Chinese Language

What’s considered intelligent…

Went for a massage with a friend because we were feeling sore after trampolining.  Yes I said trampolining, but that’s not the point of the story because there’s nothing illogical about that.

At the start of the massage I raised my head out from the little hole in the massage bed to scratch my chin, and was met with ‘怎么了？ ‘  what’s wrong?

And I said 我就。。。痒。  I just ….itch.

And she’s replies.  ‘Wow 中文这么好。’ wow this Chinese is of THIS level.   But meaning to say that it’s pretty good.

And I was thinking…hang on, I know that 痒 yang = to itch, or tickle (yes it’s the same word in Chinese, pretty funny considering it has a big difference in English)

I know that this word isn’t learnt by many beginners, nor is it even the word that intermediate speakers of a language know because they don’t need it in their daily lives, but for you to judge my entire Chinese speaking ability on 3 words….that’s pretty impressive.
Impressively naive/ stupid I mean.

She then proceeded to talk to me… and I’m sorry… but please just concentrate on the massage,  but err anyway…..proceeded to talk to me, and quoting the recent news… about the tiger (read about it here, opens in a new page), and defending the woman that stepped out of her car because her husband was driving too slowly. (after which point a tiger came out and took her away)
The massage lady said, well yeah I think she thought she had enough time.
No. that’s a really shit excuse.
Well anyway, then she quoted some sort of Chinese poem, or extended 成语, (idiom) to explain the Chinese stance…
and I’m like… ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean’ after she prodded me and asked ‘你明白吗？ ’   do you understand?

No. I don’t.

To which she replied ‘什么都不知道‘ wow you don’t know anything.’

And later in the conversation, ‘there’s so many things you don’t know’

Really?   Really? I’m speaking your language, talking about recent events, for which you apparently admitted before (albeit rather naively) that you thought my Chinese level was decent, and now you’re quoting ancient Chinese poems to back up your shit-for-brains reasoning of why the husband driving the car was doing the wrong thing…. And you have the audacity to say… ‘you really don’t know a lot’

Lady, wtf is wrong with you?

The ancient Chinese poems by the way are a normal thing. Once you really get into Chinese language learning, you’re expected to know some Chinese poems. They’re meant to teach morality and reasoning, and lessons to be learned, just like we have in English and any other culture.  But the difference is that in Chinese there are thousands of them. Same with idioms- hundreds of them.  And if you want to seem like you’re intelligent in China, you don’t show it by how rationally and logically you can prove your point; you show it by working one or more of these ancient poems, or idioms into your story. A retelling of what someone already said is considered intelligent.

Of course we do that in English too, a retelling of a quote at just the right time IS intelligent, however when it is a large basis of one’s culture…something feels slightly wrong there.

Also learning about all these things in school is a convenient way to shift focus away from learning about modern history… history that China obviously isn’t too proud of, and onto history from hundreds of years ago and the ‘lessons’ learnt from them.

I have heard before the message that they sometimes play on long distance buses as a public announcement of sorts, to ‘remember to compliment foreigners on their Chinese’
It was something like this, I heard that they do that before I heard it myself, and then even when I DID hear it myself I was unsure if I actually understood it correctly.
Basically the reasoning as I understand it, is that they want foreigners to study Chinese and the government acknowledges that it IS a difficult language to learn, but if they’re discouraged by people constantly not understanding them, then will stop studying… and it will affect China negatively somehow.

But many Chinese people often have this ‘wall’ of incomprehension, where they just don’t WANT to understand you. So if they can understand you enough, they will begin working in things that are more and more native until you eventually can’t understand them unless you’re Chinese. People you’ve just met seem to do that a lot.

When that happens in OUR home countries, and we’re talking to a non-native speaker, WE don’t do that; because we know that it will discourage the person from improving their language ability. And, moreover…it’s just rude.
But for the Chinese you have to remember that there is an overall sense of ethnocentricity from the general populous, so proving that they are better that you, (yes it sounds stupid) a native speaker of the language is better than a non-native speaker) in the comparison of who can speak that particular language … is one way to show superiority; whether it’s done consciously or subconsciously.

My show of intelligence; ie combining rational and logical thinking into wit; was what silenced her though.
So that keeps me happy.

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The politics of motorbikes in China

北京要开始“禁摩限电”新政策了！ [article]

Beijing to start ‘Prohibiting motorbikes & limiting electric scooters new policy!’

