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Monthly Archives September 2009

Tip of the turd

In case you’re thinking about snagging the first bite of the first moon cake (yuèbǐng = 月饼, the sometimes-tasty-sometimes-nasty traditional food of the holiday) after cracking the seal on the ungodly expensive package, just keep in mind some words of wisdom from YU:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Chī shǐ yě děi chī ge jiār.
吃屎也得吃个尖儿。
“Has to eat the [...]

Posted 28 September 2009 † syz § Yuèmǔ U. § useful but hard to find Beijing dialect vocabulary ‡ Comments (5) °

Is the pirate’s Beijing Paradise in danger?

For those of you new to Talk Like a Pirate Day, it was first declared a Beijing Sounds staff holiday in 2008 when, reminded by Pinyin.info, a post was created to celebrate the R-ful Mandarin of the most rhotic city in Asia [feel free to quote that last phrase to your friends]. This year the [...]

Posted 18 September 2009 † syz § Beijinger Checklist / BJSLBC™ § EXMARaLDA transcriptions § Talk Like a Pirate Day § beijing-r § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (6) °

A little tiny bit wrong

You can’t help but think that Chinglish speakers have it harder than Zhonglish speakers in the dumb-made-up-rule department. You know the category — the rules that are supposed to make your writing clearer or keep you from sounding like a dolt if you’re a native speaker, or keep you from sounding like a non-native [...]

Posted 11 September 2009 † syz § linguistics ‡ Comments (9) °

Ninth Nevel

[Part 2 of Tourism, the series. Part 1 here]

Since it was a bit of a bah humbug attitude that launched the tourism series…

About Tourism, the series
Engraved into a sizable hunk of Labrador granite, on a pedestal in the executive anteroom at the Beijing Sounds Studios:
Tourist, n. One who favors packaged over live, who inches [...]

Posted 09 September 2009 † syz § L=N conflation § Tourism Series ‡ Comments (6) °

Biang Biang Mian / Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Noodles (Tourism Series)

Tourism part 1: On embracing complexity [all in series]

About Tourism, the series
Engraved into a sizable hunk of Labrador granite, on a pedestal in the executive anteroom at the Beijing Sounds Studios:
Tourist, n. One who favors packaged over live, who inches squeamishly past the teeming fauna of his own backyard — with its outrageous comedies, its [...]

Posted 02 September 2009 † syz § EXMARaLDA transcriptions § Tourism Series § speech acts ‡ Comments (4) °