ChinesePod - briana Conversations

Re: Hungry Traveler: Xinjiang

briana — 2008-05-20 10:56:44

wow...i don't know if i could handle prices in Shanghai! in Harbin, we only pay 1-2 kuai per chuan! hahaha..i know a lot of people in Harbin who use "sha" instead of "shen me" =P it's pretty fun! ~ ni shuo sha? sha yi si? ni gan sha ne?

Re: Hawaii

briana — 2008-05-20 09:11:49

i can't believe i missed this lesson when it came out! i'm from Kauai as well =) gregmcgrath: i thought Kauai in Chinese was 烤爱岛 Kao Ai Dao (although i'm not too sure which "kao" specifically) My chinese teacher here told me "kao ai dao" -so when I explained where I'm from to people when I was in Harbin, that's what I told them! ah well....most people i talked to didn't realize that Hawaii is 8 islands anyway! Everyone thought of Hawaii as just one big island! >.< Does anyone know the names of each island in Chinese? I think Oahu has a regular name, but most people that I talked to in China just called it Honolulu岛(i'm not sure which characters). As for big island, I just called it 大岛 and explained to them it's really called "夏威夷" as well... sophie: 但你知道吗？夏威夷有很多不会游泳的人！（我也觉得奇怪）你如果来夏威夷玩，可以玩别的，比如骑马，吃东西（我们也有食物文化呵呵），看表演，爬山，等等。但是我也觉得会游泳的人会玩得最开心！你快学会游泳吧！欢迎你来夏威夷！ =）

Re: Chinese Music Taste and Registering with the Police

briana — 2008-05-18 18:04:52

Vera...yes i like "Li Ge" by Shin too!! =) I like a lot of his songs...but he has such a high voice that it's difficult for me to sing along sometimes!! haha Hitokiri: yes, i know a lot of Chinese people that like many Korean things, like dramas and music! A lot of them like "Rain" (guy singer who stars in "Full House"--a k-drama) and "Dong Bang Shin Ki" (DBSK) I forget what their chinese name is though! >.<

Re: Forbidden Kindgon and the Monkey King!

briana — 2008-05-18 17:57:24

ah! sorry for following up with my own thread! >.< everyone's answers seemed to have been answered, so thank you to those who commented! oh yes..i understood what was being said in chinese, i was just commenting on how interesting it was to have some chinese parts not translated b/c i wondered what it must have been like for non-speaking-chinese people to watch. but thank you anyway casie! =)

Re: Fund to Donate to China Earthquake Relief

briana — 2008-05-16 20:53:58

Thank you all very much for all the information! I would love to donate so I'll look on those websites and find out which is the best way!! 中国，加油！

Re: Chinese Music Taste and Registering with the Police

briana — 2008-05-16 01:27:39

there's also SHIN! He sings Si Le Dou Yao Ai...really good =) I recently started liking Ariel Lin(from Taiwan), but i don't think she was very popular in Harbin...

Re: Pearl Tea

briana — 2008-05-16 01:00:16

sophie... when you say "i can't accept it", do you mean “受不了”？ In the U.S., i believe that a more common way of saying it would be "I can't stand (something or someone)". For example, if you were to say "我受不了她!”, we would typically say "I can't stand her!"

Re: Saved by the Gong: Geology

briana — 2008-05-16 00:22:12

I wish that there was some way that I could help those people... It really is a sad thing. I've read that the death count might be up to 50,000 people because the roads are so bad that it's difficult for the rescue groups to reach the victims. There are a lot of people saying bad things about the Chinese gov't right now, but I believe that the Gov't is really trying their best to help those people. It's a difficult situation and with the state our world is in now, it seems like these kinds of natural disasters are only going to happen more often. The high death toll is inevitable but I hope the rescue workers and victims remain strong to get out of the mess over there.