Why?

This entire article is about electric scooters breaking the rules, and generally being the dickbags that they are, and in fact the one scene in which they show a motorbike rider, he is sitting patiently at the lights waiting for it to turn green.

In this article basically they say that in Shenzhen they’ve just introduced a law that will fine people driving scooters when they break a traffic law.

From which you’re left thinking… This wasn’t being done before?

And then they have the audacity to put motorbike riders and electric scooter drivers into the same basket.  Oh yeah they’re all bad.

Why is the title ‘Prohibit motorcycles, and limit electric scooters’?

If they show the video of all the electric scooters breaking all the traffic rules, and motorbikes doing nothing of the kind, why crucify motorbike riders?

And more to the point, why make the penalty for driving a motorbike greater than the scooter if they’re not the ones doing anything wrong.

Surely that’s retarded right??

“Look at all these scooters… all these bastards… I know what we’ll do…I know what the solution is, we’ll ban motorbikes”   “and we’ll limit scooters”

看！那些电动车都不遵守交通规则，所以我们应该禁止摩托车！

看！空气污染这么严重， 所以我们应该禁止飞机！

“Look the air is full of pollution. I know what we’ll do, we’ll ban aeroplanes.”

The reasoning behind these 2 sentences honestly uses about the same logic.

Also how about the police just do their damn jobs in the first place and enforce the laws that they already have?

You don’t have to make a new law, if you make a new law and that one is not enforced then what do you think that is going to achieve?

By the way you can restrict motorbikes quite easily but not so much electric scooters.

Motorbikes need petrol, if you make it necessary for all petrol stations to check for drivers licenses then for those that don’t have them… (that have not gone through the proper procedures to be able to drive a motorbike), then they won’t be able to get petrol, and then they can’t drive.

I realise it’s not going to stop everyone, but it’s a 70% kind of thing. Because its then up to the petrol stations to enforce this. But somehow in this crazy world that we call China I somehow believe petrol station attendants can enforce the regulations better than police can.

But for scooters…what are you going to do? Go into people’s houses and ask people for their license as they’re recharging their batteries?  No.. you can’t do that.

I have heard there’s such thing as a ‘Beijing traffic safety certificate’ （北京交通安全证）that electric scooter drivers are supposed to have, but how are you going to enforce this?
I heard it when I was studying for my motorbike transference license, when I was at the Department of Transport & Licensing in Beijing asking all the necessary questions of what was needed.

But the fact that no one else has heard of it kind of shows how much this decent enough policy was enacted.

So what are they planning in Beijing then?

10 major roads are going to be restricted, mainly Changan avenue though… look that one up people, you know its significant for a reason but you won’t know why until you look it up.  (the one that goes past Tiananmen Square)

And …and this is the big one, there will be a 20 rmb fine for those people that are caught not obeying the rules.

20 rmb you say?  Holy shit, well that changes everything.
[Oh, for my Chinese friends, that’s sarcastic…. 我讽刺说啊]

That’s utterly ridiculous.

Let me just tell you that this kind of logical thinking (or rather lack of logical thinking)… to see a situation like this and then just ‘apply a new law because that will fix everything’  is not how Chinese people in general think. This is a gov. mandated thing, and most likely as well it’s a reporter trying to make a name for herself. While she only caught proof of electric scooters breaking the law, as the video shows, unfortunately as the news is also the mouthpiece of the gov. she also has to reflect their broader policy. Ie. ‘We don’t like motorbikes. ’

Why?  I haven’t found a reason to that yet.    Maybe some member has a vendetta against motorcycles.

But anyway this is the Chinese conversation I had with a Chinese friend after reading this article. I apologise for my Chinese, sometimes its not always awesome.

