Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with chinese

Article on Chinese youth

anonymous78 — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:20:22 -0800

I'm looking for a radio program or new article I heard/read in the past month about growing up in China and all of the pressures Chinese youth face to be successful in school and life. The program mentioned that this was partly a result of the one-child policy, which means children will be responsible for their parents later on in life. I also remember the article/program mentioning some examples of extreme parenting - a mother who went to school with her child, etc.

It's likely to have been a program on NPR or an article in the New York Times or the New Yorker, but I couldn't find anything on those sites so that's not a guarantee.

Koi carps in Chinese restaurants

sour cream — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:32:49 -0800

Ever notice the fish tanks with koi carp near the entrance in many Chinese restaurants? A friend told me that they are actually there to indicate (perhaps through the number or type of fish?) whether the restaurant owner has paid up to the local Chinese mafia (triad). Is there any truth to this or is it just another urban legend?

Please help me identify this diagram.

OlivesAndTurkishCoffee — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:44:09 -0800

Please help me identify this diagram. It is a Chinese or Taoist diagram for change. I copied this out of a book a few years ago, but for some reason didn't note the source. It may have been called/captioned "Chinese (or maybe Taoist) Diagram for Change". I was reading a lot of Alan Watts and Fritjof Capra at the time, but neither of those leads have turned anything up.

China!

god particle — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:48:43 -0800

What are some good Chinese youth/pop culture blogs? I'm looking for blogs about Chinese youth and/or pop culture...music, nightlife, art, etc. Preferably written by a native, in (Mandarin) Chinese, focusing on the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, though I'm still interested in seeing a foreigner's perspective on things.

Also, are there any good translation/learning sites where I can just copy and paste a phrase or character and get back the English meaning and pronunciation? My Chinese reading ability is pretty poor, so I'd need something to help me get through the blogs.

How Do I Get Windows To Display Chinese Characters?

mhh5 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:57:40 -0800

How do I do Windows in Chinese? I don't have the original Windows XP discs, and when I try to install the Chinese characters add-on from MSFT -- the laptop says I need the original XP discs.. do I really need them? I really just want to be able to view Chinese characters when I visit websites -- instead of boxes and question marks where those characters would normally be. Is my only option to try to find the appropriate discs on eBay? Or is there some other trick that I'm missing?

Where to Learn Mandarin in Los Angeles?

jabberjaw — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:01:45 -0800

I'm looking for a reputable and effective Chinese Mandarin school / teacher / tutor in the Los Angeles area. You'd think they'd be easier to find considering all of the Chinese communities out here. I'm hoping that somebody can recommend someplace / somebody good. Thanks.

English listing of artists from promotional video of Chinese 2008 Olympics?

Quarter Pincher — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:53:12 -0800

Is there an English listing of all of the artists found in the China 2008 Olympics promotional video/theme? Specifically, I'd like to know the artists from 2:59, 3:24, and 4:00.. but I'm sure a listing of everyone would be helpful to more than just myself ^_^

explain this email to me please

mizrachi — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:42:21 -0800

what is this email? I just received it.

Subject: To all the persons with ingenuous head and heart

To all the persons with ingenuous head and heart

If the bitch things hadn't happened to us , I won't care how dark the bitch China is . I hope my family and friends can live peacefully as you do . But all our family members were driven mad in the past, and worse now .

FYI

The Beijing bitches of our housing zone is from the worldwide famous Chinese No.1 University, the TSING HUA University ( I thought the No.1 should be the Peking University instead ) , which is the service company of our housing zone . They SERVICE us here by terrorism only since they have power as the government leaders .

Our house is new and the housing zone is new as well , I stand out organizing our House Owner Committee, asking our neibours to sign for this committee in our house , hoping to contribute something to our housing zone future . This enraged our Housing Service company , the HuaQingWuYe . Thus they arranged a dog to bite my mother !
And they note the Police to threat us , they send more than 100 bitches to our house , one by one , almost every day , to threat and disturb us , they use more than one year to arrange a complot to our Shenzhen company , they sent an agent provocateur to our company , and ask the supplier to send copied products to our company once we have new order from customers, that agent provocateur's name was also shown in the bitch sentence files , his name is Ye ZhiXuan. He has " worked " in our company for one week till all our clerks were put into prison by a secret abduction in the middle sudden night of May 21st., 2007 !

The bitch government clerks had also rob all our computers, 7pcs computer towers and 2pcs notebooks that night, as well as many goods , piratical or non-piratical !

