User Comments - pearltowerpete

Posted on: Dog Meat and Animal Rights

Hi mark

你这句话很经典啊！ 狗咬人，算不上新闻。人咬狗才算得上啦！

Posted on: Remembering that Day on the Creek -- 如梦令: 常记溪亭日暮

Hi barto

Thanks for the poem.

In search of good female poets, I think we could boldly venture into the Ming and Qing. The powers-that-be don't want me to, and they're turning up the heat. The risks are huge, the chances of success slim.

But there's no stopping me from providing my poddies with great poetry!

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Hi zhenne,

I'm so glad you enjoy the poems. Living in China, I buy fresh vegetables at the market and see peasants hawking their fruit on the side of the road. It makes food seem much more real than it did in America, where so much is packaged and freeze-wrapped. Sadly, though, China is starting to follow our example. 

Hi songruixue and tvan

I think we all agree that huge government subsidies for agribusinesses like Monsanto are a disgrace. They harm small farmers, the environment, and consumers like us. I have tons of sympathy for the small family farmers like those in my hometown. And I've got nothing but disgust for Big Sugar, Big Corn, etc.

Hi stephenrufus

I have not read Fanshen, but I just did a little research on William Hinton and his sister. What unconventional people. I'd be interested to learn more.

Hi bill,

I'm a big fan of Gary Snyder's work. There was an interesting profile of him in the New Yorker not long ago. And for anyone interested in seeing how he creates poetry out of Chinese wisdom, check out his poem "Axe Handles."

Hi van0000

So glad you're enjoying the poetry. Keep reviewing the old poems. The thing about good literature is, the smarter you get, the smarter it gets.

Hi user11443

I'm happy that you like the series. We are improving the website so that we will be able to provide traditional characters. I do think there is something jarring about reading Tang poetry in simplified characters.

Posted on: Tech Upgrades and Farming!

Hi licha

Most "translaters" are non-native speakers. Growing up in a double-language environment does not guarantee that someone will speak both languages fluently. You are proof of this.

I give credit to Jiaojie, Connie and the other wonderful teachers because it is the right thing to do. I would not presume to explain grammatical concepts or create 100% correct example sentences in Chinese. Jiaojie has an M.A. in Chinese, and she does this far better than I could. As a team, we provide the poddies the best possible service.

Finally, any mistakes in my posts are my responsibility, and mine alone.

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Hi bodawei

Yes, I am working my way through it now. It is remarkable because the author was a Xinhua journalist for 35 years, and a proud party member at the beginning. His own father starved to death in 1959. But like most people at that time, he didn't connect the dots to figure out that this was not just one person's bad luck, but a nation-wide disaster of shameful proportions.

Anyway, as a Xinhua journalist he had access to many files and 内参 internal Party documents that ordinary folks couldn't see. Each claim in the book is rigorously foot-noted.

The title of the book is "Tombstone." It is Yang's attempt to erect a tombstone not only for his own father, but for the roughly 36 million people who were beaten, killed or starved from 1958-62.The author notes that this is 450 times the number who died in the atom bomb attack on Nagasaki.

Because it would embarrass the national leadership, discussion of this massive tragedy is not permitted in China. And the man who engineered it is still on the money.

Posted on: About Face! A Multi-faceted Look at 面子

Let's keep the conversation polite.

我们这边的人都很讲文明，对不对？

而且，junying, 你看一下这个discussion 就知道了，不爱面子的人还蛮多呢。爱面子的人给不给别人面子是另一回事。

Posted on: Reporting a Loss

Hi changye

Thanks for an interesting link. Some of the articles are paid content. I think 0.10 yuan is a bit expensive for this piece:

科学发展观：民族地区生态建设的新机遇

Posted on: About Face! A Multi-faceted Look at 面子

Hi tsulu

Interesting points, although I think you've painted Americans with a bit of a broad brush ;-)

I believe you're very right about face being the result of living in close contact with others, and seldom if ever going more than 50 km from your hometown. The sociologist I mentioned in the discussion, 费孝通 Fèi Xiàotōng, wrote very keenly about this in his book 乡土中国.

Posted on: Reporting a Loss

Hi kimiik and changye

Good detective work. Search engines, and the word choices offered by Google pinyin, are a new and fascinating way to gather information about how Chinese is really being written.

In my mind, 中华民族 is kind of like wishful thinking, to express the idea of 中国民族. Many of the different nationalities 民族 that live in the land called 中国 don't have much in common. But encompassing them within the idea of 中华, you can think of them as one big nation. Unfortunately, this definition is so broad and vague that it is not very informative.

Posted on: Sympathy for the Farmers -- 悯农

Hi mikeinewshot

Thanks for your kind words. These two poems are commonly presented as one. But I should have explained that more clearly.

Hi bodawei

Thanks, and I agree-- especially in recent years, there have been some developments that have the potential to drastically improve farmers' lives.

For any Hong Kong/Taiwan poddies out there, if you are interested in China's long-suffering farmers, the must-read book is 墓碑 by 楊繼繩. It is a rigorous, detailed record of the insane policies and disastrous human cost of Chinese farming policy in the early years of the PRC. Needless to say, it is not available on the mainland.