User Comments - erik_ringmar
erik_ringmar
Posted on: Copy and Paste
March 29, 2012 at 12:34 PM我的词典说”粘贴"的发音是 "zhāntiē“。what's going on?
Posted on: International Currency
February 10, 2012 at 3:48 AMHi there, sorry not to make sense. My point is that problems of the same currency can be an issue within a country too as long as the productivity is very different. Really, the Western and the Eastern parts of China should have different currencies! The reason it works is that the central government does a lot of shuffling of resources from the one place to the other -- and people move from the West to the East. That's what Europe needs too, I guess.
Posted on: International Currency
February 5, 2012 at 3:16 AMThis issue is discussed as "optimum currency areas" in economic theory. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_currency_area). It's true that diverging productivity levels creates problems within the EU, but other jurisdictions aren't immune from the same problems -- including China. After all, isn't Xinjiang China's Greece, etc? (Or isn't parts of the South, America's Greece?) Based on European experiences it seems the lesson is that you need stronger political oversight over a shared currency, including fiscal integration or whatnot.
Sorry to be a nerd.
Posted on: International Currency
February 5, 2012 at 3:11 AMAbout coins in Shanghai and paper money elsewhere: the relation between the two is in economic theory determined by the so called "Gresham's Law" which states that "bad money drives out good." (Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law)For example: since coins are actually worth something whereas paper is not (well not really), people will tend to keep the coins for themselves and hand over the paper money when they buy stuff. As a result the coins will tend to be hoarded.
I have no actual idea why Shanghai should be different from the rest of the country though. Perhaps people in Shanghai, being richer on average, just don't care about such small denominations whereas people in the rest of the country do. Then again, China being China, it could also have some weird, non-economic theory-based, explanation ;-)
(How I wish I could have written all this in Chinese ...)
Posted on: Buying a Book
November 12, 2011 at 8:20 AMSorry, I'm typing too fast. The question was whether you are being paid for your product placements? It would be good to know. I mean, if you're paid there is no reason to actually take what you say seriously. If you're not paid it's more like a friend reporting some good experience with a company.
Posted on: Bachelor's Day
November 11, 2011 at 2:39 PMto quote the Urban dictionary: "Usually an otaku person has nothing better to do with their life so they pass the time by watching anime, playing videogames, surfing the internet (otaku is also used to refer to a nerd/hacker/programmer)."
How much of that meaning is retained in Chinese I wonder?
Posted on: Buying a Book
November 10, 2011 at 11:00 AMSorry but are you paying paid for the product placements you've been inserting into the lessons recently?
Posted on: Evolving Chinese Terms of Address
October 23, 2011 at 1:11 PMThat's right. In Taiwan you use 小姐 instead of 服务员. The foreigners David's friends were laughing at might have been Taiwanese ;-)
Posted on: Warcraft in China
March 26, 2010 at 1:01 AMHi guys,
I like this lesson, but why not something on the truly Chinese art of war -- 孫子 and all that? There is quite a cult of 孫子 in management literature sold in the West ("the wisdom of the Orient for middle-management). Could make a fun lesson!
yours always,
林瑞谷
Posted on: Words with 可(ke)
June 10, 2012 at 8:22 AMHi,
Can I request a lesson on behalf of my daughter (8). She wants to know what to call different kinds of Chinese sweets and candy.
;-)