful, however, unless you’re Korean.
I got the program through a Korean classmate. Before you run off to the Npcsoft site, let me just say that I thought I’d be nice and host it here. So download it! Oh, and don’t link to that file elsewhere, because it’s not gonna work if you do.
Now remember, the program is made for Koreans, and although they can be very nice people, they tend to use Korean in their software, which makes it a bit harder to use for the rest of us. It’s still easy to use, but when it asks you if you want to update through a string of garbage characters, it’s a good idea to click on YES.
Have fun.
19
Dec 2003谜语
最近在社会概览课上我们看了一篇叫《饮酒漫谈》林语堂的文章。对我而言林语堂写的文章有一定的难度。老师说这是因为这篇文章比较老，受了文言文的影响。虽然我不太喜欢文言文的味道，但文章里讲到谜语的部分我觉得特别有意思，想跟大家分享：
大有人在；
人有它大，天没它大；
春雨连绵妻独宿；
据土为王；
无木之本；
石头
对中国人来说这种谜语应该比较简单，但外国人猜谜语的思路不太一样，尤其是这种谜语。我当然知道谜底，但到现在还是不太懂第三行的谜面。
17
Dec 2003ZUCC: Recruitment Call
Zhejiang University City College, the university where I have taught for 3 1/2 years, is currently looking for new foreign teachers for the new semester beginning February 9th, 2004. Absolute requirements are (1) native speaker of English from the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the USA, and (2) a four-year degree (B.A.) or its equivalent.
Preference is given to:
1. Females (we love ’em, but we currently lack ’em!)
2. Brits (we love ’em, but we currently lack ’em!)
3. Experienced teachers (the school loves ’em!)
The Sinosplice ZUCC page can give you more details than I’m going to write here.
If you are qualified and interested, please e-mail me ASAP (not just leave a comment), with your resume. We are trying to fill the position before January, 2004. I’m reluctantly leaving ZUCC (I truly love it here) after this semester, so this is probably the last time I’ll be helping recruit teachers.
If you want more of an idea about what you are getting into, you can dig into my archives (good luck, it’s still a mess!) or peruse the blogs of some of my co-workers. Carl, Russell, Greg, John B (back online soon!), and Alf all have their own blogs.
16
Dec 2003HSK: the final stretch
I will take the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi — Chinese Proficiency Examination) this coming Sunday, December 21st. Taking the HSK was part of my plan all along to study Chinese full-time this semester. Thus, in addition to my 20 hours of Chinese classes per week, I’ve also been taking 4 hours of optional HSK prep courses (well, usually).
Throughout this semester I’ve been faced with a question of study method: should I take my classes the “Chinese way” or the “American way?” The “Chinese way” means going to lots of classes but doing comparatively little outside work. Most “learning” is accomplished in the classroom. The “American way” means the student exerts much more effort on his own time than in the classroom, effectively making the student largely responsible for his own learning instead of the teacher.
For obvious reasons, I prefer the “American way.” I would have liked to have studied my butt off at home and totally conquered each and every lesson in my textbooks. But that didn’t turn out to be too practical. With my own English classes to teach and an active social life, 20 classes kept me pretty busy, and I even (guiltily) skipped a fair amount of them. So I had to grudgingly accept the “Chinese way.”
The result was that I didn’t pick up as much additional vocabulary as I would have liked. Now that I’m really hitting the HSK prep books, I’m discovering that vocabulary is precisely what I should have been hitting hard all along. Listening comprehension, reading comprehension, character fill-in-the-blank — in each case my problems result from a deficient vocabulary, not in grammar, speed, or character recall. I need to read more Chinese, more often. I’m shooting for level 8 — the highest score in the intermediate range — on my first sitting of the HSK, so I can’t have too many mistakes.
One of my few comforts is that other students tell me that the “red book” (中国汉语水平考试应试指南，北京语言文化大学出版社) we use is more difficult than the actual HSK.
There are some strange topics chosen for the reading comprehension passages: Evolutionary reasons for the scarcity of black flowers in nature, Health risks associated with contact lenses, Astronomists’ current theories on ‘killer stars,’ an Overview of the history of Hong Kong’s subway system, Pig breeding issues around the world, etc.*
I actually prefer the more scientific ones. You can infer most of the really difficult words, and you can employ a lot of common sense. What’s the main reason that killer stars swallow up other stars? Even if you can’t read everything in the text, you know it’s gonna be gravity if you have any background at all in astronomy.
