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問我anything with tysond


Yadang

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We're continuing the 問我anything series with tysond.

 

The questions do not have to be related to Chinese or China. The participant also reserves the right to skip questions s/he does not want to answer. To see a list of the people who have participated in the past, see here.

 

Some questions for tysond:

 

You mentioned in Why Chinese? that you had to take four years of compulsory high school Chinese, didn't like it at the time and then picked it up again years later after enjoying the process of learning Dutch. How long have you been studying Chinese now? How long have you been in China? How long do you plan to stay in China?

 

You seem to be into using technology such as Subs2SRS, Anki, etc. for studying. What are your favorite Chinese study tools? Which tools (if any) do you think have made a really significant impact on your studying (as in, more than just being convenient). 

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How do you get your Chinese speaking practice in? Do you find locals round Beijing want to chat to you?

 

When are we all going to have another Beijing forum meet up?

 

Whats your favorite winter beverage? Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic

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What do you like to do when not doing work or something Chinese related?

 

 

 
One big hobby is travel, and have two travel related hobbies.  My wife and I travel whenever possible, both within China (while we are here) and internationally.  And this entails quite a bit of time spent planning travels (right now we are planning a trip to Cuba in February for example).  In China I've been to Xinjiang, Guangzhou, Xiamen/Fujian, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chenggde, Xi'an and Yunnan in the last 2 years.
 
We also like SCUBA diving, which I am pretty experienced with (over 200 dives) and have done in many places - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Mexico, Thailand, Tahiti, Paulau, Vanuatu, Maldives, etc.   This is a great hobby if you like boats, islands beaches, and warm weather.  I took up this hobby when I moved to south east asia 10 years ago and it's been a very good activity to do while travelling.
 
I am also trying to learn to ski, which is a great cold weather hobby.  I've been only to a few places - USA (near Seattle), Canada (Whistler), Japan (Niseko) and Australia (near Canberra).  With my wife we've learned to ski reasonably well now (she's better than me), and can handle intermediate trails.  
 
I also read quite a bit (science fiction is my favorite genre, Iain M Banks is my favorite author), watch films.  The wife and I like cocktail bars and nice restaurants so most weekends we go out in Beijing, or sometimes in other cities (Shanghai has a nice restaurant scene too, and we frequently visit Singapore which has good eats too).  I'll occasionally do a little gaming on the Xbox or PC.
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How do you get your Chinese speaking practice in? Do you find locals round Beijing want to chat to you?

 

 

 
First of all, I don't get enough practice :-)  Particularly not with someone correcting me.
 
My wife is from Malaysia, but isn't ethnically Chinese, and only really has survival Chinese.  So I don't get to practice much with her.  Our home life is in English, which technically is her second language (although truly she is native level).
 
I get quite a bit of my Chinese practice at work.  My workplace is a foreign company but the staff are 99% local.  So many discussions are held in Chinese, and I insist that at least a few of them are in Chinese when I'm present.  
My reputation as being able to speak Chinese precedes me so now if I am the only foreigner around I am often asked if it's ok to have the meeting in Chinese, and if I start out in Chinese a lot of colleagues/vendors simply relax and prefer to listen to my foreigner accented, mistake ridden Chinese than get stressed speaking English.  
 
[ BTW Foreigners are endlessly fascinating to most Chinese people.  When I early on took a phone call from a delivery guy in Chinese, everybody listened, and the story of how well/poorly I spoke, what mistakes I made and what the topic was was related to members of my team 4 floors away within 1 hour.  However I eavesdrop on a lot of their phone conversations to get practice so it's no big deal ].
 
Mind you, this is not pure Chinese, it's a blend of English business jargon and Chinese.  明天我们的account teams应该准备pre-work发给coach.  你已经下了P.O.吗?财神,听说过我们会搬office, 对不对?  When we do large group  meetings/briefings, typically the first few hours are in English (as quite a few senior leaders don't speak Chinese) but then it continues in Chinese for the rest of the day, with all the product names and jargon still in English.  So I get between 2-10 hours of listening/speaking practice a week via work.  
 
