User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Fasten that Safety Belt

' China has one of the highest rates of pedestrian deaths.'

I'd love to know your source of data for this statement..

'the crowded nature of Chinese cities and roads' - it is true that China has substantially less road area per capita than in the west, so you would expect roads to be more congested with pedestrians - whether this translates into a higher incidence of pedestrian deaths would depend on a whole lot of factors. Yes, drivers have scant regard for pedestrians, but people give them a wide berth as a result.

I'm not sure about the risk to riders of 电动车 compared to bicycles - I would be surprised if the data bears this out. The 电动车 seems to me to be a danger to its rider more so than the bicycle in such a collision; just my observation. Again, any data?

Posted on: Losing and Forgetting

很有用，最近我把我的钱包落在出租车了。可是当时我不知道用‘落’的句子。我说‘我的钱包丢了’。‘我把我的钱包落在出租车了’比‘我的钱包丢了’准确。谢谢你们。 

Posted on: One-Way Street Scuffle

'crosswalk' versus 'pedestrian crossing'

One of those rare occasions where the American word is not really self-explanatory. I think the word is safe over there; no-one's going to pinch that one. :)

'burgher' - a pretentious-sounding word for a citizen;, I guess it has connotations of people who are relatively well-off. A tiny dig at people who live in Shanghai, not something I usually stoop to.

Posted on: One-Way Street Scuffle

'In my day, we didn't need them'

In my area of the city, about 6 months ago our 红绿灯 were switched over to flashing orange lights.  We thought at first it was temporary, but apparently it is permanent.  I asked a friend about it tonight and he said that the authorities believe that they are 'not needed'.  :)  

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

Hi jinkeli

I think you might be saying that the 大刀 is not as substantial as a meat cleaver in the US - doesn't surprise me, a lot of tools in China are light-weight compared to what we use in the West. (I personally think we often over-design stuff in the West - but that is not a general rule.) Thanks for your comment.

Standard dictionaries are pretty useless for this kind of vocab - even 'culture' dictionaries. It is best to find a knowledgeable native speaker for this.

Posted on: One-Way Street Scuffle

I once posted about the 'right of way' rules in China - I think it went something like:

Big truck

Big bus

Small bus

Big black car

Big cars (all colours other than black)

Small cars

Motorbikes

电动车

Bicycles

Pedestrians

Did I miss anyone out?

Also, the standard sign at a major intersection is fun:

车让车

车让人

人让人

That's from memory, hope I have it right. It's just a lovely thought that reminds me of the old English saying .. "After you Claude!", .."no, after you Eustace". Okay maybe you have to be a septuagenarian to get that.

Posted on: One-Way Street Scuffle

This is a great lesson - lots of expressions to learn, I love it.

是不是真实课程？也是也不是。。

No doubt many altercations like this occur in Shanghai. (Is it true that the burghers of Shanghai are unusually grumpy? All that pressure.) In my experience I have seen very few incidents like this, and none with police involved. I have never seen the police involved in my city unless there has actually been a serious collision or injury.

I am out and about on foot and on the bus in my city all the time and have never seen a car going the wrong way in a one-way street. We are law-abiding out here. :) Shanghai no doubt has more one-way streets; the street layout is comically inadequate. (Actually it is perfectly adequate for a more traditional life-style - it is the over-size SUVs that cruel it.)

Just a point about pedestrian crossings (never heard the word 'crosswalk' before, thanks for the 生词; they used to be called zebra crossings in Australia in the old days) - traffic does not stop at pedestrian crossings where I live, so this part of the dialogue would seem very strange. If a car stopped at a zebra crossing where I live there would be an accident. Italy and China have this in common.

Why do pedestrian crossings exist (in both countries)? Ambitious traffic planners?

While on that topic, visitors to China are often surprised that when crossing at traffic lights with a green signal flashing, cross-traffic does not have to stop for you - I wouldn't be surprised if this is where a lot of China's collisions occur, at traffic lights, with traffic turning right on a red light. In the West where you have this kind of traffic management the pedestrians still have a red light against them.

Posted on: Utensils in the New Kitchen

Kitchen item names are flexible, but there are two main classifying schemes: 1. By size and 2. By use.  So for instance a cleaver can be called a 大刀 or a 菜刀.  Saucepans can be referred to by a variety of names – but anything you cook in can be called a 锅 guō (pot, wok or pan); more specifically: 炒锅 chǎoguō (wok); 蒸锅 zhēngguō (a big saucepan with a steamer); 煮锅 zhǔguō (big saucepan for boiling); 奶锅 nǎiguō (a small saucepan with a handle); 汤锅 tāngguō (a large saucepan with a handle).  A frying pan is a 平底锅 píngdǐguō or 平底煎锅 píngdǐjiānguō – it's still a 锅 (even if it looks like a 盘 pán). 

Some extra vocab (high frequency if you cook at home) 

菜篮子  càilánzi (colander) 

切菜板  qiēcàibǎn (cutting board) 

锅铲  guōchǎn (the implement you use with a wok like a large egg slice) 

架子  jiàzi (tongs) 

削皮刀 xuēpídāo; 剥皮刀 bāopídāo pronounced bōpídāo here (vegetable peeler)  

切丝刀 qiēsīdāo (cheese grater); 切片刀 qiēpiàndāo (grater producing slices); 切细丝刀 qiēxīsīdāo (fine grater); 

垃圾桶  lājītǒng (rubbish bin) 

洗涤剂  xǐdíjì; 洗洁精 xǐjiéjīng (detergent)  

PS. Plastic bags:  the one that goes in your rubbish bin is 拉圾袋 lājī dài, then the one you ask for at the shop to carry your purchases can be either 袋子 dàizi or 塑料袋 sùliào dài.  

Posted on: Trick or Treat!

Thanks for setting me straight about sugar in chocolate - what I have experienced is a kind of gritty texture in cheap low % cacao chocolate that I assumed to be sugar. It is certainly sweet, but as you say this is a function of the % of cacao. I used to go for the higher % but I have levelled out at liking the 50% best. I've discovered that it is what they put in the other 50% that is critical. Aust. doesn't have much of a tradition of chocolatiers, the little local ones rather like a bakery but just making chocolate, but we have a few. Also the chocolate retailers have become popular - they sell exclusively chocolate but don't necessarily make it on the premises. We have just finished a supply of European drinking chocolate; now I have to go and buy the American stuff; it is all I can get here as far as I know.

Posted on: Trick or Treat!

African chocolate is an interesting story. According to Alan Beattie's 'False Economy' there is a widely held but erroneous belief that Europeans tax imports of chocolate to keep the Africans poor. But chocolate from Ghana (one of the biggest growers of the raw material) enters the EU duty free. The real reason Ghana doesn't export more than a small amount of expensive high-quality chocolate is that it is very expensive to do business in Africa (also it is hot so chocolate melts). The main culprit is the supply chain, logistics - poor transport, corruption, violence, civil conflict, wars .. these all count against Africa. They have the same problems trying to export coffee, flowers, and vegetables.