User Comments - standuke
standuke
Posted on: SBTG: Health Class
July 10, 2008 at 3:05 AM解剖猪胎当然不是佛罗里达的特色。在爱荷华州我们也解剖猪胎。上解剖课的时候，在我们附近的屠杀场送了我们一窝猪胎。有几个连体双胞胎。非常有意思！
Dissecting fetal pigs is not a special characteristic of Florida schools... it is a national rite of passage. In Iowa we were fortunate to live near a slaughterhouse that gave us a special gift of a litter of fetal pigs, including several conjoined twins. (!) As you might imagine it turned out to be quite an interesting class.
Posted on: 磁悬浮
July 8, 2008 at 6:07 PM
我也要知道怎么说‘troll'... (edit: TY Henning)
Dave seems to be trying to make a point but I'm not sure he's there yet. He says something is 'obviously' wrong with the lessons--he says they are inaccessible and he says the 'teaching quality' is poor. Are there some examples of lessons he likes? He's been here a while, right? Did he ever like the lessons or did he just gradually figure out that they are bad? Dave, what's your vision? How could this be even better?
As I see it, the 'magic' of ChinesePod is the casual nature of the lessons. At its best ChinesePod comes across as a sort of bilingual talk radio. To produce a lesson a day it's got to be a little sloppy, I would think. The only area for improvement I can think of is sometimes the lessons are just a recap of key vocabulary. I'd actually like *more* rambling and chit chat, myself. Maybe some more grammar analysis... but that's just fantasizing.
Seriously, Dave, why is this frustrating? BTW, are you in China? Your profile says 'Afghanistan'... Maybe if you're cooling your heels in the middle of a desert somewhere we could cut you some slack :>)...
Posted on: Pollution and Hot Drinks
July 4, 2008 at 12:13 PMI also hear chipmunks when I use Firefox on a Mac. The 'CD quality' download sounds fine, but when I just click on 'play' I get chipmunks.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Hong Kong
June 13, 2008 at 2:50 AMMy wife and I went to Hong Kong for the first stop of our honeymoon, and we ate these very dishes. As Jenny said, the holy trinity of Dim Sum.
Has anyone heard the story that 凤爪 (feng4 zhao3; chicken feet) help a woman's complexion because of the collagen in the cartilage? Is there a Chinese origin to this story? I've eaten chicken feet a number of times, but now if I'm offered I dismiss them as 'women's food' and offer up this collagen story. This is a very convincing story, as Clinique sells collagen pills for ~$40 a bottle so chicken feet seem like a bargain. I've even seen some Western young ladies dig into the chicken feet after hearing that story, but I really don't know if it has any basis in 'real' Chinese folk wisdom. I've only heard that story once, and most Chinese I've asked have never heard it.
For the uninitiated, the main 'trick' to eating these things is knowing what to do with the bones... you bite off the toes first and sort everything out in your mouth, then spit out the bones. Trying to nibble off tasty bits is just ridiculous, the point is to get all that connective tissue, which hopefully is not crunchy (undercooked) or liquidy (overcooked), but just pleasantly chewy.
Posted on: Sightseeing at Tiananmen
June 13, 2008 at 2:25 AMThanks to the Auntie/Changye tagteam for their 样子examples. Who knew 样子was so versatile? I'm still wrapping my mind around the grammar--I can practially feel the synapses loosening. You just can't do that stuff in English.
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 12, 2008 at 1:21 AMClay, let me go on record as advocating a one-at-a-time approach, even when just giving compliments.
I'll look into Wild Swans... There are so many 'good' epic China stories out there. The Chinese technician in our lab was born into a very wealthy Shanghai family. She showed us the 'kill the Americans' dance they would do at morning exercises in high school . She went to college before the cultural revolution, grad school after, then came to the states. Her family was fortunate and didn't suffer as much as most, but she still has lots of 'good' stories about the nonsense they had to go through.
Posted on: I Can/Can't Afford it (...得起 & ...不起）
June 10, 2008 at 1:04 PMAt the end of this episode Clay introduced a good topic for an 'Ask Amber'. What's up with the Chinese and mistresses? The Chinese seem to love teasing Western guys about getting a mistress... I was thinking through the whole lesson, "Clay, wake up dude, Amber's totally sweet on you." and then he reveals his strategy there at the end. Clearly thinking (too far?) ahead there, Clay...
In contrast to Light, I found this Qing Wen quite useful. Perhaps Light's problem is his mastery of Chinese, not the simplicity of this Qing Wen. :>) It would have taken me a while to sort out the various applications of 得起 and 不起 without this episode.
Posted on: One-on-One Basketball
May 29, 2008 at 5:52 PM<big>John, thanks for the parental advisory :>) In our home CPod lessons are often played in the background at breakfast time so I guess that makes me one of the cranky old farts who cares about that stuff now. For a few years at least. Although, come to think of it, teaching my 4 y/o to trash talk in Chinese would be kind of cute... as long as I don't have to explain to her what she's saying.</big>
Posted on: Regional Accents Part II
May 27, 2008 at 5:57 PMHey guys, great new format... still getting used to it, though.
- Ooohh bullets
- That's pretty fly, guys
- Colors, too
- Where are the emoticons??
Posted on: Ticket Scalper
July 15, 2008 at 2:09 PM@yase
Some tribes of American Indians would 'scalp' their victims after a battle--cutting the skin and hair from the top of the head and collecting the trophies. I don't know how widespread the practice was but obviously people talked about it a lot and you didn't want to be 'scalped'.
I'd guess that 'scalping' became a euphamism for 'taking a cut off the top' in the business sense. Let's just say that being called a scalper isn't a compliment...