User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: National Stereotypes

I haven't read through this thread or the others on this page. Just quickly answering your question Grambers--Japan, at least some decades ago when I was growing up. And still today the word 外人gaijin (a contraction of 外国人 gai-koku-jin) gets used a lot. But the children pointing at you in the street and shouting gaijin! gaijin! haro!, that I haven't seen in a long time now.

And I guess I need to wonder aloud how it is in Korea, even though it's much more tempting as always to simply assume they're the same way as us in this regard.

Posted on: Shopping for the Husband

Hi Bodawei some folks just aren't as enlightened as you are. They have to be informed first--not even reminded--of that fact you say is so mundane as to not merit any mention. I'm not coping with living in China. There are times I will be compelled to tell someone 日本人也是人. I will be reminded occasionally not to assume that we all agree on "at the level of humanity we are all the same".

Surely you can appreciate that such a statement is likely being made as a response, a reaction, to some assertion. Grambers told us upfront what he was talking about. When I had a discussion with you some time ago about "universal humanity" I was talking about my disbelief, shock and outrage at the apparent inability of some people in China to accept or comprehend that Japanese could ever possibly be sincerely compassionate and wanting to extend help in the event of a devastating earthquake as in Sichuan 2008--something that for us requires no explaining or searching for subtexts. Mundane or not, some people need to be told, still. And again and again, probably because they've been miseducated to think otherwise. Low-dimension stuff certainly, but in reality there is still a lot of racism and mistreatment of people in the world that wouldn't be possible if we all really were aware of our sameness.

Since you ask, if a nice male gorilla asked me out on a date I'd go. However I would be depressed and disappointed, if he expressed any interest in going to bed with me. haha Chimpanzees definitely no.

Posted on: Market Research 2: Management Report

Don't worry Grambers! Actually right now you're sounding to me quite a bit like (the formerly prolific) Tal, hehe.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

Guess I disagree with your reading of my position, haha. I should have said what I mean by "not as big on science as many" though. The reservations I have are not with science or its methods but with the idea some people have that things are proven in/by science. Our "knowledge" is often found to be mistaken and wrong in science, it's happened countless times in the past and it will continue to, right? When I hear someone say "X is scientifically proven", I always want to argue well no, X is just the most reasonable conclusion we're agreeing to draw from what we have at this time.

That's what science is to the human race isn't it. We agree on what our common beliefs and theories are and do further studies based on them, building upon what our predecessors have learned and unlearned, so that the accumulation and revision and expansion can continue and keep making our shared understanding of the world better. I have great respect for the scientists who dedicate their lives to power this process on our behalf. 就是 to me, claims of proof are proof of arrogance (or just misguidedness). We're ever only in the process of learning and I think that's an intrinsic truth. Happy not to "know".

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

Agreed with guolan. Love is good medicine--well said!

Thanks for the article. The author shares her own experience which is especially interesting. She says:

Although as a nurse I had been educated in Western postpartum practices, I found I still believed in the traditional Korean postpartum practices, whether or not they had grounding in Western medical theory. She doesn't explain that further or try to argue the scientific validity of her position. I wonder what she would have to say if pressed to explain what made her still believe in the traditional Korean ways.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

Ah but I don't agree with Bodawei on the shampoo! At least I would question what the purpose is, the desired result, that has this skin specialist declaring that there is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting the use of hair shampoos (on the ads and such products made available to the mass market, I agree). I'd like to hear him support that view in a debate with my hairdresser of 16 years, a hair specialist obviously. And she's all about the science.

I also wonder how good his hair is. I know yours is very good Bodawei (seen in pictures), even without considering your 年龄!

And so those signs you see in the bathroom in restaurants saying that employees are required to wash with soap after using the bathroom are meaningless as well?

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

Apologies if you'd wanted to stop discussing this! If you hadn't brought it up though, quite likely someone else would have anyhow. As Baba says it's a good discussion.

People may agree or disagree about the Chinese medicine I was going to say. I'm not too interested actually in that debate. I think 中医 is generally held in high regard in Japan but that certainly doesn't mean most of us will go to it to treat most illnesses. To the great majority of us here it's not a one-or-the-other issue, not a 中医 vs 西医 debate. 中医 is another source of wisdom at our disposal, an alternative perspective. I brought up the Japanese women because they are not cowed by the threat of future health problems nor bound by any cultural and societal pressure. They haven't been scared into submitting to a postnatal program of that sort. Rather than “in their minds their approach is just as scientific” though I probably ought to have said that in their minds their approach has just as much basis as 西医 does--because I'm not as big on science as many people seem to be, but that's another debate. Cheers

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

* I didn't do go hairwash-less four weeks for 月子 btw. Guess that wasn't clear. *

Modern city folk with a certain amount of disposable income have choices. And these people (and others as well) choose to endure unnecessary discomfort sometimes. They have their reasons so I wouldn't say it's for nothing.

