User Comments - pearltowerpete

Posted on: 学术抄袭

Interesting article about plagiarism in Chinese universities.

Posted on: Letting go with 放

Hi thenorthface

Thanks for an interesting comment. davidkaneda's question was why Chinese uses "拉 pull" instead of "挤 - push" to express the idea of having a bowel movement 拉屎， though you sometimes see 屙屎 ēshǐ.

thenorthface explained that 挤 implies that you are entirely relying on your own hard work, while 拉 implies that this is human nature. If you said 挤, the implication would be that the person were constipated.

He also notes that there is a saying in Chinese that "if you hold in a fart, you'll damage your heart. If you insist on farting when you don't need to, you'll give yourself a workout."

Chinese has all kinds of interesting, earthy phrases. In our sterilized, euphemized, censored world, they come as a blast of fresh air.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 4: Fetal Attraction

Hi koolaid

I would be a dram of Laphroaig on an autumn afternoon. But I don't know what my gangsta name would be...

Hi davidkaneda

They are indeed the same. That is the power of synergy!

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 9: Wang Plans Revenge

Hi bababardwan

打工 refers to students' summer jobs, but more broadly, to any kind of work where you are working for "The Man," and are not the manager. That's why Lao Wang uses the phrase in this dialogue.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 4: Fetal Attraction

Hi miantiao

I think of people as cocktails. Some are born with Tanqueray, some with Kafka, the Chinese "Special London Style” gin. Skilled hands can make a good drink out of either of them. You just have to add vastly different amounts of tonic water, ice cubes and...frozen strawberries.

That's Pearltowerpete's not-so-secret ingredient for an amazingly good g&t. Cheers!

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 4: Fetal Attraction

Hi bodawei,

Historically, one of the most important texts in children's moral education was the Three Character Classic, 三字经. Here are the opening lines:

人之初 (rén zhī chū) People at birth,

性本善 (xìng běn shàn) Are naturally good.

性相近 (xìng xiāng jìn) Their natures are similar,

習相遠 (xí xiāng yuǎn) Their habits make them different.

苟不教，(gǒu bù jiào) If they are not taught

性乃迁 (xìng nǎi qiān) Their natures will diverge.

You can see that educating children was seen as absolutely essential to prevent them from going astray. Why not get a head start, while the baby is still in the child palace 子宫！

But personally, I agree with you. There's way too much scheduling and fussing over kids these days. Parents should throw the TV out the window and let them grow up without any brainwashing. They'll turn out OK.

Posted on: Letting go with 放

Hi all

Here are the phrases used in today's lesson, courtesy of Connie.

放屁fàngpì

放手fàngshǒu

放心fàngxīn

放假fàngjià

我很喜欢放假。

Wǒ hěn xǐhuan fàngjià.

放学fàngxué

孩子都很喜欢放学。

Háizi dōu hěn xǐhuan fàngxué.

放弃fàngqì

你可以放弃一个人。

Nǐ kěyǐ fàngqì yī ge rén.

目标mùbiāo (goal)，梦想mèngxiǎng (dream)

你也可以放弃你的权利。

Nǐ yě kěyǐ fàngqì nǐ de quánlì.

我们可以劝别人别放弃。

Wǒmen kěyǐ quàn biéren bié fàngqì.

学中文别放弃。

Xué Zhōngwén bié fàngqì.

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Hi junying,

I wish I were mistaken. But the research in Yang's book is rigorously documented. He interviewed people and saw documents that few are allowed to see. And he provides clear citations. If you are in China it will be difficult to get a hard copy for yourself, but bodawei mentions that it is available online.

华人最大的特点就是善良！

I don't think we can say that any group of people has a 最大的特点. But this is not about Chinese people. This is about hungry people.

Cannibalism is well documented around the world. It was especially severe in China during the Great Leap Forward because escaping the famine stricken areas 逃荒 was strictly forbidden. To advance their political careers and avoid being called "right-wing opportunists"右傾機會主義分子, the provincial leaders insisted that each province continue to provide huge amounts of grain to the government, regardless of the fact that people were starving.

These were  colossal policy disasters, from the Chairman all the way down to the 省委，地委，生产队， etc. And they lasted three years (in Sichuan, nearly four years.）

I'm not interested in eating dead people. I hope that none of us ever live to see a day where people consider doing that. But no matter where we are, or what race, we would be fools to think that "it could never happen here，we would never do that." Hungry people do desperate things.

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Hi bodawei

Thanks for some useful pointers about the star rating system.  I can't get into any real specifics but we are working on a way to make the data we accumulate from these ratings useful, both to us and to the poddies.

Hi stephenrufus

Now you've got me very interested. Tombstone describes the horrific stuff that went on during the Great Leap. One practice was called 炒豆子 in the north and 洗毛芋子 in the Yangtze river area. It involved forming a circle around people accused of a crime (usually stealing food). They would be pushed back and forth violently, even after they fell to the ground. Some died this way.

Most readers will probably most disgusted by the cannibalism. China Wakes hinted at this, but the writers didn't know the full story. During the mass starvation, tens of thousands of people ate human flesh to survive. Some would dig up graves. In the worst cases, parents killed and ate their children, children their grandparents, and siblings each other.

All this just reinforces how important farmers are, and how futile it is to defy nature with mass movements and propaganda.

Posted on: Lao Wang's Office 9: Wang Plans Revenge

Hi changye

I agree about the new word "taikonaut." I believe the thinking is, "The Americans got their astronauts, the Soviets got cosmonauts, and now it's China's moment in the Sun!" They have marked the occasion by inventing another unnecessary word for a concept that already had a good name.

Since "astronaut" comes from the Latin words for "star" and "sailor," I have always thought it was a poetic and politically neutral word. I wish we could approach space exploration with an international sense of wonder.