User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Blow out Your Candles

@shenyajin

I understand that you can state your birthday according to either the 阳历 yang li (solar or Gregorian calendar), or the 阴历 yin li (the lunar or traditional calendar).  So you think that most people prefer the latter? 
But if you do choose to state your age in this way, you use different terms for ‘years old'?   Let's say that I am currently 27 虚岁 xusui (27 years old, reckoned by considering a person one year old at birth and adding a year each lunar year); according to the Western system I am 25 周岁 zhousui (25 years old, reckoned by counting the number of full years of life).  On my birthday (by the solar calendar) there will only be one year difference between the Chinese and Western system, until Chinese New Year 2010.   BTW I'm not 25, but this is an example right?  

Do you indicate to your audience whether you have already had your birthday in any lunar year by adding 了 le to your sentence? Before your birthday, 没有了。  可以说： 现在我是二十七虚岁，而且我的胜日以后我应该说我是二十七虚岁了？

Posted on: Blow out Your Candles

@all

I have often been told that everyone gets a year older at New Year. (The classic case being that a child born on New Year's Eve turns two the following day.)  But recently a Chinese man born in Malaysia told my wife that everyones' 'birthday' is in fact seven days after New Year.  Does anyone know the full story on this tradition?  Has the tradition 'changed'?  Is there another explanation for this alternative view?

Posted on: Springtime on the River -- 次北固山下

@pete

Thanks again for an enjoyable walk with the old poets.  The geographical context is helpful.  Like many people I have been through 镇江, unaware of the poetic connections.  I had a look at LP and 北固山 is marked there, now a park featuring a hill above the river, right in the middle of town. It 'commands beautiful views of the river and city below' says the book.  It's on bus route #4 for those closer to it than most of us.

LP also notes  that 江苏镇江 is at the 'crossroads' of the Yangtze and the Grand Canal.  And that Pearl S Buck grew up there...

No doubt with Google Earth we could take an even closer look but I don't want to take away all the mystery.

Posted on: Blow out Your Candles

The big road-cleaning trucks in Hangzhou play '祝你生日快乐' (over and over again) as they drive around the city.  Just the tune, no words.  Like 'Mr Whippy' but without the ice-cream. 

Posted on: Dealing With Depression

@pete

thanks for that, and for Connie and Vera's contribution.  留职停薪 calls to mind 近于无工作的新职位 ('doing next to no work and still getting paid' position), in my dictionary under 'sinecure'. Sounds even better than stopping the salary! 

拈 looks like the verb needed to play Fiddlesticks.  Ah.. now I am not sure how global the game 'Fiddlesticks' is - I can't Goggle anything but Australian references. 

But of course a malingerer actually does no work at all if possible, and does not mind if they are not paid.

Posted on: Hot and Cool 热, 烫 , 凉 , 冷

RE: the discussion about what level this is pitched at.  I have to say that despite using the word 热 in sentences for some time now, pronunciation can still be a chellenge, particularly because of regional differences.  In some parts of China it is pronounced 'le4'. 

I had an extended and rather heated conversation with the 老板 where I was staying with me yelling about the promised 热水 that did not work, at all.  I finally conceded that I meant le4shui3 and not re4shui3 (up to this point he pretended to not understand the problem.)  Accepting the local pronunciation did the trick - there were smiles all round.  The water supply was promptly fixed, but then it flowed straight out and completely soaked the carpet in the bedroom.  I realised then why the water was turned off.

Posted on: Funny Business

@tvan, pete

Sorry I missed your posts of a few days ago - thanks for your elaboration of money laundering. In Oz it is all about tax, Government revenues.  People who live lavish lifestyles and file tax returns like a worker occasionally attract the attention of the tax authorities - but it is costly and time consuming to investigate so there is the occasional campaign (Chinese style). Like in the run-up to an election?  In my not too jaundiced view the main concern is lost revenue rather than trying to stop the illegal business.  You may be able to tell that either i) I live in NSW, ii) I have just watched the entire 'Underbelly' series, or iii) all of the above.

I am reminded of a 'cafe' I used to frequent for a while in the big city which had almost no activity and few customers.  In fact there was nothing inside except a coffee machine.  Not even biscuits. I regularly observed one of the staff draw up in a Mercedes (that car favoured by gansters as the makers of Slumdog Millionaire discovered) and unload un-marrked supplies into the back room.  My guess is it isn't coffee.  Why did I go? Not just to watch the deliveries.  It reminded me of an Italian cafe of my youth that did just have coffee, and a room out back for illegal gambling.

Posted on: Heading Home

@frances

no, it isn't the 老 that is the problem - 老 has an endearing tone in Chinese, and in this particular word the lao is barely enunciated; all the emphasis is on the 公 and 婆 -

but your comment about 'old man' is interesting - I had never thought about it being creepy! 公 translates better as 'bull'.  Think stallion, cock, bull, etc.

Posted on: The Brocade Zither -- 锦瑟

I'm wondering how we can have a 'brocade zither' - because I associate brocade with tapestry or rich fabrics mounted on frames.  It is hard to imagine (despite your photo, Pete).  Could the poet be conveying a sense of rich beauty (in both the look and sound of the zither) he associates with brocade.   I notice that 锦 can also mean beautiful, splendid.

Many will know that Chengdu claims fame for its brocade and in an old shop, in a well known tourist street, there is a large and complex 'machine' for making brocade on display.  Apparently several people at once are required to 'run' the machine, sitting all over it as one imagines people sat all over a threshing machine (that I can imagine).  I have a faint memory of a zither also on display in that shop.  But it could be that 当时 (back then) 已惘然 (I was already baffled).  Are my feelings at the time becoming recollections or are my present recollections producing feelings of pleasant confusion?   

Posted on: Heading Home

@xuchen

thanks for putting me straight on 老公， 老婆 - but I was really talking about a particular age group and social context that I observed.  I'm sure that the majority of people using 老公和老婆 are very caring. :-)  Still hard for me to associate it with romantic love.