tech, life, chinese
小姐，睡觉一晚多少钱？
小姐，水饺一碗多少钱？
问题一：如何把一只大象放进冰箱？
答案：一，把冰箱门打开，二，把大象放进去，三，把门关上。问题二：如何把一只老虎放进冰箱？
答案：一，把冰箱门打开，二，把大象拿出来，三把老虎放进去，四，把门关上。
小王考生物试。他上次考不过了。这次他真要考过好了。但是有一道题特别难。最难的问题是看鸟的脚，回答鸟的名字。小王对一个鸟看一会儿，但是他真不知道那个名字是什么。小王快站起来说：“真麻烦”。他准备离开教室，但是他的老师问：“你是谁？叫什么名字？”。小王吧裤子脱掉了，说：“你猜啊，你猜啊！”
Posted in Chinese
I learned a new phrase this morning, if you can call it a phrase; 叽叽喳喳 (jī jī zhā zhā). Before I tell you the meaning, read it out loud a couple of times, I’ll wait.
jī jī zhā zhā, jī jī zhā zhā
It is the sound of birds.
When asked how you’d translate 叽叽喳喳 (jī jī zhā zhā) into English I went with, “tweeting”. The response was instant, “Oh so that’s where tweeting comes from.”
Being a closet Formula 1 fan, I’ve decided to try my hand at an Upper Intermediate Chinese lesson (F1 in China) and learn something about the sport in Mandarin. The lesson itself is quite challenging and my list of questions to ask at my next class is the longest it has been for some time.
Much of the new vocabulary fits very firmly in the specialist category, but one word in particular stood out as puzzling.
Individually, these characters break down as follows (see MDBG):
This confused me, I was certain that the “pole” in “pole position” meant first. I don’t know why, but I’d assumed that pole was one of those words that had multiple meanings in English. I couldn’t understand why the Chinese would translate this literally as, “stick position”. It turns out my assumptions were wrong. The “pole” in “pole position” really does mean stick / post.
From Wikipedia:
The term “pole position”, as used in motorsports, comes from the horse racing term where the number one starter starts on the inside next to the inside pole. The term made its way, along with several other customs, to auto racing. In circuit motorsports, a driver has pole position when he or she starts a race at the front of the grid.
I may be making slow progress at learning Mandarin, but at least I’m improving my English along the way.
Posted in Chinese
I recently took a look at the characters I’ve been having most trouble remembering and was surprised at what I found. Since starting to work my way through the Heisig method for remembering the Hanzi, I’ve been amazed at how easy it has been to remember some seemingly complex characters. So it struck me as strange to realise that the characters below are the ones I have most difficulty memorising.
Those of you not familiar with the Heisig method for learning to remember Hanzi Characters may want to take a look at some of Greg’s excellent posts on the topic over on his Mandarin Segments blog.
From this simple exercise I’ve realised two things I need to improve on as I progress through the book. Firstly, the more vivid the image associated with each character, the easier it is to remember. This is especially true for characters where the keywords have similar meanings in English. Secondly, when struggling to form that perfect image for a problematic character such as those listed above, turn to a dictionary. Very often, the subtleties in meaning help clarify the image you have formed.
Relatively speaking, we had a rather quiet Chinese New Year celebration here in North West London. Not a single firecracker was heard (although I did see mention of fireworks in West Hampstead on Twitter).
We spent the evening making 饺子 (jiǎozi) or dumplings, a traditional new year’s dish in the North of China. Making dumplings is a relatively straightforward process. But, best of all, is that on surprisingly little food, you can easily end up feeling incredibly stuffed.
Anyway, here is how we made them. Although these are the best set of dumplings we have made yet, we are still yet to perfect the shape. For some reason I the traditional dumpling shape has proved elusive, with not one of the batch looking as it should. However, don’t let that put you off. With dumplings, it’s all about the taste.
Prepare all your ingredients; pork mince, chinese leaves, vegetable oil, Sichuan pepper, salt, spring onion, ginger, and of course the dough (three small bowls of white flour mixed with one small bowl of water).
Finely chop the Chinese leaves with a heavy knife. Don’t slice them, but chop them by bringing the knife down hard on a chopping board. This YouTube video shows the technique used to chop tomato.
Don’t be tempted to use a blender here. For some reason it just isn’t the same. Besides, there is something quite satisfying about the thud of such a heavy knife.
Once the Chinese leaves are chopped, squeeze out the liquid and retain. You will need some of this later.
Heat the oil in the pan and then add the Sichuan pepper. Fry until the pepper just starts to darken and then remove the peppercorns from the pan (chopsticks help here). Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.
Add the pork to the pan, along with the ginger, salt, and spring onion. Stir in the Chinese leaves and add just enough of the juice from the leaves to bind the mixture.
There is no need to cook the filling.
Roll out as many dumpling skins as you can into 7-8cm disks. Use just enough flour to prevent these sticking to the surface or the rolling pin.
Fill with a generous amount of filling before pinching the dumplings closed with your fingers. Ensure that they are sealed tightly so that they will retain their full flavour during cooking.
Boil a pan of water and add the dumplings to the pan. When the water returns to the boil add a cup full of cold water to the pan and allow it to return to the boil. The dumplings are ready when you can just start to see the filling through the skins.
Tip: cook the dumplings in batches of no more than 20 to prevent them sticking together.
Remove from the pan, drain and serve with a splash of rice vinegar.
Feel free to share photos or tips in the comments. I’m particularly looking forward to any comments on how to shape the dumplings correctly, a technique that I have spectacularly failed to pickup on every visit to China yet.
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