30 June 2011

Qianziwen


I didn't think it was possible, but it turns out theres a nursery rhyme for learning Chinese characters (well sort of). Its called the Qianziwen (literally: Thousand Character Classic) and was created by Zhou Xingsi by order of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty as a way to help his son learn Chinese characters. It consists of 1000 non-repeating characters arranged into 250 four character phrases. Not only does no character occur twice, but the whole thing rhymes! Its not used anymore however because it follows the grammar of Classical Chinese, which may confuse those trying to learn the modern language.

Still, you can read the whole thing transcribed and annotated, here. You can also find it broken down by character here.

Still not satisfied? You can even listen to the damn thing!

 Zhou Xingsi - Qian Zi Wen .mp3
Found at bee mp3 search engine

29 June 2011

Remember the kidney guy?


Prepare to have your faith in humanity tested yet again. Remember that rather silly kid who sold his kidney for an Ipad? Here

Here we go again...... girl offers to sell her virginity for an Iphone4, Here. I detect however a viral advertising method though seeing as Steve Jobs (in my opinion) is evil.

Something






Sort of. Notice how everybody rushes to help this poor woman. Here

28 June 2011

Evolution

Dear Chinese guy

Is evolution taught in Chinese schools?

Hannah.

Dear Hannah.

A variation of evolution and creationist theories exist instead (note how I say theory since although there is compelling evidence different people have different beliefs...... cripes I sound a lot like my environmental science professor over ten years ago).

A commonly theory is most people came out of Africa. The Out of Africa theory. In a nutshell as I understand it, humans can all be traced to a small tribe over time which sort of moved out to colonise the entire African continent and eventually moved out over other land masses.

An opposing theory is that humans developed all over the place rather than originating from one tribe.... (hey look your GF is your long lost sister!). Which is gaining some sort of traction as there was a jawbone found in Southern China in a cave somewhere. It was carbon dated to be 110,000 years old. Which is inconvenient to those who believe in the out of Africa theory. As Chinese folks or rather the people who became Chinese folks were only supposed to have migrated out of Africa 70,000 years ago.


I'm not a biologist per se but there is a strange anomaly in that as a whole we're pretty compatible in terms of baby making.

Here

27 June 2011

Whats new?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13923082

Chinese being attacked in Paris...... tbh whats new this has been going on for decades if not centuries......

Asians and Chinese people are seen to be prosperous says the report, what it doesn't go into is the back breaking labour put in to become prosperous. My work week (hence my lack of updates and postings and rantings) has grown somewhat and I average at 80 hours a week now, sometimes going over 100 hours a week.

People see me as 'lucky' to have so much money and they think it just appears in my pocket or something.....meh.... I need a vacation or something

26 June 2011

Voting


Dear TCG,

How do elections in Hong Kong work? I know it isn't completely democratic
but can you give more clear explanation than Wikipedia?

凱文



I'm afraid not, namely because I don't actually vote, no I am not a non voting felon either its just that tbh I don't believe in voting and believe it is an activism sponge when really only direct action works.

21 June 2011

A Taste of American Politics Part 4

It just keeps getting better.




Heres a bonus video for the lolz


China gets 1-up'd


Story
In October 2010, America was once again beaten by the Chinese. When the National Computing Center of China in Tianjin unveiled the Tianhe-I, the worlds fastest supercomputer. At 2.5 petaFLOPS (Im not even going to bother trying to explain what that means) it beat out America's former top contender, the Cray Jaguar which ran at 1.75 petaFLOPS. But now even China has been out done, by their neighbor. Earlier this month, Fujitsu of Japan unveiled the K Computer, which runs at a whopping 8 petaFLOPS.

America and Japan have been neck and neck for the last decade in the race to see who can build the worlds fastest supercomputer. But now China is entering the race, and its proving to be a powerful contender. The International Supercomputing Conference releases its list of fastest computers twice a year. I'd be interesting to see if China reappears on the list come November.

19 June 2011

Views 2


Hey. KaiWen got me hooked on your blog.

I guess my question is, and forgive me if you've answered it before, what do Chinese people actually think of Americans? Do they think we're nice? Ugly and stupid? What's the deal?

You might be interested in my blog. I do a lot of current event stuff so check it out if that interests you. http://wanderingamericantravelblog.blogspot.com/ Stay cool.


Um this was sent to me, but answered here

16 June 2011

Extraordinary Fidelity

Movie Time!

The CIA, yes the CIA, has released a documentary called "Extraordinary Fidelity". It tells the story of John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau, who were two CIA agents shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. Their mission was to extract a Chinese agent who was organizing a guerilla rebellion to take down Mao's government. The two were captured and imprisoned for 20 years.

The film wasn't originally intended for the general public, but as a video for new recruits to help them learn about the agency's history. But now its coming to a YouTube link near you! (or embedded here)

15 June 2011

Wanna be in the Movies (UK only again)

Wanna be on TV (UK only)

Picked this up from somewhere

The BBC3 Series The World's Strictest Parents is looking for British Chinese teenagers (16-18 years old) to feature on the program.

In the series teens get sent to a family around the world for a week this summer where they live by their rules and their cultural expectations. In past series teens have been sent to India, Kenya, Barbados and the USA. We are looking for teens who would benefit from this the most, may it be that they are partying too much, not focusing on their education or not spending enough time with their family.

