|
hitension posted:You got me- I don't know Arabic. I did learn some of the basics from a friend who interspersed just about every sentence with "If you're a man, you say ..." ; "If you're a woman, you say..." which is why I felt that it was strongly gendered. In my experience, if there's a division of the way men and women talk, it's not going to be in women's favor. I would like to learn more and see the argument you're talk about! Well, adjectives are genderized, so a woman would add a letter to the end of certain words, and the same would occur if you were talking to a woman. I wouldn't be suprised if there were differing speech patterns amongst men and women (I'm not exposed enough to the language to know), but isn't that true in many langauges?
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 03:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:37 |
|
|
Xandu posted:I wouldn't be suprised if there were differing speech patterns amongst men and women (I'm not exposed enough to the language to know), but isn't that true in many langauges? From the perspective of Pragmatics this is true of every language.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 06:18
|
|
|
Funny story about sexism, in Chinese the word for slave is nú 奴 and the word for woman is nǚ 女. They're almost homophones. And they share the root phonetic. (Not sure if "root" is the right word here but it seems like it.) In classical Chinese, if you combine the word for servant 臣 and the word for woman you get 姬 which means concubine. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jun 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 06:36
|
|
|
You would think the Communists would've rectified these sexist characters when they simplified them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 07:27
|
|
|
I don't know about Chinese language being more gender specific. Chinese is a pretty fuzzy language. The word "Her" was a very late addition to Chinese language. Before the spoken language became standard form of writing language. "之" was a unisex word used to refer to third person. Then in early 20th century newspapers started using the characters "他" and "伊" as he/him and she/her. Later "她" replaced "伊" as the standard female third person objectivce. At the time there was even a female second term character "妳", it was phrased out (to match international convention?) In other news, here is a set of amazing colored photography taken in 1983. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwdemery/collections/72157613342016241/ whatever7 fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Jun 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 13:08
|
|
|
妳 is still used in Taiwan at least. 奴 is not necessarily sexist-- it's probably a case where the radical is for the "nu" sound and not the meaning. 怒 Anger, is another example -- you can tell from the top part that it's pronounced "nu", but the bottom part gives you a hint to the meaning (heart has something to do with anger). The big issue is that it's hard to change characters, so it's hard to root out those "sexist" radicals. In English it's easy enough to write (s)he, in Spanish to write ell@, but in Chinese it's a huge hassle to change what characters look like, at least in terms of computing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 16:32
|
|
|
menino posted:One of my socio linguistics books (Tannen?) said that Thai women often add (or added, maybe it's not in use now) the particle "ka" to sentences, which actually means "slave". Not sure if Reindeerf or somebody else can verify this. There were other words for slave and master and a gently caress ton of titles and things, probably similar to Chinese (based on age, social prominence, official title and so on). Interestingly, Thai men no longer have noble titles, but Thai women do (Khunying and whatever). ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jun 23, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 00:03
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:Interestingly, Thai men no longer have noble titles, but Thai women do (Khunying and whatever).
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 07:01
|
|
|
Modus Operandi posted:I'm not sure about noble titles but royalty can still bestow other honorifics to both men and women. That white dude who played in some orchestra or made a jazz album in Thailand (I don't remember his name or what he did exactly) was given some kind of honorific by the big man. I'm not sure what the means in the scheme of things but it's probably a nice thing to put in your Thai resume. On a side note, apparently some of the more rural folks have taken to giving their kids Khunying as a cheu len (nickname), which is pretty funny.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 07:27
|
|
|
I didn't see it in the OP, but is anyone familiar with The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhisui. I was about to cite something from it for a paper, but then I noticed the controversy over it on its wikipedia page. edit: I'm writing about the Chinese perspective on negotiations with the US in 1971 and 1972, I've already got Mao's China and the Cold War, but any other suggestions are appreciated as well. edit2: Saw some discussion of it earlier in the thread, I'll probably cite with a disclaimer since there's nothing particularly controversial in the passage. Xandu fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2012 01:46
|
|
|
What page in the thread is that discussion on? I've been interested in the book's credibility for years, since I first read it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2012 04:46
|
|
|
Discussion starts here
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2012 04:50
|
|
|
This American Life has an episode up about Americans in China. I'm not American myself but I can identify with a lot of the conundrums and situations described in the piece, from the incessant request for TV appearances to the cultural "chasm" that you inevitably run into between you and the Chinese. Other than that, there's some fairly interesting BTS on Kaiser Kuo, Sinica and the lives of elite China commentators like Osnos and Jeremy Goldkorn.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2012 09:21
