User Comments - jennyzhu

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

@dawei1,

Thank you! Very interesting observation of using Chinese in businesss and non-biz context. But I definitely think your point of building an instant rapport is true in both situations. 

@mystic,

I am very flattered. You won't regret your decision^_^

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

@yarmoski,

Thanks for the link! Cool song.

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

It's really awesome to see comments from Poddies who havn't commented for a while. Excuter, Rich, Yase, thank you for your encouragement and hope to see you around more!

Posted on: Grammar Lesson

I don't really recall studying grammar in Chinese at school. Maybe we don't approach mother tongue in such an analytical way. How about native speakers of English? Did you have grammar class at school?  

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

@xiaophil and yingshilangbu,

Re moral corruption, it's a severe problem widely ackowledged in China. There are many reasons (caused by the lack of an effective or just legal system or a religious belief to act as checks and balances on people's behavior) why many people draw no limit to what they will do in order to achieve their goals. The kind of 'wild West' behavior is quite prevalent. But of course, not everyone is like that. Your point of foreigners gone 'astray', my take is that China is a place with a lot of temptation. It's probably a lot easier to render because your roots are not here, you don't need to worry about what people in your community think and say. But I also think at the end of the day, temptation has no bias. Chinese and foreigners are the same in the face of temptation. But there is definitely a lot more of it here.

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

It has been ChinesePod's ethos to bring you not only the language, but also the cultural and social dimensions of China. So I am very glad that you like this show.

I've met some really interesting expats since doing the interview. What struck me most is their resilience and the ability of taking things with a sense of humor in China.

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

@quasifrog,

Thank you so much for your kind words and great show idea. A friend of mine has a brilliant observation about Shanghai and Bejing, 'Shanghai makes Chinese foreigners, Beijing makes foreigners Chinese'.  I think many will nod with a smile.

Posted on: China Street Smart with John Chan

Check most dictionaries, you will get someting like '懂得城市生存之道’ （knowledge to survice in an urban environment' for 'street smart'. It's far too awkward a translation to be useful. I've seen it translated as街头智慧/jie1 tou2 zhi4 hui4, which is quite colloquail, but still doesn't fully convey the meaning and somehow suggests a thuggish kind of street knowledge. I think maybe the less colorful word 灵活/ling2 huo2/flexible, adaptive works well in this context.

Posted on: A Mouse Upstairs

@pchenery,

The 上下 verb construction is indeed very useful. Other high frequency words include 上车/shang4 che1/to get on a vehicle and 下车/xia4 che1/to alight; 上班/shang4 ban1/to start work, 下班/xia4 ban1/to get off work，and 上课/shang4 ke4/to start class and 下课/xia4 ke4/to finish class. But note that not all of them can be reversed, e.g. there are no such words as 课下 or 班上, 班下。

Posted on: A Mouse Upstairs

If you reverse 楼上/lou2 shang4/upstairs and 楼下/lou2 xia4/downstairs, you will get the verbs 'to go upstairs' and 'to go downstairs'. 上楼/shang4 lou2, 下楼/xia4 lou2. Pretty efficient!