我= Me  她= her

我：This is more against scooters right? Because in the one 镜头你能看到一个真的摩托车，他在红绿灯等变绿灯。我觉得只有电动车的问题不是摩托车
她：对呀，骑摩托车的人都有驾照，那些骑电动车的就不一定了 但是我不太明白，那个文章里面只说了电动车的问题，没有提摩托车，但是为什么标题说“禁摩限电”？
但是我觉得禁止电动车不对，有的人买不起车，骑自行车又太远，他们只能骑电动车。买得起汽车谁愿意骑电动车啊！
不能因为电动车不遵守交通规则就不让骑电动车，应该让骑电动车的人考电动车驾照，有了驾照才可以买电动车。
政府的工作是加强管理，不能一出问题就禁止
我：对，我完全同意，除了一个方面。不一定所有摩托车有驾照。除非你fangce 说 （unless you said this sarcastically）
她：不是啊，我说骑摩托车的人都有驾照，骑电动车的人不一定都有
我：还有对，我不知道为什么他们只想禁止人骑电动车，as you say, 不是电动车是这样的人
她：对，不是电动车的问题，是人的问题

(I might have said I know some people that don’t have their Chinese motorbike license, so not ALL motorbike drivers have their license)
她：好吧[Sweat] “骑摩托车的人应该都有驾照”，重点是应该
我：我听说电动车应该已经考了一个交通安全证，但是对这个没有人执法这个规则
对，应该 这是关键词
但是为了一个摩托车他们会…. (and then speaking about the ability to enforce a motorbike through filling up with petrol, but for a electric scooter you can’t do this)

她：交通安全证 可能是一个好方法，但是执行起来可能有点困难，就像你说的，他们不需要加油，没有人能监督他们。 但是如果卖电动车的人跟买车的人要驾照或者交通安全证，可能会好一点儿，就行药店卖的处方药一样
但是也可能有的人有驾照，然后他就帮别人买电动车
或者，谁买的电动车，就登记谁的名字，以后如果出了事故，就让这个人赔
我：但是应该跟摩托车一样，如果你 break the law, 犯规很大
她：对，加大对电动车违法交通规则的惩处力度
我：Or…. or…. 或者警察可以开始做他们的工作，就执法现在的交通规则。我们不需要一个新的 规则，如果执法现在的规则就行。
因为如果他们说，OK现在我们发了新的规则但是也没有执法，终于是这样的问题

她： “ 因为如果他们说，OK，现在我们发布了新的规则，但是还是没有执法，那问题还是一样的。 ” （she is correcting me to make my Chinese more awesome）

 

I hear this countless times by the way, “oh I don’t like politics, I’m not really that interested in it”

Do… you not understand what the word ‘politics’ means?

Its important because its about how the country that you live in is governed, what rules are made, and how these rules will affect your life.

I think that’s pretty important.

And pretty damn easy to take an interest in.

A stupid motorbike rule, policemen not doing their jobs, laws not being enforced because it creates confusion and somehow the people that run the country like it that way, retarded new laws being made….this is all politics!

Not interested in politics? Don’t understand it?  You can understand this right? You’re angry at this right?  You’re already well on your way to getting involved in politics.

Hooray!

Passive aggresive un-needed insults

In my experience Chinese people seem to be pretty good at ‘by-the-way insults’

For example–

“hey you’re pretty good at Chinese….. you’re so much better than john.”

(Johns sitting right there)

With John thinking….wow, you just gave a compliment to someone, and apparently you couldn’t resist insulting me in the same sentence….. what a dick!

“I can’t understand at all”

“I can’t understand at all”

Heeerr….   Bullshit!

If someone makes the effort to try to speak your language, the least you can do is try to understand what they’re saying.

Again this is conditioning, something that (unfortunately) chinese people learn from a young age…. Everything has to be perfect.  –  rote learned to be perfect.   If it’s not perfect you get a zero and you fail.

So it’s the same requirements that they instantly put on foreigners trying to speak their language.  Despite the fact that when they try to speak English we make every effort to understand what they are trying to say… and at least guess given the context as to what their meaning might be.

Because to say ‘that doesn’t make sense at all’  well that would just be plain rude wouldn’t it?

Saying something like that would diminish confidence for the person trying so hard to speak to a point where no communication is possible.

This might have something to do with why integration is very difficult between Chinese and the rest of the world.

Anyway,   a friend recently told me this.    I said a sentence… which was more or less correct….i will admit not 100% correct, but more or less.   And he said “that doesn’t make sense at all”

No…… if I were speaking Swahili to you, that wouldn’t make sense at all     so you can understand that when he said this, I looked a little bit offended.

I then proceeded to ask him..    “[word]….. shenme yisi? (whats the meaning of ….)    …[word]….. shenme yisi? (whats the meaning of ….)    ; [word]….. shenme yisi? (whats the meaning of ….)”

