User Comments - zhenlijiang
zhenlijiang
Posted on: A Wasteful Husband
June 17, 2011 at 5:34 AMIn the Upper Inter Group Photo lesson dialogue where I first heard this 浪费感情, "wasting emotion" is used in another context. And you could also say 浪费表情 "wasting expression" for that. Very interesting!
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 15, 2011 at 4:32 PMI had to go look up "flagon" Bodawei. I wonder what possessed you to try the second time, at that particular point in your life. The set-up helps convey how violent the end was, but somehow your China stories are easier to picture! Maybe because you don't say who "we" were--was it intended to be a romantic moment?
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 15, 2011 at 4:13 PMYes, but I'd say it's more by passiveness than a decision to do so. When I started studying Chinese we spent the first class learning, then kept reviewing for the next six months, how to say our names in the Mandarin pronunciation. It throws us at first, because we don't know anything as total newbies and don't go into our first Chinese class prepared for our own names to be unrecognizable to us.
Posted on: Yoga
June 14, 2011 at 4:09 PM嘘~这个朋友刚才公开坦白，很可能有陷于自我嫌恶的缘故呢。我们不要烦他吧。
Posted on: Ballet
June 14, 2011 at 7:38 AMSo 一位！二位手！三位！is "first position! arms in second! third position!"--? 往外 / 往里 is en dehors and en dedans? I can't even read 绷脚 but I love it. So I guess most of the terminology turns into Chinese, in Chinese ballet classes? Interesting, and it makes sense, that would be much easier to do than say with Japanese. Ballet terminology in Japanese classes is French, and teachers will sometimes use a bit of English as well, such as to give the count.
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 14, 2011 at 6:35 AMHaha I guess on some level that's better than telling someone you just can't quit even though you know very well how bad chain-smoking cigarettes is, and that you feel miserable and guilty about it every single day.
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 14, 2011 at 6:23 AMHi podster, actually I seldom have the opportunity to talk with Chinese people face-to-face; this is when I'm writing on message boards and such. I imagine I could often be being rude without meaning to, that is, no one has come out and said I was. That's why I don't know and the thought is terrifying to me. I think your example is a good one though.
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 14, 2011 at 5:58 AMmaybe price is a factor? 'Wow - they're so cheap!' Stress? Away from home, teaching. Maybe a socializing thing where you need to get on with new people all the time?
I can understand that. I was a smoker for 8 years in a previous life and my reasons for starting were related to insecurity and stress in social settings (even after it became a habit I never craved cigarettes when I was at home). And yes there is some sort of bonding that goes on when you join someone (complicity) or a group of people (instant brother/sister-hood) smoking. Tobacco taxes were raised by 40% recently, but in those days a pack in Japan was only 250 yen or so. Now it's over 400 yen--still not the 500 I thought it should be. And still considerably cheaper than the 700+ yen I paid in Sydney in the 90s. The woman at the hotel gift shop there gave me the dirtiest look too, as if I had asked for something illegal. I admit in those days it was sort of fashionable in Japan for women to smoke. I'm so glad to be rid of (what was for me) that terrible habit.
Posted on: I don't smoke
June 14, 2011 at 5:26 AMI should have chosen a username like yours Babyeggplant. Zhenlijiang is how my (Japanese) given name is read in Mandarin. My avatar is one of the 六书通 seal character forms of 眞, found here:
http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E7%9C%9F&submitButton1=Etymology
Posted on: A Wasteful Husband
June 17, 2011 at 6:03 AM啊！ Just had a 浪费感情 moment. 回头再说。