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Monthly Archives October 2007

Taxi palavering and the great taxi fraud

The average Beijing taxi driver is licking his chops to get a foreigner into the back seat so he can drive him three times around the third ring before delivering him to the overpriced Shangri-la on the premise of having confused it for the Hilton.Right?
That’s the going logic. And there’s no shortage of scams [...]

Posted 28 October 2007 † syz § fraud § society § taxi ‡ Comments (7) °

Semiotics

After you can read a bit of Chinese, a lot of times you find you’re still reading language-neutral stuff in your native language.
(Yep, “you” means “I” — see here for a parallel far from English)
For example, I mentally read…

143,000 as ‘a hundred and forty-three thousand not “shísìwàn sānqiān” (十四万三千)
2+2 as ‘two plus two’ not “èr [...]

Posted 12 October 2007 † syz § Reading ‡ Comments (4) °

Beijing Drift

Conversing in Chinese, I usually get the drift. But there are some Chinese conversations where getting the drift doesn’t cut it. A recent list:

Arguing with the local rep of your overpriced foreign consultant about the cost, deliverables and timeline for your project
Clarifying which 17 documents you need from which administrative agencies in order to get [...]

Posted 10 October 2007 † syz § subway ‡ Comments (1) °