He knew all of them.

And “you know if i combine these words, with these words it = this meaning right?”

….Yes,

“And these words with these words = this meaning”

….Yes…

 

… so in fact what you should have said was ‘I understand , but your sentence is not quite right”     compared to “that doesn’t make sense at all “… it’s a big difference.   Plus a big difference to how you affect the others’ feelings.

The point is, that in China there is a difference (compared to other countries) with how people speak and how ‘polite they are’  it is very direct in some aspects and then very indirect in others.  But to for-go simple politeness; to not think about the feelings of someone that is talking to you….that’s just bad. And to claim as is often the case, “oh but it china it’s just like that”.  Well that just shows that people are not thinking for themselves, you don’t all have to be impolite insensitive people, you could make a slight effort.

For example if someone said that to YOU, I’m pretty sure you’d be pretty offended….so don’t say it to other people.

That’s what the golden rule is all about.

Or…. Are you too stupid to figure that out for yourself too?

If you’re going to be rude and not care about hurting the others feelings, how about you just take it all the way?   “what you just said…its shit, diareahea from the mouth…I can’t understand anything man…give up on this language and then kill yourself for your shame”

Face-mask or something more interesting…

As described in some previous articles, zh & j, and X & sh, and Q & ch , this sounds sound very similar.

Consider these 2 words.  Kou3zhao4 口罩  & kou3jiao1 口交

Now to the people that can read Chinese, perhaps you’ll already be laughing, but to those that can’t.  The point is that the ‘Zh’ & the ‘J’  sound very similar to foreigners.   So we generally have to rely on context.

The first one, kou zhao means a face mask, like a surgical mask to ward off pollution,  however the 2nd one means blowjob.

Don’t want to get those 2 confused.

In fact so much so that whenever I need to pick up some pollution masks, I always have to do as much miming and explaining as much extra detail as possible.   (hand to mouth, …explaining that I want a pack of 10, these kinds of things.   Sometimes I even take a used one in and then say the words.)

The point is, is that so far the people at the pharmacy can understand …via context, that this is what I want.

However when I explain to Chinese friends that these 2 words sound similar…. Its as if they’ve never even contemplated something like this.

Always, always… there looks like their eyes have been illuminated to something spectacular.

This I find kind of illogical because even they themselves are constantly saying that some words sound like other, but conveniently this never works out when a foreigner is saying something.

For instance. In Chinese the number 4 is bad.  Why? Because si4 四=4 sounds a bit like si3死= death

Or there’s a shopping website called 58.com  because you pronounce it wu ba, which sounds like wo (chinese for ‘I’, ba English for …buy)

Oh and now I’ve apparently just been told that it is also thought to mean wo fa, = I get rich. Fa is even the wrong sound… but whatever.

So in the end, this why in many hotels you won’t find the number 54 or any variation of this, as it could be translated to   ‘I die’.

Next time you’re in a Chinese elevator take a look at the elevator buttons.  Interesting.

mmexport1430575785162

Taxi, Asian commonalities & the BARRIER!

On the topic of speaking Chinese again, and the tones, and the difference between the very similar sounds… we have a tip for you.   ….
If you don’t get them right, or you don’t feel like getting them right, or even if you think the tones are a load of crap…. which let’s face it they are…..

You at least better LoOk Chinese.   As the barrier that Chinese people often have when understanding a language …does not seem to come up if they think from first impression, that they should be able to understand you.

You know how many westerners … (that probably haven’t travelled asia) say ‘oh all Asians look the same’
and some Asians often retort ‘oh but we think all foreigners look the same’ … despite the obvious flaws in this statement …
for example.. oh I don’t know.  Many Asians all come from the same basic race– all have straight black hair, … all have dark brown – black eyes,  have little arm hair (yeah strange but whatever), skin colour is mostly the same, and comparatively to westerns  (usually) aren’t as big,   and most of their eyes are not as “open as ours”  blah de blah….

