User Comments - bodawei
bodawei
Posted on: License Plate Characters
March 7, 2011 at 5:40 AM不是中国通。
Posted on: License Plate Characters
March 7, 2011 at 5:34 AMhi veronique
There is a free iPod/iphone app that John referred us to (called China Plates) which has a list of plates and their abbreviations including the non-private ones. (Whether it is comprehensive I am not sure - it appears to lack the government ones, diplomatic. Maybe it will be updated in time.)
Posted on: License Plate Characters
March 7, 2011 at 5:02 AMHey Baba, so close (if not a little too personal). :)
The full answer is that it gets rid of the riff-raff. (Hence my ambivalence about the word 'happy' - I consider myself properly one of the riff-raff.)
The truth is that by charging 2 RMB some (brighter?) people prefer to wait five minutes for the next 1 RMB bus. So the 2 RMB bus remains blissfully un-crowded. Similarly, the 1 RMB bus is less crowded because some people with more money than sense are prepared to pay 2 RMB.
I love it - it doesn't solve traffic congestion problems but it demonstrates that the authorities understand the people.
After trialling the 2 RMB bus I will most likely return to the 1 RMB bus where I feel more at home.
Posted on: License Plate Characters
March 7, 2011 at 4:47 AM专 zhuan (So you think you are so special?)
New bus services have started in my city - the bus shows route number X followed by a 专, X专.
This means that you pay 2 RMB rather than 1 RMB. All other aspects of the service are exactly the same as the regular version.
Same origin, same destination, same stops.
Bus travels at the same speed.
The buses are the same.
I find this an extraordinarily clever bit of pricing. The economist's dream, hee hee.
I also think that this kind of thing would not happen in Australia. We would insist on some explicitly higher level of service for the doubling of the ticket price.
Anyone care to comment? Anyone know why I am so happy*? Don't worry about the 'ignorance is bliss' solution. :)
* Okay, 'happy' is perhaps too strong a word. I will explain more later.
Posted on: Celebrating a Baby's First Month
March 7, 2011 at 4:32 AMHi RJ
Thanks for that - it serves in part to demonstrate how difficult it is to gain agreement on Chinese traditions (eg. it says even number of boys and odd for girls, while the podcast has it the other way round.) I have asked a number of people around here about that couple of eggs tradition and no one has even heard of it.
This version says that the baby's name is announced at this 满月 party - this is not the tradition out where I live. I specifically asked this question of new parents and the official name has to be decided for the 户口 registration which is done after three months. So the name may commonly be announced at the 100 day party.
Actually we have a new baby right next door now - I think Mum went away to her family's home for 坐月子 (the first month during which the mother is looked after and traditionally didn't get up to do anything.)
Yesterday we visited friends with a baby born Jan 22 - so he is about 6 weeks old - his name will be announced at the 100 day old dinner. His family name has already been decided - he will keep this for the rest of his life.
Another interesting little bit of information is that mother is from a minority (father 汉人) and they will return to her home town to register him as a minority. They believe that this will deliver him some advantages in life.
There are practices about what the mother eats after childbirth which seem strange to a foreign audience - our friend is using a bottled 'water' for drinking and cooking which contains rice and other ingredients designed to build her up. Similarly the child is receiving special supplements from birth (including grape sugar) - as well as breast milk. When we had our kids supplements were a no no - they were thought to interfere with the natural process of establishing breast feeding.
Posted on: Getting Married in China
March 7, 2011 at 3:44 AMI think it would be fair to start from scratch - I mean you have to know the rules, don't you. Besides if they counted all my comments to date I would be around a 2 on average (certainly if the wife was doing the grading.)
Yeah, we could even refer to individual poddies by their average rating (if that is not getting too personal) .. she's a 4 or a 5, he's a 3, no I think he's just a 2. (Hopefullly any 1s are put in the sin bin or sent off.) I think 5s should be reserved for people of Changye's stature and the ChinesePod staff.
[This comment is hovering somewhere between a 2 and a 3 I think.]
Posted on: Getting Married in China
March 7, 2011 at 3:32 AMHi orangina
I don't know about public service announcements to save the language (sounds more like China), but I'm wondering if Australians compensate for linguistic diminutivization syndrome (thanks RJ) by speaking at half the pace of the average American. We shorten our words but take twice as long to say them, so while it takes some getting used to, it all works out in the end.
Posted on: Getting Married in China
March 7, 2011 at 3:24 AMHey Baba
'transported all their texting abbreviations into natural speech'
NOOOOOO! (I didin't know that.) My kids, who I usually rely on for such information, have let me down.
But I have noticed that the younger generation 'don't do email'. (So 20th century.) The Chinese are the same, even my fellow teachers. It's either sms or skype for a lot of young people.
Posted on: Getting Married in China
March 7, 2011 at 3:19 AM'.I can't imagine stage 2. That is terribly embarrassing.'
I guess that with all of the attention and stress of the moment there wouldn't be much to report.
(I'm thinking we need yet another posting classification like PG-13.)
Posted on: Phone Call from a Headhunter
March 7, 2011 at 6:08 AM?? 真的吗？ 是不是大为？