User Comments - pearltowerpete
pearltowerpete
Posted on: Funny Business
May 11, 2009 at 6:20 AMHi tommy2tone,
Nice try, but you cannot say 猴子生意！
Shady, dubious companies are often called 皮包公司.
Posted on: City: Mumbai
May 11, 2009 at 6:18 AMHi alexyzye
财务 usually refers to financial affairs within a company. So you will see things like 财务部, the finance department.
It cannot be used interchangeably with 金融.
Posted on: Pain and Suffering 伤心, 难受，郁闷 ,不爽，难过
May 11, 2009 at 3:22 AMHi jinpusa108
XXX 伤害了中国人民的感情！
XXX has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people!
Propaganda watchers such as myself are used to this line, which is dusted off whenever some foreigner criticizes Mao or the CCP.
Connie to me explained that it sounds funny to say "别xxx, 可能会伤害某人的感情.”
The boundaries between 郁闷 and 不爽 are indeed a bit fuzzy. Don't worry if you can't figure out exactly which one to use. The much more important distinctions are among 难受、难过 and 伤心.
Posted on: Power Outage
May 11, 2009 at 2:24 AMHi chris,
You are correct. 了 is tricky but in this context, the people have already started eating, and someone is telling them to stop.
If it were 啦 (了 + 啊)，the effect would be to soften the tone. The people might be looking longingly at the food, and someone tells them, "Don't eat yet!"
Connie says that if you just said "你们别吃！” the implication would be that you shouldn't eat because there was poison in the food!
Posted on: Seeing off a Monk, Returning to Japan -- 送僧归日本
May 11, 2009 at 1:32 AMHi chinatu,
Thank you for sharing your insights. I was particularly interested in your breakdown of the contrasts in each line (near/far, etc.)
Posted on: Funny Business
May 11, 2009 at 1:29 AMHi adelen,
I still have a lot to learn. Learning Chinese is one of my favorite pastimes, and I use it every day.
Posted on: Funny Business
May 11, 2009 at 1:28 AMHi mikeinewshot and others confused about the lesson intro
This lesson is intended to be the first in a series about a very shady company. Further episodes should clear things up.
Thank you for listing out those key terms. The poddies and I all appreciate your effort.
Many people know what money laundering is, but there is a lot of confusion about how it is actually done. One classic way is for a launderer who runs, for instance, a brothel, to open another apparently legitimate business-- car dealerships and hair salons are popular. The launderer can then claim his expenses and revenues at the brothel through the front company. It is often very hard to prove exactly how much a hair cut or a car should cost, and so there is more room to conceal things when reporting to the government.
Of course, this is just one variation on laundering-- there are as many tricks as there are shrewd business people.
Posted on: Seeing off a Monk, Returning to Japan -- 送僧归日本
May 9, 2009 at 4:46 AMHi all,
Here is the pinyin for the poem.
上国随缘住，来途若梦行。
shàngguó suíyuán zhù , láitú ruò mèngxíng
浮天沧海远，去世法舟轻。
fútiān cānghǎi yuǎn , qùshì fǎzhōu qīng
水月通禅寂，鱼龙听梵声。
shuǐyuè tōng chánjì , yúlóng tīng fànshēng,
惟怜一灯影，万里眼中明。
wéilián yīdēngyǐng , wànlǐ yǎnzhōng míng.
Posted on: Pain and Suffering 伤心, 难受，郁闷 ,不爽，难过
May 9, 2009 at 4:38 AMHi tommy2tone
A logical question.
But 关心 actually refers to concern or worry. If you're worried about someone, you can say 关心___.
Posted on: Funny Business
May 11, 2009 at 9:41 AMHi bodawei
I'm actually not much of an expert either. And while enlightened places like Australia may have legal (and therefore inspectable and taxable) brothels, my own beloved New York does not.
I believe that a lot of money laundering is focused on getting money across international lines. In the US the bank is required to report every deposit of more than $10,000 to the federal government, and a drug dealer who has just made a few hundred thousand in cash has a lot of explaining to do. If you want to write checks or wire money or whatever, there's a good chance the gov't will find out at some stage.
So they try to make it look like the money is coming from other things, like a hair salon or real estate. Hey, my clients are silly enough to pay $150 for a hair cut, who am I to complain?
For more on this fascinating and vital topic, I recommend the informative and slightly politically incorrect book Crime School: Money Laundering. It is by a former member of the RCMP, and he knows this game a lot better than I do.