My collection of Mandarin Chinese links for January 17th through January 26th:

• My Chinese listening goal for 2012 – Majority of Chinese dramas are too fake, too dramatic or too cute for me, but I have manages to find one show I like. 裸婚时代 is about young Chinese adults who face lots of pressure from the society and from their parents to live a life that is expected from them.
• Embarrassing Moment: How Not to Impress Your Girlfriend’s Mom – As part of our Embrace the Embarrassing Moments series, FluentFix features a reader’s story about an embarrassing moment from when they were learning Chinese.
• AllSet Learning Launches Chinese Grammar Wiki – AllSet has entered the tech realm by launching a Chinese grammar wiki. The wiki, which contains explanations and examples of Chinese grammar points organized by level of difficulty, is licensed with a Creative Commons license.
• A Simple Way to Track Your Progress – How do you measure your Chinese progress? I have often wondered whether my Chinese was improving or not. Here is a simple method to track your progress.
• China Has 250 Million Microbloggers – China has more than 513 million internet users, and nearly half of them are using microblogs (collectively called weibo). Have you found a way to use weibo as part of your studies?

My collection of Mandarin Chinese links for January 13th through January 15th:

• Chinese Musical Genres: a bluffer’s guide – China’s musical genres have never solely been based on style. They usually describe geographical differences but can also extend to lifestyles, access to technology and the needs of state propaganda.
• The Question of Chinese Language Podcasts | Chinese Hacks – When compared to languages like English or Japanese, the selection and variation of Mandarin content, specifically targeted towards students of the language, or even native speakers, just doesn’t compare. Dave asks, @Are there any good Chinese language podcasts?"
• All Together Now: The Annual 春运 Craziness Begins! – As the largest human migration on the planet, 春运 is one of the most important and most interesting events of the year in China. Starting this week, Chunyun is a stressful, crazy, and altogether very unique event, so it's a perfect topic for this week's ChinesePod Weekly!
• Choosing a Chinese Teacher – Greg shares the process by which he chooses his Chinese teacher(s).
• Abandoning Simplified? – Apparently, some scholars from China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea got together recently to discuss the unification of all the character sets into one standard set.