User Comments - xiao_liang

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

Wow, sorry mate. I figured smiley netiquette was pretty widely known now. I should never assume. The more common ones I've seen are:

:) or :-) - friendly

;) or ;-) - indicating a joke

:p or :-p - indicating a cheeky joke or humour (tongue sticking out)

:D or :-D - extremely happy

:( or :-( - unhappy. Do not like.

So on and so forth. There are lots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smileys#Typographical_smileys

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

Hah, these are great. Thanks folks! Apparently The Simpsons is called "辛普森一家" in China! I wonder what the official translation of "don't have a cow, man!" is?

I love 别生一头牛 - don't give birth to one cow! Hehe. And now I know the measure word for cow :)

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Of course, you're right bodawei, it's an overly general and unjustified statement. Perhaps I would rather rephrase it that they would find every reason to bar a known HIV sufferer from entering the country due to the political sensitivity of the illness.

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

Hehe. I figured as much. Thanks for the language advice! Worth a try though. I did put a ;) afterwards to indicate I was teasing, to be fair :)

Anyone know how to say "dude" in chinese? :)

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

I'll transcribe the passage from the book tomorrow.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Or, you know, it might be a single paranoid/bigoted/uninformed official exercising their right to deny entry.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

Wow. A lot of questions.

By customs, I mean from border control at airports to Visa controllers, essentially. If they can find a reason to bar you, in general they will.

I was reading about the aids villages in a book by a journalist who spent 20 years in china. It was a big scandal. The aids villages were created because yes the infected blood donors infected whole villages. Because Chinese people are superstitious about losing blood, the way the programme ran was you donated blood, which was siphoned into a central blood chamber, where the platelets were removed, then blood was pumped back into your arm... everyone's into the same chamber. And they paid a comparative fortune for people to donate, so it was heinously popular. As a result, whole areas became infected. I should imagine it's run VERY differently now.

It was a big scandal that was furiously officially denied, so HIV and AIDS is a big sore point to the chinese government. Hence, as you point out, since the issuing of Visas is central government controlled, I'm not surprised that an infected individual was denied a visa.

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

I'm only teasing :) In the words of Bart Simpson, 不有一牛男人。。。

I don't know the measure word for cow :-(

Posted on: Choosing a New Pair of Glasses

If you're getting medical advice from a language-learning forum, you're doing it wrong ;)

Posted on: Slippery Ground

Yea, seriously. We can complain about that when we have perfect mandarin :p