Some Things You May Not Know About the Chinese

Just as there are 57 words in Eskimo for “snow,” there are 63 words for “idiot” in Chinese.

There are three lost instruments we will never hear again because they have not been reinvented in our lifetimes. In the end, only a handful of artists could approximate their distinct timbre by manipulating their tongues and throats at risk of great personal injury.

Their children, who also possessed this gift, found the practice barbaric. They also preferred the pop standards of their day. No known recording of the instruments or of the artists survives.

“A frog in the well” in Chinese is the same as a “parrot in the oven” in Spanish.

There is a tense for events that occur in the reality that exists only if things had gone the way we wanted.

It is possible to express the following epithets in Chinese:

Pig head
Kiss my ass
Motherfucker
Dog shit
Retard
Moron
Fuck your mother
Smelly asshole

The term “Bird language” was used to describe the Wu languages, whose sharp tones sounded like birds chirping in the ears of Northerners. Now that the Wu languages have nearly vanished from public usage, Cantonese gets this label.

China acknowledges that its one-child policy will result in 30 million more men than women by 2020.

Subject line: As a Chinese, I Hate Zhang Yimou

I don't know what's about his movies that appeals foreigners. But for me, his recent movies are all trashes. All he knows is about breast and colors. What he wants to express is highly exaggerated and unrealistic and of nuts.

I really don't like those so called "大片”(big movie).

I think it's more interesting to watch some TV series, such as Dicey Business, Into Thin Air, CIB Files, Forensic Heroes and so on. They are more closed to life yet the plots are really intriguing. Those series reflect Chinese thought of modern times in a realistic way.

There is phrase, “Everything visible is empty.”
charmedboi82:
Does anyone have any links or a summary of how to write hypothetical sentences in Chinese?
 Atitarev:
I asked this question before and was told there is no difference between real and unreal condition in Chinese. Only the context will tell you which one it is.
Bats are a symbol of good fortune in Chinese culture. This is why “bat” – fu – sounds like “happiness” – fu.

The SARS virus was found in 39 percent of anal swabs collected from horseshoe bats, which are both eaten and used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The design of the Five Bats is a pictorial rebus, each point standing for the Five Blessings: Old Age. Wealth. Health. Love of Virtue. Natural Death.

In the Street

A decetive lives here
deep in the intestinal syndicate
she is waiting for you, a pair of hands
on a broken time piece, a sheer-shirt
slung over the lampshade like the whole room
got into her blouse. You
scrutinizing the deco faces
of the matchbooks by her bed, coordinates
0f her double-crossed geography. You witness
best the soul of a man
who returns to his purest motives, what
Mencius said. In the following chapter
you will be boiled down, a hoof. She is
as unfathomable as all what.
Buzz me up. You’re number one
on my to-do list. Jammed up
with something you’re not telling me.
++++

Rehearsal for Night/Site 2

When the pulley of hours stalls
The tape running in your pocket, a song
The children, their plastic bag kites reeling
Ring ring the situation is zero
Ring ring polish your knives for nightfall
Asleep with your hand across your shadow
Silver teeth set in night’s crown
She smells good and doesn’t charge much
Humming song grinding tune
Who calls for the one who isn’t there
Who knows to be quiet when the voice calls
There is a black market for love and hand grenades
There is hair in the trees
The situation is zero
There is hair in the trees
+++

My sarcophagus

Will rest on the skulls of those I should not have spared.