User Comments - miantiao

Posted on: Luke is Back! And So Are the Zombies!

@sushan

i was being facetious! sorry.

up until last week i lived in chengdu for almost 2 years, will be back in july.

the 'shitrock' has ok food and i've eaten there twice. never been to those others you mentioned, but do take my gf to tex-mex once occasionally. great value and great tasting caesar salad.

she likes the spaghetti, not just for the taste but because she can use chopsticks to eat it, christ she makes me laugh. after leaving, with her belly full, she suggests that next time we give it a miss and eat noodles at the local shop or go to 串串香, because it's cheaper，tastier and less fatty。 however, the next time i suggest we go and eat spaghetti her eyes light up like a goldfish.

avoiding 二手烟 in chengdu is like trying to avoid getting sand on your feet at the beach.

Posted on: Can You Use Chopsticks?

在初级和高初级程里使用中文必须提供拼音和英文翻译。想要全写中文情到入中中级以上课程发评论。

Posted on: Luke is Back! And So Are the Zombies!

@sushan

i don't go to bookworm for the food. in fact i rarely go to any western bars or restaurants except on occasion for western company and a few sherbets. i usually imbibe in regular bouts of  串串香 and 4两枸杞酒。 my staple diet of 砂锅牛肉面 at least once a day keeps me regular and satisfies my addiction to 辣椒。

how do you get on finding a place to eat in chengdu where people don't smoke? McDonalds?

Posted on: 《杜拉拉升职记》

真不错，词汇有助于在办公室里的职员。

我不属于那种工作，这两年来，我头一次搞那种工作而体会了那种工作环境，发现政治太多我觉得，谁都在谁的背后流言，偷别人的主意并有面子说是自己的，懒得努力负责和完整任务而让同事们加班多吃苦，连敢说谎而传谣言，甚至跟老板上床，为了升职而用什么样的手段也都愿搞下去。好可怜!

我说的就是一个人，我的多半同事们，人都善良，可是在办公室环境，就一个坏蛋能够破坏气氛。用英文来说，那种性格的人称type A sociopath。

，

Posted on: Luke is Back! And So Are the Zombies!

@light

成都话 is a dialect of 四川话 which is a dialect of 普通话。you would be surprised at how close the local dialect is to mandarin. many many loan words perhaps as a result of the past 50 or 60 years, however the tones have been turned on their head. many words with an 安 vowel sound like a two stroke scooter in desperate need of a re-bore.

@regau

hahaha, gocaine, 面粉加。。。谁也不知道！

no never mate, it worked on him though，shot through like a goanna up a tree.

@pete

the bookworm is a great pub and we are lucky to have such an establishment in chengdu. they found it tough going in the first year,before i got there;-P, like most new businesses, but are now doing really well.

mmm, 10rmb for baileys and they don't charge extra for the melamine, excellent value! so that was what that white powdery stuff i saw a bloke add to his drink that nite, his mate decided it was better utilised straight, through one of those fancy chopped off curly straws up the nose. what i can't figure out is why bring your own when its provided free of charge when one orders a baileys ;-P

Posted on: Luke is Back! And So Are the Zombies!

@kdombros

great observations

chengdu is fortunate to have many people from xinjiang provence amongst it's relatively multi-ethnic society(on a chinese scale that is).  i've spoken to many uighurs who mainly run restaurants,大盘鸡 yummo, and sell dried fruit and nuts and lamb kebabs at road side stalls.

that bloke in shanghai wasn't from xinjiang as far as i could tell, most of the uighurs i've ever spoken to can at least say hello, or buy some......fruit for example. i couldn't imagine a uighur that couldn't speak rudimentary mandarin living in shanghai peddling drugs for a living.

i'd rather not be in the same english language boat. but that's a personal preference.

Posted on: Trip to the Vegetable Market

@hohlkopf

here are a few vegetables for you that i don't think have been covered in this lesson.

西蓝花 broccoli

菜花 cauliflower

洋白菜 cabbage

玉米 corn

大豆 soya bean

蘑菇 mo2gu mushroom

青椒 capsicum(bell pepper)

辣椒 la4jiao1 chilli pepper(my fav)

藕 ou3 lotus root

红薯 sweet potato (薯片 potato crisps)

苦瓜 bitter melon

大蒜 da4suan4 garlic

菠菜 bo1cai4 spinach

小葱 xiao3cong1 spring onion

大葱  large spring onion.

南瓜  pumpkin

生姜  sheng1jiang1 ginger

莴苣 wo1ju4 lettuce

泡菜  pickled vegetables(mainly cabbage)

as poddies above have pointed out, names may vary from region to region.

Posted on: Mild Swearing

@light487

there has been a few colourful discussions, on topic and off topic of late, where one can pick up the odd vulgarity or insult.

idon't think cpod has the 蛋蛋 to pursue your suggestion. henning above has pointed out good reasons why not. wait for the future publication of a book based purely on vulgarities, profanities, insults and sexual explicity etc. 

in the meantime use danwei, baidu etc.

i get a good education in this subject from my gf who loves to swear using profanities even i am wary of using in english. she makes me laugh.

Posted on: Luke is Back! And So Are the Zombies!

@light487

great to see you had an excellent time in china. i eventually got to that hostel the day after cpod.by reading your posts you seemed to have got around quite well using what language you have learned so far without too much trouble. and to have also learned and shared with cpoddies some interesting insights and experiences.

didn't get to that hostel until the next nite. someone was very kind and i enjoyed the hospitality of himself and his family that nite, including homebaked bread.

look out for a publication of some very explicit vocabulary and phrases in mandarin by said someone in the near future, i think it will be very popular seeing as their is so many people studying mandarin these days.

my taiwanese friend the next evening took me out for japanese, but then introduced me to 'windows'. a pathetic excuse for a bar/niteclub next to 静安寺, where, because i was a new face, some middle eastern bloke claiming he was from 新疆 but knew no mandarin, was capable in english but worked for an african drug dealer kept pestering me to buy gocaine. i eventually had to threaten to throw him off the balcony before he went away, with his boss.

the spanish bloke i shared a room with at the hostel is an ex rapper/jumper who while pissed as a cricket thought he would show off and jump up and out over eight flights of stairs at the exit to windows a month earlier, be banged up his knee really badly and has been in bed for a month at the hostel waiting in vain for it to heal. told him it doesn't look good mate, and if he leaves it any longer it'll develop necrosis, he booked a plane ticket back to spain the next day after talking with a spanish doctor over the phone who verified my concerns. it would cost a fortune for him to have surgery in shanghai, no travel insurance.

windows seems like it takes the first prize as the arse end of shanghai. needless to say, we left after an hour. would have been much better off having a few quieties at the well laid out bar at the hostel, which i did anyway after i got back.

cheers for the heads up on the hostel light :-)

Posted on: 中西方幽默

@aajwani

古怪 strange, queer, eccentric

离奇 odd, strange,intriguing

我不认为这两个单词能够来形容所谓dry幽默感。dry幽默就指着精微讽刺表现。在我们西方文化中这种幽默表现早已地道。听听这节课就让人发现中国人也喜欢这类幽默。