Deep Thoughts [Warning: This post is 100% parody]

[animal world]

Oh, oh, oh, this thread has given me a headache. You see, i write fiction and often come up with goofy bits of flash fiction that i write down just as a fun warm-up exercise. This is one of them. Yeah, i wrote it and i tried to stay "in voice" but the voice is not at all *me.* I had sprinkled it with clue after clue showing that it was parody and felt i could dispense with the emoticons. Boy, was i wrong! I debated sending Roddy a PM with the request to delete this thread. That would have left me with the reputation of being a blatant racist and China-hater. I settled for the disclaimer in the title instead. It's up to Roddy to delete this thread if he doesn't like it. In any case, i will never post my morsels of flash fiction here again.

The fact is, i (= the real me) love the Chinese language, China, its culture, its history, its people, its food, etc, etc, etc. There's no way i'll ditch learning Chinese for anything. In fact, this week i achieved a little milestone in reading (a book of great short stories that was way above my head back in July now is very doable to read) that gives me no end of pleasure.

So, you folks will just have to put up with me for a bit longer.

[chrix]

Well, you could always post your flash fiction in the chat forum or put it on a blog and post the link here, like so many of us do here

[roddy]

I read the original post before going to bed last night, and thought 'people are going to take that seriously.' Sure enough, we now have a discussion actually funnier than the original post. Racist stereotypes indeed.

Enjoy yourselves. I'm off to have a giggle over that 好女不过百 topic. That one can't possibly be genuine.

[Meng Lelan]

This is such a great thread.

[md1101]

i liked the post until i saw the 100% parody thing come up. :mrgreen::mrgreen:

[querido]

The real Jack Handy would contribute, but he's busy working on his Senator-parody. instant rimshot Linda Lovelace too, but she can't find her glasses.

[zhouhaochen]

ok, I love China, the Chinese Language and the fact that all streets in Beijing are straight, so you dont get lost.

and I thought the post was pretty funny

[adrianlondon]

But their culture and language strike me as a little commonplace

.

It's true. Their entire "language" is based around drawing pictures of things and showing those to other people. For the last hundred years or so they've started talking in between spitting on the pavement, but it's a temporary fad. They'll all be using QQ and not speaking any more before the decade's out.

[animal world]

Here's another aspect that clearly shows the one-upmanship of English over Chinese: texting! Oops, i better learn political correctness and refer to it as one-uppersonship. The guys who invented those hanzi scribbles obviously didn't see the craze of texting coming. English is so flexible that you can readily resort to 2, 4, bf, gf, imho, etc, etc but in Chinese you just can't drop strokes left and right and still hope to be understood. It wouldn't surprise me if China has a disproportionate number of car accidents resulting from texting while rolling along on the freeway. 囧

[anonymoose]

I guess you haven't come across TMD then.

[Sarevok]

And you would be surprised how creative can Chinese be when it comes to using numbers - its not only 2 and 4, you can write entire sentences like this (some of which are not easy to decipher... but so would be "WTF, STFU n00b11!!1!!11!oneone" for a lot of people). One of my friends has written a thesis revolving around this matter.

Not to mention 草泥马 and such... yes, Chinese can be very creative...

[animal world]

I guess you haven't come across TMD then.

No, i haven't but figured that surely there would be something to facilitate texting. How does TMD work exactly? (not necessary to waste a lot of time explaining this; a link will be fine as well)

[anonymoose]

How does TMD work exactly?

:lol:

Here's the link you wanted.

[Scoobyqueen]

So, you think repeating racist stereotypes is humour?

"Family Guy" is quite funny though.

[SunDaYu]

South Park is too, and it is much better than Family Guy

You know, at least in America, for such a liberal and open society they are still very strict about not using racial stereotypes, if you're white. Any racial insult is taken extremely seriously and will ruin the reputation of the individual, unless it's said about a white person, that's ok.

[adrianlondon]

I prefer Family Guy (with the Simpsons and South Park following behind) although American Dad also has its good moments.

[jbradfor]

You know, at least in America, for such a liberal and open society they are still very strict about not using racial stereotypes, if you're white.

It's not just stereotypes, it's any reference.

Say you're near a group of people that consists of (say) 15 white people and 1 black person. Say that black person's name is "Steve". If someone comes up to you and asks you "Which one of them is Steve?", I think pretty much all the white people I know will use all sorts of descriptions besides "he's the black person". Rather dysfunctional, IMHO.

Slightly back on topic, I liked the OP. I've actually had the same thoughts about lacking originally about names, and objects in general, as it's near impossible to create a new character in Chinese, so one has to create new words with existing characters. [unlike an alphabet based language, in which one can use "unfriend", and most people can guess the meaning.] But I find this more of a positive aspect, as it makes the language easier to learn.

[Lu]

Is that parody again? 'Unfriend' is hardly a new word, it combines an ages-old word-part un- with the at least as old word 'friend'. New combination, sure, but Chinese is very good at that too.

[jbradfor]

Both. I was serious about being able to create words in English (e.g. scuba, radar, laser come to mind, all "acronyms" that became words, but there are many others). But I purposely gave an example that is similar to Chinese. Just to be confusing.

[anonymoose]

I'm not sure what the process for inventing a new character is (like in English, any new word used frequently enough gets accepted as a legitimate word) but new characters are invented from time to time. One example is that whenever new chemical elements are discovered, they are given their own character. 鐽 is the character for darmstadtium (which is also a new word in English), and a few other similar elements also have their own new characters. These elements have only been discovered (that is, artificially made) over the last 10 or 20 years or so, so these characters must be relatively new inventions. (At least I didn't find any prior use for this character).

If a company were to invent a character, for its name for example (just like companies can create all kinds of new names for themselves in English, as marketing gimmicks), I wonder how the authorities would react. (Of course there would be technical difficulties, such as not being able to legally register under that name, and noone being able to type that name in print, and people not having seen that character before wouldn't be certain how to read it, so from a strategic point of view, it probably wouldn't be a good idea either, but it is still interesting to consider what the wider effect would be, and whether the character could ever become accepted officially.)