Need2LearnChinese Blog

Now that the People's Liberation Army has been called in to battle the snow and the terms "war", "disaster" and "national crisis" are being used in association with the present weather conditions, we're feeling guilty for making a snowman yesterday in the park and secretly loving every flake.

From (Xinhua):

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has ordered its troops to go all out to combat the lingering heavy snow in the southern part of the country. The PLA's Department of General Staff and General Political Department issued a joint decree on Monday, ordering troops in the affected areas to join in the anti-snow battle in collaboration with local governments. The troops should give whatever assistance local governments require for fighting disaster and in rescuing people, the order said. So far, 158,000 PLA troops and the Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP) and 303,000 paramilitary members have joined the anti-snow campaign. The current heavy snowfall has caused unexpected difficulties to local life, production and transport in the affected areas and the country as a whole. So far, heavy snow and rain have left at least 24 dead and caused enormous financial and property loss.

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When Nathan Fong was growing up in Vancouver, Chinese New Year meant his grandparents spending hours in the kitchen preparing an eight-course feast.

It was the same in most Chinese homes. But today, busy lifestyles mean that a new generation and their children are choosing to celebrate the Year of the Rat, which begins Feb. 7, by eating out in restaurants catering to the traditional tastes of families - more often than not large families.

"So many restaurants are totally booked up for the festival," says Fong, a food stylist, journalist and commentator for television and radio in the B.C. city. "When I look at my whole family - uncles, aunts and cousins totalling about 100 - the only time we can get together is at a restaurant."

There are plenty of them in Vancouver and neighbouring suburbs where he estimates 25 to 30 per cent of the population is ethnic Asian.

"Chinese New Year is so big here that a lot of the mainstream activities are being held all through the lower mainland," says the 46-year-old Fong.

Two of the largest eateries are Floata Seafood Restaurant, which seats 1,000 diners. Another, Sun Sui Wah Restaurant, seats about 400.

Shirley Lum, who hosts walking tours of Toronto, including two sprawling Chinatowns, concurs with Fong on the new trend of families eating out at Chinese New Year.

"The whole family eats out at their favourite restaurant where the adult children pool their money and treat their parents and grandparents to the multi-course feast," she says. "Of course, the trick is to agree on ordering the various poetic dishes to ensure that superstitions, tradition and customs are observed so all the participants will have health, wealth, peace and love."

Lum is hosting her Chinese New Year eight-course banquet dinner on Jan. 30.

"It used to be that tradition dictated that only immediate family members were allowed to attend these banquets and they usually took place at home," she says.

Her event will take place at Taste of China restaurant in Chinatown west where attendees (not only Chinese) will be treated to stories about traditional Chinese New Year multi-course banquets.

Fong says that the banquets celebrating Chinese New Year provide a chance for large gatherings of family and friends to eat sumptuous meals that include dishes from the land, sea and air.

"These multi courses are symbolic to represent wealth, luck, happiness and long life," he says.

A traditional banquet-style dinner starts with soup and includes special poultry dishes such as crispy-skinned Peking Duck wrapped with warm crepes, or a whole steamed fish with ginger and onions.

"One of my favourite classic dishes is poached or steamed whole fish. This symbolizes that one's wishes will come true for the new year. Serving fish also represents a symbol of marital bliss and fertility since fish commonly swim in pairs," says Fong.

He adds that all family meals are slightly different, but "they are designed with foods that have certain meanings."

"New Year's dinners usually consist of eight to nine dishes, since both numbers are considered lucky." (Eight sounds like the Cantonese word for prosperity, while nine means long lasting.)

Other dishes that may be served are clams or scallops, which symbolize wealth and good fortune since these seafood creatures have a similar shape to coins, he explains.

"Roast pig signifies peace and purity while oyster and green lettuce represent good fortune and prosperity," Fong explains.

