Computer Terminology - GUI

Something useful that I’ve been meaning to learn is Chinese computer terminology, so after a long hard search on the internet I found a few answers… that were wrong, so then I talked to Yakun, and all was well.

Here are the most basic characters you will need to navigate through the local Internet Café 网吧 (wǎng ba) or Chinese roommate’s computer, thanks to 老婆 (lǎo pó).

Register 注册 (zhù cè)

Login 登录 (dēng lù)

Username 用户名 (yòng hù míng)

Password 口令 (kǒu lìng)

Download 下载 (xià zǎi)

Submit/Publish发表（fā biǎo）发布（fā bù）

Properties 属性 (shǔ xìng)

Delete 删除 (shān chú)

New 新建 (xīn jiàn)

File 文件 (wén jiàn)

Copy 复制 (fù zhì)

Paste 粘贴 (nián tiē)

Undue 返回 (fǎn huí)

Edit 编辑 (biān jí)

Games 游戏 (yóu xì) (for that folder containing all the 网吧 games)

If you think of anything else that may be useful and not easy to understand by simply looking at the UI (user interface) or by context leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

Profit of illiteracy

Currently my mandarin is at such a low level I should hardly call it basic, so for any advice I give if you find something inaccurate please let me know.

For those of you who’ve yet to take the bus in china let me give you a few pointers based off a recent experience.

If your taking a long distance bus from outside the city chances are its privately operated meaning your going to find dad driving, mom collecting money and the little kid sitting beside her counting cash. If it’s a busy bus like mine many people will be yelling out their stop names and handing over their fair, the amount can fluctuate depending on your destination (something I wasn’t privy to before boarding) confused as to how much it would cost I handed over five yaun to a young man who graciously refused it, so I spoke my stops name quickly “Bīn Jiāng Dào” in hopes he might understand my horrible pronunciation. The driver reluctantly took 5 元 as I looked at my seating options and squeezed into the seat; on the way back I gave 5 元 with out a word. It wasn’t until I arrived home when Yakun told me I should have paid 7 元. I may have profited from my mistake but I’d much rather be understood! Here are some useful tips for riding the bus anywhere you are in China:

If you’re not sure what bus will take you to “Bin Jiang Dao” or whatever your destination you can stand at a bus stop and ask the first bus that pulls up:

Wǒ qù Bīn Jiāng Dào, dào ma? (dào 到 “to go to” or “arrive”)

我去滨江道，到吗?

I’m going to Bīn Jiāng Dào, do you go there?

The answer your looking for is “Dào” if you get a slew of words thrown at you and your mandarin is as basic as mine just take a step on the bus, this will get him squawking even louder if it doesn’t “Dào”. If the bus has a money box don’t put your fair in yet, first look for someone in the front seat collecting money, sometimes they collect the cash in hand, if you find this person simply state your destination again and they will tell you the price otherwise place the money in the box, After the bus driver wipes whatever that crusty substance is off his overgrown finger nail onto his discolored rag choking the stick shift you can scurry to a seat in the middle of the bus, this is going to cause you the least amount of inertia as he weaves in and out of on-coming traffic, it also provides you a position within earshot of the drivers calls.

In order to get off at the correct stop pay attention to the bus driver, he will yell out the name of each stop with a “xià bú xià” at the end.

Xià bú xià 下不下 (anyone getting off?)

Xià chē 下车 (to get off).

Some other things the driver might say are:

Xià ma 下吗 (anyone getting off?)

Yǒu xià dē ma 有下的吗 (is there anyone getting off?)

Once you hear “Bīn Jiāng Dào, xià bú xià” Yell out “Xià” or “Xià chē” to stop the bus and wake everyone up.

Lantern in flight

Tonight was a lot of fun, as soon as we arrived at the dock we saw tens of them flying through the sky. At first I even thought "what the heck are those" until I realized what was in my very hand.

We got up to the water front and there were plenty of people selling Kong Ming Deng, when we whipped out our home made lantern heads turned people started talking and we even got a small crowd huddled around us as we lit up the candles, it did fill up with air but it wouldn't take flight, Yakun over heard someone say "I tried to make one so many times but I didn't make it work!" Nevertheless it was fun trying and we got a few good pictures out of it. After that we had even more fun, right when we arrived near someone selling lanterns my eye caught two policeman rounding them up and taking all the Kong Ming Deng!!

