User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Yang Jie's Diary: Everyone Is Dating

浪漫 did exist in other meanings (纵情；烂漫) going back some 1000 years, and these meanings do have a loose similarity to the later borrowing, but the meaning of 'romantic' does seem to be borrowed from european languages.

Posted on: An Improved Understanding of Improve

Are these sort of posts some kind of scam? But what is gained by rapid fire posting 'hi' everywhere? Or is it just that people are really lonely?

Posted on: No Tip?

If you tip more generously when you can expense the bill, as opposed to using your own money, you are possibly (if an executive) violating your fidicuary duty to the company. If you aren't high enough to have a general fidicuary duty, you are at the least behaving as a bad steward of company funds (and arguably violating the duty of loyalty that arises in any agency relationship).

That's of course not to say the vast majority of people don't treat expensable costs differently than their own funds - it's probably over 95 percent - but however prevalent improper behavior is, thoughtful attention to one's ethical duties remains important (and no Robin Hood mentality of give to the poor server from the rich company will excuse this - if you feel the need for charity give of your own funds to worthy non-profits, if you feel for the plight of waiters then you should equally tip well from your own wallet).

Not to say I think a 2.5 percent tip is reasonable in all but exceptional circumstances (I tend to go for 15-20 percent), and not that anyone here straight out said they advocate such behavior, but taking 'expense account' as altering the tip analysis is the beginning of a very serious problem (and the same kind of logic is behind the very serious expense account abuses present at the top rungs of management of many corperations and government agencies)

Posted on: Getting Nationalities Straight

英籍华人ying1ji2hua2ren2 british citizen of chinese descent

(It's a pattern, 国籍 guo2ji2 is citizenship, 华人 hua2ren2 person of chinese descent, so we just replace the 国guo2 country with the specific country infolved, so 美籍华人 mei3ji2hua2ren2 for us chinese (英国ying1guo2 britain 美国mei3guo2)

British born as opposed to british citizenship would usually be expressed in longer form - 我的父母是中国人，但我出生在英国. Wo3de0fu4mu3shi4zhong1guo2ren2 , dan4wo3chu1sheng1zai4ying1guo2 Replace 英国 ying1guo2 with 伦敦 lun2dun1 for your second question

Posted on: Leaving a Tip

Hi RJ,

You didn't seem to get an answer - I hope it wasn't because my jumping in? I know you're still waiting for Cpod input, so hopefully they stop by.

Posted on: No Tip?

No problem! I'd say to also watch out for the 2013 tv adapation which is coming out, but only 'watch out' in the sense of avoid it at all costs - they got the director of one of the stupidest soap opera type palace dramas to write the script (宫). Poor book...

Posted on: No Tip?

Cntinuation of post - The point of the book is to explore the nature of 隐士 (reclusive scholar type who does not desire power and withdraws from the conflicts of the world) vs 政治人物 political people, and the nature of 权欲 hunger for power and the things it drives people to do. As such, it is not meant to reflect specific events or be tied to any specific historical background (despite the superficial musings of people on the internet)

From the author's afterward: 不顾一切的夺取权力，是古今中外政治生活的基本情况，过去几千年是这样，今后几千年恐怕仍会是这样。任我行、东方不败、岳不群、左冷禅这些人，在我设想时主要不是武林高手，而是政治人物...这种形形色色的人物，每一个朝代中都有，大概在别的国家中也都有。

Translation: Caring for nothing but gaining power, this is the fundamental state of political life, whether ancient or modern, chinese or foreign. The last several thousand years have been this way, the next several thousand years will probably still be this way. (Lists a few names, two of whoch we've discussed 东方不败 and 岳不群) these people, in my conception and creation are first and foremost not martial arts masters, but rather are political people...these many different kimds of (political) people, every dynasty has had these archetypes, probably foreign countries also have had them.

The author, 金庸 jinyong, is the recognized master of the 武侠小说 martial arts novel...

