Tag Archives: #language

Panda II FLASHBACK

Posted on December 6, 2016 by d4vid

A year ago — on the epic tour of China I took Debbie on through Datong, Xi’an, and Dujiangyan — we splurged on an absurdly expensive opportunity to take one-on-one pictures with a young panda at a different Panda research … Continue reading →

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Thinking

Posted on December 3, 2016 by d4vid

There was one artist at M50 that Debbie and I especially enjoyed, a charming local artist named 韦萍 (Wei Ping, but goes by “Sunny” in English) who does large scale portraiture (and some landscapes) using the words “stop thinking” handwritten over … Continue reading →

Posted in 上海 | Tagged | 1 Comment

Goats

Posted on November 23, 2016 by d4vid

Arrived in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa, one of the highest cities in the world.  The name literally means “Place of the Gods” and christened by the 7th century Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo.  The original name of the city was … Continue reading →

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Monster

Posted on October 31, 2016 by d4vid

Monster Energy drinks have finally arrived in China!  I used to drink these a lot back in the States, but they never had them here.  Whenever I’ve been in Japan or New Zealand or back home, I’d drunk a whole … Continue reading →

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Cantilevered

Posted on October 7, 2016 by d4vid

East of the Jiayuguan fort, there is a section of the Great Wall which is so steep that it is called the “Overhanging Great Wall” (or, as certain poorly-translated signs nearby say, the “Cantilevered Great Wall.”)  The Chinese name is 悬臂长城 (Xuánbì … Continue reading →

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Channels

Posted on October 4, 2016 by d4vid

In the spirit of the Datong dinner menu, I present to you the English translations of the cable channels available in my hotel here in Jiayuguan.  I present them unedited, including capitlization and punctuation. Gansu culture, film and television Gansu public City, … Continue reading →

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Connubial

Posted on October 4, 2016 by d4vid

I arrived at the Jiayuguan Hotel an hour before checkin, so I decided to have a drink at the bar and read my book in the lobby. I wasn’t their usual clientele so, as has happened before, they had to … Continue reading →

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Pressure

Posted on October 3, 2016 by d4vid

Coming back from Qinghai Lake, we were running low on gas.  And by “gas” I mean actual gas, because the driver’s car ran on natural gas.  Or so I thought. At the start of our journey in Xining, we had … Continue reading →

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Menagerie

Posted on October 3, 2016 by d4vid

The short road back from Bird Island to the main highway was surprisingly slow.  Locals — some on foot, some on motorcycle — had no qualms about blocking traffic. In Mandarin, I quipped to my driver, “They call it Bird … Continue reading →

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Teal

Posted on October 3, 2016 by d4vid

青 (qīng) can mean “blue” or “blue-green” or what anthropological linguists dub “grue“.  海 (hǎi) means “sea”.  青海湖 (Qīnghǎi hú) means “Blue-Green Sea Lake” which is redundant, but helps differentiate the lake from the surrounding province which bears its name. In … Continue reading →

Posted in 青海湖 | Tagged | 1 Comment

Wild

Posted on October 2, 2016 by d4vid

Went to the 西宁青藏高原野生动物园 (Xīníng qīngzàng gāoyuán yěshēng dòngwùyuán) or the “Xining Zoo” or more accurately “Xining Wild Animal Park” or even more accurately “Xining Tibetan Plateau Wild Animal Park” or for the truly pedantic “Xining Qinghai & Tibetan Plateau Wild … Continue reading →

Posted in 西宁 | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Lions

Posted on September 14, 2016 by d4vid

It is said that the founder of Singapore saw a lion here and, so, named the place Singapura (“lion city” in Malay.)  But it was probably a Malayan tiger he saw because there’s zero evidence lions ever lived here. Regardless, … Continue reading →

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Sports

Posted on September 11, 2016 by d4vid

My Mandarin teacher and her husband lived in Japan for several years as he studied at a university.  Their daughter is in second grade now and attend the Shanghai Japanese School, an elementary school which teaches classes entirely in Japanese. … Continue reading →

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Shift

Posted on August 6, 2016 by d4vid

Okay, there’s this weird thing that happened in the history of the English language called the Great Vowel Shift.  It’s the reason English pronounces vowels differently than all the other European languages.  (It’s also the reason in Shakespeare plays where … Continue reading →

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Ugly

Posted on August 5, 2016 by d4vid

Peter Jackson named his FX company after a truly hideous indigenous New Zealand insect called a “weta” (which a Maori word meaning “ugly”.) Had a chance to go to the Weta Cave and a tour of their shop. Photos weren’t … Continue reading →

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