User Comments - bodawei
bodawei
Posted on: What's in a name?
February 1, 2011 at 4:30 AMFor the record I recently flew China Southern to Australia via Guangzhou. On both legs of my trip the Chinese characters written on my gluten free meals (which should be stating 'gluten free') were wrong. On the first leg it said 'No MSG', but the meal was apparently, coincidentally?, gluten free. On the second leg they wrote 但 instead of 蛋.
I am troubled by the etiquette of correcting a native speaker's grasp of characters .. ha ha.
Posted on: What's in a name?
February 1, 2011 at 4:14 AM八八比白文登好，八八八更好。
Posted on: What's in a name?
February 1, 2011 at 4:02 AM碧 is definitely a nice-sounding character. The main street of my city is 金碧路 - this is an abbreviation for 金马 碧鸡 (golden horse, green chicken).. a reference to the founding myth of the city. There are two mountain peaks; one on either side of the city. one is called 金马 and the other 碧鸡.
Posted on: Switching Seats on a Plane
January 31, 2011 at 6:15 AMright: 走 is to walk or go - the association does help.
You can also say 走道 for aisle, but now I look at the dictionaries they don't seem to support me on this point. I would say that 走道 is common for aisle; maybe 走廊 is more formal?
Posted on: Turn in Your Homework
January 27, 2011 at 12:30 PMIs the 批 pī in 批改试卷 (pīgǎi shìjuàn) really necessary? We just say 改试卷 (mark the tests) and it has never occurred to me that this is colloquial.
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 24, 2011 at 11:48 AMI wasn't aware of this 满月 - corresponds with the end of Mum's month-long lie in? :) I will ask more about this. I have a friend who is about to have a baby and asked her about the lie-in - she is not doing the traditional lie-in she says, even though her parents will be with her. How common that is I don't know.
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 22, 2011 at 8:26 AMOkay it was a little obscure, sorry. I mean that it is still common to celebrate the birth of a child after 100 days, whether or not you consider this their first birthday. They have a 派对. That tradition is a relic of the old system that involved a first birthday 12 months after conception. (Yes, I know they said you are one year old on the day you were born, but the point is that the celebration was delayed until 100 days after you were born. Maybe originally this was because of high infant mortality rates.)
Hope that makes it clearer.
My reference to 'other countries' is that the convention is to have your first birthday one year after birth.
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 22, 2011 at 8:21 AMthe age thing continues to puzzle the chinese themselves; I just baidued 虚岁 and the 1st hit is this discussion:
虚岁与周岁有区别,谁知道虚岁怎么算???
问题补充：
最重要的是我想知道这年指的是农历还是阳历???
最佳答案
你一出生就算一岁和周岁差多少就要看你的月份拉
按阴历算如果你是大年三十出生你就一出来就是2岁
你的月份越大你虚岁和周岁就相差的越大
例如:你是1987年10月的
那你的虚岁就是19但周岁是17岁半
你满10了 你的周岁是10岁
虚岁是11岁
你满11了 你的周岁是11岁
虚岁是12岁
最有意思的是，有些人是大年三十哪天生下的， 就是说他出生后的第2天，正月初一 就已经是2岁了！！！
真正的虚岁只计算他出生的年份，而不是论满一年才加一岁
你的答案非常详细,非常感谢!!别人的也很好,谢谢!!
Posted on: International vs. Local Schools
January 22, 2011 at 7:59 AMHi calkins
Just further on the old system (which incidentally my early 20 students seem totally mystified about), the 'counting the 9 months in the womb as a year' works better when you consider that there is a '1st birthday' celebration when the baby is 100 days old. That would be about a year from conception. This 100 day 以后 celebration seems to have been maintained even if the counting of years now looks more like the convention in other countries. (Dammit I can't say 'The West' any more since Zhenlijiang had a go at me!)
Posted on: What's in a name?
February 1, 2011 at 4:45 AMI'm sure that i've discussed my Chinese name 大伟 several times on ChinesePod! I assume that at some stage it was transliterated from the English.
But I have a question (assuming it is not just a coincidence): how many transliterated English names are taken by Chinese people? (Not counting 'English' names, or nick names.) David appears as 大伟, 大卫，even 大为 - I'm not sure of the history of this but I have seen Chinese men in their 60s with one of these variations of David.
Can anyone point to other English names that have been embraced by the Chinese? They adopt names from the various 少数民族 languages of course - but English?