User Comments - lordstanley
lordstanley
Posted on: Driver's Licenses and Business
October 26, 2007 at 3:51 PMI did a fair bit of driving in a car all around Taiwan. Downtown Taipei, up 1.5-laned mountain roads near Alishan, along the coastal highway near Hualien, cities of the south, Kenting, etc. One of the biggest surprises I found was how a red light in cities like Tainan and Taidung essentially functions as a stop sign only. Stop at the red light, but if you think you can then make it to the other side, then go for it! And if you don't, expect honking from cars behind you. The first time I "went through a red light" in Taiwan felt really wild, thrilling, breaking an ultimate taboo. Driving in Taiwan made be better able to understand and predict driving habits of overseas Chinese once I was back driving on the streets of Vancouver.
Posted on: Treating and Foreigners on TV
October 6, 2007 at 6:27 AMDeke!!! I don't see why the Extra show isn't posted on the homepage, at least on the day of its release. There's plenty of grey space on the right hand side beneath Recent Comments. If you're going to go to the trouble to produce and broadcast this very good show, why keep it a secret?
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 23, 2007 at 6:30 PMMy Chinese wife says I speak Mandarin like a 6-year old girl. Actually, I prefer to think of myself as being fluent in the little-known VancouverLaoWai dialect of Chinese - functional in its own way, but only clearly understood by other white foreigners who have used similar textbooks and learnings materials as I have.
Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating
September 22, 2007 at 9:25 PMI looked up the characters that comprise 浪漫 (lang4man4) and they seem to be "wave" + "overflow of water, spreading". So more water imagery, seems fitting, makes it easy to remember. Hmm, wonder if Chinesepod will dare to advance this storyline from spreading waves right through to high tide. Go, Wang Wei, go!
Posted on: Traveling and Chopsticks
September 22, 2007 at 2:37 PMWhether intended or not, Dear Amber has turned into a more than adequate substitute for The Saturday Show. Cultural insights, some debate, a few laughs, weekly on Fridays, Canadian Content ... what's not to like. And all this without any crappy indie rock interruptions to boot. Great job Amber et al. Incidentally, I may need to turn in my man-card after this, and maybe some will see this as proof that I'm whipped after 16 years of marriage to a Chinese girl, but I have to disagree with the good David. When you're dating a 36 year old never-married woman, all questions should be expected as fair game from the get-go, as there's rarely such a thing in that instance as "casual" dating. Unless you've crashed the set of Sex in the City. The "stakes" are too high for a 36 year old Chinese woman to date a Western playboy.
Posted on: Ice Cream
June 15, 2007 at 3:32 PMThere's an ice cream shop in Vancouver, called La Casa Gelato http://www.lacasagelato.com/ that has carried more than 500 flavors and always has at least 200 flavors in stock. Right from the start it has been heavy with Asian produce flavors and I know at one time it used to write the flavors in both English and Chinese - will have to go and check if that's still the case. Ice cream flavors they have offered include curry, corn, durian, blue cheese, garlic, vinegar, basil, hot chile, dandelion, and wasabi.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 15: Uncomfortable Encounter in a Bar
May 28, 2007 at 8:23 PMRe: 24. Imagine if Chinesepod operated like the TV series 24. We'd never have any lessons about eating, sleeping or hygiene, as no such activities are ever references on 24. On the other hand, imagine if 24 operated like Chinesepod v3. The episodes wouldn't be dated, the timeclock would be eliminated, and we'd be encouraged to watch episodes in random order - which would be fine, except we'd wonder why Jack Bauer was torturing that innocent-looking guy, not knowing that that guy had earlier been responsible for releasing nerve gas that killed thousands :) But seriously, I have a question about the tones on 素质. While both the Chinesepod Pinyin and a couple of online dictionaries I've consulted has it as su4 zhi4, my friend a native speaker from Taiwan insists that it is pronounced as su4 zhi2. Similarly, in another lesson thought that 期盼 qi1pan4 should instead be qi1pan2. Is this: a) a mistake on my friend's part? b) possibly a Taiwan thing? c) regardless, is minor enough that an Intermediate level student like me shouldn't really worry about it? Finally, I go back and forth between earlier Intermediate lessons and more recent Intermediate lessons, and it's noticeable how improved the dialogs, sound quality, expansion sentences, etc. have become over the past year and a half. The earlier ones were adequate, but 2007's have been superior.Excellent!
Posted on: Table Manners and Tipping
October 26, 2007 at 4:26 PMI don't have too big of a problem with Westerners not tipping in China or not paying a shoeshine person much more than the locals would AS LONG AS these same people accept they're acting no differently - albeit on a smaller scale - than multinationals doing business in China. What I found amusing and ironic though was meeting backpackers or activists who'd rail against "sweatshops" or "exploitation" by Western companies for paying a Chinese worker $2 per hour instead of what would be a going rate of $20 back home, yet in their own personal dealings with Chinese or elsewhere in the developing world would haggle over the the price of a $5 sweater or a $3 meal or a $.10 shoeshine. All I ask is that people who are critical of "big bad Western corporations" put their money where their mouth is and pay North American or European rates rather than the list price for everything they come across when out on the town in China.