The point is that westerners are basing their assumptions on easy to spot commonalities, ie. Things that you can recognise from afar.
Although many Chinese say “all foreigners look the same”….
Shit man, for a start they are different colours…  if you can’t notice that  black is not the same as white, that’s a pretty big one, and even if you just go for the whiteys.. they all have different hair, some have red hair, some have wavey hair, some are just hairy all over….
This can’t really be said for Asians.    These are pretty big differences.
[Granted what they do focus on are things that are up close and personal, double eyelids, cheek bones, …blah de blah…. But to ignore the latter is just stupid]

But anyway I seem to have got sidetracked.
The point was, that whilst a lot of Asians, especially the Chinese claim all foreigners look the same, …kind of inferring that they can tell the difference between Asian people , …..the truth is , they really can’t.
In the majority of experiences I’ve had, Chinese people will often turn to a Korean friend, a Vietnamese friend, or even a Japanese person and ask them.. what did this laowai want to say?.  Inferring that while Mr whitey may be a Laowai, they regard the Asian person sitting next to me as not.  In fact it may be obvious to a lot of foreigners living in China that Vietnamese people look quite different to Chinese people, … but to Chinese, ironically they can’t see the difference.

This is where the barrier comes in.  Chinese people (generally) assume that foreigners can’t speak Chinese, and from there, their mind is set ‘They CAN’T speak Chinese… therefore,… whatever comes out of their mouth… I will not be able to understand’  [This is slowly changing…..but I have to stress….very SLOWLY, as it still happens with educated Chinese.
– -It’s a cultural mentality thing, not an immediate education thing- as in they learn it at home from their parents, regardless of whether or not they have western education– it still shines through]

For instance one time, a very long time ago, I got in a taxi with a Vietnamese friend (by the way she was actually from Norway, was very western and didn’t speak a word of Chinese),
The driver said.. “Ni qu narrrr?”  ->Where are you going (in a thick Beijing accent)
to which I said: “women xiang qu Yi Jia Jia ju”
I know the tones were right because I looked it up previously to make sure.
And what did this butt-plug  do?
He shook his head  and said “Naarrrr?”
I extenuated my words more  “Yi jiA JIa jU!”   (IKEA furniture)

He turned around, waved his hand like he was saying goodbye and said “mei ting dong ->I don’t understand
…but the action, if you haven’t got it, ..was very rude.

He then turned to my Vietnamese friend and said “Lao wai shuo shenme ??”

Is she not a laowai?  (strict definition… old outside??) Does she not live up to this??  Or are you so ignorant that you can’t tell the difference?

She actually turned to me; asked me in English how to say;  I told her how to say IKEA in Chinese…the EXACT same way as I had just said to the taxi driver…. …Don’t forget this is in front of the guy, and he’s no doubt capable of listening to this;  and then she repeated what I had said directly back to him.
and he goes, “oh zhi dao”  (yep I know)

WTF??   You FucKing faggot!   What kind of deaf nugget are you?>?

 

The other thing  is which is in direct relation to what this post is meant to be talking about is that it is in context.  And that context is… 1.) You are a taxi driver
2.) people want to go places in your taxi
3.) you’ve just asked ‘Ni qu narrr?’ (where are you going?)

Question:…   What kind of answer are you likely to hear back from the passenger?   Regardless of if it is a foreigner, or a Chinese.

It’s a PLACE     you dickhole!

At this point in time it doesn’t matter what you think the tones may be , there’s an extremely good chance that the person wants to go to a PLACE.
(or you know…. 0.0001% chance that they’re completely crazy, and just mumbling crap)
宜家家具  (yi2jia1 jia1ju4)  IKEA  if you say in some wrong tones, maybe could mean 一家加注（yi1jia1 jia1zhu4）  the whole family increase the stakes..
bUt…. Mr no brainer… think about it, if it’s possible. ..
What is the most likely answer?….. think about the context…  and chances are you’ll come to the right conclusion.

If not, I’m afraid you are simply an illogical nugget!

As for the tones …. even more….

Ages ago a friend posted an article about the importance of getting the right tones.  (I will try to find it, but it’s all about foreigners saying something like 我要睡觉 wo yao shui4 jiao4, rather than 我要水饺 wo yao shui3 jiao3   Saying ‘I want to sleep’ to a dumpling vendor instead of ‘I want water dumplings (which most people will know as Jiao zi not as shui jiao)  and the street vendor not understanding what the foreigner wants.

Now if you’re going to be a fastidious dick-wad then sUre,…. This IS important. …..
So you can finally be understood by the street vendor who is actually equally happy with you just pointing to things and saying ‘zhe ge, zhe ge , na ge’ (this, this, that)  and couldn’t give 2 shits if you spoke chinese or not.
And even if the vendor does care if you can speak a bit of chinese,… in all reality , I would hope he/she would be more impressed that a laowai, would even attempt to learn his/her language, instead of being like all the others that just point to things and say slowly… “1”    and speaking to them like an idiot.

