User Comments - masterkrang

Posted on: Organic Food

actually when we say "organic" in english, it refers to "organic farming" which really connotes a process and set of standards... point being that not all food is "organic" because it does not follow this process and set of standards. i think it should be generally thought of in this way unless the discussion is really scientific, like, organic / carbon based life based on other planets. i know a lot of people like to learn english here, and being that the word "organic" is super confusing even to us english speakers, i figure it might do some service to simplify a bit.

Posted on: Organic Food

i've noticed some produce is imported to the states from Japan with the chinese characters 有机农 printed on it. i'm assuming that means something like "organic farm", maybe it's a name of a company, not an actual word.

Posted on: Organic Food

one thing i read recently was discussing the differences in standards between china organic and american organic. apparently a lot of companies who were purchasing organic good from chinese companies decided to stop purchasing the chinese goods because they didn't meet american standards. 

this happens with a lot of goods that are imported into the u.s. from china, and usually the way we solve it here is to rework the products to meet the standards here. the problem is that you can't rework produce to meet standards, so they stop buying some of it. 

i'm not sure how valid that is, and not to diss china, but i wouldn't be surprised if their standard for organic foods are lower. i also wonder how much of the produce sold on the street side in china is organic? is it grown buy the guy who sells it, or did he buy from somebody else just to try to turn it around on the street?

Posted on: Organic Food

i hadn't heard this construction before and was pretty glad to hear it. of course, constructions are always like that, they sort of fool you into thinking it's simple, but in the end they are just simple things combined to create whole new meanings... reminds me of when i first heard 不是...而是...

Posted on: Organic Food

i would say in metro areas it's pretty convenient to buy organic, and you'll see the price differences not being so large. currently i'm staying in portland and i eat organic food everyday, it's really convenient to find organic food in grocery stores and in many restaurants. however, in my home town, which is a little beach town in california, though you can find farmers markets, there aren't many official organic stores. what you'll see in these smaller town is that the main grocery stores (Vons, Albertsons, Safeway) have started to introduce more and more organic goods based on demand.

Posted on: How was your flight?

i think we may be underestimating the english word "trip". i think it's also used to refer to just the travel portion of a vacation or travelling from point a to point b.

Posted on: How was your flight?

also, "pick me up at the aiport" and "pick up the phone".

Posted on: How was your flight?

i wondered about this too... i think we are so used to immediately showing thanks, but like John said the thanks for chinese is a kind of heartfelt gratitude. maybe it's a good lesson for us to practice letting the thanks go to our heart and not just blurt it out of our mouths. if we internalize our thanks, perhaps we might be able to later externalize it better in a more meaningful way. also, we might be able to stop thanking people so much for useless things, like every time the waitress fills our water, or puts the fork on the table... are we really thankful for that or is it just her job duty?

Posted on: How was your flight?

this is also the case for 星期, which in china is two first tones and in taiwan is first and third. i remember seeing a table of all the differences in tones between Taiwan and China, don't remember where. some dictionaries are good at making a note of that. i must have come across at least 20 - 30 differences. must be hundreds.

Posted on: How was your flight?

i can back John up on thanking the parents for taking us to a Sizzler or some restaurant after a special occasion like picking relatives up at the airport. this is an important cultural point. seems like it's always safe to not thank people when in china and always thank people in america. coming from an american perspective it's hard to not thank people all the time, and getting picked up at the airport is definitely one of those extreme cases.