language

A Linguistic Analysis of the “Go China” Recital

justrecently — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:39:00 -0600

The Tuluotuo Blog published a linguistic analysis of the “Go China 2009″ (or zhongguo jia you, “2009, 中国加油!”) recital on December 30. While an encounter with the video can be scary, it is also a good piece of work in terms of rhythms and probably better than many so-called “new poems”, says the blogger - and while [...]

Watching China Grow

justrecently — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:49:00 -0600

The Western China-related blogosphere sometimes seems to be split down the middle - pandahuggers and pandabashers. (Actually, I think it is a bit unfair to equate the Pandas and China in its current shape. Imaginative Chinese people make take offense from that because they think of themselves as self-strenghtening and rising while Pandas are kind of [...]

The Good Ganbu’s 90th Birthday

justrecently — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:31:00 -0600

Helmut Schmidt, German chancellor from 1974 to 1982, and co-editor of Germany’s big weekly Die Zeit for most of the time since, turns 90 this week. He’s an icon in Germany, for being an ostensibly uncaring know-it-all, for his hard work, for regaining an unexpected amount of trust abroad for his country after its only [...]

China Radio International in English: Where’s the Flavor?

justrecently — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 04:54:00 -0600

This summer, I tuned into a news broadcast on shortwave, and for several minutes, I thought I was listening to the Voice of America (VoA). However, I was listening to an English program by China Radio International (CRI). This probably wouldn’t have happened if the focus hadn’t been on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey, but on [...]

Learning Faster?

justrecently — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:48:00 -0600

Learning to read and write took more time when I was a child. Nowadays, it happens faster. But students hardly ever reach the perfection we had to reach to achieve good marks in school.
Does that hurt? Not necessarily. Orthography in the 1970s and 1980s were probably not so different from Imperial exams for would-be officials [...]

No Independent Labor Unions, but Strikes anyway

justrecently — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:39:00 -0600

Be nondirective, make
your few words precious.
When the work is done, end
gained, everyone will say:
We did it by ourselves,
naturally. – Tao Te Ching, 17
____________________________
China’s state chairman Hu Jintao yesterday praised the achievements made during the past 30 years of reform. He also said that that China would never adopt a “Western political system” - the success of [...]

Mind The Gap – Localization in China

China Business Success Stories — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:22:00 -0600

Have you heard about L10N, G11N and i18n? L10N is abbreviation of “Localization” (or spell as Localisation); there are 10 characters between first L and the last N. In similar, G11N refers to Globalization – 11 characters between G and N, and i18n for internationalization.
It is said these slangs firstly appear among software engineers. Internationalization [...]
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A Modern Atlas of Hurt Feelings

justrecently — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:57:00 -0600

I’m sure you have found links to that map in many places, but it would seem heartless not to take notice.
Here is the original (in Chinese), and here is an English translation listing the countries that have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
This is what happens if you dare to (according to Austin Ramzy).
[...]

Free Chinese Dictionary for iPhone in the Creative Commons

gwbstr — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:59:00 -0600

Today a colleague showed me that what I had hoped for has come true: There is a full-featured, free, Creative Commons licensed dictionary, and there is a good iPhone application to use with it. The dictionary is CC-CEDICT, and the iPhone app DianHua.
So far (for the last couple of hours) it’s served me well. But [...]

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“The Art of Happiness” (Dalai Lama)

justrecently — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:32:00 -0600

Besides music, my MP3 player also contains a number of audio books. The friend who put all that stuff onto the player probably knew very well that I’ve never cared about the more spiritual writings of Tibet’s supreme monk - I was only interested in his role as Tibet’s spiritual leader, and the cultural [...]