Other luxury foods include squab, pea shoots, baby bok choy, shrimp, abalone and crab. Both rice and "long-life" noodles are also important dishes, he says.

Finally, the Buddhist vegetarian dish called "Jai" is traditionally served as well, Fong says. "It represents purity and purification, since no fish or poultry can be killed for New Year's according to Buddhist traditions."

A very traditional and popular dessert is Nian Gao, a glutinous cake which is the Chinese "fruitcake." It is rich, dense and sweet.

"Some are plain, but some are served with yams, nuts and red dates symbolic of long life, harmony and good wishes," Fong explains.

Judy Creighton welcomes letters at 9 Kinnell St., Hamilton, Ont., L8R 2J8, but cannot promise to answer all correspondence personally. She can also be reached by e-mail at jcreighton(at)golden.net.

Food symbolism is very important at Chinese New Year. Here is a sample of foods to be enjoyed and what they represent:

-Oranges mean wealth, while tangerines represent luck and pomelo abundance, prosperity, having children.

-Eggs are for fertility and egg rolls for wealth.

-Fish served whole: prosperity.

-Bamboo shoots and black moss seaweed mean wealth and dried bean curd happiness.

-Chicken happiness and marriage (especially when served with "dragon foods" such as lobster).

-Noodles suggest a long life.

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A lady loves a man in uniform, but the police officers of Hefei have definitely taken this mystique to the next level with their strenuous winter training. What could be more attractive than young, shirtless officers rubbing snow on their chests and doing push-ups? Ya, we couldn't think of anything either! Ladies (and gentlemen), we present you with two images to warm your hearts on those cold Shanghai nights. And let's hear no more complaints about your drafty apartment and your cold fingers.

Stripped to the waist, armed police officers take exercise against the skin piercing wind in Hefei, capital of South China's Anhui Province. More pictures after the jump

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Feng shui has made its way into the fringes of Western culture, along with yoga, kung fu, Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture and a number of other Asian and South Asian cultural practices. But though books on feng shui populate Western book shelves in their dozens, it's not widely known just exactly what feng shui is, nor what it means to the Chinese.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, feng shui is, "The Chinese art or practice of positioning objects, especially graves, buildings, and furniture, based on a belief in patterns of yin and yang and the flow of chi that have positive and negative effects." This is a fairly good definition insofar as it goes, but its brevity necessarily obscures the complexity of the concept.

Even understanding the term "feng shui" requires quite a bit of definition and explanation. "Feng shui" literally means "wind water" and unless you know about a couple of things about the Chinese language, the term is completely meaningless.

So: a brief lesson in Chinese linguistics. In classical Chinese there was a tendency to use phrases as references to lines of well known poems, as a way to show erudition. In spoken Chinese, there's a tendency to reduce long phrases or place names to two character abbreviations, in much the same way as there's a tendency in English to use acronyms.

With those two things in mind, we can take another look at the term "feng shui" and look a little deeper. "Feng shui" is actually an abbreviation of and a reference to a line from an ancient poem by Guo Pu. The line describes one of the principles of feng shui; it reads, "the qi that rides the wind stops at the boundary of water."

And now we come to the word "qi". "Qi" is a difficult word to translate into English, and in fact people often don't bother. It appears in the Oxford American Dictionary, defined as, "he circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine." In Chinese the word literally means "air", but, again, the literal translation is an over simplification of a complex concept. Dissertations could, and almost certainly have been, written about the concept of "qi", but for our purposes it seems sufficient to say that in the context of feng shui calculations, "qi" means something like "flow of energy".

The goal of feng shui is to build on places with good qi and then, once that's done, design the building so that it doesn't impede the flow of qi. Some locations don't have the proper qi and aren't suitable for human habitation. These places should be left in their natural state.

