User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Stealing a Nose

No-one wants to hear about the 'stealing a nose' game any more, thank goodness, but I still think the lesson is useful. (I think that they're all useful to a degree. I wouldn't pay for some if I had the choice but that is what a package deal is all about.) With this lesson I get to review a couple of verbs and grammar patterns (endless review is needed hey?). I may even want to tell Chinese people about the stupid games they played in my country when I was a boy (I'm surprised anyone else here is old enough to remember it.) I say give ChinesePod creative free rein even if they come up with some corny topics. The same creative process gives us the gems.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

‘大男子主义’

哈哈，有点玩笑。 有可能他的父母把房子买了。 :)

Posted on: 中国通

啊，多技能的。

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

I shouldn't have created that impression - no, I was not a regular of either Neighbours or the Chinese soap operas, just a few times of each to gain my impressions.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

' I for one couldn't bare to watch it'

Wow - that's bordering on un-Australian!

'[sorry]'

Apology accepted.

'Chinese soap operas'

They have way more people dying of poisoning than in Neighbours. About the same number of wicked mothers-in-law.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

Hi Mark, I agree with wotingyu, but also my take was that the cake giving never happens (who would do that here? They borrowed from the West for fun) and the particular polite exchange in this situation between neighbours was authentic in a previous generation (or perhaps still in western China). But the language is still instructive.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

Hi Chris, yeah I was also talking from experience. Our flat is 6 years old and the neighbour just spent 6 months re-building it, including removing every tile in the kitchen and bathroom with some kind of high-revving power tool. Ah well, it is peaceful now, all they have now is a new baby.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

I like John's twilight zone comments - it does raise interesting cultural things. Out here in Bizarro China (RJ's words, not mine) your neighbours are actually pretty friendly. Our 隔壁邻居 moved in just a couple of days ago - I saw her downstairs with a baby and she said 我是隔壁邻居 and I said 'Huh?' She said again '邻居!' 。。 Me: '哦，明白了,好久不见。 啊，宝贝很可爱！‘ 。。

Last I saw her was about 2 months ago, heavily pregnant. She had the baby and 坐月子 somewhere else (Mum's place?) and I wasn't expecting to see her. They bought the flat about 6 - 8 months ago and spent say 6 months renovating.

Just remembered an embarrassing part of the above conversation - I said '哦，我叫柏大伟’ and she says '我知道'.

Reasons why flats may be empty (cf. Australia):

1.People don't like renting them out and getting them dirtied up (ours was vacant for 12 months before we moved in and only lived in by the owner before that)

2. Renovations are very thorough .. and can take 6 months or so.

3. People have two flats (say in two different towns) - and move between the two, leaving one empty.

4. (If new) the asking rents are too high for ordinary people.

5. (If old) the market rents are so low the owner can afford to leave them vacant for a long time.

6. A high proportion of apartments are bought for cash - without the bank breathing down your neck you don't see the urgency to have the apartment rented out like in Western countries where most people take a loan.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

On the 1st matter (and sorry I haven't listened yet) this is a 是 。。。的 sentence and is probably delivered with a rising intonation. If intonation does not do the trick context does.

Posted on: Introducing Oneself to the Neighbors

The average apartment building seems to last 20 - 25 years at most in Chinese cities; I wish I had data to support this but I am very observant. :)

So the analogy with cars is not a bad one. Apartments are built to last maybe 25 years; cars these days are also built to last this long at least (we upgrade for other reasons.)

But there is something else going on in China which makes housing markets here quite different to Australia and the US. People do not like anything much second hand - apartments included. If they do buy one second hand it is stripped back literally to the shell (even removing tiling and floor boards is common) and build a new apartment inside the shell.