User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: A Creepy Guy

hey this is great Rachel...we have a rollicking good debate on our hands here. First let me say thanks for your kanfa.

ok, well I think you are on pretty shaky ground here I must say.

Firstly we have:

"First of all, I’d point out that WeiWei actually seems to have a pretty permissive attitude generally towards the male gaze. Not once but twice she advises her friend to ignore the guy – he can look all he wants she says, or I’ll ignore him while I’m looking at other guys that interest me, which seems pretty socially symmetrical to me."

...yeah, she permits it, BUT, she implies that his [perceived ] ogling makes him weird, and her friend Lulu outright calls him creepy, and yet they clearly plan to "look at the hot guys"..in other words, ogling..the same thing. Hypocrisy, no? [unless this social symmetry your refer to involves them considering themselves weird and creepy also which seems unlikely]. And I really think that as it turns out he just knew WeiWei and was trying to remember her name most likely, and wasn't ogling at all, which leaves these 2 women as the only oglers in the dialogue. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! His friendly smile is deemed creepy...so I think it is all a misinterpretation on the part of these feisty women who are primed, very primed and prone to such a misinterpretation. He sounded pretty friendly and polite and non creepy when he came over and and introduced himself as an old school xuezhang.

"WeiWei only takes action when he comes over and tries to fraudulently win her trust by lying about knowing her from a safe space, which is super, super-creepy of him. (Frank does not seem likely to be his real name either, does it?)."

...I think we have very little to lead us to believe that Frank is being fraudulent. What evidence of this do we have that his claim is not true?...only that she doesn't recognise him, right? I'm assuming that most schools in China have a fairly large cohort of students and therefore unlikely that you're going to know everyone, particularly someone not in your year, and particularly if that person didn't shine. Whereas if she was in school plays, etc, she may well have stood out more. It seems incredulous to me that she would jump to the conclusion that he was being fraudulent without trying to catch him out in not knowing something about the school[and thus my theory that she was interested when she got a closer look at him and saw he was good looking...don't forget this comment was made privately to Lulu, and that the real reason she suddenly turned was because she could clearly see he was interested in Lulu] as naturally the school would then have been the topic of conversation...teachers and friends etc. Also very shaky ground for Frank to be on if he was fraudulent and just found out her name and school from someone else in the bar. I don't think we can make too much from his name, because this is a CPod dialogue and sometimes they use such names.

"appreciative “looking” at a sampling of all the guys in the bar (flirty giggles optional), and not creepily aggressive leering, intensely focused on a single person. Can reasonable people of good faith agree there’s a difference?"

of course there can be a difference, but I think you're on very shaky ground here. It is so subjective. Very prone to hypocrisy here. And I think these girls have their sensitivity, or creep radar set way too high..it turns out he was just an old school xuezhang, and was probably trying to recall her name for 1m12s before he came over

“evil smile” on his face

....this was just their subjective [and I think erroneous] interpretation. Maybe he just had a mild crush on her at school, or maybe it's not even that..he was just glad to see someone he went to school with and it brought back fond memories. He may be shy and this is the first time he's plucked up his courage to chat to a member of the opposite sex...maybe that's what took him 1m 12s ...not trying to remember her name but that much time to pluck up the courage.

"The story WeiWei tells about stomping on the guy “looking” at her on the subway is, I admit, potentially problematic since it suggests that sometimes she does feel compelled to punish “looking.” "

..absolutely..very problematic. All the subway guy is accused of is "looking" ..nothing more and her response is a physical assault!! very aggressive !!

"I assumed that when she said “some disgusting guy was looking at me” what she meant was “some disgusting guy was staring down the front of my blouse and I couldn’t protect my personal space or move away from him (since the subway was so crowded).” "

..that's a big assumption. You'd think she might specify that. Even then, you'd think she'd discuss it or something..harsh words maybe even rather than such an aggressive response [what if she's misinterpreted something? ]. But what is most indicative of this character Weiwei is her little prank with the lajiaoshui...totally uncalled for...very aggressive, nasty...and in my mind no excuse for it under the circumstances...and I suspect it was because for the first time a nice guy fancied her friend and not her.

Having said all that, while I think these particular female characters are highly questionable, I think it deplorable the way some men carry on and I loved the scene Sandra Bullock played in Miss Congeniality where she stomped on the guys foot at the beauty pageant..yeah, genuine gropers have what's coming to 'em and I'm firmly on the females side on that front.

Jiayou pengyou :)

Posted on: A Creepy Guy

噢， 不好意思老师， 请别管那张

Posted on: The London Olympics

no, no, I wasn't questioning your good pun. I'm just not familiar with the show. I thought there would be a good chance crack would have been cracked out at some stage in such a show but until you confirmed it was a pun I just wasn't sure.

Posted on: The London Olympics

always is a very long time my friend. They will stumble at some point in my lifetime. All things come to pass...

Posted on: The London Olympics

oh, ok, I hadn't heard that, thanks for letting me know. What was their problem? why would you make it to the Olympics and not give it your all? Qiguai ah! Yes, it definitely fed into that sledging.

Posted on: The London Olympics

hehe, I nearly questioned "deliberate pun?" ...but I was less sure that it was deliberate in this case [cf the stuff I considered deliberate in the creepy guy lesson] and thus didn't want to weaken my use of "deliberate" [in case there are other prying eyes from that debate also lurking over here] ...thought it may have been accidental, esp as cracking was a very natural word to use there [and thus a good pun] ...but also because the quick glance I had at that wiki on breaking bad only mentioned methamphetamine.

Posted on: The London Olympics

哈哈, good one. I enjoy a bit of sledging, a favourite Aussie pastime. I get the Aussie reference in this quote, but I haven't seen nearly as much of the games as I would have liked. I'm wondering if this:

"They disqualify certain individuals for not trying hard enough"

...is referring to a specific incident/incidents in these Games, or just to their rules and thus only sledging the Aussies?

I watched a great interview the other night with Linford Christie, Michael Johnson and Daley Thompson and Daley started sledging the Aussies...it was great to see actually ...he did it really well and he is such a likeable character [and a total legend to boot]. All good fun.

Posted on: The London Olympics

"cracking program"...pun?

Posted on: A Creepy Guy

thanks Chris...great summary...to the point and covering the key areas of interest nicely.

Posted on: The London Olympics

Certainly heard of Albuquerque [ seem to have heard of it from childhood and don't know why but I have a feeling it may have back then just been because it's an interesting name], but don't watch much telly at all so had to look up this breaking bad and you are right of course:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad

haven't looked at this lesson yet, so not sure where this geographical reference/question is coming from