mandarin | mandarin

Dec.27.2012 Random Thoughts of a Stick-Waving, Apocalypse Survivor We had a power outage last week and I brewed tea over a small wood fire in the backyard and then wrote a stiff letter to Pacific Gas and Electric by candlelight with a fountain pen complaining that if they were intent on destroying my children’s future home with their coal powered plants and...	May.14.2012 New York Times Book Review: My Humble Board Book When my last adult nonfiction came out to great reviews, try as WW Norton my publisher might, we could not land a review in the coveted NYTimes. So when my humble bilingual book came out to little fanfare, I thought nothing of it. This morning, roaming around the pages of Amazon, I...
Jul.05.2011 An Ode to Wade-Giles All the hoopla surrounding last week's anniversary of Hong Kong's Handover got me thinking about the many Hong Kong vs. China dichotomies. Which led me to a broader old China vs. new China reverie. Take Wade-Giles. It's not a British taipan, but rather a system of Mandarin romanization popular from...	Aug.25.2009 Howard Goldblatt -- translator (from Mandarin) par excellence http://fulltilt.ncu.edu.tw/Content.asp?I_No=16&Period=2
Apr.04.2009 Memoirs of China: Me Talk So Foot [JOURNAL ENTRY, OCTOBER 2004:] Our Chinese neighbor (English name “Cecelia”) has been teaching my wife and me some Mandarin words. You cannot imagine the strange ways that you have to curl your tongue in your mouth and against your teeth to approximate the correct sounds. Also, the sounds often...	Feb.09.2009 Part II of an (SRA) Self-Revealization Acceptance Conversation A continuation of a conversation with Wu Qiujing in Fujian Province, Zhangzhou, China WQ - Good evening, Hanshi. SK – Hello. WQ - How's your day? SK - Very excellent and I am still at it. WQ – Good. I have some questions to ask you. Do you have time? SK – Sure. WQ - What do you mean by Self-...