I get a little practice from local Beijingers.  People in Beijing will often assume you speak Chinese and go ahead and ask you things but it can be quite transactional - which is building number 7?  Otherwise they are like a taxi driver or something and you get to practice much the same conversation if you let them drive the conversation - now I usually ask them lots of questions about their kids as it's more varied.  
 
Regular discussions with the senior Ayi at work, my friend's regular driver, etc are good touch-points as you can have more varied conversations over time as you meet them again and again.  My hairdresser is another regular conversation partner, although I'm going to need to watch more Chinese TV and movies to step the conversation level up as we have little to discuss but the weather.  
 
When I am alone I deliberately seek out conversations with people (shopkeers etc) and keep pushing in Chinese as long as possible.  I try to do all daily transactions in Chinese - shopping, checking in to a flight, taxis, applying for a credit card, repairs, etc.
 
I usually get to play the role of translator at the table when out with other foreigners, but it's a bit rude to keep practicing Chinese (and is seen as showing off) so you end up speaking English with your friends because usually everyone can speak it to a conversational level.  Even if there are other people learning Chinese your levels will often be wildly different.  We don't have so many Chinese friends for cultural/lifestyle reasons (they have kids to look after and not so keen to go out for cocktails).
 
So sometimes I just make expeditions by myself into regular areas of Beijing and chat with people. Once I booked myself into an immersion homestay in Chengde for a few days.   
 
Finally, I do a lot of conversation, reading out loud, role-playing, story-telling and conversation with my teacher, which is 4 hours a week.  I have been doing all Chinese lessons in Chinese for over a year now, it helps a great deal too.
 
[edited - some chinese was so wrong even I noticed it]
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Whats your favorite winter beverage? Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic

 

 

 
I quite like the mulled wine that shows up in Beijing (and is popular in ski-resorts) as a way to get over the coldness of winter!

Non-alcoholic - hot coffee is the best.  I am a coffee addict and usually drink iced black coffee in the heat, and hot black coffee in the cold.  Green tea sometimes (also good both cold and hot).

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Malaysian iced tea is amazing. Their "Kopi-O" (??) is also amazing.

Thanks for the great, detailed responses!

I need to take some of your techniques on board for getting practice in. WUdaokou is a hard place to practice I find. Too many foreigners around.

Let's talk more at the next Chinese forum Meet up... Whenever that is!

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I like 舌尖上的中国 / Bite of China very much and I saw a post where you expressed similar liking. How has it affected your eating in China? What new foods have you tried because of watching the documentary and what have you thought of them?  :lol:

 

 

Well, after watching one of the early episodes where they old guy is selling the yellow millet buns, I saw that 西贝 restaurant has the same buns for sale (with his picture all over the place), and bought them home to my wife expecting delicious hot bready things, and we were really disappointed! http://img.shengyijie.net/upload/2012-09-19/1110245007.jpg

 

After that I realized that perhaps just because it's beautifully photographed and famous, it's not necessarily to my taste.  But I have been much more interested in bamboo shoots (I never realized they had seasons) and lotus roots (I have since seen some of the lakes where they are farmed, although as it's tough work sometimes they've been converted for other purposes).  These are pretty delicious.

 

I've enjoyed my 肉夹馍 more and understood 泡馍 better (sometimes I used to just be surprised - what's this bread doing in my dish?).  I've tried Shaoxing Wine (yellow wine) based cooking and quite enjoyed the lighter sweet flavor of the dishes.   I've looked a little, but so far unable to find any Chinese sausages that I like.    A lot of the other dishes like salt baked chicken, hot pot, and most of the Sichuan dishes I've tried before as they are common elsewhere in Asia.

 

A book the wife and I sometimes use for inspiration is called "Beijing Eats".  http://www.amazon.com/Beijing-Eats-Companion-Culinary-Capital/dp/7802029430

Or if your chinese is OK, fire up dianping (www.dianping.com or use the apps on mobile devices) and see what dishes others recommend.

 

Now that I'm more confident we'll sometimes just go into restaurants and ask for recommendations or order off the menu.  The results are a little variable, however.  One time we walked in to what I figured was a Jiangsu cuisine restaurant and the staff panicked and then brought out a children's exercise book upon which was handwritten the menu and (partial) English translations of the dishes.  Of course it's hard for me to read the handwritten Chinese and the translations are sometimes a little simple.  So I ordered a prawn dish, and out comes a bowl with a lid on top of it and something inside but we can't see because the glass lid is quite dark.  

