User Comments - tingyun
tingyun
Posted on: The Mysteries of 而 Revealed
October 10, 2012 at 12:11 AM你的意思是播客吧？播客-podcast,博客-blog，有可能你只是不小心打错了，但为了确保万一。。。：）
Posted on: The Mysteries of 而 Revealed
October 10, 2012 at 12:02 AMI think I spent more time arguing against my point than for it. ;)
Posted on: The Mysteries of 而 Revealed
October 9, 2012 at 10:32 PMRJ,
In fairness, the sources you are citing aren't exactly reliable (except to prove si1teng2's alternative proposition, that 'that's one of those popular misattributed quotations', perhaps with the added qualification 'among english speakers').
I concur that this doesn't sound like something he would have said, and further doesn't sound at all like something that was translated from classical chinese (the wordiness and rythm feel very much like english, less like modern chinese, and not at all classical).
Philosophical coherence is an iffy basis to judge such things though - I wouldn't conceive of it in quite the same way, but I think what si1teng2 has in mind is more likely to be the kinds of Confucianism that appears after Zhu Xi 朱熹 and the other neo confusciaist writers, and solidified 1200-1400 AD or so.
Really, the analects are just a bunch of disconected quotes, with no explanation or certain meaning, and only obtained meaning when attached to a story. Even in ancient times the same quote from the Analects was attached to different stories and given widely different meanings by different writers, and there really is no such thing as Confuscian philosophy as any definite thing, and the 道学 neoconfuscianism that people tend to think of today is drastically different than anything that existed before.
Take the 'Records of the Grand Historian' (史记) written by Sima Qian (司马迁) in the Han dynasty, which is perhaps the most influential work in Chinese historiography. There, we have a Confucius who was born out of wedlock, happily breaks a solemn oath on the basis that it wasn't voluntary and in doing so launches an invasion, orders a mass execution of a bunch of musicians he doesn't like, seriously considers joining a rebellion that other sources claim he suppressed (haughtily announcing that "I will make this {rebelling city] into a new dynasty to match the Zhou!"), and giving a lecture to some nobles on the details of a magic spirit they have discovered. Yes, indeed, “子不语怪、力、乱、神。” ("Confuscias does not discuss oddities, violent force, rebellion, and spirits" - quote from the Analects)
Philosophical coherence...;)
Posted on: Table Manners in the West
July 30, 2012 at 2:14 PMJenny had a great blog post discussing the complexity of these attitudes: http://jennyzhu.com/2009/03/09/language-snobs-and-regional-superiority/
My two favorite blogs are john's sinosplice and jenny's blog, though sadly the latter hasn't been updated in awhile.
Posted on: Your Mandarin Is Really Good!
July 30, 2012 at 2:02 PMYep, that's right, and your analogy is very good. With the possible exception of locally accented mandarin also being something that can be distinguished, watch the tv show 武林外传 sometimes and get a sense for how different things get even in those northern, mandarin speaking areas. Though those living abroad for awhile sometimes seem to partially forget they have an accent.
Cantonese speakers actually make up a significant portion of the immigrant communities in many countries, and cantonese dominates some chinatowns, such as some in the US, though this is declining.
Posted on: Your Mandarin Is Really Good!
July 30, 2012 at 12:54 PMI agree with Tal - pu3tong1hua4 is often used. But when used it is generally in the context of distinguishing between it and dialects or locally accented chinese. So, for example, Tal's sign asking people to use it instead of dialects. Or someone might say a person's put3tong1hua4 shui3ping2 is better than theirs, which generally means theyy speak more standard, in circumstancs where they might not nessecarily say their zhong1wen2 shui3ping2 is better, which would probably sound weird coming from a native but would probably have more to do with overall breadth of knowledge of the language.
Ask your friends about contexts involving drawing such a distinction, and they will feel pu3tong1hua4 is a natural choice. After all, those dialects and locally accented mandarin are all just as much zhong1wen2. ;)
And yep, also agree with tal's interpretation of 文. Sounds like your chinese teacher has an overally rigid and onesides interpretation of charecters, they really have all sorts of meanings, and in 中文 it does not mean culture, but rather written language (subject to the usage Tal notes making it more general), which is a more primary meaning anyway.
If you want to drive the point home regarding 文's various meanings to your teacher, first ask her what it means in 文身, to get a tatoo, then ask about 繁文缛节 - which actually involves yet another meaning, something close to rituals and prescribed behavior (the whole expression refers to complicated and unnesecary rituals and prescribed processes).
Posted on: Chinese Wordplay
July 29, 2012 at 4:11 PMIf you arent too attached to the specific ones mentioned in the dislogue, you can find as many as you like here - http://baike.baidu.com/view/453.htm
If you just want a list of them you can look up and study, scroll down too 常见歇后语 section, and pick a few.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women
July 19, 2012 at 4:23 AMHi mark,
I think you probably hit the series at a higher ability level than I did - i remember there being one or two lessons in it that I found really difficult. I only did intermediates until i could handle upper int, taking a very never look back to the level system, so i was probably a barely intermediate at the time...
Hi root,
I'm afraid memory has faded over time, nothing numerical. i do remember a lesson about the internet not working - that was the lowpoint of the middle period intermediates, so easy id say it was really ele or newbie, and all the lessons around it (vague memory of some of these being on buying batteries, or learning to knit, but they could be elsewhere and actually difficult, not sure, old memories and such) were similarilly easy. This after this period of 10 or so easy lessons, the difficulty picked up again fairly quickly, and then stayed fairly constant to the (then) most recent lesson. So perhaps start after that group if you want it fairly constant?
Unless my memory is totally off, which is possible, now several years later,
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 7: A Guy's Advice on Women
July 18, 2012 at 5:13 PMI remember intermediate lessons as being really varied in actual difficulty over publication time. The first couple of lessons (by publication) are basically newbie, then it gets harder, easier, harder, easier, etc over time, apparently as cpod figured out how difficult exactly to make them. years ago I did all the then existing intermediate lessons in order, starting from earliest published, and it was really quite interesting to see how they developed.
I dont think anything will get moved now, especially when it is part of a series.
Posted on: The Mysteries of 而 Revealed
October 11, 2012 at 4:06 PMYesterday a friend sent me this link - http://book.9wee.com/chapter/29524_1142296.html
It's a Ming dynasty collection of gossip about a long list of famous historical individuals, and has this line about Confucius, concluding that he also kept concubines (the evidence being a line from an ancient text noting Confusias was very frugal, and demonstrating this by saying he didn't let his concubines wear silk clothing - thus implicitly admiting he must have had concubines ), and thus concluding these sort of desires are universal, including to sages - 孔子 或问："孔子有妾乎？"观《孔丛子》载：宰予对楚昭王曰："夫子妻不服彩，妾不衣帛。车器不雕，马不食粟。"据此，则孔子亦有妾矣。 人知惟圣贤不溺情，不知惟真圣贤不远于情。
Lots of other great stories too, there's a story of 司马光 sending a prostitute scurrying over a wall to hide from 王安石 (both revered figures from the Song dynasty), lots of hilarious stuff like that.