Assorted Links (China edition)

  1. Chinesepod.com. Podcasts for learning Chinese.
  2. Popup Chinese. More podcasts
  3. Pinyin.info. “Most of what most people think they know about Chinese — especially when it comes to Chinese characters — is wrong.”
  4. Laowai Chinese. “I’ve been busy not losing my job (teaching) and not ignoring my publisher. What I mean is: I’ve been working on the editing and layout of my book Chinese 24/7. I’m glad to announce there are now over ten people outside my family who have expressed interest in my book.”
  5. Sinosplice. “There are some seriously rank odors out there on the street. Rotting organic matter, urine, feces, stinky tofu…. But don’t worry, soon you’ll be gleefully playing “name that odor” with your Chinese friends!”
  6. Imagethief. “Chinese netizens were outraged when Gong Li played a Japanese woman in “Memoirs of Geisha”, alongside fellow crypto-Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.”
  7. Beijing Sounds. A linguist blogs. “The final indignity comes when you utter a phrase that incites peals of laughter. Ignoring your request for explication, your [Chinese] spouse goes over to tell the in-laws (did I mention you’re living with them?) and the lesson comes to an ignominious close with the stern father-in-law, who rarely chuckles, doubled up on the couch, tears rolling down his cheeks.”
  8. Danwei “Today’s New Culture View reports that the People’s Supreme Court approved the death sentence of Yang Jia, the man who murdered six policemen and wounded three others and a security guard on July 1 this year.”
  9. Scientific and academic fraud in China. One popular post printed a letter from a Yale professor teaching at Beijing University upset about plagiarism among his Chinese students: “When plagiarism is detected in America, it can end the career of the person doing it,” he writes. Such as Harvard professors Laurence Tribe, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Charles Ogletree, and Alan Dershowitz?

Happy Thanksgiving! A Chinese friend texted me this. I replied I was surprised she was aware of it. “The majority of Chinese know this day,” she replied, “and say thanks to their friends and families.”

Assorted Links

  1. Why Word has an animated paperclip. For more on this, see the excellent Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Prestige, and Success by Art Kleiner.
  2. Does sugar make it harder to fight off microbes?
  3. Practical memory training.
  4. Interview with Leonard Mlodinow, author of Feynman’s Rainbow and the soon-to-be-published The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

Thanks to Dave Lull and Peter Spero.