Again context.  The guy Is selling dumplings, a guy comes to the shop….  Most people would figure, ‘hey, I sell dumplings, this laowai comes to my shop….I guess he might want to buy some dumplings’

Rather, than telling me about his immediate desire to go to sleep.
You know… for some odd reason at my dumpling store.

There’s no ‘stab’ in the dark here…. It should be pretty damn clear

It’s not thinking outside the box… as some are probably about to comment on… it is just not looking only at the point of the needle!

Those people that can’t figure out context…    are lacking some serious logic.

Here it IS slightly about culture, because people here do learn things like that here.  However at the same time, many chinese people don’t know the tones for individual words either.

Next time you’re on the street, ask a few people the tones of a word you’re having trouble with.  Some people will get it right, and guaranteed you will have a few people that just take a guess, or genuinely believe it is something else.   That’s because ironically, what they’ve learnt is from hearing the word in context.  BAMM!

The only difference is that between Chinese people, there is no ‘barrier’ that instantly comes up.

A friend’s take on Chinese tones

Ok so we’ve covered the tones somewhere in an article before, and as you might have read, in fact a lot of the Chinese major sounds sound very similar to each other. (At least to the western ear)

For instance the difference between zh & j, and X & sh, and Q & ch  doesn’t really seem to be taught properly.
A friends’ take:….     “Who the hell would create a  language with so few apparent individual words? ?”

More importantly the key syllables sound very similar to each other, and when you really want to say a different word… the logic apparently was just… ‘let’s put a different tone on it’.

Because, you know…. that won’t be confusing at all….    And out of the many possible things we could have thought of to express our language verbally….somehow… this is the best thing we could think of.

What were they thinking when they started naming things??   Imagine if people did this for English….

“what shall we call this?”  (pointing towards a door)

“Ah, let’s call it door.”

“Good, and what about this? (pointing towards a cow)

“Ah, ok, how about we call it DoOrrr?”

“Brilliant, ok and how about this??”  (pointing towards a table)

“Oh that’s easy, we shall call it  dOOOr”

“Fantastic…. I think we’re really getting the hang of this.”

How about you just get some more sounds???      Huh?

For instance how about just adding a few more compound sounds like ‘BL’ or ‘SK’ or ‘Pi’ (Pih- short I sound)??  or even just a ‘v’ ?

Does this not seem evident even to the Chinese people, when their own national news channels have to have subtitles??    or songs huh?  because when you sing songs…all the tones get messed up anyway?

[Yes I am aware different provinces have different ‘dialects’- which are very nearly whole languages in themselves]

{{{For an actual example of the tones:    consider the word chang  …
昌chang1 = prosperous,
肠chang2 = intestines,
厂chang3 = factory,
倡chang4 = to initiate.
At the same time …..
娼chang1 can also mean = prostitute,
偿chang2 can also mean = to taste (food),
场chang3 can also mean = stage for a play,
唱chang4 can also mean = to sing.

Now some of you may be thinking, …’well  these all have different characters so at least tHaT’s ok.’
长 this character can be read as chang2 or zhang3.

Or actually 场 can in fact be read as chang3 = stage for a play, of chang2 = a measure word for events.
And it’s not like this is just for this one individual word. …  Fun right??   }}}

Chinese pronunciation priorities

This is something that I really don’t get, or at least I don’t see why so many people put so much emphasis on it.
The TONES – for speaking Chinese.

4 tones, any of us who have studied Chinese will know 1st tone, flat (& high) 2nd tone (apparently rising)  3rd tone little down and then rising (just an extended 2nd tone really) and 4th tone- which they tell you is a falling tone (but is really a short staccato kind of tone)
They say when you start learning Chinese you should pay extra attention to the tones… but if you want to really learn Chinese (& not give up on it after 6 months ) then unfortunately you have to relinquish control of the tones a little bit, and just do as Chinese children do when they’re learning the language, -pick up the tones over time, via much repetition.

What you should work on is pronunciation.  The difference between zh & j, and X & sh, and Q & ch  doesn’t really seem to be taught properly.   But considering this is the majority of Chinese sounds then you really have to get these sounds right.

