User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Marco Polo in China

I still don't consider myself a USA-hand. I am serious in saying that, its really hard to get any kind of a comprehensive understanding of countries this large and complicated. Most Chinese and Americans alike have a rather limited understanding of their own country - limited to the areas they live in, the spheres they are interested in.

Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree

No, its not girly at all. Translations into english are useful for some things, but certainly not for trying to guess such subtle things about a word.

Posted on: 日本核危机

Haha, glad I didn't disappoint you bababardwan. :)

Actually, if anyone is interested in a very good overview of the topic, in particular of the myth-making on both sides, I'd recommend "History, Chinese Nationalism and the

Emerging Sino – Japanese Conflict" available for viewing at: https://www.princeton.edu/cwp/publications/HeJCCpublication.pdf . I'll post the abstract at the bottom of this post, but the full article is at the link.

One of the most interesting things to note that there was virtually no outrage against Japan in China until the 1980s - prior to that, the Chinese govt endorsed the Japanese govt's myth that aggression in WWII was caused by a small military clique, a falsehood that both fit communist ideology (evil capitalists fooling the innocent mass of workers) and helped gain diplomatic recognition from Japan. In the 1980s, with the loss of communist ideology as a viable justification for one party rule, the Chinese Communist Party needed to find a new justification, and they turned to 'nationalism', and through the patriotic education campaign promoted a historical narrative of aggression and victimhood of China, followed by the triumphant lifting up of China by the party (thus providing a non-ideological justification for party rule). Japanese aggression formed a central part of this narrative. So there is the somewhat odd phenomenon of current Chinese youths, very removed from the events of WWII, and yet very enraged by them, while most of the older generation, even many who lived through those events, has a much milder perspective. Of course whether that's more because the Chinese government covered up the reality of Japanese atrocities in the past, or because of the modern patriotic education campaign, is a difficult question.

Abstract for the article:

History, Chinese Nationalism and the

Emerging Sino – Japanese Conflict

YINAN HE*

Anti-Japanese popular nationalism is rising high in China today. Little evidence to date proves that it is officially orchestrated. Nonetheless, Chinese popular nationalism still has deep roots in the state’s history propaganda which has implanted pernicious myths in the national collective memory. Fueling mistrust and exacerbating a mutual threat perception, popular nationalism could be a catalyst for future Sino – Japanese conflict over the Taiwan problem, island disputes, and maritime resource competition. The increasingly liberalized but often biased Chinese media, the role of nationalist sub-elites, and the government’s accommodation have all contributed to the strength of anti-Japanese nationalism, which cannot be mitigated by bilateral economic interdependence. To rid bilateral relations of the negative historical legacy, the two countries need the vision and determination to remove nationalistic myths and promote a shared history through mutual critique and self-reflection in transnational historians’ dialogues.

Posted on: 日本核危机

I think ruishiredbird is absolutely right. Every person living in a nation bears the guilt for all the harms caused by that nation throughout history, whether or not they were alive at the time, and any natural disasters should be hailed as the hand of justice.

Since China claims Genghis Khan as a Chinese hero, the Chinese people have ALOT to answer for. I'll wait for the next natural disaster to strike and then post 'Ha, it took 800 years but finally justice is done...' Oh, and now I see, it turns out WWII wasn't Japanese aggression against China, rather it was a legitimate counterattack in response to Chinese aggression under Kublai Khan.

There's something wrong with this logic, no?

Now of course there is a real problem of denial among some circles in Japan over warcrimes in WWII, but this is not a reason to issue broad condemnations of the entire current population of the country, and certainly not in the context of a natural disaster. Targeted criticisms under the right circumstances (ie when the PM visits a certain temple that enshrines war criminals and has a 'historical' display that is anything but) would be another matter.

Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student

Hmm, I think that's mostly right about friends not using them, but not because the term doesn't work in that context, rather because you tend to call your friend by some kind of name. ;) Thus you could use them with a friend, but the use itself would be communicating something (ie you intentionally chose to use it rather than their name, thus indicating there is a message there, probably actually communicating a compliment on appearance)But definitely usable across genders, no restriction there.

But I personally wouldn't feel comfortable using these terms at all. But I won't refer to 朝鲜战争 as 抗美援朝 either... ;)

Posted on: Deadly Complements of Degree

No on the first question, as for the second, something using 认真 would work, ie 你干吗那么认真

Or if you were looking for a specific expression there is 小题大做 (make a big deal out of a small thing), though I think 95% of the situations you would encounter wanting to express this meaning (generally informal and wanting to give a friendly reminder) are better suited to the first option. This one is more if you wanted to criticize someone, and focuses more on the action than the attitude...