First, a quick and dirty lesson in ancient Chinese physics, for lack of a better term. The world is driven by two principal forces – yin and yang. There are eight directions – north, northwest, west, southwest etc). There are five basic elements – water, wood, fire, earth and metal. All of these elements have properties associated with them (yin is receptive yang is active; heaven is creative; wood represents awakening etc) and they interact with each and react to each other to produce complex effects on qi, both of the local environment and of the people in it.

The effects of all of these interactions are measurable, using two charts called bagua and a compass. The first (early heaven) bagua represents the sacred unchanging universe and is used to orient graves, temples, and other such sacred places. The second (later heaven) bagua represents the changing universe and is used to orient every day spaces, such as homes and offices. Without getting too technical, the two baguas are divided into eight trigrams – heaven, earth, fire, water, thunder, lake, mountain, wind – each of which has particular qualities and patterns of energy associated with it, and each of which is associated with a direction, though which direction is associated with which trigram differs for the two charts. So, thus laid out and divided the bagua measure interactions between trigrams, the eight directions, the five elements, and yin and yang – i.e. they're used to determine the quality of the qi in a given place. An example of an application of the bagua is as follows: north is associated with water; water extinguishes fire. Therefore, the kitchen should not be located in the north part of the house. (for a full description of all of the trigrams and elements see answers.com insert proper link)

If it sounds complicated, it is. The concept of feng shui and its principles has developed as an integral part of Chinese culture for many thousands of years; there's even evidence of the practice of something like feng shui as far back as the Neolithic Age. These ancient practices were later combined with the principles of Taoism and Taoist views about the universe. Then, during the Han Dynasty (BC 207 – AD 220) the practice of feng shui was recognized as a professional skill and its principles began to be organized and codified into various schools of thought. In the 2000 plus years since then the practice of feng shui has continued to evolve and has risen and fallen in popularity, so that, today there are many different schools of thought and ways of employing feng shui.

In China today feng shui operates on two more or less separate levels. There are feng shui experts with extensive knowledge of the bagua and feng shui principles who can be hired to take extensive measurements of a location's qi and help you design the interior to take best advantage of qi flow. But feng shui is also an amorphous set of basic rules that anyone can apply, and many or most people would not find it necessary to employ an expert. For example, stairs shouldn't face the front door; straight lines and clutter are to be avoided; houses should not be built in front of cemetaries, mortuaries or hospitals; the best location for a house is on a street shaped like a horseshoe etc.

Feng shui is such an old and integrated part of the Chinese way of looking at the universe that it's difficult to separate it from Chinese beliefs about religion, numerology, colors ets.  (links to articles here) For instance, each of the five elements (water, wood, fire, earth, and metal) is associated with a color, so in order for the elements to balance, the colors must also balance properly. 

Many westerners find the idea that there is some mystical "flow of energy" in nature preposterous and they dismiss the idea of feng shui outright. But the principles of feng shui often reflect what Westerners might call "good sense" (for instance, not building a house by a cemetary, mortuary, or hospital), and compasses do more than just point north; they reflect local geomagnetism, which is itself formed by geomagnetically induced currents caused by space weather. Western science has no clear, concrete idea of how space weather affects us, but it's clear that it can have profound effects on technology (GPS, communication and navigation systems, power grids, etc.). What affect it might have on people is unknown in Western science.

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Expensive city guides for Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing mention some of the most famous big open air produce markets, and to be sure you should go to these places if you’ve the time and inclination. They’re fun to see and make for an interesting experience for tourists and the curious alike. But if you really want to buy fresh vegetables in China’s cities, you needn’t go to any of these places or any great distance. You do need to get up early though.

Every day farmers and migrant workers come in to China’s cities from the countryside. Some of them have big motorized bicycle carts, some of them use horses, mules or even the occasional donkey, and some of them even have rickety old trucks or vans. What they all have is piles and piles of produce.  They come with the dawn, and they usually have a particular bit of street they go to every day to set up their scales and do business.