|
|
|
I'd like to inquire which is considered better in China for moving up the political-social ladder, money or family connections, I ask because recently factory owners and rich Chinese are starting to have more of a voice, but can money get you as far as family connections in current Chinese politics? See article for details http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2012/07/04/sany-denies-report-it-will-cut-30-of-workers-says-it-will-control-staff-increase/
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 02:17
|
|
|
THREAD INVASION! The SOUTHEAST Asia thread is recalling its ambassadors from your hegemonic threadpire, but would first like to ask a question (I would anyway). Back to being serious for a moment, I posted this in the SE Asia thread: quote:China is completely loving its own foreign policy right now and I'd like to hear what the China thread has to say about why that is. I would guess it's because the internal military powerhouse is pursuing one agenda and the internal foreign policy powerhouse is pursuing another and this is the end result. Still, that's just a guess, because pulling this stuff with the South China Sea while the Americans are in the middle of their Asian Charm Offensive is a completely amateur move. China is getting its diplomatic clock cleaned right now in Asia and it had been making steady, silent advances like a motherfucker (still is, but who knows how much longer if they keep this up). I'm not implying that everything there is correct, but I am interested in the astute analysis of the very-serious China thread's denizens. I cannot make sense of why China's blowing its foot off in foreign policy terms this way at this exact point in time. It is an incredibly misguided thing to do, but there has to be some reason it's happening. Don't read into that, by the way, that I think America is great and China is bad or that being in one country's sphere of influence is inherently better, it's just that there's no other way to look at what's going on right now from what I can tell.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 09:45
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:THREAD INVASION! Posted in SE thread, but will put here instead: Anecdottaly I met an American guy working for a think tank here in Beijing who said that a lot of these moves on the offshore islands are being pushed by the energy companies and that was his focus. He said that the CCP had no individual department for energy or Coast Guard issues, and that as a result both of these interests were spread among different ministries, leading small groups, and SOEs. So it's really hard to tell who's calling the shots on these issues.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 09:47
|
|
|
That's what Sinica said as well. I talked to a friend's CHINESE GIRLFRIEND who is actually a grad student in political science here in China (长沙 if anyone wants to hang out some time, I am staying in China indefinitely while most of my American friends went home) and she seemed pretty clear that Chinese sovereignty claims extend from being the first ones to actually show up and chart these islets. The vast majority of Chinese people don't care about Chinese oil company profits or the bureaucratic infighting between the PLAN and the Fisheries Enforcement Service or whatever, but they do care about China's prestige on the world stage, I think the nationalist claims from the islets are probably more important to the Chinese government from the perspective of how willing they will be to de-escalate future conflicts. SE Asian people have to remember that the Chinese have a massive inferiority complex when it comes to the world stage, and they are eager to assert their dominance and get "respect" whenever they can. I can see this manifesting in bizarre ways when it comes to SE Asia, since China simultaneously has their inferiority thing and their cultural chauvanism thing going against you guys. So in relation to my earlier claim, I really think the Chinese government's actions will be determined by mass opinion, which doesn't care at all about oil profits. If Sinopec or whatever is angry, the Chinese government won't care because they can stomp that poo poo flat if they need to. If the Chinese people are angry, the Chinese government will try to harness that anger to gain legitimacy. My personal scenario for war in the South China Sea is that local Chinese actors like the Hainan government or oil or fishery companies instigate some bullshit land-grab (sea-grab?) conflict, and that the Chinese government gets dragged into it by propagandist fuckups and general Chinese anger that the 小国家 aren't giving them enough respect. Chinese resentment of the Imperialist period is a little frightening sometimes, since they really don't understand modern Western perspectives on China at all. The Chinese tend to assume that they are weak and that the Americans hold the same perception, while Americans tend to assume that China is powerful and that the Chinese hold the same perception, and in my opinion it's a catalyst for conflict. Should I post this over in the SE Asia thread or what? Frankly the China megathread has been quite dead recently so I don't know if this will be seen otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 14:50
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:THREAD INVASION! Meh, Vietnam has a claim that's even more reaching than China's. The stink they are raising over 西沙 is because they apparently sold poo poo they didn't own to foreign companies and now China's planning on developing it instead. China's had complete and total control of the islands they are bitching about since like 1974. The US is trying to respond to the growing sphere of influence in SEA and Africa, but they are neglecting S. America where China's making even more inroads. Kinda funny to watch in all honesty.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 15:13
|
|
|