This remind me of a few stories,  check them out here  and here

In terms of pronunciation though for now, what I say in another article, is that it very much helps if you look Chinese.
For example I had an Indonesian class-mate, who apparently a while back had some Chinese heritage, but the point is, like a lot of Indonesians here, he really can’t get any of the sounds right.    Perhaps… just Perhaps his tones for the words are correct, but I have no idea because surely without the words being right, the tones don’t fucking matter.

Here is a normal basic sentence:  Wo xiang qu shitang –(I want to go to the cafeteria)

In easy-read Chinese (for those that can’t read pinyin, its roughly   woh shang choo sher tang

But this Indonesian guy will say:  woh tang tooo derr dang.    WTF??   Ok sure, he didn’t add in a word, or something like this, but it’s pretty ridiculous.

However…. many Chinese people can understand him
–simply because he looks slightly Chinese.
Completely illogical to me, but apparently it makes sense to them.

Soup

Had just eaten a nice Xinjiang meal at a restaurant nearby university…

[They have this soup which I guess comes with every meal, but in the winter it is especially amazing. Basically just a mixture or cumin, coriander and water, — it still tastes great.  All restaurants should have this in fact.]

Again went to the restaurant we normally go to, ‘Tasty pip pip restaurant’ and instead of ordering the usual gong bao ji ding, or curry chicken (damn I feel like a foreigner) I was perusing the soups on the menu.
The lady came across, my friends ordered their normal stuff, and I said ‘ I want to have soup today’ Of course pointing and looking at the soups,
‘but these don’t appeal to me, I just want a normal cumin and coriander soup’
(In Chinese you actually say ‘I want to drink soup’)
So …you might see where I’m going with this, but the key word of context, was ‘Drink’
Not to mention ‘soup’  or ‘tang’ in Chinese.
She said “can’t do that”
‘Why?’
And she said “oh because we don’t have any hot water”
WTF??   You’re a restaurant, and you don’t have any hot water?  That’s retarded!
‘But can I order one of these soups?’
“Yes”
Wtf??   How can you not see the lack of logic in what you are saying?  How do you make a soup? You have to either heat it up or make it with hot water…..  fucking retarded.
So anyway, I said to her, ‘how about you bring me the basic soup (tang) and some coriander and cumin and I’ll make it myself?’
And she just looked at me with a confused look and basically just mumbled something of which the total meaning was ‘NO’

In the end we ordered a dish called ‘zi ran ji ding’  (literally cumin chicken)
So I said ‘fine, just bring me the basic soup (tang) –(because somehow she could manage this despite not having any hot water)  and I will take some of the spices from this dish and make the (damn) soup myself’
Again she looked at me strangely.
And she came out of the kitchen and put a bowl of sugar in front of me and walked away.
WTF is this?
Oh said one of my colleagues…. ‘You must have got the tones wrong on the word ‘tang’ ‘
[tang1 flat high tone汤 = soup ; tang2 rising tone 糖= sugar]
Yes…. Perhaps, but ……. Fucking retard, it’s all about context….
(This is one of the things that really pisses me off about Chinese language and the logic that comes from people trying to understand you)
If I said ‘tang’ …..no matter what the fuck the tone is, (I could sing it for all I care),
and whilst saying it…. I’m looking at the menu,
pointing to soups….
And talking about drinking those fucking soups…. I would presume the person listening to me would have the basic logical sense to figure out….oooo perhaps he’s talking about ….DRINKING SOME FUCKING SOUP….
Not that hard.  listen for the context fucktards

Damn that woman at the restaurant is really starting to piss me off

As we were eating, a Chinese girl at another table asked for some ‘kai shui’ (hot water)
And  she got the reply “No… we don’t have any hot water”
This other Chinese girl, fortunately for her… looked quite confused…. Clearly thinking ‘what kind of restaurant doesn’t have any hot water?’
(I say fortunately because it shows that she’s not logically inept as well)

Now I don’t know if this laoban (boss woman) said no to even this Chinese girl because she was trying to cover her practical joke on me, – the silly foreigner, or because she actually had no hot water.

After lunch we went back, and I took the remenants of the ‘zi ran ji ding’ back to the office and decided to make my own cumin soup.

IMG_20131212_134808

It tasted like shit.