User Comments - light487

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hehe I was also replying with my tongue in my cheek :) It's a fun topic of discussion :)

Posted on: A Visit to the In-laws

Yes.. sorry, a bit too much of a generalisation.. but that was my point.. that when you see the spelling for the same characters, it is different.. the reason behind it, I didn't choose to go into :) hehe

Here's a great wikipedia article about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_pinyin

One noteable excerpt: "After a long resistance against the use of Hanyu Pinyin, the official romanisation system used in the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China officially adopted Hanyu Pinyin on January 1, 2009"... hehehe.. good luck with changing all the road signs! :)

Posted on: A Visit to the In-laws

You have your Taiwanese spelling (Hsin instead of Xin) and also your Hong Kong spelling too.. and then there's the older style spelling (which is what Hong Kong style uses I think?), for example when Beijing used to be Peking.

Posted on: A Visit to the In-laws

You mean minnanhua (ie. Taiwanese).. which is a dialect found in the southern (south of the Min river) parts of Fujian province of mainland China..? A location where 92% of the ethnic Chinese in Taiwan descend from?.. Taiwan, ROC... Not really the place for these political discussions I guess.. everyone has a different viewpoint and emotions run wild..

Posted on: Cooking

If that doesn't work, try restarting your computer and if that doesn't work buy a new keyboard.. and if that doesn't work buy a new computer.. and if that doesn't work, give up! :)

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

I would probably say something that meant "I like Mandarin more because I can understand and speak more of it" with a big grin. :)

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Most times I will use "the west" to simply mean Australia/USA/UK/Europe/etc.. that is.. the west.. in its most literal meaning.. It's much easier to just say "the west" or "western" than it is to include every conceivable "western" person and viewpoint.. it's a generalisation of course.. but having said that, I do tend to mean "my west".. as in.. the west as I see it.. which is actually a lot different to the average Australian to be perfectly honest.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hehe.. you could try to use a soup spoon to assist you with the spring rolls. I notice that in many southern areas and other southern Asia countries, that soup spoons are used as a way to get the food from the bowl to the mouth.. it's a 2 stage process of moving bite sized amounts of food with the chopsticks on to the spoon, then the spoon into the mouth.

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Hrmm.. there are some things that are MUCH easier to eat with chopsticks.. when ever I come home from a trip to China I always find it difficult to eat certain foods with a fork :) And if you go looking for it, you can definitely find some awesome coffee places, especially in Shanghai :)

With regards to the chairs.. Sydney is no different, for me, than China.. everything is made for small people or robots in Sydney :) haha..

Traffic.. how many accidents did you see/hear about while in China? Yes, it's crazy.. but funnily enough there are hardly any accidents and the ones that I have seen/heard about pale in comparison to some of the horrors I've seen/heard about in Australia :)

Posted on: Which is better: China or the USA?

Oh right.. sorry.. yes, it becomes a "spoken" 4th tone.. still written as a 1st tone though..

This lesson deals with this specifically:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/tone-change-rule-yi-%E4%B8%80