 

The staff say "please wait 5 minutes" and of course my wife immediately grabs the lid while exclaiming "what's in the bowl!".  Reddish wine splashes everywhere as live prawns wriggle enthusiastically and jump out of the bowl.  My wife screams as if she has seen a ghost. The staff run back over and shove the lid back on, while we collapse in gales of laughter.  Then a few minutes later, the prawns get drunk, and I have to ask the staff for assistance on how to eat live but black-out drunk prawns (hold them from the feet side and bite & suck out their fleshy back portions).  I eat around 20 of them -- to make sure everyone knows I ordered them on purpose -- and then pretend to be full.  It's times like these you wish someone had stuffed some filling bread in one of your other dishes.

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Are you a fan of Douglas Adams?

Iain M Banks eh? Is he funny?

 

 

Yes, I've read the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy of four books, loved the old BBC TV show, and in primary school nearly killed my 2nd grade teacher (from laughter) when I wrote that my favorite person in the whole world was Zaphod Breeblebox.  

 

Iain M Banks isn't funny like that, but very very clever and imaginative.  The stories are darker - most of his science fiction is high technology and touches on issues of genocide, slavery, sexual discrimination, abuse, etc within a society that is largely utopian (Imagine if vastly intelligent machines ran a Utopian interstellar society where nobody needs to work, what happens when they run into a neighboring despotic interstellar dictatorship that is doing bad things, given that it would not be very utopian to go to war?  What kind of intrigues are possible in a high technology society which has incredible surveillance equipment but prohibits any kind of mind reading technology, of friends or enemies?).  

 

The AI spaceships and their banter amongst themselves, or even the ridiculous names they choose for themselves, or the way that ordinary citizens of this society amuse themselves with nothing much to be responsible for 99% of the time is quite amusing, sometimes more in an eccentric and startling way.  The Player of Games or Use of Weapons are recommended books.

 

I've actually been trying to re-read The Player of Games in Chinese.  Interestingly, to cater to the Chinese audience, nearly the first quarter of the book is taken up with an in detailed explanation of the setting - the galaxy, society, technology, spaceships, artificial intelligence, biology, etc.  It seems the publishers didn't want to assume that people would read the book and just pick it up as they go along.  To me that was one of the most fun things about his writing, the gradual unveiling of technology with exposition spaced throughout the story.  Imagine reading a complete history, technology catalog and organization chart for MI-6 before you can read a James Bond story.

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To me that was one of the most fun things about his writing, the gradual unveiling of technology with exposition spaced throughout the story. 

 

Agree with you completely. 

 

 

Was it a choice between China and another country, before you decided to go to China?

 

Also the five-year cycle thing: do you ever get a blue phase at the 2-3 year mark? I believe that used to be the rule-of-thumb length of time after which to transfer people on foreign postings.

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Malaysian iced tea is amazing. Their "Kopi-O" (??) is also amazing.

 

 

I agree - "Boss, Teh-O Ais Limau, Satu" (boss, one iced lemon tea) was the first thing I ever learned to say in Malay.  Amusingly it was what a Malaysian friend thought was the most important thing to teach me too.

 

Kopi means coffee, Kopi-O is coffee no milk, Kopi-O Kosong is no milk or sugar, and you can add "Ais" at the front to get it iced.  If you get it with milk it will actually be condensed milk which is heavenly but responsible for both heart disease and diabetes.  

 

Teh Terik is the best for hot tea.  Tarik means to pull, and it looks like the tea is being pulled apart as the guy who makes does long pours one container to another to froth it up.

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I was drinking an unhealthy amount of Teh Tarik, Ice tea and coffee with condensed milk when I was in KL. Good job I was only there under a week both times.

 

Tried any Malaysian food in Beijing? Any recommendations?

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Was it a choice between China and another country, before you decided to go to China?

 

 

I've lived in Belgium (3 months), Seattle, USA (3 months and numerous 1-2 week stays), Cambridge UK (1 month), Singapore (4 years in total), Malaysia (4 years in total), and now China for the last 2 years.

