Magores goes random...

Random Comment #1 - I have a cold. It sucks.

Random Comment #2 - I have 12 mosquito bites. They suck.

Random Comment #3 - I saw the freakiest thing ever on TV last nite.

--China TV has alot of variety shows. More-or-less average people getting on stage and doing their thing.

--Last nite, some guy put a hook on each of his lower eyelids, then hooked the hooks to bowls of water, and then lifted the bowls of water while standing on one knee. As if that wasn't enough, he then stood up and twirled in circles with these bowls hooked to his eyelids. I stopped watching. It was too gross.

Random Comment #4 - On today's evening news they showed some cops putting the serious beat-down on some street vendors.

--From what I could tell, the vendors were resisting arrest, so I guess they deserved it. But, DAMN! It was a beat down.

Random Comment #5 - I'm finally sick and tired of not knowing Chinese. So I'm doing something about it.

--Seriously, I think I would have learned more if I had stayed in the US.

--I saw some article, where a US college student in China mentioned that she has learned 300 characters. She has be in the country the same amount of time as me. (6 months.) I don't know 300 characters. Granted, she is STUDYING Chinese, so it is to be expected that she would know more than I do. But, still...

--I don't know exactly how many I know. I guessing it's somewhere between 100-200. It kinda depends too, on what you mean by "know". I understand (in context) more than I can say. I can say more than I can read, I can read more than I can write. And, of the ones that I can say, I probably mess up on the "tone" 99% of the time.

--Chinese puts concepts (words) together in ways that don't always make sense to me.

--But, I'm determined to do this. Looking in my Oxford Chinese Dictionary, I see that words beginning with "e" are the least common in Chinese. So, I have made it my mission to learn all of the "e" words, and resulting concepts. So far, this includes, reading/writing/saying: Forehead, Goose, Goose egg, cobblestones (goose+ovum /NOT egg/+stone), "The lady in the moon", quota, over quota, maximum capacity, and a few others.

Random Comment #6 - I can also ask for "wood putty" in Chinese. Even if the Chinese don't understand it themselves. It's "mu tou nizi"


Please skip over these next three comments if you have sensitive ears/eyes.


Random Comment #7 - I taught two of the teachers the idea of "BFE".

--As in "the middle of nowhere", aka "Bum F*ck Egypt".
--It was in the context of a class that I teach to/for them, so it's not completely random.
--At first I wrote f_ck, and assumed they could guess from there. They couldn't. So, I filled in the blank.
--I didn't even try to explain the word. It has FAR too many uses.

Random comment #8 - China radio is weird. It seems like there is no oversight.

--I hear curse words in songs all the time.
--They play movie clips, with no bleeps.
--F_ck, Sh_t, G*ddamn, etc

Random Comment #9 - China TV on the other had seems very puritanical, but not.

--They show lots of fashion programs on TV here. So, when I see one, I stop and look. (They ARE models, after all.)
--I've seen more boobies (slippage) on Chinese TV in 6 months, than I did in the last 5 years in the US. Other the hand...
--Chinese TV doesn't show butts. EVER. Whereas a US cameraman would "linger", the Chinese cameraman cuts away. Always.
--This is expecially odd when you consider that Beijing women wear the tightest pants and shorts imaginable.
--Cause and effect?


Anyway... There you go. Random comments on a Monday night.