Actually, if you wanted to try reading it but aren't ready for the pure chinese alone yet, a while ago I found a fan made Eglish translation for a friend of mine who doesn't speak Chinese (there is no offocial published translation), while I imagine the writing is rather bad, it probably conveys the meaning well and could be used as a check while reading along in chinese, pm me with your email if you would like me to send it along. Also, if interested you can read the rest of the afterward here, worth reading even if not interested in the whole book - http://w.baike.com/3a6bec2dadcc4098b858d1ff95c198cd.html

Also, there was a great tv adapation made in the early 90s (the more modern adaaptions are TERRIBLE) which I posted a clip from on youtube as a joke with a friend of mine who also loves the book - http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Yx1gaOp2tQM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYx1gaOp2tQM

Posted on: No Tip?

Certainly - it's one of my favorite topics. ;). Though I don't remember how I've seen it translated..wikipedia say "the smiling, proud wanderer" "the state of divinity" and "laughing in the wind" have all been used, though the rest of the article was clearly written by someone who had no understanding of the novel (particularly the 'political allegory' part, which entirely misses the point and is in direct contradiction to the author's own description of his purpose in the afterward.

The book is really influental in pop culture, and several of the charecters and events are commonly heard references... A few days ago I decided to finally watch an episode of 非诚勿扰 (in the end, as I expected, not my sort of tv) and one contestant said something like "我是令狐冲，谁愿意当我的小师妹＂ 令狐冲 is the main charecter of the novel, though his relationship with his 小师妹 isn't exactly the kind of experience anyone would want (I won't spoil the details in case you decide to read it), so one wonders whether that contestant had actually read the novel....though the most famouse charecter moght be 东方不败 who has become rather wellknown and often cited because of the coolness of his/her name or because of an audience fascinated with the idea of this transexual/crossdressing (not sure which you'd call it in this case) unbeatable martial arts master...

The two names I mentioned have also become archetypes - warning, slight spoilers in this paragraph as nessecary to explain the sentence - 岳不群 yue4bu4qun2is the classic 伪君子wei3jun1zi3 (a conniving evil person who plays the part of the moral upstanding man), and 余沧海yu2cang1hai3 is the sort of simpler evil power hungry person who isn't clever enough to cloak his evil. In the book, both men want something - 余沧海 does evil things to get it, hunts an entire family to near extinction, and at the last minute 岳不群 rides in to save the surving son of this family, gets recognized as a hero..which had been his plan all along.

So my sentence would be translated as - yue buqun is much, much more clever than yu canghai, and the meaning is that 伪善 is the truly clever form of evil and power hunger.

Posted on: No Tip?

A manager or owner would have to be really stupid to so 明目张胆地 display his lack of concern for the wait staff. What's the profit off one customer? Now compare that to the value of employee morale and cohension (you can measure indirectly by the amount of money and time companies spend on events and trainings designed to build it - whether restauarants themselves find it feasible to pursue such measures is besides the point so long as similar principles apply across these industries in terms of effects of employee morale - though you can also just from first principles reason out the effects morale would have in he restaurant context).

So, forgo 30 bucks of profit, make a show of saying to the guy 'I'm sorry, we are really proud of the job our waiters do here, we value them, respect them, and perhaps this is not the right place for you to eat", that is the truly selfish, calculating, profit driven behavior. 伪善 is more profitable than 急功近利...or to make the same point with a literary refrence to my favorite book (笑傲江湖) - 岳不群的聪明远远超过余沧海

Of course I'd hope managers took care of their wait stuff out of genuine concern, but in either event the result should be the same here...also, naturaly there will be some managers who are a little slow and don't understand business, but it should be in the minority.

诶，this topic makes me feel somwhat nostalgic for my time as a Mckinsey (麦肯锡） management consultant...

Posted on: Leaving a Tip

Possibly because it's an elementary lesson, possibly because they hadn't themselves thought about it in further detail (think for a second about how much of english usage you might pass off as habit and have no further explanation for - being a native speaker doesn't mean perfect clarity on such matters, and often things coming naturally leads to a high degree of murkiness as to the reason) though really there is nothing incorrect in saying it is a 'habit', it's just that most everything about language (maybe all?) is habit, yet there are most always explanations behind these habits, greater patterns of consistent habits to be found. Though you said the same point better in "grammar comes after the fact", which is all the two different usages I note above are (or all most grammar is it seems).

I will note the first usage, command/remonstrance tonal particle, is one you'd find in any dictionary, while the second I don't remember seeing written anywhere, and is more my own synthesis and summary from experience (so perhaps trusting it less would be warranted, though I find myself convincing ;) )