A Mafan

Please don't take this personally, but I didn't like the article. For the most part, there is no such thing as being unable to translate a word into another language. It may take a sentence instead of a word, or a paragraph, or even a page to describe, but there is always a way to translate a concept. Moreover, when there is no word-for-word direct translation available, it is because of cultural assumptions, or technology, or just that one of the languages lacks a word. For instance, they don't seem to have cranberries in China. My wife had never heard of them before coming to the US. So how do you translate "cranberry"? I just call it the "no-name fruit" in Chinese when I want to tell her we should buy some. Placenames are also tough: do you translate "Springfield" as a sound, or by using the word for "spring" and "field". If so, what about Fairfax? "Fair" + "fax" (facsimile) doesn't make any sense at all. And do you translate "fair" as light-colored, or festival, or even-handed justice? The point is, you always go back to the original concepts, and you use the words you need to give people the sense of what you are talking about. So maybe there is no word for "shengren" in English. I'd argue that there is: "Renaissance Man" is a good one. "Genius" may be another...because how do you describe Leonardo da Vinci, who was awesome in so many fields other than that one word? But since there is no equivalent, "philosopher" works fine. It gives you the right impression you need to understand what Confucius contributed most: a philosophy of how to relate to others in society. A "shengren" absolutely is a type of philosopher. The only time you really need the distinction of exactly what ways a "shengren" differs from Emmanuel Kant is if you already have the capability to understand what a "shengren" is...but most people really don't need to know that. Same with "wenming". Or another example: we translate Chinese nobility titles into English nobility titles of "Earl" and "Duke". Are these historical figures really earls and dukes? Of course not. But it gives the right flavor. Overall, the article just seems unnecessarily pedantic to me. But the same could probably be said of my reaction, so I'll drop the issue. If you got something useful to you out of it, then it was worth you sharing with the rest of us. The world doesn't revolve around me. I think.

For my wife, while they are living is better. But being there for Grave Cleaning Day is pretty important to her, as well. And Yatou has also said that actually being there as her Grandmother passed was also very important to her.

Also, play around w/ different airports. One year it was $200 cheaper for my wife to fly out of Dallas on American. 2 years later, it was cheaper to fly out of Houston on Continental. Maybe the same thing for flying into Beijing vs Tianjin or or Chengdu vs Chongqing. [shrug]

www.farecompare.com is the easiest way I've found to find the cheapest prices. Generally, you will get the best price somewhere between 30 and 60 days out from your day of travel. For the most part, it is cheaper to fly on Tues-Thurs rather than Fri-Mon, and Friday and Monday are usually the most expensive due to business travelers, and weekends more expensive due to people adjusting around work. Fare Compare will let you see the prices for each day of the week. I think you have to put in "my dates are flexible" or something...can't remember. Play with it for an hour or two to learn all the quirks.

How could you possibly know you could save only one? I'd probably drown trying to save both. Or I would grab the one closest to me and then drown going back for the second. It's the same thing if you say it is in a fire in the home. I'm not going to leave my wife's side to go save my child because then I might lose both. In an emergency situation, you always do what you can first. You always do the simplest, most direct thing first, because that leaves more time to do the next things. I believe this question is formulated to try and see if there is any American tradition of values favoring a wife over a child, right? If you put it that bluntly, I really don't know. I love them all so much. What if the choice is you can save only 1 of your wife and 3 children? That's a big difference than if you can only save your wife or all of your children? What if the choice is expressed in percentages? Let's say you are at home with your child (from a previous marriage) and your step-child (from your spouse's previous marriage), and your husband/wife isn't at home. An earthquake occurs, and you see you can drag only one child under the desk to save their life. Your step-child is right there, you have a 100% chance to save him/her. Your own child is in another room, and you might have a 20% chance to save him/her, but if you fail, everyone dies. What do you do? Do you ignore your spouse's child to look for your own? If you succeed in saving your own child, what do you tell your spouse?

I think A Mafan and some other people were saying a while back about how their wives would never let their bodies come into contact with a second-hand garment. But my wife doesn't mind at all. Some of her favorite shirts and also a pair of pants that she bought in America were from second-hand stores. Anywhere you put her, she'll find at least one or two pieces of clothing she likes. If my wife knows where they come from: no problem. Hand-me-downs are great. But if it is second-hand from a store...did the previous owner die? Were they sick? Did they have cancer? Did they bathe regularly? I think most Americans would not feel comfortable buying used underwear. At least, I wouldn't. It just seems icky. That is very similar to how my wife feels about 2nd-hand clothes when she doesn't know the previous wearer. Yeah, underwear is over a line that few would dare to cross if they didn't need to... All the questions about death, cancer, etc. I personally find very easy to forget about. I wouldn't bring them up to my wife, though, as I'm pretty sure it would affect her. She's a little more superstitious than I am... I don't bring up those issues. Those are the issues she cited in not wanting to try 2nd-hand clothing at all.