Every morning the urban Chinese head out early to meet them and buy their vegetables for the day. Unlike Americans, who love our refrigerators and prefer to go to the grocery store to buy vegetables naught but once a week, the Chinese like their vegetables fresh fresh fresh, and prefer to buy them a day at a time. Besides which, energy sucking refrigerators are something of a luxury item in China. So you’ll see Chinese urbanites laden with grocery sacks full of cabbage, peppers, onions etc, heading back home from the vegetable cart at 8:00 every morning.

Once all their vegetables have been bought up, the hawkers from the countryside are far from done for the day. They stay with their carts all day, selling a huge variety of fruit to passersby. What’s available depends to some extent on season – crabapples are hard to get at the same time as strawberries and good luck finding grapes in February – but the fruit on these stands is always fresh and delicious, and, like the vegetables, much cheaper than at a supermarket.

Figures show that the number of people who prefer supermarkets to produce carts for their shopping is increasing, but of course the figures can’t tell us why. Perhaps it is because supermarkets are convenient for one-stop shopping, or because big chain stores can offer competitive prices and guarantees on organic vegetables, or some other reason. Whatever the reason, one hopes it won’t mean an end to the produce carts, and onions and oranges on the go.

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China Daily columnist Kang Bing thinks Beijing is being unfairly criticized by overseas media in the lead-up to the Games:

“… some overseas media are demonizing Beijing's air pollution and traffic problems...”

“… the Chinese capital would be lucky if criticism against it ended just there. Beijing has kept its promise to the IOC on press freedom, but some media seem to be asking the host to adopt freedom and democracy according to their understanding and explanation. When not satisfied, they threaten to call for a boycott of the Games.”

He also thinks that:

“Beijing seems to have received more criticism than other hosts.”

As Kang notes, all host cities are attacked for different reasons, but it simply isn't accurate to claim that Beijing has come in for more criticism than the rest. For one, Beijing hasn't copped it nearly as much as Athens, which set a new Olympic record when it comes to being criticized. Athens also suffered the ignominy of the IOC warning that a new host country could be chosen if the construction of Olympic sports facilities couldn't be completed in time. Some of the Athens organizers' harshest critics were among the local Greek media. This, from daily Athens newspaper Eleftherotypia (as reported by Xinhua in October 2000):

“The head of the organizing committee now looks like a high jumper going for her third try to clear the bar, knowing it's her last chance.”

Kang also says sport and politics shouldn't be mixed:

“Trying to politicize a sports event only does harm to the healthy development of the Olympic movement.”

That's a lovely ideal (perhaps that's why they call it the “Olympic ideal”), but not a very realistic one. Many modern Games in living memory have had a political element to them: African nations boycotted Montreal in ‘76 over New Zealand’s sporting links with South Africa; America boycotted Moscow in ‘80 over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which led to a counter-boycott by the Russians of Los Angeles in ‘84 (Iran, bless it, was the only country to boycott both Moscow and Los Angeles); North Korea boycotted Seoul in ‘88. Things got back to normal with Barcelona in ‘92 (although a reunified Germany — politics again — pipped China for third place in the medal tally).

China itself has mixed politics with sport, boycotting the Melbourne Games in ‘56 after the IOC recognized Taiwan. The Taiwanese team carried the “China” banner in 1956, and China didn't return to the Olympic community until the 1980 Winter Games.

Mao famously used ping pong diplomacy in 1971 by inviting the American table tennis team to China, thereby laying the groundwork for the visit by Nixon the following year. It was the first time China had proposed a clear offer of friendship to the United States since Liberation. As Zhou Enlai put it: “A small ball shakes a big ball.” (From The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li, pp 558).

Politics and sport have always mixed, sometimes magnanimously (Mao/Nixon); sometimes pettily (Moscow/Los Angeles), and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking (and a nice, warm, cuddly thought at that.)

