User Comments - waiguoren
waiguoren
Posted on: Food Poisoning
March 14, 2011 at 6:27 AMI only got occasional food poisoning when I was in China. One time was in Nanjing, eating Western food. I and three other friends, suspect it was the salad, as we dined with a Chinese friend who didn't get sick, but didn't have any salad either.
I also have a preference for cheap restaurants, particularly 成都小吃 and 羊肉串儿 off the street, where I seldom, if ever, got sick from.
Posted on: Tea Refill
February 10, 2011 at 11:31 AMRe: being scammed.
I remember being really angry at the time, but now it seems like such a trivial matter. If being 'scammed' for a relatively small amount of money is the worse thing that happens to you in China, then you're doing okay...
Posted on: Tea Refill
February 10, 2011 at 12:21 AMYes, always super-important to clarify the price FIRST. I walked into a hole-in-the-wall establishment in Qufu, Shandong (birthplace of Confucious) only to be charged Y30 for a bowl of Yángròutāng (lamb soup) when the going rate was close to Y5.
哎呀
Posted on: Tea Refill
February 9, 2011 at 11:33 PM没什么。I took the moral high-ground, and just left it at that. The look on my face said it all: 你骗我。。。
Posted on: Tea Refill
February 9, 2011 at 11:27 AMI got scammed when I visited Shanghai, but it wasn't for tea - it was for an acrobatics show. I met this group of 'really nice' people who were from 'out of town' and they really wanted to see the acrobatics show. Because they seemed really nice, I agreed to join them, so we went to a tea-house (I didn't buy any tea!) to pay for the tickets they all handed over the money (like Y200 a ticket) looked at me and said 'Will you join us?' I hesitated, but bowed into peer pressure, paid Y200 and agreed to join them. They said they would meet me there. Well, they didn't. And that's when the penny dropped. There was an acrobatics show, it was actually okay - it just wasn't worth Y200. If I had of just rocked up at the show, I think the tickets would have been around 20-30 yuan.
I felt so ripped off. Needless to say, I saw them the next day in Renmin Park, pulling the same scheme. I felt so ripped off, I even confronted one of them and said 'Nǐ piàn wǒ!'
Oh well, live and learn. But a completely free trip to ChinesePod head office kind of fixed things.
Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst
February 7, 2011 at 11:21 AM不知道，但是我忘了什么时候在学了。 It was either here or in a Lonely Planet Guide...also, I may have written the characters incorrectly. 它的意思是 ‘You're not leaving 'til the bottle's empty'.
Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst
February 7, 2011 at 10:54 AM不醉不归。。。
Posted on: Chinese Baijiu and the Best of the Worst
February 7, 2011 at 10:24 AMI recently asked this question as well! Apparently, people from the North prefer to say 咱们 (zánmen) and people from the South tend to say 我们 (wǒmen).
I personally haven't heard 咱们 used too much...
Posted on: What's in a name?
January 31, 2011 at 3:34 AMYES!
Some of my students gave me the name 小马哥 because it kind of sounds like my English name (Mark). In my next class I introduced myself as 小马哥 and then there was silence for a few seconds before the class burst out laughing in unison.
It wasn't until some time later that I realised I was named after one of 周润发s (Chow Yun Fat in Cantonese) characters in a movie.
I've also been told that 小 is not a 'real' last name, but it seems to have stuck, and I'm happy with it.
Posted on: Food Poisoning
March 14, 2011 at 11:46 AMYeah, I'm not sure why, but I always thought 'Western' restaurants would have been more hygienic for some reason, especially when I first came to China. A lot of people, including Chinese, have warned me that small restaurants 'aren't hygienic'. But our experience tells us otherwise.
You're definitely right with the 'busy restaurant' theory. Generally, they're busy for a reason...