I wasn't going to let them ruin the night so with Yakun in hand I dashed to the next salesmen on the dock (it was quite crowded) we looked behind us and there was a policemen right on our heels! Which made it kind of exciting I have to admit... Yakun was screeching "crazy foreigner!" But that was it, I was on a mission to fly!

We reached the next person selling them, as I panicked to get 10 yuan from my pocket Yakun grabbed the first Kong Ming Deng handed to her and before the policeman could stop us we disappeared into the crowd.

It seems they weren't stopping people from lighting them, just the sellers, so we made a circle back to our spot and lit it up, it started to fall at first but the wind picked it up and it flew like an eagle until it was the highest Kong Ming Deng in the sky, our wish is still out there somewhere.

元宵节 | Lantern Festival

Today is 元宵节 (Yuánxiāojié) Lantern Festival, and were getting ready by making our very own 孔明灯 (kǒng míng dēng) Sky Lantern. The story goes the leader during the three kingdom period was surrounded by his enemy's and by sending out these floating lanterns he was able to call for help, his name "Kong Ming".

Back then the lanterns were made from strips of bamboo and oiled rice paper with a single candle burning in the middle but because of the lack of lush rain forest in our area we went with drinking straws from our local Dico's and birthday candles from a nearby bakery. After being stared at like some sort of zoo animal at Dico's for taking 6-7 straw's we came back home and dug up the lightest looking trash bag for our lantern, at this point you may be wondering "Carl, why don’t you just buy one its so much easier". Your right! But that takes all the fun out of it and what would you be doing now? Not learning how to make the cheapest flying lantern in Tianjin that’s what, so back to the topic at hand.

First you need to make the bag smaller at the bottom, this way most of the heat is at the top of the bag so it raises straight up once filled with hot air. We used some small plastic tape bought at 乐购 (lè gòu) TESCO.

Using the tape Yakun held the straws in an X shape while I taped them together, then with a sewing needle I poked 4 holes in the straw, placed the candles in their holders and poked them into the straws.

Once that was done we simply taped each end of the straw's to the bag, taking a blow-dryer we filled it with hot air and not soon after it started to take flight! The real test will be when we head to the waterfront and let her fly over the bay.

开始记录

 我，一个土生土长的中国丫头（samantha）。

  他，一个如假包换的美国小子(carl)。

  Samantha能做一手好菜，当然是中国菜，但不会跳舞。

  Carl似乎好像也能做一手好菜，经常是Samantha的副本菜，可他很会很会跳舞。

 

  哈哈哈，胡扯的还挺有感觉。到今天为止，我们已经在一起生活了2个月零13天了，2个多月的时间里其实真的有太多的生活细节与体会值得记录，但都因为有太多的事情要办而没有启动我们的记录行动。今天我们在新浪的小窝终于完工了，虽然从目前来看还是个二把刀工程，但至少可以码字啦，本丫头和那小子会把这里当成我们的第二个家，记录下俺俩的在一起的快乐时光、俺俩经历滴文化碰撞（这个是不可避免滴，毕竟是两个系统下培育出来的脑袋）、还有我们在这份感情中的所感所悟所失与所得所.......吧。

 

  终于吭哧完了，Carl大人给本妞儿下达的任务，说是在中国开的博客当然我这个中国丫头来打头炮，不过好在这么多年都是在压迫下完成的丫头的作业，习惯了，交作业喽。

 

  和相爱的人，有个小家来经营，是件很幸福的事儿。

Don't Look Now

It's another blog about life in China from a western view, but I wanted this to be more than that so my girlfriend Samantha and I are writing a jointly owned and operated blog about our life together in China that includes all the language and life lessons that come with a cross-cultural relationship, in my own quest I will bring something valuable to both Chinese and foreign readers by adding language lessons in Mandarin (pǔ tōng huà) and English lessons later on. In the future I plan to translate Samantha's posts into English and my own into Mandarin for those of you who show interest. If anyone is wondering who has the big head from our title 大 头儿与小头儿 (dā tóu er yǔ xiǎo tóu er) which translates to Big Head, Little Head You will have to keep guessing, its a closely guarded secrete.