User Comments - auntie68
auntie68
Posted on: Ending your sentence with 嘛 （ma)
April 15, 2008 at 2:05 AMQ: 为什么她这么好吃啊 (wei1shen2me ta1 zhe4me hao4chi1 a)？ A: 新加破人嘛。。。(xin1jia1po1 ren2 ma) ＝ Q: Why is she so mad about food? A: Singaporean, 嘛...
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 1:31 PMDear changye, 阿瑟Ｃ.克拉克 = "Arthur C. Clarke" 是吗?
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 12:58 PMHi evahui. I think (but am not sure) that Jenny Zhu may have been referring to the huge and conspicuous demand for high-quality personal gems in today's China, which is keeping pace will all the other symbols of the country's rising affluence (Eg. Ferraris, luxury lofts, nannies for the children, etc etc).
Posted on: 澳洲总理秀中文
April 14, 2008 at 12:54 PMDear zeoblade, to try and contribute a slightly different perspective on this, everybody knows that engaging this planet's pre-eminently "peacefully-rising nation" is no simple task. Even in ASEAN, where we love to disagree with each other, governments (except for Thailand, which just secured a supply of very cheap natural gas), seem to have reached their limits regarding that particular nation's vital support for the obscene levels of corruption and tyranny in a certain ASEAN country which is rich in natural gas reserves, rubies, valuable teakwood forests, and opium fields. Speaking as an individual, I think it's a point of deep shame that my own tiny country is where the leaders of that ASEAN country go to when they need a spa treatment or five-star medical treatment. The position of the peacefully-rising nation is both puzzling and alarming to me. Do you really want to blame Kevin Rudd for trying everything?
Posted on: Tomb Sweeping Day
April 14, 2008 at 12:36 PMHello sayanyah. I like to think that I was brought up in a very traditional Peranakan household, in every respect except for... the matter of dress. My Peranakan grandmother lost her mother at a very early age -- she was only 10. Because her father chose not to remarry as soon as decently possible, but chose instead to break with tradition by daring to run his household as a widower until he had married off his only daughter by that wife, my grandmother was brought up wearing "practical" and "modern" European clothes. Well, that's what my Amah (b. 1913) tells me. So in all the photographs of my grandmother that I have seen, she is wearing "flapper dresses", pinafores, and "Mary Jane" shoes, depending on the period. I think I've seen one picture of my grandmother wearing an Indonesian-style kebaya in the 1970s, but my mother told me that it was a gift from some Indonesian friends. Still, there were many kebaya-clad female relatives around as I grew up, and even when I was an adult. As a Peranakan, you won't blink if I tell you that my grandmother's aunt ("Ipoh-cho") lived to be a hundred -- she even carried me! I can remember her lavender scent --, and according to family tradition she appears at the bedside of members of the family who are gravely ill, smelling of lavender and sandalwood, and keeping them company until the danger is over. Don't these stories make me sound so old? But that was my upbringing. My grandfather's brother was the President of the Peranakan Association for 50 years, bet you can guess who he is... Btw, my grandparents -- only grandfather is alive today, he is in his 80s -- use to segue into Baba Malay when they were having an argument (well, the odd argument...). I really miss the sound of Baba Malay because my late father (b.1946; he died so young) was the only son who lived with his parents until his last days; he spoke beautiful Malay with his parents, and would compose "pantun" to tease me. The "London" fixation is very familar to me!
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 12:19 PMNow back to the subject of 钻石 -- I'm curious to know why all the comments made by males seem to assume that diamonds are a symbol of something that woman want from... men. Hm? My only good "rocks" came directly to me from a beloved grandmother, who was so strong and protective -- and yet, gracious and gentle and fiercely loving -- during her lifetime that I have never felt strange wearing her rings, even on my "engagement finger". Wearing another woman's diamonds is like wearing somebody's shoes; they are such "personal" items that not everybody can swing it. I understand that in Indian culture, people who are thinking of buying a particular diamond will even bring it home and wear it for a few nights first to test the "fit"; if the stone is wrong for you, your sleep will be disturbed. In recent years, the De Beers cartel has run a very successful series of ads aimed precisely at traditional East-Asian women, who tend to buy their own "rocks". I believe that as China grows into the "Bling Dynasty" -- as Jenny Zhu puts it so wittily! --, these age-old East-Asian patterns will re-assert themselves. In societies where women depended on their men for shelter and status, personal jewellery was the one thing which no mother-in-law or husband, no matter how grasping or unscrupulous, would ever dare to try and appropriate. For some women, that was the only security they could count on...
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 11:48 AMI'm very honoured to 跟你一起学习中文... thanks for the encouragement, it means a lot to me.
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 10:51 AMWell, I didn't know that (ie "瓢"), but now I do! Yay! Thank you so much! And now that I've finally made something of a half-hearted start posting Chinese characters, my hope is that you -- and other good teachers like casie and changye (not to mention CPOD teachers) -- will never hesitate to "dis-unintelligibilize" (*neologism warning!* this is NOT English!*) my posts, if you have the time and the mood. You know that I welcome it, and will always thank you for it....
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 7:36 AMAiyah -- 无意地。
Posted on: Ending your sentence with 嘛 （ma)
April 15, 2008 at 2:08 AMP/s: 好吃 (hao4chi1; "mad about food") is not the same as 好吃 (hao3chi1; delicious) !!! When 好 is read in the fourth tone, it means, "to be into [something]". So the word, "好客" (hao4ke4) means "hospitable, very solicitous to guests"...