Comments on: I Work in a Trash Dump

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:38:15 +0000

Many non-Chinese speakers seem to worry whether or not Chinese people can well express themselves in Chinese.

In China, there are a lot of “Chinese” who worry whether foreigners can express themselves well or not.

When those Chinese understand that they are also “foreigners” in the eyes of foreigners, and vice versa, the worry becomes stupid.

In the song of Colour Of The Wind by Vanessa Williams, there is a lyric: if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you learn things you never knew, you never knew.

The nature draws no lines on the map of the world while we hunmans, all supposedly to be his or her descendants, do. There are no walls among the hearts of children throughout the world but their parents or grandparents try to build as many as possible into theirs before they grow up.

We begin to estrange ourselves from others the moment we begin to be aware of the three words: YOU, HE AND I; Chinese, Japanese, American, British, Arabian etc.

By: MandMX.com » Archive » Arrow Or Sword

MandMX.com » Archive » Arrow Or Sword — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:49:57 +0000

[...] link. [...]

By: Regina

Regina — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:29:30 +0000

How do Chinese solve this problem? They probably also make some mistakes. Or do they have intiution formed through years of living in Chinese-speaking surroundings to know which meaning is the one that the other party wants to convey?

By: Ian Stewart

Ian Stewart — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:55:10 +0000

How about:

好久不见 (hao jiu bu jian) Long Time no See
好酒不溅 (hao jiu bu jian) Good Wine no Splash

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:55:52 +0000

My favorite is from poem 297 (駉) of the 詩經. It has the characters 駱, meaning a white horse with a black mane, and 雒, meaning a black horse with a white mane. Both are pronounced luo, fourth tone.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:31:48 +0000

a classical joke about Mandarin:

小姐,水饺(shui jiao)多少钱一碗(wan)? Miss, how much is a bowl of boiled dumpling?

小姐,睡觉(shui jiao)多少钱一晚(wan)? Miss, how much for sleeping for a night?

Both sentences sound very similiar, but you may get different response from whom you are taking to.

By: Helen

Helen — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:48:19 +0000

从前有一只老虎yīzhī lǎohǔ（不是一纸老虎zhǐlǎohǔ）住在海口hǎikǒu市，有一天他感冒发烧fāshāo（不是发骚fāsāo），晕乎乎地夸下海口hǎikǒu说，全世界只有他不用下地道dìdào也能做出地道dìdao的意大利面。

Cóngqián yǒu yīzhī lǎohǔ (búshì yí zhǐlǎohǔ) zhùzài hǎikǒushì，yǒuyītiān tā gǎnmào fāshāo (búshì fāsāo), yūnhūhūdi kuāxiàhǎikǒushuō, quánshìjiè zhǐyǒutā bùyòng xià dìdào yěnéng zuòchu dìdao de pasta.

By: Mandy Rinn

Mandy Rinn — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:31:24 +0000

‘Being pregnant(huai2yun4)could easily be mistaken for bad luck(huai4yun4)while hitting the wrong tone can turn a poem (yi1shou2shi1)into a handful of sh*t(yi1shou3shi3).’ – From the excellent Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook first edition, no affiliation.

By: David

David — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:14:51 +0000

Thanks for sharing the interesting observations. For 收废站, to make it clear, it means recycling shops (or centers). You can sell scrap metals, plastics and waste paper etc. to them.

By: Albert

Albert — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:47:19 +0000

magnus,

I get the ideas from the shocking number of mistakes I make in Chinese and some of the mistakes my students make in English.

As for the editor: No, I don’t run these past anyone before posting. Why? Did you find a (new) typo?

I would be most honored to see a cartoon based off some humble words I set to an e-page. Please let me know if/when that happens!