 

I had, for 5 years, while living in both Malaysia and SIngapore, been trying to figure out a way to work in China, that made sense career wise.  

 

At the time I was preparing to change jobs and looking for the next thing to do, there was an opportunity of working in Indonesia as well as Thailand.  While I personally fine with either of those as a living location (I'd visited many many times and we had friends in both cities), it wasn't what I'd been trying to achieve for so long.  It wasn't going to improve my Chinese, or give me exposure to the business market in China.  It wasn't going to teach me more about the culture of what for thousands of years generally has been and will continue to be an important and interesting culture, and global economic power.

 

I mentioned it to my colleagues my desire to go to China and one of them had a job opening that was actually a very good fit for me and would work well, so finally I had found something that worked well.  The position was required to be in Beijing.

 

Also, because I drag my wife around with me on these moves, she gets veto power.  She'd already put China on the Pre-Approved List as she used to do business trips to China and enjoyed the scale, scope and wildness of China (I think she visited Wuhan in those days it still had a cowboy, wild west feel about it).  Her parents felt that it was a smart move (quite a few of their relatives do business with China and have learned some basic Chinese).  And my family has some history with China as my sister had previously lived and studied in Beijing (she was a better student than me back then!) and my parents vested her then and have traveled extensively through China 10-15 years ago.  Also, at that time, one of my highschool buddies was running a bar in Beijing, so there was someone on the ground to welcome us.

 

I would also say - professional salaries in Jakarta are not as high as Beijing.  Bangkok is closer, but due to the market size, not many positions are available - Beijing has more senior, higher paid positions by far.  This helps make the move more equitable, because one needs to save money for retirement.

 

So those were the considerations at the time, and the stars seemed to all align on the job in Beijing.

 

Also the five-year cycle thing: do you ever get a blue phase at the 2-3 year mark? I believe that used to be the rule-of-thumb length of time after which to transfer people on foreign postings.

 

 

It's a super interesting question.  I don't really feel the same level of excitement as the first few months.  But I can't say I ever felt particularly depressed around that time.  

 

Before I ever moved to a new country by myself a friend of mine warned me that you have to get used to loneliness.  He told me how his first six months in a new country, living in the countryside, were incredibly lonely.  Taking up hobbies and deliberately making friends is a required task, and takes some time and effort. So does simply enjoying time with yourself, building your own routines, something that many people are not used to having deep social connections and a rhythm of meeting people already established.

 

Being prepared for friends to leave is important.  As an outsider you often make friends with other outsiders, and they'll rotate in and out.  It's good to be ready for this, you can make lots of good friends at farewell parties actually.  Of course getting married to a great wife is a pretty good way to keep from being lonely.  And finding one is a good way to spend time too.  

 

Before moving to China I made a list wife my wife of the things we wanted to do in China - goals around career, travel, chinese study, etc.  So after 2 years I certainly feel I have made progress but still have quite a bit to do.  It's helpful to have this kind of perspective when you move countries as otherwise you have no real purpose.  I guess if I was not making progress on these goals I'd definitely have the blues.

 

I think that expat postings of 2 years are more about rotating a leader/manager into a situation to give them more experience.  I am not sure whether in 2 years someone can move to a different culture, learn it, make an impact.  But I guess you can transfer some skill over or similar.  I also think they choose 2 years because people are not ready to sever their ties and connections, so 2 years seems enough time to be able to re-patriate.  I've been away for over 10 years now, I don't really think about repatriation anymore.  It might happen but it's not a certainty.

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you can make lots of good friends at farewell parties actually.

This makes a lot of sense: many people at a farewell party will have things in common (with the leaving friend, and therefore with you), and everyone at a farewell party has an opening in their life for a new friend.
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"Constant criticism for not having children.  The low value of human life." 

 

i think these two things go together in a way, because there are so many people the one thing that is cheap is life. I am one of the "chosen not to have children" clan and even in UK it can be seen as weird choice. i have been called selfish, my response is i think you are selfish for wanting without regard to the future of the planet.

 

oops sorry, its my pet peeve about the world, rant over :-?

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