Pronounced: shǔyì
Literally: “mouse epidemic”
Means: the Plague. If you add the character for “lung” (肺 fèi) you get “pneumonic plague” (肺鼠疫 fèishǔyì), which has killed one and sickened five others in Tibet as of a couple days ago.
Every time I go to the market without Lilia, I get asked where she is…even though my answer is ALWAYS the same (“Her Dad is watching her”), it often seems as though the ladies there think that *this time* I might JUST have decided to leave her home alone by herself.
When I go to the market with Lilia, she’s the subject of a lot of fussing and clucking and cheek rubbing. Lately she’s FINALLY started to be willing to talk with the ladies…I do think they were starting to have trouble believing me that she talks ALL DAY long at home.
Last week, a particularly vicious mosquito bit Lilia 5 times on the right side of her face. I went to the market, and of course, everybody needed to know what happened. I told them, “A mosquito bit her.” The next thing I knew, I was being chastised…”What? Weren’t you even paying attention at all? How could you let that happen!!!” I told them that I think it happened while she was asleep, and the ladies all said “Oh, you let that mosquito in your house and it got her…you need to pay more attention. Babies have sweet skin.” I wonder…do they think I invited the mosquito in to feast on my little girl’s sweet flesh? :) (I know, they don’t really think that, but this kind of “关心” on Lilia’s behalf did serve to make me feel a little bit guilty about the bites.)
Usually when Lilia comes to the market with me, she’s in the baby carrier. It’s just so much more convenient than carrying the stroller down (and back up) four flights of stairs when I’m just making a quick trip to buy some veggies for dinner. Yesterday I got told, “You really need to let her walk. She’s never going to learn to walk if you keep using that thing!” I tried to explain otherwise, but it seems that my vegetable seller really might just believe that I keep Lilia in the baby carrier all day long, every day.:)
In the end, it doesn’t really matter too much to me what people think, but I sometimes do wonder what impressions my neighbours and the people around me get from things that I never even stop to think twice about (like using the baby carrier). It would be interesting, I suppose, to be able to see myself from their point of view. It’s also a reminder to me that lots of the things I see every day (and which may have even served as a basis for my impressions or assumptions about China and Chinese people) could potentially be the quirks of an individual, or a family and not some widespread cultural difference (as I am prone to assuming). When one is really trying to learn about a place and a culture, it’s a good reminder to be humble…because, try as I might, I can never really see the whole picture.
This visualization of satellite-derived air pollution data shows us that China really is red after all! Click the photo to view full size.
Found this via Jo at Outside-In.typepad.com. The NASA page is here: New Map Offers a Global View of Health-Sapping Air Pollution
In class today the students had to read the following recruitment ad for a turn-of-the-century north pole expedition and guess the destination:
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.
I had one student read it to the others, and it went something like this:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold…”
“Sounds like Shanxi.”
“…long months of complete darkness, constant danger…”
“Haha, definitely Shanxi.”
“…safe return doubtful.”
“It must be Shanxi!”
Shanxi (山西) is in the heart of China’s coal mining region. That means it’s super-polluted, mine bosses are super rich (“Shanxi coal mining boss” is a cliché), and coal miners are underpaid, under-protected, and killed on a regular basis in mine accidents that occasionally make the news because there are too many to cover up all of them. North Pole or a Shanxi coal mine — not sure which is the more hazardous expedition.
Pronounced: bànbiān tiān
Means: “Half the sky” — from the famous Chinese saying often attributed to Chairman Mao: “Women (can) hold up half the sky” (妇女能顶半边天 / 妇女顶起半边天).
新生事物春满园， 妇女能顶半边天
In Chinese popular culture, “half the sky” references womankind, with a T.V. show, charities, and a brand of adult products all bearing the phrase as their name. “Half the sky” has recently begun working it’s way into mainstream North American culture through the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and is getting picked up in all kinds of places.
妇女顶起半边天，管教山河换新颜
The public campaigns we’re accustomed to seeing in China, like the recent “3 Vulgarities” and the Olympics, conjure images of Mao in many people’s minds, and rightly so. But Mao isn’t the only modern Chinese leader whose influence can be seen in these campaigns. Some of these campaigns actually look more pre-Liberation (1949) or Singaporean. See: Three Ways of Looking at the PRC’s Latest Campaigns
Other stuff on public campaigns:
Here’s a personal look at what it means to be “middle class” in today’s China, translated from The People’s Daily — A Glimpse of China’s Middle Class:
“My salary is 10 times what it was 10 years ago. Why is life so tense?”
A Mainland professor, annoyed at the education he received, has made it his personal mission to teach things differently. And he has some strong opinions about the current state and direction of the Mainland’s history course content. Another professor takes aim at modern Chinese literature. See: A System Afraid of Its Own History
We stepped off the Great Wall onto a terraced mountainside, and then followed a narrow farmers’ path through a corn jungle down to a village in the valley.
Photo Gallery: Mountainside Great Wall Corn Jungle Village Hike
Along the way a woman invited us into her hillside home to have look around.
Click a photo to go to the photo gallery.
We’ve done this hike before, but never when the crops were above our heads. The previous galleries have better village shots and people shots, especially this one: Happy Forest village — 2008 June 6
Chinglish is everywhere in China, but rarely is it this awesome!
I saw this tonight in the Tianjin subway. It’s handler gave me permission to take her explosive dog’s picture. “Explosive dog” is 搜爆犬 (sōu bào quǎn).
Canada:
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Haiti:
UK:
