User Comments - auntie68
auntie68
Posted on: Train to Beijing
April 14, 2008 at 7:21 AMDear sophie20461, my only personal experience of a Chinese train was a good one (北京 - 天津 - 北京；and the railroad worker 阿姨 's (a1yi2; "auntie") went out of their way to help me. One even left her counter to personally guide this stupid foreigner! But based on the stories told in this thread, and borrowing a clever joke from the screenplay of 色戒 (se4jie4; "Lust, Caution"), I think that that maybe it can be even worse than "一票难求" (yi1piao4nan2qiu2; "[even] one ticket hard-to obtain"), indeed even "求一票难" (qiu2yi1piao4nan2; "obtain one ticket's worth of hardship" !!!!!
Posted on: 阶级意识
April 14, 2008 at 5:14 AMHello. 我很想知道，一个人的 “学问” 跟现代中国社会上的阶级意识会有什么关系呢？ I am asking because in my little country -- Singapore -- the ideal profile of our civil servants has been modelled on the 官员 of ancient China (since we gained independence in 1965). This means that only our brightest citizens -- popularly called "scholars" -- are accepted by the Civil Service. And civil servants/ "fonctionnaires" enjoy a level of prestige, respect, and pay which often exceeds that of bright people employed in the private sector, by companies. Eg. many of our Cabinet Ministers and "technocrats" are paid the same -- or even more -- as CEOs and senior officers in multinational companies. But to earn that pay, they have to be true "technocrats". And there's no "iron rice bowl" for them. Maybe this is an accident of geography or history, which only works in a new, tiny country like mine. Most of my European or American friends can't handle the idea that our PM has an official annual salary exceeding USD$1million. Just wondering.
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 4:43 AMSorry for this instant lapse back into English, but: @ all budding (or fully-fledged) diamond-loving 太太's (tai4tai; "Respectable Lady With Too Much Leisure"): "Brilliance" = 亮度 (liang4du4) "Fire" = 火彩 (huo3cai3) Both of these two qualities are both functions of the cut/ proportions of the stone. Within limits, you can (usually) increase a stone's brilliance by cutting it a bit thinner. But at a certain point the additional brilliance will be at the cost of some loss of "fire" due to the reduction in internal reflections. Oh well, I thought this might help the technical-minded males out that to make it through a lesson on jools.
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 4:20 AMHello. CPOD, you are magic. Diamonds are one of my favourite topics, I almost requested a lesson. Thank you so much! 大家也可以从 "DiamondsChina.com" 的网站学习更多有关钻石的词汇： http://www.DiamondsChina.com/yixing/yixing02_sc.html P/s: 一般华侨女子购买钻石的见识可惊人！连年纪相当小的少女也懂得用比较 "technical" 的词汇来谈论这这种题目！ Thank you for being so patient with me; I am not used to posting in Chinese characters. Scary!
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 13, 2008 at 3:09 AMAiya. If you were a Mac user, the adly would have given you 澳大利亚. heh heh... As in 澳大利亚啤酒 (ao4de4li4ya4 pi2jiu3) = "Australian beer". Again, aiyah!
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 13, 2008 at 2:04 AMEek, I could be your mother!
Posted on: Superstitions and Business Trip Tales
April 13, 2008 at 1:55 AMAnd thanks, licha, for being patient with my off-topic posts! I try to rein it in, but I'm terrible at it. Good luck with your Chinese, okay?
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 13, 2008 at 12:01 AMHi light487, Already back? I have this feeling that you were up typing Chinese characters, using your new-found typing facility, and that you got up early this morning so that you could type more. The way you're so "into" your new language is so refreshing, so great. Try typing: adly and see what characters come up. Then you can leave comments at CPOD about adly啤酒. Have you discovered the lesson on Sydney yet? Go on! Go for it! http://chinesepod.com/lessons/sydney-australia/discussion Happy weekend.
Posted on: Do you have...?
April 12, 2008 at 11:31 AMP/s: changye, have you ever eaten "sate perut" before? It's sate made from little squares of trimmed tripes. They don't offer it to foreign tourists... This Auntie quite likes sate perut, I think I ate the same thing (prepared Japanese-style, as yakitori) once at a yatai in Kyoto on my only business trip to your beautiful country.
Posted on: 钻石
April 14, 2008 at 7:35 AMhenning, 你的话很有道理。辛亏住在比较发达的国家的人民有能力买上 “conflict-free" 或者 "conflict-neutral" 的钻石。 一定要小心， 千万要避免买上 “水货”， 总之不可以贪小便宜。我自己也不想无意的买上 “血钻”。