User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi changye,

shouldn't you be busy right about now helping make 饺子 and stuff? anyway ... 有趣得很。 now i will need to get my dictionary and figure out everything the passage says about the horse (and pig), but i do understand 老说"我反对..." which makes me laugh (even though i don't say that nearly as much as 我真受不了...), as does 不考虑他人的观点.  this reminds me, a palm-reader once took one look at my hands and told me i had such a じゃじゃ馬の相！ both hands. meaning i'm disposed to leave home, get out and go all over the world and not be tied down, that i'm unsuited to settle down.  but i haven't lived like a じゃじゃ馬.

a very happy 牛年 to you and your fire-horse wife and tiger daughter (tiger girls are good!)!

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi changye, had missed your last post.

我并不是不敬重科学的。同时，要我说，科学也并不是绝对的。as i see it, something agreed to have been "proven" in science doesn't actually prove anything that matters to me. i think of science as the common ground on which people can continue asking questions and seeking answers to de-mystify our world.  i'm just comfortable i guess, with not ever being able to really truly know about anything.

oh and another silly conversation-starter i quite like is palm-reading 呵呵

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi wchan and changye thank you for your very helpful replies--你们真牛啊！

changye i believe you answered the question i originally had which was, on what date did the incoming animal take effect in my birthyear? i see that if i wanted to be a snake i should have arrived 9 days earlier. so i am resigned now, to living w/the curse (!) of the fire-horse ...

wchan 我的名字是"眞利江"写的。没有"中文名字" per se, like most Japanese students of Chinese (we just learn how to read our kanji names in 中文 and go by that).  where you are, how do you eat 年糕 at new years?  toasted or in broths, like we do?

祝大家合家欢乐  笑口常开 

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi again wchan,

actually the link didn't work for me as is, but i got to the website and clicked on the zodiac icon.

http://www.asia-home.com/china/zodiac.php

so i guess according to this site, the new animal actually took effect january 21 which was the first day of the lunar new year that year, and not some "inauguration" date like february 3 or 4.

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi changye

yes it's just a conversation piece isn't it, because we Japanese are so unimaginative when it comes to having things to say to each other. but sometimes those of us who bear the brunt of the joke ALL the time don't find it as funny. the blood-type thing, that's just bollocks--it takes so many more kinds to make up our world than what, 4 or 5!!  同时呢，i'll admit i'm quite happy to talk about zodiac signs under western astrology, having bought my horoscope from a website some years ago and being very impressed.

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

hi changye,

good for you, to still be alive and uneaten! superstitions are silly, but they do have a way of dying hard. i've had people find out what year i was born in pause, then give me this "ah-so-that's-why" sort of look. but that is hopefully becoming, as you say, a thing of the 过去. i guess we'll really know when the next fire-horse rolls around in 2026.

and thanks a lot btw, for pointing out that i was born in pre-modern times!  哈哈哈

thanks for the link wchan! 

i'd have liked to be able to call people "branding" me a 典型火马 wrong ... but OK啦。 你说得对，属什么都好！

谢谢你们

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

不用那么客气 wchan, thank you for your quick reply!

but oh no ... so i AM a fire-horse? is this not also a (very) inauspicious sign to be born under in China, if you're female? or is this one of those superstitions that got garbled as it came over to Japan, which is where i am?  you can see the dent in the births graph for that year in Japan despite it being in the middle of great economic growth and everyone thinking life could only get better. people actually tried not to have children that year. unless i'm completely mistaken, it was because they dreaded having a fire-horse girl, believed to become ogress wives if they ever married (woe to the man who married a fire-horse woman, for he would surely be eaten alive by her sooner or later, and all that).

so could you tell me how you worked that out?

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

wchan 您好，

okay, so i tried. to find out, w/out having to give away that info ... it's 1966. 那就明白了吧，为什么属马不好。

Posted on: Birth by Chinese Zodiac

大家好！

我有一个问题想问你们博学多识的：

我的生日是一月二十八号。我生年的 lunar new year's day 是一月二十一号。

but i guess the zodiac year of that year's animal only began february 3 or 4  (and it’s usually feb 2, 3 or 4 every year). so for those of us born between what seems like a little vacuum there, is our animal sign the one that is officially in effect until that february 3 date?  i'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me--i'd really like it confirmed once and for all that 我不属马，属蛇。

Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟

hi pete,

what i meant by "seeking recordings done by professionals", was a suggestion for each of us to go find those on our own (many books come with CDs).  i don't doubt at all that the Chinesepod staff recite the poems very well, and think PWP is great as is!

we had a 5-minute TV show 漢詩紀行 in Japan that just ended recently (because, i guess, they finally covered all the poems coverable? after years of one poem a day 5 days a week). each show would give a biographical sketch of the poet and the background of the poem, and be shot at the locations like the 西湖, 赤壁, 等等。 they had famous stage actors reading the Japanese translations in the main audio, and a wonderful Chinese reader in the sub, whose delivery could really transport you over the ages to where the poet was lamenting the loss of a dear friend, or ruminating on his fate. and that was a great part of how i got hooked on the sound of Chinese.

i only wanted to say we would really be missing out if we didn't ever try to listen to that level of recital. especially as the art of the recital is so important in China.  PWP is a great place to be introduced to a poem we like. and there are many resources available out there for us, if we want to listen to them recited by "professionals".