What’s the point of this post? If there is any, it’s basically just to tell those of you who intend to take the HSK that you need to be hitting vocabulary hard. The Chinese designed this test. They are the original examination masters, and there’s nothing they love more than making poor youngsters squander their vigor on rote memorization of vocabulary. If you want to take the HSK, you have to comply with these sadists’ designs.
* The HSK lumps Beginner and Intermediate levels together all on one test. That means if you’re a beginner who can only hope for a very modest score, you’re still going to be subjected to texts filled with the likes of the topics listed above. The idea is that you’ll get the easiest questions right, and your score will reflect your ability. Still seems like a cop-out to me.
Irrelevant sidenote: Richard’s “Interview with a 1989 demonstrator in China” on Living in China is an absolute must-read. It’s very readable for those of you that know what happened in 1989, but don’t necessarily know a lot about it.
13
Dec 2003Sinosplice Network Weblog Awards
The conclusion of Phil’s Asia Weblog Awards is still a ways off, and I hear even more Asia weblog awards are in the making. I figure it’s time for the Sinosplice Network to steal the award spotlight. Yes, all 23,529 votes have been secretly counted, and unlike Flyingchair’s version, no PHP programming was even needed! Also, you’ll note that unlike Flyingchair’s version, on Sinosplice every category begins with the same word: “most.” Every one. That is our promise to you. So, without further delay, here are the results!
– Most Wantonly Hilarious: Sinobling
– Most Typographically Nonconformist: Hangzhou Lovin’
– Most Diplomatic: Prince Roy’s Realm
– Most RSSassy: T-Salon
– Most Reflective: Ape Rifle
– Most Introspective: Laowai Monologues
– Most Taiwanese: A Better Tomorrow
– Most Dalian-loving: Welcome to Dalian
– Most Not Even in China: Prince Roy’s Realm
– Most Economic: China Economy Watch
– Most Watchful: China Economy Watch
– Most Studious: Nanjingren
– Most Sea Horsey: Laowai Monologues
– Most Likely to be Featured in a Hong Kong Action Flick: A Better Tomorrow
– Most Unaware of the Theme of His Own Blog: Hangzhou Lovin’
– Most HSK-Crazy: Sinosplice
– Most Ikea-Crazy: Nanjingren
– Most Irish Canadian: Ape Rifle
– Most Chinese Canadian: Welcome to Dalian
– Most Female Canadian: T-Salon
– Most Beautiful Color Scheme: Sinobling
– Most Deceptive in that He Always Uses a Serious Voice and Makes the Blog all Serious even though in Person He’s Actually Got a Real Live Sense of Humor: Sinosplice
Most Good Overall: 11-way Tie! (Awww… how sweet!)
Outstanding job guys… You guys deserve every single vote you got. Thank you everyone else for voting.
12
Dec 2003Integrated Chinese (Levels 1, 2)
by Tao-chung Yao and Yuehua Liu (Cheng & Tsui Company, 1997)
Review by: Prince Roy
10
Dec 2003Model Competition
I rarely watch Chinese TV (because it’s dumb and boring), but I watched it last night. I was rewarded for my bravery.
Last night I happened to catch part of CCTV 2’s Televised Model Competition (模特电视大赛). Like I said, I rarely watch Chinese TV, but if I do happen to go for a flip through the channels, if there’s anything that’s going to catch my attention, it’s a whole bunch of hot women. So this competition did the trick. I’m not sure, because I tuned in late, but apparently it has all kinds of different rounds, including formal fashion catwalks, swimsuit modeling (damn, I missed that one!), and answering various “deep” questions. Most of the model hopefuls were 18-21 years old, and close to 180cm tall (around 5’10”).