Re: Pearl Tea

briana — 2008-05-15 23:27:17

哎哟我的天！！ I just read all those comments about the calories in those drinks!! No wonder I gained so much weight in China!! Oily food plus drinking naicha so often= pang le hen duo hen duo!! Although we have naicha here, I don't drink it everyday like I did in China!! (here it's $3.50 as opposed to 3 kuai) Thank you Darylk for the shocking reality check!! nuevacarpeta: yes you can buy kits to make it on your own at home. They sell them at some stores here, but I doubt they'll have them available in Germany =P My family makes a LOT when we have parties so we order it online. Basically, they send you the tapioca balls, uncooked in an airtight bag, flavored powder, and the cups/straws. You have to cook the tapioca balls and soak them in sugar-water to make them all slimy/chewy and then just put them aside in a container to add before pouring the drink into your cup. The drink is typically water, powder, creamer/dairy powder (we add that to ours), a few spoons of premade sugar/water, and ice. blend it up, and pour into a cup that has a few spoons of tapioca balls in it. And that's it! (i can't believe i never really realized just how sugary it is!!!)

Re: Pearl Tea

briana — 2008-05-15 23:15:00

我也爱奶茶! ^_^ Here in Hawaii it's pretty popular too, but we only drink the slushie ones. I've only seen the hot ones in China, but I was very thankful for that during the COLD Harbin winter! Many of my friends here love bubble drinks, but don't like the tapioca balls, so they just drink it without them! We also put coconut or lychee jellies inside...they're really good! Some of the Dippin' Dots stores sell bubble drinks with dippin dots ice cream on top too. I've only seen it called "Boba" once before (here in Hawaii though, not China!). Interesting to know that it originated in Taiwan。。。I thought it was vietnamese! (My family orders packets of it from vietnam for parties =) hehe) I always thought that "zhen zhu nai cha" was the name for the regular flavored nai cha... i never realized zhen zhu meant pearl >.< is there a name for the regular flavor? i don't like the regular flavor, but i love the other ones! (taro, strawberry, mango, honeydew melon...etc.) --My thai friend was obsessed with the regular one though... =P

Forbidden Kindgon and the Monkey King!

briana — 2008-04-23 01:45:18

I just watched the Forbidden Kingdom the other night. Jackie Chan is amazing and Jet Li is pretty good too! I loved the references to other typical Chinese shows/movies!! The first fight scene between Jackie Chan and Jet Li is a little long, but still very good! ^_^ I really miss learning gong fu & wu shu!!! ='(

One interesting thing is that they don't translate ALL the chinese! (little things such as "have some tea" or "where is this money from/what kind of money is this?") Then general idea is obvious to viewers, but I was just wondering what was going through all the minds of non-chinese speakers at that point!

Now with that said...I'm about to listen to that old c-pod episode MONKEY KING!! hehehe...

Re: 混子，aka, bum.

briana — 2008-04-23 01:29:25

Everything Bazza says seems to be right..I also found that it's supposed to mean 'Charlatan' (someone who acts like a know-it-all, but really doesn't....or someone who acts like they can do something but can't). synonyms of that would be a quack, fraud, imposter, phony

Re: Regional Accents

briana — 2008-04-23 01:05:23

哈哈!! 我非常喜欢这堂课！！让我更想中国！！ I loved learning the various accents/dialects of the regions I had friends from or visited! I once made friends with a 东北人on a train who had a VERY strong accent, but was sooooo funny! He would tease the accents of us and people from other regions and countries... It was definitely an entertaining ride! After a year or so in China, you can probably understand most accents after a short time though...you start to realize what the little differences are and just piece them together. I think the hardest one for me to figure out was the "Y" instead of "R" sound. One day I had friends coming over and my grandpa asked me "duo sao yen?" (He meant "duo shao ren") !! haha I was like, "why is he asking me how much money/yen? he doesn't like japanese!" (because yen is a monetary unit in japanese, which i've studied before) One of the most confusing things is getting the 4's and 10's straight when you're in the south though! Thank goodness for 1-10 hand motions! One of my favorite northern phrases is "ni gan ha ne?" which means "Ni gan sha ne?" (or really-- "Ni zai zuo shen ma?" ) I can't wait to listen to part two!

