User Comments - baifameizhong
baifameizhong
Posted on: No Spring, No Wedding?
February 04, 2010, 11:05 AMI once asked whether apartments on the fourth floor were cheaper....(not that I would ever be able to convince my wife to live in one:), but I was surprised. In those places we had looked, flats on the 4th floor were calculated on the same basis as the other ones (square footage, the higher the more expensive...or was it the lower the more expensive..). My stepfather insists on calling 4 "fa" (from the do-re-mi-fa in singing) so that it gets the same meaning as the 8....the beliefs can be intepreted in a way that suits people sometimes:)
Posted on: No Spring, No Wedding?
February 04, 2010, 07:28 AMI won't be brave enough to say either yes or no...but I remember that with my wedding the moon calender was consulted and one or two of the possible dates did have fours in them according to our calender....but it didn't matter because moon calender had the final word:)
Posted on: Mailing a Package at the Post Office
February 03, 2010, 08:42 AMWe recently got a parcel from China from the in-laws. We then still were handed a bill for 50 Franks or so because my father-in-law had been quite generous with the valueing of the contents. We then calculated that the combined costs of sending and that bill together cost a good deal more than the actual contents.
Ever since we've been able to convince my mother-in-law to go against her instincts and take away the price tags (still weird for me to keep the price tags on presents) and wash the clothes once or twice so that we can say their not new anymore and we can write a really low value on the slip :-).....actually...speaking of sending stuff, I should go right now and post the presents for Chinese New Year.
David
Posted on: Canceling Dinner Plans
February 01, 2010, 03:52 PMI've heard the 改天见 a few times. My personal favourite using "改天" is 改天再说吧 which is also wonderfully dubious and can be used for all sorts of things:)
Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses
January 28, 2010, 08:21 AMHey wenjong
judging by what your wrote you can deal with levels above newbie (wouldn't base it on whether or not you feel like looking up the tones when writing^^). Just study a few lessons in Ele and intermediate and I'm sure you will be just fine. In fact, I would predict that afterwards if you tried some newbie lessons again you feel the pace was a bit slow (not that one can't learn anything there, but you can deal with a higher pace). I that's what happened with me when I moved up to higher lessons.
Just keep at it.
David
Posted on: 《易经》的本意
January 27, 2010, 09:44 AM国学不包括跟运动的有关系，是吧？比如说武术和传统的跳舞。。。
Posted on: Western Zodiac
January 22, 2010, 10:52 AM我最近看了一个"study"(研究行吗？)。在德国他们问了好几万人，他们是什么星座的，然后还问了各种各样的问题（比如说有没有爱人，喜欢什么样的东西，生活过得好不好，有什么能力，等等）。那些研究的人就使用了统计学看了看，人的星座跟他们的性还是生活有没有关系。。。一点儿都没有。不过最好玩儿的就是他们研究的人还问了另外两个问题：你相不相信星座的？和你每周你星座的星相？
百分九十的人说他们不相信星座，不过还是常常看星相。。。有意思吧：）
Posted on: Can't Get to Sleep
January 20, 2010, 02:20 PMThat does sound somewhat more professional:)
Posted on: Can't Get to Sleep
January 20, 2010, 08:40 AMHey carl89
As far as I know the 不 won't often change to a neutral tone. It mainly happens when it gets sandwiched into a "fixed" expression to negate it. 睡着 (fall asleep) is such an expression. 怪不得 would be another such example. It's maybe a bit difficult to see it if you don't know the expression it's negating.
If I got it wrong, please feel free to correct me:)
David
Posted on: Dreaming of You
October 12, 2012, 08:45 AMOn a side note to the topic of Freud......John summed it up quite nicely. At universities Freud is credited very much historically as putting mental illnesses on the map but his methods and ideas are largely categorized as non-scientific (my prof at the time made the comparison to a religion....you can believe it, but that's about where it stops). In fact, many of his treatment methods have proven rather ineffective (one can't prove or disprove that there are three levels, but one can see whether people get better or not). Not all mind you, there are some scientific studies that show some effectiveness in some scenarios. But as a general rule, if you have an friend, family member or you yourself needs help (nearly everybody some stage in his or her life is statistically likely to once need professional help), don't go for someone who uses Freudian approaches. There are other methods that are proven to be way shorter, cheaper and more effective for many mental illnesses. If they don't work, well, then you might want to try other methods....