We have never featured a teen with Chinese parentage on the series and felt it would be interesting to address this imbalance.

If you are interested or know anyone who may benefit from this please do get in contact with the World's Strictest Parents team on 02074247706 or jamiefranklin@twentytwenty.tv

Thanks and best of luck.
Here is a family from Alabama.



Heh

Lest we forget


14 June 2011

Vietnam

Dear Chinese guy

What is the issue with China and Vietnam?

Richard.

Dear Richard

Erm.... I'm thinking you probably mean the Spratly Islands whereby there have been slight skirmishes in the waters around there..... heh a slight skirmish in the Gulf of Tonkin caused a massive war. The Spratlys being 400nm from China while only being 83nm from Vietnam. They've been contested for decades if not centuries. Tbh. With potential oil fields in those there waters who gets them gets the $$.

Stranger things have happened. For instance the UK lays a claim to the Falklands which are over 8000 miles away compared to Argentina which is in spitting distance. 2010 oh look oil has been discovered there...... maybe.

But it's simple, money and power.

We unfortunately live in a world where the right thing is not always done and MIGHT IS RIGHT. To hell with the consequences. Most countries are guilty of this sort of behaviour at one time or another when you are bigger and badder than the other guy. Though remember China got its ass handed to it in 1979.



Or

163 years ago a joint task force imposed its might against Imperial (the shadow of) China and got multiple concessions, various opened ports and then some.

Or

Diego Garcia whereby we exiled the natives to build an airbase on their homelands.

Etc etc.... its just power playing might is right BS. I'm not even going to take sides or say who is right or wrong I'm simply not going to go there at all!

Three questions

1.Why do Chinese people respect fish so much

It's like the number eight, in many dialects fish is very very close sounding to plentiful or abundance and thus is lucky. I don't know about fish much but apparently carp like fish of which gold fish are I think related are admired because I remember hearing about some sort of legend about how Carp like fish are like Salmon. It swims against the strong current and thus gives a middle finger (figuratively) to the crowd. But this is also not universally applied either.



(Cantonese tourists in Taiwan apparently)

2.Whats with Chinese people and plants why do they care so much about them

I have direct experience of this, when my dad buggers off somewhere he asks me to water his plants. This takes a long time because he simply has so many of them. He likes roses, peonies and money plants as well as Yukka. My understanding is that it is two fold for luck (which is why a lot of Chinese people have enormous money trees)


These things (Jade plants) not money money trees
This is not universal however! As the CCP pretty much ravaged the country in the 1960s. Whereby they thought they would deforest hills and mountains to plant vegetables on them. Then they got landslides and landslips and villages getting buried by mud slides and then planted them back. In modern day China tree surgeons are extremely brutal. While the tree surgeon climbs around my dad's cherry tree carefully cutting bits off in HK the tree surgeons pretty much chop all the branches off then skin it of bark and leave it to die. Though there are exceptions like the Lan Tseun wishing tree. But this is obvious because it brings them a shit load of money in suckers buying rotten oranges and throwing them over the branches to make a wish. The original two trees are nearly dead. But they have tons of house plants in an attempt to reconnect with their village like roots considering most people in China today live in concrete boxes on concrete streets where everything is covered in concrete.

3.and Why do Chinese people like rice so much

Rice is an easy one. Rice is not grown everywhere in China, in the past it is considered to be a wealthy persons food as it was in limited supply. Steamed bread, wheat cakes etc was the staple of poor people. Over years and mutant strains of hybrid rice created meant more people could eat it even though the arable land was the same. As I've said a few times before Chinese people don't eat that much rice. Northerners eat wheat and potatoes as it is dry up north. Southerners where there is more water eat rice as the climate conditions are more favourable to grow rice.

Mag

13 June 2011

Things Mexico Stole from China: Piñatas

See Here
OK not exactly. What I meant to say was that the Piñata may have been developed independently in both Meso-America and China. Piñatas were created in Meso-America in pre-columbian times out of clay pots in the shape of their gods that would be swung at with sticks until they broke, releasing pastries symbolizing their god showering them with wealth. But it is also believed that it could have also come about in China. During the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) Marco Polo's diaries described them as hanging paper figures in the shape of oxen or other animals (probably according to the zodiac) which would be struck by Mandarins, releasing seeds. The "pinata" would then be burned and the ashes gathered for good luck. However I would be skeptical, as there are no oral or written records (that I know of) that document this practice, and the Chinese were very good at writing their history down.

10 June 2011

fangzi, chezi, piaozi no more!


Real Doll comes to China sort of.

Link


Heh...

Maybe it'll stop the fangzi, chezi, piaozi gold digging which is freaking rampant these days... though tbh Made in the USA is perhaps a better choice ;)

Sorry for the lack of updates btw, I've gone and started yet another business of my own and running all of them is severely energy draining. Which has a nice side effect of making me money, but has the unfortunate side effect of some women looking at me like a meal ticket. Yeesh.

02 June 2011

Totally worth it

I have lost faith in humanity. Again.
A boy in Anhui has reportedly sold his kidney to buy...

Food? No.
A house for his family? Nope.

One of these;

Story Here and Here

Zheng, a high school freshmen reportedly sold his kidney to a Fujian businessmen for 20,000(~US$3000) so he could buy an iPad 2. Yes, an iPad.

What ponders me more is how he did this without his mother knowing until it was too late. Well, at least if he wants a supplemental kidney, there's an app for that ™