User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@julio

Taro is a starchy root crop, rather like a potato. Excellent ingredient for ice-cream; it is not very tasty on its own!

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@orangina

Wow, that looks like one weird choko - different to what I know but I can see the family resemblance.  The choko was usually boiled and sometimes served with a white sauce. Lately I have been steaming it and drizzling it with olive oil.

BTW I can answer my own question about garlic shoots - 蒜苗.  Shoots can be described as either 芽 ya2 (eg. 豆芽), 苗 miao，笋 sun3 (eg. 竹笋) or 尖 jian depending on the vegetable or perhaps its age.  Maybe there are more words for 'shoots' and 'sprouts'?

Posted on: It's My Birthday!

Hi culturedragon

That is more or less right, but note that the year is added at birth and then instead of using the anniversary of your actual birth you can 'pre-date' your birthday to (Chinese) New Year. The 'worst case' (in the sense of a discrepancy between the Chinese and Western calculation) is when you were actually born on (Chinese) New Year's Eve - in this case, on the following day you can overstate your Western equivalent birthday by almost two years.  On other birthdates you are 'exaggerating' your Western-calculated age by less than two years. If born the next day (Chinese New Year) you can only call yourself 'one year old' until the following Chinese New Year.  The exaggeration existing at each Chinese New Year increases by one day for births occuring every day after Chinese New Year, maximising in the case of birhts just before Chinese New Year.  Gee, I hope i got that right.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@change

Ha ha. That is like your other story about buying books by the 斤！ BTW I think that China makes very good long johns, but then in Australia we hardly need them. 

除了那个句子‘老公，你都那么胖了‘以外，你这个会话在我的家理一般听到了。 

请问一下。。

大蒜意思'garlic',‘蒜意思'shallots',可是'garlic shoots'中文怎么说？

佛手瓜意思'choko'(a 50's mother's favourite in Australia);为什么佛手？  

在昆明他们说甘薯，在杭州有人大部分说地瓜。 What other variations are there for sweet potato?  The importation of sweet potato to 巴布亚新几内? （Papua New Guinea) allowed the population to grow dramatically. Anybody who has eaten the native taro might understand.  Chewing would have used up eneregy that could otherwise be used for reproduction.

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@shenyajin, jenny

I rarely buy anything by weight in a supermarket so I hadn't noticed that Shenyajin, but it just lends weight to my observation about the lack of a standard (where I've been.)  In KM both small shops and vendors on the footpath are using 公斤.  In Hangzhou there is a mixture of 公斤 and 斤. Granted it might be a new development, it is still curious.

Posted on: Excited About Traveling

@xiaophil, shenyajin

I have just had a few hours observing what is said here, mostly dealing with shopkeepers and one person I will be working with.  No-one used an equivalent of 'have a nice day'.  The friendliest farewell was 再见 and a slight nod and smile.  If parting at bedtime 晚安 is a super-friendly line probably best used by good friends. 

Shenyajin and others - thanks for those additional examples. I like the sound of 有事没事常联系 - but in English we might say this even when there is little real expectation of being able to keep in touch in a busy world.  Is it just a polite phrase, like the English translation?   

Is 保重 just a translation of the Western phrase (which I think also may have originated in America?) Is it more recent, than traditional or home-grown?  Like bai bai...

Posted on: Grab Some Veggies From the Store

@jenny

I don't know when this developed, but the unit of weight used for vegetables and fruit etc. now varies around the country.  For example, in Kunming, everybody uses 公斤.  Everything seems expensive until you realise that the price refers to one kilo, not one jin. In other places, I have found that some vendors use 斤 and some 公斤 - very confusing.  Have  any other poddies noticed this variation from place to place?

Posted on: Excited About Traveling

@xiaophil, shenyajin

I am following your 'Have a good day' with interest - I have wondered this myself before without getting an answer.  Note that 'Have a good day' is a phrase bequethed to the world by Americans.  Although used widely now, I can remember it being introduced in Australian, not too many years ago, and wincing everytime I heard it.  Why?  Because as perpetrated by check-out people and other customer service staff it always sounded false. It still does I'm sorry to say.  So .. I'm not aware of real Chinese equivalents - the person at the check-out does not have anything to say to me after completing the transaction.  Culture difference.

Posted on: Excited About Traveling

@Jenny and cuiyuxuan

I am indebted for your corrections.  In my defence I wrote in haste in a wangba, and was having great difficulty with a strange Chinese entry system (I couldn't read the options properly, font way too small), so my Chinese was worse than usual. 

@cuiyuxuan

I would love to know the characters of yuxuan. I know a child with given name yuxuan and it has quite a lovely meaning and sound. Very poetic.

I am now immersed in practical Chinese - registering temporary accommodation at the local police station, looking for a flat, finding my way round town.  My first time in China with CP help.  Now if I could get the Internet to work at home it would be even more help!

Posted on: Excited About Traveling

我去中国旅行了， 我高兴了！ 昨天我从广州到昆明坐飞机了。 现在下雨， 在云南一般夏天下雨了。

wo qu zhongguo luxing le , wo gaoxing le.  zuotian wo cong guangzhou dao kunming zuo feiji le. xianzai xiayu, zai yunnan yiban xiatian xiayu le. 

I am travelling in China, I'm so happy.  Yesterday I flew from Guangzhou to Kunming. At the moment it is raining, but it usually rains in Kunming in the summer.