Re: How do you know when you are eating real Chinese Food?

briana — 2008-04-14 19:38:30

oh yah...and to join in to the theme.. when you can't really see a significant difference in the meals for breakfast lunch and dinner!! (like in America, we normally think of cereal and pancakes as a breakfast food, sandwhiches as a lunch item, and steak as a dinner item...in China, there isn't much significance to the time of day that you each a certain item! --not that i ONLY eat cereal for breakfast or anything anyway...but there's still that thought corollation going on...hehe oh! and when dessert is eaten WITH the dinner!! such as cake with whatever other dishes they have! (that was a reaaaally weird thing for me! to mix up the sweet CAKE flavor with something such as gong bao ji ding!! weeeeird!! haha) this list could go oooonnn & ooonn!!!

Re: How do you know when you are eating real Chinese Food?

briana — 2008-04-14 19:29:12

luzdelmundo- there are MANY types of jiao zi (dumplings)... most are categorized by the types of meat in them (ie: pork, beef, chicken, or fish) some places will give you the name of the meat as well as one other vegetable. My favorite jiao zi is "韭菜鸡蛋" (jiu cai ji dan) which i think in english means chives(?) and eggs. There are also different styles of cooking them. Usually when you order jiao zi, you will get "shui jiao" (meaning that it was boiled in water). My favorite is "zheng jiao" which is a steamed dumpling. You can also get fried jiao zi, (which is actually the most popular form in Hawaii--we call it fried wonton but of course it's different than the real chinese version!) In China, you would usually make fried jiao zi from leftover jiao zi... You could order them fried, but it didn't seem too common to eat fried jiao zi all the time... at least, not in Harbin. We only fried the leftovers of our other jiao zi for breakfast the next morning or something...ENJOY!! =)

Re: Chinese Parks and Working as a Tutor

briana — 2008-04-05 19:20:37

HAHAHA!! thanks bazza and yet no thanks...i just got all 4 wisdoms pulled yesterday so it hurt sooo much when i started laughing at this video!! >.< shanghai people seem a lot more eccentric than harbin people =P

Re: Chinese Parks and Working as a Tutor

briana — 2008-04-04 02:22:48

ps. thanks for the tutors in china website. hopefully i get a chance to go back to china and do a little tutoring on the side of whatever else i do! =)

Re: Chinese Parks and Working as a Tutor

briana — 2008-04-04 02:09:34

Haha!! I experienced almost every thing that you guys talked about in this lesson when i spent a year in Harbin!! I remember the plastic ball (although that's not a china-specific thing, as hongran mentioned--but it seems more popular in China than any other country that i've seen) It IS VERY hard to stand up and run around in it though. I also rode a mechanical bull for my first time--but Amber is right in that it isn't very difficult. The only thing I never experienced was the old people dancing to TECHNO music! hahaha...I saw them dance to a lot of music, but I have yet to hear old chinese people listen to techno! (should be pretty interesting though) =P

Re: Cold Will Kill You

briana — 2007-11-02 00:03:46

to wildyaks: Yah! I had friends who lived in Chengdu, and they would always tell me how cold is was INSIDE their houses rather than outside! So they'd where their winter jackets inside the house all the time! I was glad to have indoor heating... but I still had to where extra THICK pajamas around the house so that I wouldn't catch a cold! I was normally HOT rather than cold when I was at home! >.<

Re: Cold Will Kill You

briana — 2007-11-02 00:00:13

Oh...but one thing to point out... Chinese people (or people in Harbin) rarely ever add ice to their drinks. There were no ice trays in my house...and drinks are normally bottled and put in the refrigerator...or simply drinken warm (or hot if it's tea, milk or water)