Several elements of the competition caught my attention. First, I’ll talk about the models’ hotness, since it is of primary importance. Some of them really weren’t very special. Quite a few had the “anorexic model look” that seems to fly in the New York and Paris fashion industries. Many of them had very pretty faces but stick-like bodies. I don’t really go for that type. Perhaps a few models had already been eliminated in previous rounds before I tuned in, but the one that caught my attention was #46: Jiang E (姜娥). (If you look at the picture of her on the page linked to, you might not think she’s very pretty. I don’t think it’s a very good picture, but that girl has got a body, trust me! The other girls couldn’t compare.) The show said she was from Harbin, but her online info says she’s from Dalian. [Now Derrick, don’t get too smug. I never said Dalian girls weren’t pretty.] I did notice that girls from the Shanghai/Zhejiang area were seriously underrepresented, and many of the girls I’ve seen in Shanghai could easily compete with the contestants I saw on TV.
One thing that was cool was just that day in Chinese class we had been talking about the “triumph of the superior over the inferior” (优胜劣败), “Darwin’s theories of natural selection and evolution” (达尔文的自然淘汰理论，进化理论), “the law of the jungle” (丛林法则 or 弱肉强食). So when taotai (淘汰), a word meaning “selection” in the “elimination” sense — which I might not ordinarily get right away — came up in the competition, I was all over that baby.
It was interesting hearing the girls answer various questions. One of the contestants was allowed to ask one of the judges, a famous model, any question she liked. She asked what she should do to improve her chances of succeeding as a professional model. The professional model’s answer was that she should improve her Mandarin and her English! I was shocked. I don’t know if it was just B.S. or if the model really believed it, but she said that language was extremely important in the industry for communicating with designers, photographers, etc.
Another contestant was asked how she would relax if she worked hard for an entire year and then finally got any vacation of her choice. She said the first thing she would do was go to the hospital for a checkup. When the host asked for clarification, she said she’d get her eyes checked, because vision is very important. Ah, the wisdom of models.
Another thing that startled me once it hit me was that the Chinese model judge pictured below, Jiang Peilin (姜培琳), from certain angles really looked like that girl Katie Holmes that got famous on Dawson’s Creek. It was weird. I noticed in Jiang Peilin’s pictures online she doesn’t look like Katie as much; she tries to hide her dimples and her smile.
After the competition finished, I flipped through the channels a bit. A scene of a cute little black girl speaking fluent Mandarin flashed out at me. I flipped back. To my disappointment, she was dubbed. To my utter horror, it turned out to be the Teletubbies dubbed in Chinese. Disgusting.
Then I stopped on a drama. I was tuning in late, so I had to guess at what I missed, but the plot seemed to center around a woman who had contracted AIDS. She got it from her boyfriend, who apparently committed suicide (because he cheated on his girlfriend and unwittingly gave her AIDS, maybe?). The characters who knew the girl had AIDS were treating her with nothing but compassion. (The Chinese propaganda machine is going strong on this AIDS thing now that it has finally gotten its act together on the issue.) I had to stop watching after about 10 minutes, though, because another female character who was supposed to be cute was unbearably annoying.
And off went the TV.
09
Dec 2003Launched
Not long ago I announced the first party organized by a group of young people in Hangzhou determined to make some positive changes in Hangzhou’s dance music scene. Well, it turns out the first party was quite a success! The bar was pretty packed. There were lots of foreigners, but lots of Chinese as well (and even a good number of cute girls). Ever since the first party, people have been showing up at the bar where it was held asking when the next event would be. So let me tell you when the next event is gonna be. This Saturday, December 13th, 9pm – 2am at the Sacred Chrees Pub (I wish that were a typo, but it’s not), same as last time, near the corner of Yan’an Road and West Lake Boulevard. It’s the bar with the big dragon head and suit of armor out front. Kinda hard to miss.
I’m wondering how many people were at the last party as a result of the promotion here on Sinosplice. I saw Patrick of Ape Rifle and his crew, and I met one other guy that told me he learned about it here, but other than that, I’m not sure. Let me know in the comments if you were there.
09
Dec 2003Chinese Fonts
I just put up a new section for Chinese fonts. Feel free to download away. I’ve been using Chinese Windows for over two years, so if you have any questions about installing them on a machine running English Windows, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’m curious, though. Do they work fine in English Windows if you have Chinese IME installed?
I also took the opportunity to play around with CSS a little on the new fonts page, so it has a totally different look.