User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Hot Pot

@kimiik

i was hoping that a food hygienist would jump in to help you, but I guess I can lead you even further from the awful truth in a case of 'the blind leading the blind'.  Water/soup boils at boiling point and then it does not go over the boiling point. But you may be worrying needlessly about the meat - in some dishes the meat is not cooked at all!  Anyway, in China, meat is often washed thoroughly before it is cooked.  I think chicken and pork in particular should be well cooked because of the bacteria that thrive in those meats.  And chicken needs to be defrosted before cooking - it is dangerous to cook frozen chicken.  But note taht in hotpot, the meat is sliced very THIN so that it cooks quickly.  Beef is eaten raw in a number of cultures.  Maybe with this fear of germy meat you should consider becoming a vegetarian? 

Posted on: Juiced!

@lexx 橙子 chengzi and 橘子 juzi do look a little alike at a quick glance but they are different characters. But you have raised one of the most vexed issues in Chinese - how to say 'orange'? A good dictionary may give you a dozen different Chinese words for orange. Actually either 橙子 chengzi or 橘子 juzi will do. But if you are asking for an 'orange juice' I would ask for 橙子 chengzhi. There are more homonyms with 橘子 juzhi, and the matter may become confused. For example, a tangerine can be called a juzi and in the West this is a different fruit.

Posted on: Hot Pot

@xuchen Thanks mate, I remember you making this point before about 'don't steal the menu'. I have never encountered this personally and I have walked out with those flimsy paper menus in full view (I know the ones you mean that are also the bill.) On other occasions I have asked for the menu and it has been happily handed over (比如说在上海大厦 where colorful descriptions of a set course of a dozen or so dishes were arranged in beautiful calligraphy). I admired it and they gave it to me. I also wanted to remember what I'd eaten for future reference. Do you know why such extreme measures would be taken with waitstaff who clearly could not afford the fine? And such paper is extremely cheap, even in Chinese purchasing power terms.

Posted on: Hot Pot

@orangina 'Steak and chips' is the national dish of France but it has been appropriated by a number of cultures including my own. ;-) BTW (for fans of chips or French fries as the Americans call them), possibly the very best example of this food is eaten in 成都四川 (Chengdu, Sichuan).

Posted on: Hot Pot

Another polished performance, CP team, well done. Hot-pot has become something like China's 'steak and chips' - a kind of universal cuisine. It is certainly a popular meal. When we are invited to eat at home with Chinese friends in Sydney it is often hotpot. We usually eat vegetarian hot-pot - you have to be careful that they do not use a chicken to make the stock. Just send it back if it has that certain aroma. I don't know how much people know about 鸳鸯锅的鸳鸯 (mandarin ducks)。 The metaphorical meaning of 鸳鸯 is an affectionate man and woman (and the shot in the video gave some support to this metaphorical meaning - a cosy two-part 火锅！)。 The word also refers to a real-life kind of duck that is considered particularly tasty. In Hangzhou (where I lived) they are rare enough to be considered endangered, mainly because people will kill them to eat. I have watched 鸳鸯 in the wild - a mother and several ducklings, just cruising. Kind of a cool thing to experience in China. PS. I have also stolen a hot-pot menu (in Nanjing), but it wasn't fancy like in the video; it was one of those A4 sheets covered both sides in tiny characters! (For educational purposes of course.)