I ask for help worldwide .
And the Beijing bitches threats to kill me .
And the Beijing bitches finally abducted me into the Shenzhen prison the same way as they did to our company clerks , on Jul. 13th., 2007 .

We were tortured into half-death by their bitch way in the bitch prison , you can't bear . You can only pray the earth to blast and kill all the bitches for you .

4 persons of a family , including a cousin , in prison , not knowing alive or dead , can you bear ?
No one of the bitch Chinese government do anything to punish their bitches and pay for their bitch actions to us till now , though I'm still asking for help worldwide !

Dear GeGe , if you still think such a bitch government is hopeful , please type out all the documents in the "http://www.firstsing.com/news_8.htm
http://www.firstsing.com/sue2007.rar "
and send to the highest court of the bitch China through the address below :

最高人民法院立案庭东城区东交民巷27号100745 85256114
The Registry Court of The Highest Court of China , Building No.27, DongJiaoMinXiang, east city zone, Beijing, China
Zip 100745 , Tel. 86 010 85256114

Don't say it's my idea .
We don't know whether the bitches will do next . They are stakeouting all our family members and friends every day .
If we can't do anything to save ourselves , they might kill all of us by their bitch way sooner or later .

Why are American Chinese takeout restaurants so similar?

greenie2600 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:36:04 -0800

Wherever you go in the United States, Chinese restaurants are suspiciously similar. What's the deal? Consider the menus: always the same shape (tall and skinny); always with the same layout. I've seen the exact same clip art on many of them: a little chili pepper next to the spicy dishes; a picture of a girl in a leotard, inside a scribbled heart, next to the low-fat options. The same style of map on the front. And, of course, pretty much the same selection of dishes wherever you go.

I've seen the same (or very similar) chairs and lacquered-ish tables at a bunch of Chinese restaurants. Then there are the backlit pictures of various dishes above the counter (never, of course, depicting actual dishes prepared by that restaurant); the same Kari-Out condiments; the same faux-green-marble countertops, the same flowers-and-pastels decor...

I have some hypotheses.

There's some company/organization/program that specializes in bringing Chinese people to the United States and helping them start restaurants. It seems unlikely that every Chinese person who moves to the United States and starts a restaurant would coincidentally decide to set up their menu and their restaurant almost the same way. Doubly so when you consider that American Chinese food is very different from the actual Chinese food with which the restaurant owners are most familiar—somehow, they have to learn what "Chinese food" means in America, and it doesn't seem like each restaurant is finding the answer to that question independently. Maybe they're just imitating each other, but that still doesn't seem like a complete answer.

There are a limited number of US companies who cater to Chinese speakers. (Let's face it; the English spoken by Chinese restauranteurs is not always great—and I don't mean that in a LOLIMMIGRANTS way; their English is still light-years ahead of my Chinese.) So the physical culture of Chinese restaurants reflects that limited marketplace.

I'm imagining this, and Chinese restaurants are really no more similar to each other than, say, pizza parlors, or Mexican restaurants are to each other.

Any ideas? I've been wondering about this for years!

What do my cufflinks say?

NotMyselfRightNow — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:57:36 -0800

What do my cufflinks say? I believe it's Chinese. A friend got them for me in Hong Kong, wrote down what they meant, and then lost the slip of paper.

Why Ambasador, with these Prawn Balls you are really spoiling us...

twine42 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:44:28 -0800

How do I cook genuine 'posh' Chinese food? Every weekend my grandfather and I take turns to cook a family dinner. I announced my plans to cook a Chinese meal next weekend.

Ever the master of the throw away line, my grandfather told me that he's always been disappointed by Chinese restaurant food because the first Chinese food he ever had was as guest of honour at the Chinese Embassy.

So, no pressure then.

Can you suggest Chinese meals that will target this kind of experience - a meal which is genuine Chinese rather than AngloAmerican Chinese, with that leaning towards rich man's banquet rather than everyday fare?

I'm not expecting this to be easy, so do your worst...

[I'm in the UK, with easy access to all four major supermarkets and a couple of Chinese supermarkets.]

How can I read Windows in English on a Chinese computer?

catburger — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:15:01 -0800

I'm on a Chinese-language computer and want to use Windows XP and Windows Vista in English. How can I do this? I will also want to change the English back to Chinese, as I am setting up a program for my dear aunt. Thanks in advance!

Chinese jungle encephalitis ... or something like it.