You also have to realize that most Chinese people are very poorly informed about what these disputes are. My university students insisted that the native people of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands were indeed Chinese still under the aggressive imperialist yoke of Japan, clamoring to return to the homeland. Same with the South China Sea. It's on every map of China as prominently as Alaska is on an American map. You'll see it included on a Chinese weather report when you watch the news. All the 'disputed territories' like Aksai Chin in India and the little glacial nubs in Pakistan, well there's no mention of any sort of dispute on a Chinese map, nor will they ever be taught about such things in school. For most of these people hearing that no other countries recognize or agree with their territorial claims is a bit of a shock, kind of like if Americans went to England and someone told them "Hey by the way North Dakota isn't yours." Sure you've never been there and you don't know anyone who comes from there and have never given it a moment's thought in your life, but you'd be pretty taken aback. This is a big part of the benefit of censorship, the Chinese government has a line and no one else goes against it. Their version of Crossfire isn't having two people debate whether the Spratleys belong to China or Vietnam, it's debating whether they should teach the monkeys their place or simply stand back and smirk at them while they rage ineffectually.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 15:36
|
|
|
Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Meh, Vietnam has a claim that's even more reaching than China's. The stink they are raising over 西沙 is because they apparently sold poo poo they didn't own to foreign companies and now China's planning on developing it instead. China's had complete and total control of the islands they are bitching about since like 1974. That's not true at all, Vietnam has de facto control of many, many more of these islands than China, though China did beat them in a conflict for one in the 1970s. Also the US is doing everything it needs to in relation to Chinese-South American relations. China telling Brazil and Argentina "You don't need to produce anything, just sell us raw materials" and basically trying to institute economic colonialism on the entire continent, people in South America don't think China is their new best friend.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 16:00
|
|
|
Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Meh, Vietnam has a claim that's even more reaching than China's. The stink they are raising over 西沙 is because they apparently sold poo poo they didn't own to foreign companies and now China's planning on developing it instead. China's had complete and total control of the islands they are bitching about since like 1974. Don't use Chinese characters next time, please.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 17:09
|
|
|
Fall Sick and Die posted:That's not true at all, Vietnam has de facto control of many, many more of these islands than China, though China did beat them in a conflict for one in the 1970s. Also the US is doing everything it needs to in relation to Chinese-South American relations. China telling Brazil and Argentina "You don't need to produce anything, just sell us raw materials" and basically trying to institute economic colonialism on the entire continent, people in South America don't think China is their new best friend. The big stink has been over xisha (aka Paracels) and China does in fact have complete and total control of the islands. Pro-PRC Laowai fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 9, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2012 21:35
|
|
|
In light of the public resignation and subsequent imprisonment of a Chinese Catholic bishop, I was wondering if anyone could explain the relationship between the Vatican and various Christian denominations, with particular focus on Catholicism. From what I understand, the Chinese government has set up a state Catholic Church that rejects the supremacy of the Pope, while the Vatican has an underground Church which supports pro-democracy movements in the country. Sorry if this is a bother, I am just saw the article on my newsfeed and am legitimately curious regarding the issue.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2012 03:28
|
|
|
QuoProQuid posted:In light of the public resignation and subsequent imprisonment of a Chinese Catholic bishop, I was wondering if anyone could explain the relationship between the Vatican and various Christian denominations, with particular focus on Catholicism. From what I understand, the Chinese government has set up a state Catholic Church that rejects the supremacy of the Pope, while the Vatican has an underground Church which supports pro-democracy movements in the country. There has been a bit of rapprochement between the Catholic Church and Chinese state Catholicism in recent years: while the PRC and the Church both claim they are the sole authority over who appoints bishops in China, the Church has been "re-"appointing those bishops appointed by China in parallel so that Rome and Beijing agree on who all are bishops. This is probably what emboldened the bishop in the article you posted, though whether or not he expected to be arrested or thought it would strengthen Rome's influence in China isn't clear. The Atlantic had a good article on it a few years ago (though it's probably a bit dated now): http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/keeping-faith/5990/
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2012 04:08
|
|
|
Haha wow, I did not expect to see the Free Investiture controversy come up this century, anywhere in the world. Catholics you so crazy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2012 04:26
|
|
|
This is from last week: Attack Raises Fears of a New Gang War in Macau quote:A senior figure in Macau’s gambling industry was severely beaten by six men in a restaurant at his own casino, the highest-profile case of violence in the city’s booming gambling business since Portugal handed control of the former colony back to China in 1999. Interesting, especially in light of Evan Osnos' God of Gamblers article from April. Still working out the kinks in Chinese Vegas.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2012 05:21
