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 [...]
On Beijingese for goodbye
It’s pretty dangerous to know just a little bit about something, so they say, and speech acts are a subject about which syz’s knowledge is about as bountiful as honesty on Valentine’s day. If the old saw is true, then, reading the rest of this post is like running with scissors.
In your hometown, you pretty much know what everyone’s going to say before they say it. There’s really no new thing under the sun. In Eden Prairie, MN, the grocery bagger’s going to ask me about paper or plastic, the restaurant greeter’s going to apologize for my wait, and so on. It’s the [...]
Ah, language learning. It’s one thing to try to get the accent right. You can work on that every day in Beijing. But it’s another thing to know what to say in particular social situations.Like when you’re introduced to your brother-in-law’s coworker.
In the US: Nice to meet you
Beijing: Nǐ hǎo… [and what else???]
Is there something [...]
Add "Learn Chinese" to iGoogle