TheyCallItPeace — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:13:50 -0800

My girlfriend's parents have been told that they may develop 森林脑炎 -- a Chinese disease which seems to be similar to Lyme disease. Can you help me find out what this is called in English, so I can find out how serious a condition this is? My girlfriends parents went hiking in Harbin (northern China), and both found what seemed like multiple bug bites on their bodies after the hike. After visiting a doctor, they were told the bugs had in fact embedded themselves under their skin, and had to be surgically removed. These bugs also carry some bacteria causing 森林脑炎 which loosely translates to "jungle meningitis/encephalitis". Apparently they will receive no further treatment until there is some indication that they will develop the disease, but the incubation period may be as long as 2 weeks.

As any sort of brain infection is pretty serious, we are trying to find out as much about 森林脑炎 as possible, to gauge how serious this can be. However, we have no idea what is the equivalent English medical term, so we can't really get anywhere in out search.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Where Can I Get Disney Movies in Chinese?

rubberkey — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:51:51 -0800

Where can I get Disney movies dubbed in Mandarin? My Chinese teacher had showed us MuLan in Mandarin Chinese with the subtitles when I was in school a few years ago. Surfing youtube has brought up tons of Disney songs dubbed in Mandarin, but I can't seem to find the movies to buy or otherwise anywhere. I've also read that any Disney movie that is dubbed in Chinese is a fake because they don't make them. This doesn't really bother me, but I want to find some to play in the United States dvd players. I also don't know/understand very much about dvd zones but I understand that movies made for China will not play in the U.S.
Also where I can find other shows/ movies for kids in Mandarin that aren't specifically Disney films? (the children are 2 and 5 + myself)
Thanks

Is this a Chinese scam?

bru — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:55:35 -0800

Chinese language filter: is this site legit? And, if this is a scam, what kind of scam is it? Asking for a friend: she is a graphic designer and received this email:

Subject: invitation for contribution
Dear Director,
We are the editorial department of Madison Series in China. We know your company from the details online and find that your works are very excellent. We are now collecting information for International Design Yearbook II. Can you submit some works for the book ?Thank you.
Enclose the contribution information.
Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards
Guangzhou MDX
Website: www.mdx.com.cn

First part of the question for Chinese speakers: is this site legit?

My friend then asked where they found her work, and they answered:
"We found you on http://www.sdgq.ca/
We will you send you a free copy if your contribution occupies 5 pages in our book."

sdgq is the Québec association of graphic designers, of which she is a member, but where she has no portfolio. So they couldn't have seen her work.

So if it looks like a scam and smells like a scam it should be a scam. But what kind of scam is it? Will they ask for money later?

Translation of chinese math related words?

elpapacito — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:58:22 -0800

Help a chinese student: I am teaching elementary statistic to a young chinese , but I have an hard time explaining him words such as : average, mean, median, mode, quotient, ratio, standard deviation etc. I am looking for a list of math/science words english<>chine, a mini vocabulary (doc/pdf/whatever) as I don't trust online translation programs too much.

Microsoft Vista Business in Japanese/Chinese

schnee — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:48:46 -0800

Where can I buy the Japanese version and a Chinese version of Microsoft Vista Business online for use in the United States? Media and license. I've done a quick Google search and keep comping up with bootleg copies instead of legitimate copies. My normal vendors do have the Japanese version, but I need both.

I don't need the foreign language pack add-on that you can download from the Microsoft website. I need the full OS in the language.

Smiling when something bad happens

Cucurbit — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:06:21 -0800

In the Art of Fiction interview in the current Paris Review, Kazuo Ishiguro says of his father: "He had a Chinese characteristic, which was that he smiled when something bad happened." Is that really considered a Chinese characteristic? Are there other cultures it's commonly associated with?

Is it worth it to attempt to learn Chinese?

hazyspring — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:07:41 -0800

What are your experiences in taking Chinese as a language in college? How difficult is it really and did you learn enough for it to be useful? I am starting school relatively late in life (29 years old, business major). I took the equivalent of 5 years of French in middle school and high school. I have little memory of it, but would probably be starting from close to scratch. There is a requirement to take two years of a language, unless you can test out of taking one year, which it is so far back, I don't know if I would pass the test. And, I basically have very little interest in French now anyway. If I went to France I could get around, and that's all I would really need it for.

So, I am considering just taking two years of a new language and want it to be useful. I'm really interested in Chinese, for two reasons, 1) because I hope to do some extensive traveling at some point in China and 2) because I feel like it may at some point in time give me an edge in the business world. But, I don't want to take it if it just going to be especially hard compared to other languages I could take (say Spanish) and if I will end up having so little proficiency for it not to be useful.

