User Comments - auntie68

Posted on: Antiperspirant in China

Eg. 小心碰到他的头。。。千万不要碰到宝宝的头。

= Xiao3xin1 peng4dao ta1de tou2, qian1wan4 bu4yao4 peng4dao1 bao3bao de tou2

= Be careful of hitting his head, whatever-it-is don't hit the baby's head.

But do please get a proper second opinion from a native speaker!

Posted on: Antiperspirant in China

Hi Chris. I'm not a real teacher or a native speaker, but the sentence means, "Be careful [of] spit[ting] out your food." Well, that's how I understood it. HTH. 

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

Amber is Borg?

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

@laobi: Whoa, there. I am guilty of deceit here, I am not the elegant lady in my avatar (I wish...). She is my 93-year-old traditional Chinese amah, who was the "Mary Poppins"-type traditional Chinese nanny who looked after my grandmother, my father, my brother and me, and who -- today -- is now my 3-year-old nephew's "favouritest person" (sic) even though he doesn't speak any Cantonese, and she doesn't like to speak English. I'm a pudgy 40-year-old.

And to be absolutely honest, the only effective way to shut me up is to put a live mike in the vicinity of my mouth. I've tried that before, in another context, and all I could manage was: awkward heavy breathing punctuated by nervous giggles. Not recommended. Amber and company know what they are doing, and they do it so well! So sorry laobi!

Posted on: 日本人的起源

Or how about "子日。。。“ 。。。？ Don't be angry ysjt, we're only teasing, it's always like this on CPOD. Uncle changye has a good heart, he is well-loved by many posters (including myself), and he has spent more time studying Chinese and English properly, than many overseas Chinese like me. He respects Chinese culture, and the language. Take care, everybody...

Posted on: 日本人的起源

ysjt, thanks for your explanation. I agree with you that we should all be vigilant against the rise of militarism.

But your kind of "fighting talk" (in English, this is not an insulting expression ;-) can -- inadvertently -- make China sound like a bit like a frightened child, ready to "bully back" anybody who dared to make her lose face in the past. Where does that lead you?

Weimar Germany between WWI and WW2 built up a culture of "we were bullied before, now we shall bully everybody else and regain our lost face and national dignity!". And so did Japan. It would be good if China can avoid this path, now that she is powerful.

China is a strong country now, getting stronger. IMHO, any nation's test of true strength is -- surely -- being able to find alternative ways to feel strong, besides making the former enemy look "small". Hope you will consider this viewpoint too. Thank you!

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

Hi wjeffreys. I get the feeling that 华桥 is a term which is really only familiar to Southeast Asian overseas Chinese. In the comments on the "Overseas Chinese" lesson (Upper Intermediate), I seem to recall having asked the team about this term, and having been told by them that it only refers to 1st-generation Chinese emigrants, who were actually in China. But I think the term may have a different meaning here in 南洋。

Posted on: 日本人的起源

@ysjt: And your point is/ was ?, beyond being gratuitously offensive? What "language lesson" do we learn from you, my friend? Please don't insult Japanese people -- or even ethnic Chinese like me -- with this kind of "language lesson", thanks.

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

@tvan & chipmunkgeek: I'd like to try and examine that "deep cultural affinity" in a slightly different light.

Giving overseas Chinese special price concessions at tourist attractions is a deep and meaningful gesture, but I think that China's policies towards two different Indonesian leaders -- Sukarno and Suharto -- do offer us some clues as to how deep this affinity really is, when weighed against geopolitical interests.

China was pretty cosy with Sukarno, the left-leaning Indonesian leader who accorded China diplomatic recognition during those difficult early years of statehood, when both Beijing and Taiwan were scrabbling for official recognition all over the world.

In the 1950s, Sukarno depended for power on the support of the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia). The impression I get is that China saw fit to try and maintain a careful balance between (i) supporting the Indonesian Chinese, and (ii) being too critical of Sukarno, when rising racial tensions led to some pogroms against the Chinese. Every nation has that right.

Instead of protesting loudly on the world stage, China quietly sent a fleet of ships to help "repatriate" the 100,000 or so Indonesian Chinese communists who were most troublesome to Sukarno.

During that period, the British colonial government in Malaya, which was struggling with a 16-year communist insurgency, also found it convenient to deport its most hardened Chinese communists to China.

Many of these "returnees" found themselves in a very difficult situation in China. They were settled in "Overseas Chinese Towns", rather than being given the freedom to settle anywhere they wished (not surprising, given the pressures on China as a fledgling nation which had not yet reached internal and economic stability).

The events surrounding the overthrow of Sukarno by Suharto are instructive. Sukarno faded from view in the early 1960s following a failed communist "putsch" against him, said to have been led by overseas Chinese communists, which was put down firmly by Sukarno.

This time, China was already very distracted by her role in the Indochinese wars, and what's more, Suharto was anti-communist (hence there was no pressing need to "save face" for him by quietly shipping the problems back to China). So this time, there was no Chinese flotilla, even as Suharto consolidated power at the cost of some 500,000 lives, most of whom where Indonesian overseas Chinese who were sympathetic to the communist cause.

So chipmunkgeek, I think that China welcomes individual returnees, especially if they affluent. But how happy China would be to absorb a large wave of "olim" from the diaspora is another matter. China is not like Israel, which explicitly guarantees a homeland for all Jews. 

I've tried to be as neutral as possible here, but if my words have offended anybody, I am truly sorry. That is not my intention.

Posted on: Prescription Drugs and Overseas Chinese

I have another question, how do you call someone who's half-Chinese and half-mestizo?

An overseas Chinese? In my family, we (lovingly) have labelled the Stunt Toddler a "Pinoy-Tsinoy-Tisoy" Singaporean. A true-blue PTT Singaporean!