|
|
|
menino posted:This is from last week:
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2012 05:34
|
|
|
Modus Operandi posted:It's always fascinating to see how these high level triad figures work. That's pretty ballsy even for them because you would assume big time investors like this have state connections that can put plenty of heat on them. I guess the only conclusion is that maybe he pissed off another ultra wealthy senior casino executive somewhere who put his triad goon connections on him. So I have read about male children being captured and sold due to the one child policy, do you think the child kiddnapping is organized by a paticular criminal group in china, or is just a wide spread type of crime
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2012 14:11
|
|
|
So is Daniel Bell a respected China scholar? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/opinion/a-confucian-constitution-in-china.html http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2012/0724/What-America-s-flawed-democracy-could-learn-from-China-s-one-party-rule The first article in particular strikes me as terrible. Is this at all a popular idea amongst the Chinese? quote:In modern China, Humane Authority should be exercised by a tricameral legislature: a House of Exemplary Persons that represents sacred legitimacy; a House of the Nation that represents historical and cultural legitimacy; and a House of the People that represents popular legitimacy. Xandu fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jul 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 04:24
|
|
|
Wait wait wait, that byline! I know her! "Jiang Qing and Daniel A. Bell" The Gang of Four has returned! The Communist leadership is experiencing a Zombie uprising! I hope they have shotguns and chainsaws in Zhongnanhai.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 04:48
|
|
|
It's pretty safe to say that anything that has Jiang Qing attached to it loses massive credibility right off the bat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 05:15
|
|
|
Hmm I think I'm missing something here.
Hong XiuQuan fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Jul 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 11:20
|
|
|
Jiang Qing was the pseudonym of Mao Zedong's wife and one of the main instigators of the Cultural Revolution. Also, she died in 1991.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 11:54
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Jiang Qing was the pseudonym of Mao Zedong's wife and one of the main instigators of the Cultural Revolution. Also, she died in 1991. No, not that. The mix of Jiang Qin and Daniel Bell, which I warped into Jon Halliday of all things and went ahead and said 'Surely Jung Chang" before realising my mistake. So... 'which byline?' I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 12:37
|
|
|
Edit: Found the original article I wanted to post. The WaPo appears to have replaced it with an article about how the government is telling the truth about the deaths. http://www.570news.com/news/world/a...cture-neglected (Washington Post replacement article) http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...7U5W_story.html quote:BEIJING, China - Recent heavy rains across much of China have left nearly 100 people dead, state media said Tuesday. More than a third of the fatalities were in the flood-ravaged capital, where some residents questioned whether the city's rapid push for modernization came at the expense of basic infrastructure such as drainage networks. Warcabbit fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jul 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 12:45
|
|
|
According to the almighty Wiki, this particular Jiang Qing is male, currently pre-undead, and some sort of retro Confucianist that critiques both Marxism and New Confucianism. I know little to nothing about any of this, but I would say he's trying to revive pre-Republican ideas of Confucianism? I'm sure there are people much more qualified than myself who can talk about these things in detail.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 12:46
|
|
|
Warcabbit posted:Edit: Found the original article I wanted to post. The WaPo appears to have replaced it with an article about how the government is telling the truth about the deaths. No level of drainage infrastructure can handle 18 inches of rain all at once... just not possible.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 13:28
|
|
|
Pro-PRC Laowai posted:No level of drainage infrastructure can handle 18 inches of rain all at once... just not possible. That said, having an actual sewer system probably wouldn't have hurt.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 14:02
|
|
|
True, most NYC has ever gotten is 8, as far as I notice. Rained 43 inches in Texas once. My favorite line is the last in the article, though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 14:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:37 |
|
|
quote:"In terms of drainage technology, China is decades behind developed societies." In my experience Chinese people tend to make these sorts of proclamations on the assumption that if something bad happened in China, it must be better in the West. I have no idea whether this quote is accurate or not, but I see these sorts of statements a lot and in many cases I know they are wrong. This week on the train a guy asked me how much faster the high-speed trains were in America. He didn't really have a response when I told him we don't have any. Actually in the same conversation I mentioned the recent Chinese space flight. I was immediately told Chinese space technology wasn't as good as America's. I said that the space shuttles are all in museums and the U.S. does not currently have any functional spacecraft. These sorts of things seem to end the conversation for a while because Chinese people just have nothing to say to that. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jul 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2012 15:18
|
|