Dreams of White Tiles . . .

7/18/2004

Finding a Chinese Teacher

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 12:53 pm

For the last month or so I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a Chinese teacher. I’ve had a few ads up here and there, along with answering any likely looking ones I see myself.
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7/6/2004

Breaking News / Silverhawk

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 8:42 pm

Two films I’ve watched the last couple of days.

Breaking News (大事件)is good stuff, Richie Jen is much more convincing as a crime boss than you’d expect if you knew him from his day job as a pretty pop star and you get all the Hong Kong shoot shoot kick kick stuff you’d expect, along with a decent storyline.

Silverhawk(飞鹰)isn’t so good. Slick, well-filmed, but there’s only so many times Michelle Yeoh can somersault onto her bike before you stop forgetting that the last ten minutes of the film were actually dull. Could be worth getting for the flashback kiddie kung-fu scene though.

郑钧(Zheng Jun)’s 赤裸裸 (Naked)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 6:40 pm

I spent the Spring Festival of 2002 in Harbin, studying Chinese. As damned near everyone I knew had had the much better idea of going somewhere with average daily temperatures above -15C, I spent a fair number of the evenings of Spring Festival of 2002 in an internet cafe where they had good heat and not too many people dropping cigarette ash on your shoulder as they read your emails. They were constantly playing this song, and although it doesn’t mention ice, snow, frozen snot or staying on the no.4 bus far too long because you couldn’t see out the iced-up windows, it always reminds me of Harbin.

I never learnt its name, or the singer, and had pretty much forgotten about it till I heard it from a car window last week. With thanks to the helpful people on Chinese-forums.com who identified it for me, I hereby present it for your listening pleasure. The translation is undeniably rough, and there may be errors in the pinyin. I’m sure the characters are fine though, which is usually the case when I copy something rather than do it myself.

Mp3 file is 4.5MB. If the link doesn’t work try a search for 赤裸裸 on Baidu’s Mp3 Search (more…)

Audit Article Vocab

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 5:20 pm

Vocab I got from reading a 南方周末 article suggesting the Audit Department become responsible to the People’s Congress (hey, it was a slow day at work…)

It’s not all completely new to me – some of it is stuff I recognize but don’t know how to use, or could read but didn’t know how to pronounce, so on . . .
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7/4/2004

Dusk Storm

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 7:57 pm

Two photos from the balcony around 7.30pm, just after a storm. These are the colours that come out of the camera, but to be honest they didn’t seem quite that dramatic . . .

7/3/2004

姜昕 (Jiang Xin)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Roddy @ 5:25 pm

A tip from a friend sent me off hunting for CDs by 姜昕 (Jiang Xin). She was described to me as a kind of female Xu Wei, and the CD I picked up had him listed more than once in the credits. It is similar kind of stuff – guitar driven vocals, nice lyrics if you take the time out to understand them and a style that’s different without trying too hard to be so.

潘多拉 may not be the best of the songs on the album I got, but it’s the most catchy and accessible, and there’s a fair chance you’ll know the story already – just hold on till the end to find out why it wasn’t all the end of the world.

If you like this one and can’t get hold of a CD, try these from Baidu.com’s ever trusty Mp3 Search.

Read on for lyrics in characters and pinyin. I’ve annotated some of the words and phrases.
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