My Dearest Sinophobes:
Your knee-jerk downvoting of anything that features any hint of Chinese content doesn’t hurt my feelings. It just makes me point an laugh, Nelson Muntz style as you demonstrate time and again just how weak American snowflake culture really is.
Hugs & Kisses, 张殿李
In Toronto I ran into Styx at the airport.
I mean it literally. I bounced off Tommy Shaw and kind of reeled into James Young. (Totally my fault.)
They were actually really nice, checking if I was OK and once it clicked who I was talking to, putting up with my squeeing fangurl behaviour. Both of us were waiting for our respective flights so I got to talk with them a good half-hour before my flight started boarding.
Completely different words.
Breaking down the words:
This sounds like gibberish because it is. Chinese characters aren’t quite words, but are more like “roots” in English (like “bio” meaning “life”). As such they have broad and shifting meanings. The big two are the first word and the third. The first word literally means “throw” or “cast” (as in fishing line), but has other shades of meaning that imply “giving”. The third word literally means “report” in most uses, but can also mean “repay” or “reciprocate”. Factor into this that word forms and declensions just aren’t a thing in Chinese, and this particular expression stems from the Book of Songs which is written in the very, very, very terse language of Classical Chinese and …
… well translation is shifty and difficult.
Another way to translate this (with implied meanings in [brackets]) could be: “toss [someone a] peach [and he will] reciprocate [with a] plum”.
Or, you know, give a peach in return for a plum. (And my brain screwed up above which I will correct: I flipped plum and peach for some reason.)
As for the other part of your question, the characters for the online purchasing platform are: 淘宝. Breaking that down:
That first one is MOSTLY used to talk about sifting (such that 淘金 means “sift gold” or more idiomatically “pan for gold”). So the literal translation of that name is “sift treasure” or, more idiomatically, “treasure hunt”.
Insert the “the more you know” meme right here. 😆
Oh, God. Freeze Peach has reached the UK.
A vaguely similar expression exists in Chinese: 投桃报李 (tóu táo bào lǐ or “give a peach in return for a plum”). It suggests that reciprocity is key to gift-giving; that giving is as much part of the joy as is receiving.
When I had lots of money I preferred giving, partially because it made me feel good, but partially because often gifts I received were just not very well thought-out. (“I noticed you have a lot of RPGs, so I got you this new D&D module.” Never mind that the one RPG I don’t have is D&D in any flavour… That sort of thing.)
When I have less money (like now) … I still prefer giving, but only marginally.
Jade is quite a bit harder than even a hardcover book. ;)
It’s not all that posh, though. That example there costs the equivalent of about $35.
I agree with you. I use pillows of that shape almost exclusively these days.
You consider that a difficult pillow?
Try these on for size. The first turns your WiFi into 5G. The second into 6G, and the final one turns it into an ansible.
Yes, this last one is, in fact, a solid piece of jade. Why do you ask?
And here you come SO FUCKING CLOSE … and still fumble the ball. Tsk. Tsk.
(Hint: Check your assumptions. And while you’re at it check the thread history.)
After many years of working marketing for high tech firms, with an ever-increasing salary until it hit mid six-figures, I had a complete meltdown and dropped that work entirely, with no employment prospects and no idea of what to do for money, living off my savings for a year.
This enabled me to finally take the plunge and move half a world away (teaching English at first) to reconnect with my roots. I’ve been here now for almost 24 years and haven’t been happier. I even returned to marketing (well, market consultation) in 2016 and managed to somehow not have a second meltdown.
The smell of fresh tea when the package is opened.
“Stinky tofu” when passing the street carts selling it.
Freshly-made lard-cooked french fries.
A “strong-scented” baijiu.
A good Indian restaurant, that moment you walk inside and breath.
I’m pretty sure that any murder is a death sentence.
(Hint: check your assumptions.)
No, I meant real RPGs, not the computerized abominations. Pencil, paper, optionally a randomizer, and imagination.
“I’ve got new socks on.”
Pick up a new language. A whole language in the course of a normal hospital stage is not really plausible, so narrow the goals. Like only learn how to swear in another language, say. Or learn how to say all the sexual acts you can think of in another language fluently.
This has two answers.
First, which film scared me the most when I watched it: To my shame it’s Gamera. (I was a young child.)
Second, which film I consider the scariest now: Probably John Carpenter’s The Thing.