Going forward, a recent Economist article says China's leaders are "nervous" about the Games because the tournament will be a magnet for the country's critics:

"China's critics in the West will not be sated. In the build-up to the games on August 8th they will step up their attacks on issues ranging from China's human-rights record to the status of Tibet and Taiwan. It will be the most politically contentious Olympics since Moscow staged the games in 1980, not long after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Foreign activists and Chinese citizens overseas with axes to grind will flock to Beijing to try to stage public protests. If mishandled by the Chinese police (who have been instructed to stop demonstrations as politely as possible), these incidents could seriously embarrass the hosts, multinational companies sponsoring the games and foreign dignitaries... Some of Beijing's political dissidents will take advantage of the spotlight on China to highlight their grievances."

Dr. Kerry Brown, associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, as quoted in London's Independent agrees:

"There are good reasons to feel pretty uncomfortable about 2008 for China. The world will be rightly watching China in August for the Olympics. But it will only take one truncheon blow to turn it away from a story about sport to one about repression."

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Most westerners expect to find sweet and sour pork, green tea and sesame chicken on the standard Chinese menu, but what they might be surprised to see are the “100 year-old eggs.”  Also referred to as the 1000-year-old egg or a preserved egg, the typical century old egg is usually no more than three or four months old and can be found at almost any restaurant or grocery store in most Chinese cities. 

A century egg may look like a normal egg at first glance, but it is actually quite different.  When the shell of a preserved egg is removed, the “white” of the egg is dark brown in color and has a similar texture to a boiled egg; the yoke is no longer yellow, but an array of green, blue and black.  The egg can be eaten as a quick snack, or it can be cut into slices and served along side other dishes as part of the entire meal.  The “white” of the egg has very little taste, but the yoke has a "rich, pungent and almost cheese-like" flavor.  The egg can also be cut into cubes and cooked to make a type of rice porridge; this dish is so popular in parts of China that even McDonalds has started to carry their own variation of it. 

There are two ways to make a 100 year-old egg, or “pidan” in pinyin.  The traditional way uses duck or chicken eggs and coats them with a clay-like mixture of charcoal, salt, lime, wood ash, and black tea.  Each egg is individually rolled in rice chaff to keep them from sticking together and then placed into large jars or baskets.  They are stored in a cool dry place for three to four months and when the wait is complete, they are ready to be eaten.

The more modern way to create century old eggs cuts the waiting time by almost half, although egg connoisseurs claim this method draws away from the traditional flavor.  Modern chemistry reveals that soaking the eggs in a mixture of lye and salt for 10 days and then aging the eggs for several weeks will give a similar result as the traditional method.

As for the history of the eggs, they are said to have originated during the Ming Dynasty in the Zhejiang Province by a teahouse owner who made the first ones by mistake.  The busy teahouse owner would empty the unfinished tea and stove ashes into a pile near his teahouse; later he discovered that ducks had been laying their eggs there.  When he collected the eggs, he discovered the blackish creation, and decided to sample it.  Finding a tasty treat, he then began to sell the eggs.  Although it’s a great tale, another more likely theory is that the eggs began to be preserved in times of plenty when villagers were expecting food supplies to run low in the coming months. 

Although the eggs may not look attractive to a westerner, they are very popular in China, and can be considered a delicacy in many non-Asian countries.

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In the technology arena, they have preferred to search for instant messaging services such as "QQ" (in pole position) and "MSN" (#10). Other favourites were "games", "Kaspersky" (an anti-virus programme) and "Thunder" (a download software) and Google Earth. Their international counterpart preferred to search for video-sharing services like "Youtube" and "Dailymotion" instead. Top keyword worldwide was the "Iphone".

Other interesting finds:

• The most googled Chinese dish was sweet-and-sour ribs, followed by fish-flavored shredded pork, home-style braised pork and braised eggplant.
• The most googled English word was "wire mesh", followed by "crystal", "china", "mushroom" and "ballast". (Lots of druggies are googling too, it seems!)
• Taiwan R&B star Jay Chou was No 1 among entertainment stars, followed by Chen Chusheng, the champion of the reality series, Happy Boys.