I am interested in anyone's first hand experience on this or learning other Asian languages at a university.

P.S. I am one of those nerdy kinds of people who just enjoy learning new things.

Help understanding Chinese typography

mule — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:20:00 -0800

Help me create easily readable Chinese typography I am designing multiple items which have display type in both Chinese and English and need to know which fonts to use for the Chinese portion of the text.
I have access to the default fonts on Mac OS X and can probably get others.
Most of my work is to be read on screen (but not in voluminous block), so equivalents to Verdana and Georgia would be nice along with knowing what are the "almighty" fonts like Fruitiger and Baskerville/Caslon of the Chinese font world.

Also can someone point me to a diagram or information on things such as leading and kerning for Chinese text.

I have Chinese bosses who I can show designs to but they know nothing about typography in either language so any help is appreciated.

targetting Chinese buyers

Penelope — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:40:41 -0800

Websites that have a lot of traffic from Chinese people where I can post an ad? I sell a product on ebay, and it turns out about 60% of my buyers have Chinese last names, most are in N America, some are in Taiwan and other Asian countries. I do have my own website but I don't have checkout there as it wouldn't be cost-effective for me. I do have it listed on kijiji and craigslist, but my city doesn't have a huge Chinese population, and also these sites aren't used much in my medium-sized Cdn city.

ebay Hong Kong won't let me list there, I even asked eBay why and they didn't answer, I think prob. you have to be in HK to list there.

Any ideas of how i could reach more Chinese people, without spending a lot of money? Preferably next-to-no money. I do not know any Chinese languages. I know I can get all my stuff professionally translated, but then where would I advertise it is the question.

I ship worldwide, so am open to websites that originate anywhere. Chinese in China would prob. not buy it as it's pricey and of course they have internet firewalls anyway.

How do you deal with Chinese characters that can't be represented in 16 bits?

bonecrusher — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:48:52 -0800

How are people dealing with >16 bit Unicode code points? Specifically, in languages like Java, C# and C++, which assume 16 bit characters (I believe), how are you supporting GB 18030? I would suspect that the various languages' methods like substring(), charAt(), operator[], etc can't be safely used in China. If your wstring, say, contains a Chinese string, then .size() doesn't tell you how many characters are in it, right? On a related note, what interesting Chinese characters require more than >16 bits? I'm thinking about making a short presentation for my co-workers on this subject and I'd like to have some interesting examples. (Oh, and I'm going to run any examples by my Chinese colleagues first, so don't bother trying to make me say "penis" or something in front of my co-workers :-))

CJK Word translation macro

bokane — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:43:29 -0800

I need a Word macro that will go through a folder, run word/character counts on each file in the folder, and deliver a total count of Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters, ignoring all English. This seems like it shouldn't be hard to script, but insufficient leetness on my part (and the fact that I've never written a macro before) means I'm more or less clueless here. What am I missing?

Why does Chinese printing of Latin characters always use the same font?

tomwheeler — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:06:02 -0800

Why does Chinese writing, when including a few English words, always seem to use the same font? If you look at instructions written in Chinese for some gadget, you'll often see bits of text in the Latin alphabet mixed in with the typical Chinese characters. They always seem to use the same font, which looks like the console font from old Sun workstations. I've seen this not just on a variety of printed material, but also on computers. You can see what I am talking about by looking at this screenshot of Google's Chinese site.

Why is this font so popular for Chinese writing but relatively uncommon in English?

What's my best language strategy for a quarter in Shanghai?

0xFCAF — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:29:19 -0800

Which Chinese dialect should I learn to best survive in Shanghai, and how? Difficulty: I have 6 weeks. I'll very likely be spending 3-6 months in Shanghai as part of my job. The relocation includes a language tutor, but I'll only have access to one once I'm actually in China. I'd like to do whatever preparation I can before I actually get over there.

It looks like the two reasonable choices here are Shanghainese or Standard Mandarin. Wikipedia says they're mutually unintelligible, so it sounds like I need to make a commitment to one or the other. How do I make a decision on which one to learn?

As for the actual learning part, my friends recommended Rosetta Stone or some other software/thing I don't remember the name of. Any recommendations or experience here would be appreciated. I can spend about 10 hours a week doing interactive material, and another 5 hrs/week doing listening-only stuff at the gym.

If it matters, I have friends/co-workers who can probably help me 1 on 1 for an hour or two a week on either language.

English is the workplace language, but being able to pick up on the basics with my Chinese co-workers will be helpful. I have no idea where they are from or what they usually speak.