Posted on: Arrival in Jizhou

给 also has the pronunciation ji3, which means something closer to 'supply.' There are probably only 3 places you are likely to encounter that pronunciation in common use - one is that expression, another is 给予 (many natives mispronounce it as gei3yu3, but it should be ji3yu3), and 供给 (to supply). Sometimes I hear people mispronounce 给以 as ji3yi3, but it should be gei3yi3 and so is not an example (I think they are confusing the distinction between gei3 and ji3 as one of the degree of formality, or perhaps analogizing it to 给予, but these are misleading, as the distinction is based on meaning,and really 给以 is just verb gei3 plus coverb yi3 followed by what is given).

If you want a complete explanation that includes the rarer uses, I've cut and pasted the Handian brief explanation section below (note that the second two uses of ji3 are comparatively rare).

给

（給）

gěi ㄍㄟˇ

　1. 交付，送与：～以。～予。送～。献～。

　2. 把动作或态度加到对方：～他一顿批评。

　3. 替，为：～大家帮忙。

　4. 被，表示遭受：房子～火烧掉了。

　5. 把，将：请你随手～门送上。

其它字义

● 给

（給）

jǐ ㄐㄧˇ

　1. 供应：供～。补～。～养。自～自足。

　2. 富裕，充足：家～人足。

　3. 敏捷：言论～捷。

Posted on: Days of the week

Its one of many characters whose pronunciation changes with slight variations in meaning. Its often not useful to try to gain a complete understanding of the logic that determine this change until you've soaked up alot of examples - a useful first approximation for this stage would be to look at kong1 as the more abstract meaning of 'empty', while kong4 is more along the lines of 'vacancy' or 'unused'.

Incidentally, english-to-chinese dictionaries often are hopeless when it comes to distinguishing between these differing pronunciations (they seem to get them mixed up as often as correct), so you really have to be able to use chinese-chinese dictionaries to look them up. Which probably coincides with the time when it becomes useful to refine your understanding anyway...

Posted on: Handsome Foreign Student

I actually obtained a rather poor impression of Beida exchange students (at least, assuming they were studying language there). A while back I spent a month staying in a hotel near campus, and then everyday walked to the campus coffee shop and found a random student to talk to (worked surprisingly well, generally people would talk to me several hours, and it was easy to keep switching persons for a good 8 hours a day of 1-1 tuition free language instruction).

While there, I saw many foreign students in the cafe, talking with friends. With only 1 exception, the vast majority were sitting with other foreign students and talking in English. I commented to some of the Chinese friends I met there that I thought that was a bit silly, as they seemed to be passing up the best opportunity for achieving the very goal that motivated them to study at the campus, and I was told that it was very typical, the foreign students make almost no effort to mix with their Chinese counterparts. Actually, this same silliness seems present in many Chinese students studying in the US, though perhaps it is less extreme.

On the rankings note - It should be noted that certain circles within the US are just as concerned. Usually not directly with the rankings themselves, but rather with the prestige that is reflected in and influences the rankings. This is very true of academia, law, and business (in some areas like consulting, finance, etc). And its not without basis - any interview or hiring decision is based on a series of guesses and estimations. An recent grad applying for some job in finance is not really going to have much else you can judge on (the competitive ones will usually all have good resumes, interview well, good grades etc). Academia is a little more complex to justify - I think its less true of the hard sciences where things are more objective, but in the social fields it is sometimes very hard to judge what constitutes good research and good scholarly potential (incidentally, I think this is a problem deserving fixing, and there is too much reliance on prestige in both hiring and publication decisions). At any rate, I just want to point out that its not something unique to China, and that there is a reason why it emerges.

Posted on: Kinds of Nuts

There is actually a pretty logical explanation for this - 子 has two very separate uses, one is to serve as a noun suffix and is pronounced in neutral tone. This is the most common use, and it won't have an 儿 suffix added - it already is the suffix.

The second use, pronounced in the third tone, means 'son', 'seed', etc. In this use it is as likely to pick up an 儿 suffix as any other noun. 瓜子 is a good example, another would be 败家子 (a bad son who wastes the family's money), both are often heard with an 儿 added to the 子.

Its easy to tell the difference between the two - just ask yourself whether 子 is actually contributing meaning to the word, if so, its the second use, and might have a 儿 depending on the speaker.