Chinese alphabet

[franksolich]

Last night, I started reading a book about China, published in 2008.  Never mind the title or the subject, because after getting halfway through the first chapter, I tossed it into the "give to the Salvation Army" box.

It promised to be an interesting book, but I swear, I will never buy any book about China that was published after 1980, when this ridiculous pinyip Chinese spellings replaced the traditional Wade-Giles spellings.

"Mao Tse-tung" looks threatening, menacing; "Mao Zedong" looks as if something a donkey might leave behind it.

"Chou En-lai" looks orientally clever; "Zhou Enlai" looks like a line of women's cosmetics.

How the devil did they get "Guangzhou" out of "Canton"?

And "Changjiang River" out of "Yangtze River"?

"Chongqing" is a little-more understandable as "Chungking," but "Chungking" sounds more sino.

I can't find it, but I'm sure they changed "Chiang Kai-shek" to something ridiculous.

Thank God they didn't mess with "Shanghai," which is currently the only Chinese city I could correctly identify on the maps in this book.

I have a friend who once flew to Peking; he got to Peking okay, but his luggage ended up in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Bah humbug.

[FreeBorn]

Maybe your buddy's luggage went to Bemidji because the routing tags weren't written in Spanish?

[franksolich]

Maybe your buddy's luggage went to Bemidji because the routing tags weren't written in Spanish?

I'm not sure the airport designations for "Beijing" and Bemidji, but they must be similar.

"Peking" is a name hallowed with age and tradition; "Beijing" looks ridiculous, as if a curio shop rather than a major capital.

[longview]

Your original post made me laugh.  I've had similar thoughts, but am not nearly as witty.

[vesta111]

Last night, I started reading a book about China, published in 2008.  Never mind the title or the subject, because after getting halfway through the first chapter, I tossed it into the "give to the Salvation Army" box.

It promised to be an interesting book, but I swear, I will never buy any book about China that was published after 1980, when this ridiculous pinyip Chinese spellings replaced the traditional Wade-Giles spellings.

"Mao Tse-tung" looks threatening, menacing; "Mao Zedong" looks as if something a donkey might leave behind it.

"Chou En-lai" looks orientally clever; "Zhou Enlai" looks like a line of women's cosmetics.

How the devil did they get "Guangzhou" out of "Canton"?

And "Changjiang River" out of "Yangtze River"?

"Chongqing" is a little-more understandable as "Chungking," but "Chungking" sounds more sino.

I can't find it, but I'm sure they changed "Chiang Kai-shek" to something ridiculous.

Thank God they didn't mess with "Shanghai," which is currently the only Chinese city I could correctly identify on the maps in this book.

I have a friend who once flew to Peking; he got to Peking okay, but his luggage ended up in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Bah humbug.

Frank even their math is a bit different, I worked with a man from Taiwan and we were calculating out the poundage of a product the tare of the packaging and weight of a pallet + the number of pallets we could place on a 18 Wheeler to keep it within the weight limits of the interstate.

I was doing much of this on my caluclator and he was using a pen figuring this out on top of a box.   He was done twice as fast as myself and both answers were the same including the sq. footage of the trucks trailer.
What the heck, I checked out his math and found that he had devided in a way I have never seen, then to add insult to injury he smilled and told me he could have done this faster on an Abbicus.

[JohnnyReb]

I was doing much of this on my caluclator and he was using a pen figuring this out on top of a box.   He was done twice as fast as myself and both answers were the same including the sq. footage of the trucks trailer.

You should use pencil and paper more often and maybe your mental math skills will improve.

Kids are using calculators in grammar school these days. I think they shouldn't be using them. My son complains about me doing simple math problems in my head faster than he can punch them into his calculator.

Like 12 X's 35 =? ...simple...10 X's 35=350 + 70 (2 X's 35) = 420

[gurn]

There are a lot of different accents & dialects in the PRC. It's actually a diverse country.
Cantonese are a lot different than Manchurans or Northern Yunnanese. And the people in
most parts are extremely nice - and pro-American, believe it or not.

I have met more a lot more pro-American Chinese than I've ever met pro-American Australians or
South Koreans.

Unfortunately, the government of the PRC is cracked, paranoid and will launch WW3.
That's how I see it.

China is an old and great civilization. But don't make the mistake of thinking they are so gifted.
In some ways yeah. In other ways, it's the Special Olympics every day over there.

The phrase "Chinese Fire Drill", like most jokes, has a basis in truth.
Most people are not very good at thinking outside the box. But Chinese tend to be
especially challenged in that respect. One has to see it in action to understand, I guess.

And honestly, I don't think it's worth the visit. There are many more interesting
countries in Asia.

[JohnnyReb]

I post this link here just because this thread mentions China.

It's about liberal singer Bono, business, money, Africa, China and.... well I think it's rather funny when stupid liberal do-gooder business people get hit in the face with reality.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704358904575478310504593870.html

about half way down it gets interesting.

[gurn]

I have a few thoughts.

I. Screw Bono & LVMH (Louis Vuitton)

II. When you go to Chinese shopping malls selling Western
designer labels -- you notice that see almost no Chinese shopping in them.
The vast majority can't afford it. But even the ones who can, buy the much
less expensive (but very high quality) counterfeit label clothing.

III. This is what happens when a government buys huge numbers of Western Treasury notes.

(a) It keeps the value of Western currencies artificially high, killing their job economies.

(b) It keeps its own currency value artificially low.

(c) It attracts foreign investment jobs by virtue of the low wages that result from (a)&(b).

(d) By attracting foreign investment, it can do two things:

(i) Run its own currency printing presses 24/7 w/o being concerned about inflation (for awhile).

(ii) Invest in infrastructure out the wazoo because it has printed so much currency.
***

Bono is yet another foreigner stupid enough to invest in Chinese garment shops.
Screw him. Louis Vuitton too.

The whole thing is like that scene in the Wizard of Oz. It's all amazing.
But you wonder what's behind the curtain.

[T-Monay820]

I have a friend who once flew to Peking; he got to Peking okay, but his luggage ended up in Bemidji, Minnesota.

That is an epically, awesome fail.

More grounded in reality, this is strange since I would expect them to use the ICAO identifiers.

[gurn]

An Irish friend of mine bought a guitar from Vietnam. It was shipped to Ireland via DHL.
It landed in Iceland. Apparently, most Vietnamese don't know that Iceland & Ireland are
two different places.