I think A Mafan and some other people were saying a while back about how their wives would never let their bodies come into contact with a second-hand garment. But my wife doesn't mind at all. Some of her favorite shirts and also a pair of pants that she bought in America were from second-hand stores. Anywhere you put her, she'll find at least one or two pieces of clothing she likes. If my wife knows where they come from: no problem. Hand-me-downs are great. But if it is second-hand from a store...did the previous owner die? Were they sick? Did they have cancer? Did they bathe regularly? I think most Americans would not feel comfortable buying used underwear. At least, I wouldn't. It just seems icky. That is very similar to how my wife feels about 2nd-hand clothes when she doesn't know the previous wearer.

My wife loves Ross Dress for Less and any/all outlet malls. She can usually find something in the clearance racks for me, her, or family members. Sometimes we spend a whole day at an outlet mall and end up with just a few articles of clothing, but she enjoys shopping, I enjoy being with her, and it is a cheap way to spend a day out of the house and out of town.

Why do you think the majority of American families are in debt up to their eyeballs? I read an article yesterday that 43% of American approaching retirement age have less the $10,000 saved for retirement. The governments get paid 1st and you can go to hell and then are forced to humble yourself to the state when the gold watch time comes. I don't like taxes either. However can anyone honesty say the reason 43% of Americans approaching retirement have less than $10,000 in savings is due to taxes?? I think it has more to do with our culture of "buy first pay later". Yeah...that is one huge difference between the US and China. We are mostly a credit card society, and China is mostly a saving society. I can't tell you how many people have told me they figure they can "afford" something as long as they have room on their credit card limit, or as long as they can make the minimum monthly payment. I've weaned myself from that with one self-reminder: Only suckers pay interest on any declining-value item (99% of the time, anything except for a house). Fen will mopslap Sam daily until he has no debt (unless he already is virtually debt-free).

Why do you think the majority of American families are in debt up to their eyeballs? I read an article yesterday that 43% of American approaching retirement age have less the $10,000 saved for retirement. The governments get paid 1st and you can go to hell and then are forced to humble yourself to the state when the gold watch time comes. You got that right. I have a big refund due from the state of NY but they dont have money so god alone knows when I will see my money but in the meantime I am still expected to pay my other bills (sales tax) due to the state. Taxes suck. I really like what Glenn Reynolds said about taxes today, which included a link/quote to "taxprof":

One of the interesting differences between China and America is that in the US, the finest restaurants are quiet, dark, and roomy...but in China, the finest restaurants are loud, bright, and crowded! ...although if you are even middle class, you usually get a private room so it isn't quite as noisy/crowded. However, regarding the dishonesty/trust issue, I've noticed that myself. In my opinion, it is because there are so many more Chinese people, and they are packed into a much smaller geophysical space, and Chinese civilization has a far, far longer unbroken string of development. In the US, for most of our history, there was always more land and/or resources than anyone could use, so your best bet was to think of a way to build wealth through hard work. In China, by contrast, hard work can't get you very far when there are 300 other people just as starving as you and willing to work just as hard to get food to eat. So some people in China turned to deception, corruption, etc, earlier to get what they need. China's rigid hierarchical govt structure probably also made it difficult to make the connections necessary to bootstrap oneself up from poverty to wealth. Wisdom is inherited from our forebearers. In China, there is a hella lot more forebearers to inherit wisdom from. So it strikes me that Chinese society, taken as a whole, is more...well, not mature or advanced, exactly...but just more. More cutthroat, or more competitive, perhaps. So dishonesty is more developed, but so is the ability to sense dishonesty in others. Which is one of the reasons why US company after US company after US company goes in to China and loses its shirt. It is difficult (though not impossible) for a foreign company to make money in China.

On the other hand, the current system has "worked" pretty well for the last decade+ and will continue to "work", if you define "work" as "the only ones who care much about politics/government are in government, and the bulk of the populace doesn't care until/unless there is a direct and profound impact on their lives"

why not finish the thought; if it doesn't work, what's the result that will occur? Or you think it's more like bamboo... they may flex and bend it along the way till they find something that works? I guess first I should define "work". I don't think what the Chinese are developing is authentically responsive to the will of the people. You have to know what the will of the people is before you can respond to it. And you have to develop a consistent system of balancing demands of majorities vs minorities, equally minority groups, long term vs short term, etc. So why I think it won't work is because even though the idea of using local party members to canvass citizen opinion and then enacting that mandate through the People's Congress can work in theory, in practice you'll most likely have the elite continuing to do what is good for the elite, and then finding a way to explain why it is good for the populace that overwhelmingly disapproves of it. That even happens in democracies with voting, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see that be the long-term status quo for China, a nation that lacks voting for national-/top-level leaders.

