User Comments - pretzellogic

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pretzellogic

Posted on: Let Me Sleep a Little Longer
January 27, 2015, 01:58 AM

From "how I learned mandarin" Scotland and Taiwan.

http://mandarinmadeez.com/

Posted on: Cleaning the Air Conditioning
January 13, 2015, 12:36 PM

Yikes, who does Weird Al pay royalties to, Robin Thicke or the Estate of Marvin Gaye? :-0)

Posted on: Beijing's Ring Roads
December 13, 2014, 02:50 AM

Living in Beijing for 5 years, and I never thought about this either! :-) But I just asked our Ayi this question, and she told me that it's because the Forbidden City area is 1st ring road, and back in the day, the people aren't allowed in 1st ring road. Really interesting.

Posted on: Standing Up for Car Seats
November 24, 2014, 12:08 AM

We brought car seats with us to Beijing, then found as you point out, that the rear seat belts are hidden or removed. To this day, I also don't know if Chinese made versions of Hyundai taxis are equipped with LATCH. The van that we were in when we first came to China with our 1 year old and 4 year old did not have LATCH, but the seat belts were accessible.

In my experience, I haven't met foreigners from the States that "merely" visited China. The foreigners from the States that had small children moved here, and brought car seats with them tried to use them, and almost all of them gave up. I knew a woman that actually went through the trouble of setting up the car seat every time she got in a taxi (if the seat belts were available). The few families I knew that have small children (say, 1 year old or less) lived in China, not just visit. They tended to come with 5-10 year olds or older who could use seat belts if available.

Posted on: Introducing Business Connections
September 23, 2014, 11:52 PM

Americans and British (Scotland, England, Wales) can get along after all! :-)

Posted on: Private vs. Public Placement
September 19, 2014, 12:04 AM

Having not heard the lesson, i've also not heard the average person on the street using the term placement. But i've heard placement used a number of times by the people that work at investment banks in the US, or talk about the securitization process in the US. I also vaguely remember the book "How to Buy Stocks" talking about placement.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/placement.asp

Posted on: Navigation System
September 12, 2014, 01:26 AM

Some of the newer taxi drivers in Beijing use them. Also, some of the drivers that appear comfortable using the technology use GPSs. They seem to use them to navigate, not to find a specific building, so if your goal is to practice Chinese to tell them to get to a specific destination, you want to tell them to take a specific, you can still do that, depending on how many taxis you take. Even if the driver uses GPS, he still might ask you if its ok to take 3rd Ring Road, or ask you to confirm if the address is near Dongdaqiao or something.

Posted on: After a Car Accident
September 03, 2014, 12:11 AM

yeah, passive voice does not rock/reggae legends make :-)

Posted on: After a Car Accident
September 02, 2014, 01:08 PM

I shot the sheriff, but I didn't shoot the deputy.

Posted on: Anyone for Cricket?
August 24, 2014, 11:30 AM

Good luck getting this answered.