Learn Chinese, Travel or Work in China
“The best is not to win one hundred battles in one hundred, but to subdue the enemy without fight.”
“To mistreat the men and then fear their reaction is the maximum of stupidity.”
“When the men are pushed in a position without exit, they will not escape even in front of death. In this situation nothing is impossible.”
These are some of my favorite quotes from The art of war, the first military treatise of ancient China. [Read more…]
I’ve already discussed in my plan to learn Chinese how I prefer to rely in the “context” while learning a language.
This post tells how, when I started to study Mandarin again some months ago, I was able to fix forever on my mind (well let’s say till next year) four Chinese words by placing them in a well defined context, instead of trying to learn them by endless repetition or character by character (Remember the Hanzi style). [Read more…]
The great wall of Pan Long Shan, the Mountain of the Curling Dragon.
The most visited sections of the Chinese great wall (长城, Cháng Chéng) are Badaling and Mutianyu, which are quite close to Beijing and easy to reach by public transportation.
The problem is that there are so many tourists and, more than being on the defense bastions of the Middle Kingdom, you have the impression of being teleported in Times Square for New Year’s Eve. Another disturbing detail is that the original “wall” gets lost among renovations, shops and Disney style toboggans.
Resolute to visit the wild wall I decided to reach Gubeikou, an ancient village one hundred and twenty kilometers North of Beijing from which depart two sections of the Great Wall: 卧虎山 (Wò Hǔ Shān, Mountain of the Crouching Tiger) and [Read more…]
Lijiang: the South door to Tibet.
This story tells how instead of get on the public bus that from Lijiang arrives to Lugu Lake – the homeland of Mosuo people, last matriarchal tribe, – we trusted a crazy driver and reached the lake only after ten hours of vicissitudes.
We leave Dali to reach Lijiang in a comfortable minivan packed with German tourists, their flip flips and a some Yunnan campesinos. [Read more…]
Two months ago I started to study Chinese (here my plan: How to learn Chinese fast: my (lazy) way) and decided to share my progresses on this blog as an extreme attempt to keep motivated. However, a post only talking about me and my studies would be so boring for you to read!
Thus I decided that every month I will share a useful resource to learn Chinese and only at the end of the post I will detail my progresses. Today I want to talk about Chinese Level, a website that promise to estimate how much of a Chinese newspaper you can read and then suggest you some stories in Chinese language that fit your current level so that you will not get bored reading a bunch of stuff you do not understand (the website is quite new and if I understood well this features is not ready yet). [Read more…]
Yunnan is one of most touristic Chinese provinces, especially in summer when everywhere else in China is damn hot. This means that an army of Chinese people had our same idea: visit 石林 (shilin), the Stone Forest. The etymology of the character “林” is one of those that remind me why I like Chinese:
木=mu=tree; 木+木=林=lin= forest. Being we so damn smart – or at least this is what we think – instead of staying in a comfortable hotel in Kunming and arrive to the forest tomorrow morning when the sun is already shining over the stones, we get on the first bus to Shilin and arrive there about seven pm. The first people we meet are a farmer with his steer and an hotel manager that tries to pitch his hotel as the best in Yunnan. We run away and order dinner at the restaurant next door: mushrooms, local cheese (for what I know Yunnan people are the only Chinese that do decent cheese), giant tomatoes and boiled chicken. [Read more…]
Disclaimer: Even if this post mainly target Chinese learners, the ideas I share are quite general and I believe they hold true for any language.
The use of flashcards involves active recall testing, that is being asked a question and trying to remember the answer. There are two main reasons why active recall is better than passive study:
a) Recalling something increases the chance you will remember it because strengthens your memory.
b) If you don’t remember the answer to a question, you know you need to review that specific material.
Many people use flashcards without a precise scheduling, reviewing them “when they feel it.” I was one of them, and of course I quickly ended up not revising my flashcards at all because it was a lot of work for a quite poor result. Not cool…
So, how to use these holy flashcards?
We all know our brain acts as a filter and only remembers [Read more…]
West Lake, Hangzhou.
The West Lake (西湖, Xī Hú) in Hangzhou is said to be the incarnation of 西施 (Xī Shī), one of the four beauties of China. Hence it is also called Xi Zi Lake, where “Xi Zi” means Lady Xi.
This is the story of Xi Shi as told in The Art of Seduction, the best seller of Robert Greene.
“In the fifth century B.C., Fu Chai, the king of Wu, defeated Gou Chien, the king of Yue. Gou Chien was captured and forced to serve in Fu Chai’s stables. He was finally allowed to return home, but every year he had to pay a large tribute of money.
One year Gou Jian sent as part of the tribute two beautiful maidens to Fu Chai, who [Read more…]
How to pee on the street…
Where do I start from?
The Beijiners that every summer wander with the t-shirt rolled-up on the stomach to get some fresh air; the Qingdao people puking in Pijiu Jie (Beer Street); the hygiene (?!) of the restaurants kitchens among the draining of dirty waters, garbage of epic dimension and fishes beheaded on the wet floor; the loud spits, so popular all over the Middle Kingdom; the parents that push the little children to pee on the sidewalks; the free burps at office or the followers of Schwarzenegger that arrive at the gym without t-shirt and let a ring of sweat on each bench?
In Beijing even the taxi drivers get lost. Then they scream: [Read more…]
An example of business card you may get walking down Nanjing Road, Shanghai.
In Shanghai there are so many prostitutes that I got curious and I did some researches about prostitution in China. One of best source of information on the topics is Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China.
According to the local police, in China there are seven categories of prostitutes (see N. Dougherty’s master thesis for details): [Read more…]
This story tells about my first experience with SF Express (Shun Feng), which delivers documents and goods within one day everywhere in China and Hong Kong.
Before I used to go to a Chinese post office and utilize the EMS service, but with SF Express you only need to call the 4008 111 111 and tell them where to go in order to get your documents and send them overnight. The operators speak English and the delivery boy will usually find you within one hour.
He will take your order and let you a receipt with a track number. For tracking your documents, just go to S.F. Express website and insert the track number. It is that simple!
OK, here my story.
Every time I change country, I crash against local bureaucracy. So far, the Chinese one is the most difficult I found. I guess my approximate knowledge of the language doesn’t help, but there are so may law that vary from a province to another and so many offices you have to pass through, that gets to a point where nobody knows what to do is quite common.
Further, if the documents you are looking for need some [Read more…]