User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Ordering Pizza

Thanks kimiik

Then John's commentary is a bit off the mark - he referred to 洋葱 as 'green onions' - now you have defined 'green onion' for me I would say that the term 洋葱 is used to describe either white or brown onions, not green onions. Green onions (we call them spring onions in Australia) are 葱 in China in my experience. I have not yet heard them referred to as 葱花 - have you actually heard this or did you consult a dictionary? :)

I didn't think there were any rules about onions being cooked or used raw. :)

Posted on: Ordering Pizza

青椒 qīngjiāo

(I am assuming the 'on my own' was rhetorical, if not I apologise for taking away from your excitement of discovering it on your own.)

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

Hi pretzellogic

The only item that may be valid is the cost of taxis (I can't comment on reliability) - the other items are either poorly defined or weirdly unhelpful. I don't want to be over-critical but I wouldn't get much out of this,. richnirish might be better off just asking a few people he knows in his city. This link does suggest that there is an opportunity for a numerate person to do a better job. :)

Posted on: Ordering Pizza

Don't want to start another extended culture discussion but I have never heard of 'green' onion. In Australia the common onions are white and brown, and spring onions of course. China has white and brown onions, never seen green ones.

In my experience out in the South West sausage is more often referred to as香肠 xiang1chang2, thanks for 腊肠 la4chang2. I would think you need a descriptor before腊肠.For example we might get 大蒜香肠 da4suan4xiang1chang2 (garlic sausage); actually I can get 无谷蛋白的大蒜香肠 wu2gu3dan4bai2 deda4suan4xiang1chang2 (gluten free garlic sausages).

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

哈哈。 不好意思，我明白了。 因为你不是小气的，所以你的chubby dog不需要说：‘今天我们去哪里吃饭？’ :)

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

ha ha, Changye, 你比我小气的，对吧。

Posted on: Love Tangle 9: The Divorce

Yeah, I did word that loosely, and also perhaps showed my ignorance of things WWW. I am thinking of a site (and I don't want to name names here - I sent you an email about my favourite) I have only used once. I googled the film title (it was on TV but missed the first half) and there it was - one click, wait about a minute and then the whole 100 minutes feature film played for me. It was a site in Chinese and I don't recall where it was hosted - I am assuming that these sites are mainly hosted in China (hence my reference to a Chinese site.) I haven't seen anything like that searching in Australia - and here I don't know what I am talking about - is it because they don't come up in the results of a search in Australia? Or at least not near the top? Surely they are not blocked in Australia, perish the thought. But maybe they are. These 'Chinese' sites have the latest films, & latest TV episodes etc - maybe you can get them in Australia but I have never been motivated to search.

The search results are different in China and Australia are they not, even when googling. You do not seem to have a choice about which search engine you use. Same with Yahoo - you are taken to a particular geography, at least in the first instance. With Yahoo I can go to the Australian site, but if my students use it they use the Chinese site (which is also what comes up first for me.) There has been much written about Google (much rubbish actually) but if in China it now takes you to the Hong Kong site. But for some weird reason my SO's experience was different to mine - hers stayed in the old format for like three or four weeks after the change over. Then one day it just suddenly switched to HK - it actually defaults to Chinese whereas in the old mainland server it defaulted to English. All rather confusing for an old bloke like me.

I've just had a look at the tv.sohu.com one - seems to be hosted in the US?

Posted on: Love Tangle 9: The Divorce

啊呀，我感到自己上年纪了。 ：-（

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

Thanks Jason. Didn't see xiaoluoyu's post until Connie posted a reply. I have also heard it is negotiable. So far my personal experience has avoided agents. In Beijing at least the landlord has to pay some tax if they are renting a property - anyone know how that works? We found our current place through a friend of the 保安 (circuitous) but he the 保安 insisted he didn't want a 中介费. We end up owing both the friend and the friend of the friend something, but what? It's sometimes hard in an economy where not everything can be easily reduced to money you buy beer with.

Posted on: Renting an Apartment through an Agent

I would be interested to hear from poddies what their experience has been with agents.  What fee have you generally paid?