Bottom line: Democracy does not always equal voting. Democracy means "rule by the people." You could stretch that to be "rule by the people's will." China is trying to develop democracy without voting through being responsive to the needs/will of the people without opening themselves up to the possibility of being voted out of office. To me, it seems like trying to insist on a benevolent dictatorship, or an enlightened monarch. I don't think it can work, but that's clearly what they are trying to do/claim.

Oh, forgot to add: On the last leg, there will be Mandarin-speaking stewardesses. Practice your Chinese with them, if you know any.

My favorite is JAL and/or Nippon Air, but that was because I got great deals for them through Pali travel. I did KAL just over a decade ago...as I remember it, it was indistinguishable from any other good asian airline. Good food, just a touch more leg room in the seats than US airlines, and free beer/wine. From what I can tell, the overnight stay depends. For a while, I had to stay overnight in Japan every time I went to Beijing from Hawaii. Then once or twice I've gotten just the 2 hour layover. I didn't do either enough times to know if that was week-day vs week-end, or what. The only time I used KAL we did stay overnight, but again, that was more than a decade ago. We went out and found a restaurant with a waiting line and ate there. No one in the restaurant spoke any English, we spoke no Korean. So we pointed at what someone else was eating to order food, and pointed to an ad on the wall to order beer. Damn spicy. Damn good.

Actually China has been a democracy since at least 1982 with the adoption of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. "Article 1. The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship..." so there you have it. Also the People's Republic of China has very broad civil rights for its citizens. These are listed in Section II. these include freedom of the press, speech, assembly,and religion. Of course in the real world things don't always go as the theory suggests. Here is a link the the Constitution: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitu...nstitution.html That's the age-old problem of the difference between policy as written, and policy as enacted. Bureaucracy has its uses, but in general, bureaucracy sucks.

I'm not sure what you disagree with. Etymology of democracy: In the US, we instituted democracy through voting. No dispute. But there is nothing in the original greek words about voting, which was my point. How do you understand and explain Wen Jiabao's claim that China has democracy, then? He made the claim back in 2006-7.

Democracy means: the people rule, or populist rule. Nowhere in the term does it say anything about voting. If the government is responsive to the needs/desires of the people, keeping them safe and creating opportunities for wealth-building, it is a democracy, regardless of whether there is voting or not. ...on the other hand, it is *extremely* difficult to know what the will of the people is without allowing a better form of input than street riots (the main method of popular input available to the average Chinese rural citizen). Voting is one of the best ways of providing that feedback to elected officials. But just because it is a good method doesn't mean it is the only way, nor is it the only good way. The legend of the old Chinese emperor who disguised himself as a servant and talked with all his subjects is also a form of democracy.

"pure democracy" defined by whome ? Main Entry: pure democracy Function: noun Date: 1656 : democracy in which the power is exercised directly by the people rather than through representatives. Jeikun is correct in that Jefferson (and the other founding father's agreed) was referring to pure democracy. In a pure democracy 51 beats 49[%]. In a democracy there is no such thing as a significant minority: there are no minority rights except civil rights (privileges) granted by a condescending majority. Simply stated, a democracy is a dictatorship of the majority. Socrates was executed by a democracy: though he harmed no one, the majority found him intolerable. Food for thought: Jeffereson also said: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson, 1816. +1 We actually have a representative democracy: we elect people who are supposed to be professionals at governance; those people vote for our laws. It tends to smooth out knee-jerk reactions of the populace (although that failed with Prohibition).

Why not? Teachers certainly do more "subverting children" than teaching here in the US, so why not export that mindset to China? [/sarcasm]

I play acoustic guitar. What genre are you most comfortable with? Fingerstyle, gospel, rock, blues, folk. I can do reggae and jazz if I have the chord chart. I've never done Latin on guitar. I suppose I could figure out Ska. Death metal doesn't work that well on acoustic, but I'm game. Gregorian chant is right out.

I play acoustic guitar.

The only two reasons I can think that she would be getting so upset might be she associates the original script with a dead religion, or that the Yin and Yang are shortened versions of crass words for genitalia. Both possibilities seem to be an awful stretch, though. I admit: I'm stumped.

I think the word choice is truly ironic. Consider how China's last Leap Forward turned out.