User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hi Xiaophil

Nice answer. It seems that in the end we actually agree, except about Rome itself.

You just hurt me a bit with the 'movies' jibe, and not just that I watch films not movies. My sources are academic sources, not Hollywood. I think that I am reading the revisionist literature, and one that focuses on ordinary society, not the grand view much loved of many historians.

Maybe Romans were agnostic in respect of high culture - in truth they were just there for the spoils. The colonies were oppressed by tax regimes that would make today's welfare states cringe.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

I guess the only connection with Chinese is to draw comparisons about empire. Wasn't Rome just held together (with more or less success) by pure brute force? In which case the modern use of the word 'diversity' really doesn't apply. I'll admit my limited knowldge on this, but I did some reading this past year on Roman society for a lecture series; just scraped the surface. I read that markets as we know them now were non-existent; even 'trade' was trade in name only; it was simply Rome extracting whatever it could from the colonies, for as long as it could afford the military force required to make it happen. Rome did not accommodate the various cultures that it plundered - it just did what it had to do in order to feed the centre. It's a far cry from what we now think of as 'diversity' as practiced say in the US.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hi tungyun

Thanks for that tip about 百度百科 - very useful.

I have been gradually using Baidu more and more but I didn't realise that I could use it this way.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Happy 2011 to you too, Zhenlijiang.

May we have many productive discussions about Chinese lang & culture in the new year! And a few that are way off beam too...

Mine I meant, not yours. :)

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Free food for the unwashed and black Roman emperors do not really prove a diverse culture back then; to be sure they wouldn't have thought of it as accommodating diversity. But I just had a flash in my mind's eye of centurions in shining armour sipping lattes. Thanks for that. :)

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

I'm taking a vow of silence on ChinesePod in relation to the expressions The West and Western - I hope you will keep me to my word. :) In everyday life in China where people I mix with frequently use the term 西方的 I will have to keep using it.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

'It seems to me Western Rome was probably the most diverse power in its time'. & My question was: What are you getting at here? You responded along the lines that the present day West is diverse. I'm still interested in that comment about ancient Rome. 'Diverse' is about the last descriptive word that would come to my mind in seeking to understand Rome.

And Happy New Year.. the fireworks are still going off here.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Oh, just noticed this Zhenlijiang, sorry. I thought I had answered you; maybe again a little too cryptically. I apologise for that. Look I don't find the term 'Westerner' too helpful either; I have already explained why above. But everyone uses it, and so I follow suit. It doesn't mean just the US, but as the largest group here are Americans I assume that this is what most people here immediately think of when I say 'Western'.

I do prefer to talk about different cultures than to label the US, France, Germany, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc as Western. On some of the standard dimensions of culture Australia does line up closely with the US; on others there would be differences.

One of those dimensions where we line up might be: 'Assume everyone loves us'. :)

PS. Sorry I've been sounding like a prig. (Apologising all the time might be an 'Australian' thing - we have a lot to apologise for.)

'I'm sorry to see it's work for you to reply to me Bodawei' - I'm guessing this means that you did see my reply and that I sounded a little pissed off in my reply? Not that I didn't reply at all?

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hi xiaophil

There were quite a few things you said in this post I didn't really understand, but in particular: 'It seems to me Western Rome was probably the most diverse power in its time'. What are you getting at here?

Posted on: Merry Christmas!

'random facts'

My two favourite 'lists' in China are peoples' names, and place names. But I don't believe that these things are 'random'. Ok, characters used in transliterations are a bit random. I gaze at lists of names and wonder about the person behind the given name. Family names are not so interesting, unless unusual. Like mine. :)

Third favourite list - menus. Now drinks as well as eats.