Posted on: 磁悬浮

@bendidelaowai This is obviously a toxic message board to be sitting on but I noticed your comments and wondered if the university you refer is a certain '#4 in China' [now I notice just a couple of days ago it is being ranked as #4]? Ｉｆ　ｓｏ　I think I might have been there when you were there (from your 'profile' in the newsletter), but you would have been at a higher level I　ｔｈｉｎｋ．　　 Ｉ　ａｍ　ａ　ｂｉｇ　ｆａｎ　ｏｆ　ＣＰ　ａｌｓｏ　ｂｕｔ　Ｉ　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｓａｙ　ｔｈａｔ　ｇｅｎｅｒａｌｌｙ　ｍｙ　ｅｘｐｅｒｉｅｎｃｅ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ａｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｕｎｖｅｒｓｉｔｙ　ｗａｓ　ｐｏｓｉｔｉｖｅ，　ｂｕｔ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｔｈａｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｈｉｇｈｅｒ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｔｈｅ　ｌｅｓｓ　ｉｍｐｒｅｓｓｉｖｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ．　　Ｍｙ　ｆｉｒｓｔ　ｓｅｍｅｓｔｅｒ　ｗａｓ　ｅｘｔｒｅｍｅｌｙ　ｈｅｌｐｆｕｌ　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅｎ　ａｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｎｅｘｔ　ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｕｐ　ｗｅ　ｓｅｅｍｅｄ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ｌｅｆｔ　ｔｏ　ｏｕｒ　ｏｗｎ　ｄｅｖｉｃｅｓ．　Ｉ　ｗａｓ　ｌｅｆｔ　ｓｗｉｍｍｉｎｇ　ｉｎ　ａ　ｓｅａ　ｏｆ　成语。　　　　　　　　

Posted on: Delegating Tasks

Barbs You and miantiao 都 know something about Ian Healy that I don't! (I'm a lapsed Queenslander, haven't lived there since 1975, but I still barrrack for the cane toads.) Better spell it out for me? The bike is MINE (sigh..) - it's a 2008 CB600F Hornet - with a shamefully small number of km on it. I must admit I never looked at the context menu until right now - I have just used the software without checking the options. It's always worked well for me, except for unusual characters like people's names; family names and given names sometimes don't appear. I'd be interested to hear what double pinyin input is all about. I have never used those character recognition programs you guys talk about either - I'm an old fashioned dictionary person. @raygo I should check out the one you mention when I get time. Google certainly has good products. I don't think that they could predict my eccentric sentence structures though. ;-)

Posted on: Delegating Tasks

Hey barbs You sound hi-tech - what system do you use to type Chinese? I just use the Microsoft PinYin IME that comes with Windows (or is it Word). I have tried others such as ABC in the past but found them problematic used with Word, compared to the Microsoft system. As a Microsoft hater from wayback I have supressed my prejudices and just got on with it. I don't know if there are different modes in this system, I just type. (Actually I've just had a look at the 'about' for the first time and it says it works on sentence conversion.) It also talks about fuzzy mode for people with 'accents' - I have no idea how that would work because it seems to me you have to have the pinyin exactly right for the hanzi to appear. And I've just noticed for the first time that it was developed by Harbin Institute of Technology - I hope they got a fair crack of the royalties.

Posted on: Funny Business, Part Two

我觉得这个故事情节很奇怪， 因为多半会计是打擦边球的人， 对吧？ :-)

Posted on: Why are You Studying Chinese?

@miantiaon I admire your approach to learning (and no - I don't think I am related to Ian Healy! But anything's possible in that in-bred State. Oh wait, sorry, that's Tasmania.) Your comments remind me of times at my Hangzhou alma mater when I got so sick of the structure I used to miss class to go the markets or the city, to soak up the sights and sounds. I always felt I'd achieved something if I'd learnt a few new words or phrases, or got a better take on the pronunciation of a phrase out in the real world; in contrast to classes where I often came away exhausted and dispirited. I missed so many classes in one subject that the teacher announced that I couldn't do the final exam (yes, I did know the rules.) My classmates immediately protested and said that 'if he can't do it, we won't attend the exam either'. The poor teacher was bullied into letting me sit the exam. I still have a dictionary I have been dragging around with me for about five years; it's time I graduated to a Chinese-Chinese dictionary. I have a couple of 'culture' dictionaries I like, and I also have an electronic dictionary now which helps me keep in practice handwriting characters. The computer makes you very lazy ..