User Comments - sushan

Posted on: Chinese Hospitality and Finding Vegetarian Food

Hey, I just noticed that dianping.com has a category for vegetarian. It's not always in the same place though. Here is the Shanghai page, which is listed under the main categories heading. In Chengdu it is another layer down, under 'other'.

Posted on: Always in Chinese: 总是 (zǒngshì) and 老是 (lǎoshi)

At my favourite hot pot place in Chengdu you can order 撒尿 牛丸 - p**ing meatballs. they have a little pocket of broth on the inside.

我 吃 火锅 的 时候 总是 放 撒尿 牛丸。

可以吗？

Posted on: Chinese Hospitality and Finding Vegetarian Food

For protesting being sent off, I got 别送、 but what did Pete say? something 步?

http://www.vegetarian-china.info/ has some simple phrases and lots of restaurants linked. I can't vet them since they are all Beijing/Shanghai.

I'm not vegetarian but really think that China is one of the best places in the world to eat vegetables. There are so many fantastic vegetarian dishes.

You can also say things like 一点点肉也不能吃。 And also 有肉、 我 不 付钱。

For vegan eating I found 纯素食主义 on one of the linked pages from the above site.

Posted on: Personal Trainer

My gym, though not expensive (750 rmb/year)  is billed as an 'interactive' club and has wandering trainers that help you out as part of the process. They will walk up to the guys who have their shirts pulled up in front of the mirror wall comparing six packs, poke a muscle, and demo some way to enhance it.

The silly thing is that they give me (a girl) about 1/4 the appropriate weight. I tell them I am not a Chinese man and pile on the plates.

Posted on: The Person Component

Fellow mainlanders, I went to check out the Skritter site but the link Calkins gives above was blocked at the time. Here is one that works, weirdly.

http://skrit.appspot.com/

Posted on: I want coffee!

鸳鸯 is often used to describe a food or drink item with two differing components. For example, 鸳鸯 hot pot with one mild and one spicy side. Or if I go to a 荞面 (qiao2mian4, buckwheat noodle) shop and ask for 鸳鸯, I get a mixture of the buckwheat noodles and rice noodles.

Posted on: Surviving Winter and Singles Scene for Expat Girls

The dating scene is not that bad. As the show brought out,  you do have to be aware that the ways of finding partners vary when you get to a different country, and the advice given was pretty practical. If you are more interested in other foreigners, the expat guy to expat girl ratio seems to be about ten to one. If you are open to seeing local guys, all your Chinese friends will try to fix you up. My landlady, all of twenty minutes after meeting me,  offered to be my matchmaker; I feigned ignorance of the term and she went explaining it in detail. I got away with 'oh, we don't have that custom in the west'.

Posted on: Table for Three

But how to actually book a table?

Heard that you should say 定座, reserve seats. Is this so?

Posted on: Food Regions of China

Leslie, there is plenty of non-spicy food in Sichuan, don't worry. And if you are getting dumplings or noodles, or barbecue you will often be asked if you want hot pepper or not.

Posted on: I want coffee!

How do you say half-caf?

I was teaching a corporate class at 1:00 in the afternoon a few weeks ago, and several of the students wandered in late..they had slept in after  their office had gotten a coffee machine the previous day and everyone had overindulged. (Or that was the excuse, anyway.)

I think Light's sentence should be

我 每天 喝 四杯 咖啡。

Can we also put 'every day' at the beginning?