I read some time back about this 中医 doctor, a Chinese woman who practices in Japan. Expecting Japanese mothers go to her seeking her counsel and prescriptions because they feel her approach is special, offering something that neither western nor Japanese maternity custom does.

I don't think the article mentioned bathing practices specifically. It said that under this doctor's program the women could not drink water for a period of like 10 days or two weeks after the birth. In their weakest moments during this period the patients would call her up, imploring her to allow them a drink of water. She would be firm and remind them they wouldn't have such an opportunity otherwise (unless they gave birth again), and that they really want the benefits of what they were putting themselves through. The thinking is that a woman when she gives birth has the once (or twice-, etc)-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purge her body of various toxins and accumulated wastes and that should not be passed up. A woman who undergoes the process can look forward to a lifetime of better health and well-being. It's her re-birth as well. I can't say how exactly staying away from water contributes to this, but this is a 中医 doctor prescribing methods based on her expert knowledge of how the body works. I don't think you could call her or her patients superstitious, or scared. In fact in their minds their approach is just as scientific. This isn't a proper yuezi with all the confinement and everything of course, but I just wanted to say there are non-Chinese women free of all binds of tradition and social pressure who actually think this approach is a good thing.

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

Hi Grambers, you don't sound to me like an imperialist, but I'd agree with Bodawei that nobody is really being hurt here. And it seems to me a lot of this science-VS-superstition discussion is about some of (ha, can't believe I am saying this) you Westerners taking it very literally, when modern Chinese invoke these "beliefs" of theirs, when it just isn't meant literally in the way that you imagine.

Down the road when even more young Chinese just can't imagine life before daily showers and hot running water 24 hours, won't know anyone whose homes had no showers--women may well refuse to keep honoring the bathing aspect of the 月子 tradition. [I can say from experience that going four weeks without washing your hair won't kill you, and that it actually isn't that big a deal, if you're staying home all the while and in contact only with family. It is something that can be done.] We're seeing those changes and adaptations as they happen now aren't we? Then when such traditions get lost forever to the comforts of modernization and westernization, we'll bemoan that too.

I also think Jenny was not really being serious, with her “darkest days of my life” remark. Isn't that just a way of saying "I can NOT believe I (a city woman this day and age) actually let myself go without a shower for that long"--?

Posted on: Video Contest, ChinesePod Korea and the Store

you mean I'm suggesting you're going.....heck I hope not. Sorry for giving you that impression. I don't think I'm expressing myself very well.

Didn't mean to give you a hard time, I'm sorry. I just couldn't help thinking the undeserved nice things you were saying sort of sounded like I was lying in the ground being eulogized, more than that I was going away!

Yes Changye has said that on several occasions about his English. I recall he said it was just middle school level (he'd always called himself an "Intermediate learner" of Chinese too, ha). Most Japanese who think they have middle school-level proficiency will have nowhere near the command Changye has or his ability to communicate in English, but I have no reason to think he was lying when he said he feels limited using English. I hope it's all right to share that he's said the commenting style we know him by here developed in part out of such limitations. But again, because he enjoyed being part of this English-speaking community (the challenge of doing it in English included), I feel pretty certain he would have chosen to hang out here even if there already were a Japanese CPod. As for potential Japanese contributors in general, I'm of the opinion that anyone who could participate in the English-speaking community with a bit of effort can find it enjoyable enough to come hang out here. Probably not as regularly as Changye and I used to though, because the work can get exhausting (I say this based on my experience trying for nine months now to be part of a Chinese online community with my level of Chinese).

knowledge and scholarly approach was amazing as was his willingness to help--yes all those things, plus being able to communicate at that level in English and Chinese (and knowing so many other languages on top of that), is what I meant about Changye being exceptional.

I'm interested to see what CPod for Japan will be like, have no plans to subscribe. As of now anyway.

are there some in the middle who might have made it here having no other option, but now would go to a Japanese CPod?

Sure, maybe. But then we haven't really been hearing from many of them regularly have we, up to now?