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The gross domestic product is expected to grow 10.8 percent in 2008, compared with estimated growth of 11.5 percent last year, the State Information Centre said in a report published in the Shanghai Securities News.

Consumer inflation is seen at 4.5 percent for 2008 from an estimated 4.7 percent in 2007, a decade high, said the centre.

The centre is a research body under the National Development and Reform Commission, the state economic planner, and is one of the most authoritative outlets for economic predictions in China.

The centre reiterated Beijing's pledge to "prevent fast economic growth transforming into overheating" and to control inflation.

China took a series of measures to cool the economy in 2007, including six interest rate hikes.

The report said growth in the trade surplus would drop in 2008 due to "foreign protectionism", uncertainty about the US economy and the removal or reduction of tax incentives for exporters.

It predicted the trade surplus for this year would be around 328.4 billion dollars, up 22.5 percent from an estimated 268 billion last year.

Growth in urban fixed asset investment, another driver of economic growth, is expected to slow to 24 percent from 26.3 percent, it said.

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If someone calls you fat, don’t forget to say thank you.

How would you respond if someone at home told you that you looked like you had really packed on a few pounds? A little shocked or offended perhaps? In China it is quite common to greet a friend you haven’t seen in a while, especially after a festive holiday like Chinese New Year, by telling them they look much fatter.

If a friend exclaims to you, “Wah! Ni pang le!” (Wow, you got fat!) perhaps while smiling and inspecting your belly approvingly, don’t take offense- it doesn’t actually mean you are visibly larger, simply that you look good.

Personally, coming from the society that originated anorexia, once you learn to take it as a complement, the Chinese prospective on getting fat should be like a breath of fresh air: fat is good. If you have gotten fat, it means you have been eating well, an indication that you have been successful and leading a prosperous, enjoyable life.

A good example of this mentality is the statue of the fat Buddha that has become so popular in the West. The fat Buddha has very little to do with actual Buddhist beliefs, but rather embodies the Chinese ideal of prosperity and happiness being associated with a nice big belly of lipid largess.

The only possible downside to this positive standpoint on a little extra weight is the rising trend in child obesity China is now seeing. The one-child policy has resulted in a generation of children referred to as “Little Emperors,” only children who are doted on to the point of excess in every regard, including their diets. Western foods like McDonalds and KFC are regarded with a certain about of prestige, and Chinese youth are eating more fast food than ever before. Having a plump, well fed child is one thing, but for many children, the scales appear to be sliding a little too far in their favor.

But as far as this mentality concerns you, rather than getting offended, thank your lucky stars for landing you in a culture that actually believes the, uh, “healthy” look actually is healthy, and feel free to inform your Chinese friend who resembles a bamboo sprout that she’s also looking rather whale like these days.

In the same fat clogged vein, asking someone if they have eaten is a way of asking how they are doing. “Ni chi le ma?” Which literally means, “Have you eaten?” Is a greeting used in the same way Westerns would say, “How are you?” or “Whats up?”

Reply with a cheerful “Chi le,” indicating you’re eating well, growing fat, and living large. In the words of the Chinese author Lin Yutang, “Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.”

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But the figures do carry important implications, not the least of which is something which affects all of us working in China — the value of the renminbi. The International Herald Tribune's Keith Bradsher says the new figures take the pressure off Beijing to revalue the yuan. Even hardline advocates of yuan appreciation, such as Harvard Professor Jeffrey Frankel, seem to be backing down. Frankel admitted to the Trib that the new figures badly undermine his argument for the renminbi to be revalued. "I would have to retract that based on these latest numbers," he's quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times' Albert Keidel says the revised estimate indicates that China just won't have the dough anytime soon to build a defense capability to rival America's. He also says a "smaller, poorer" China strengthens Beijing's case for continued funding by the World Bank.

But it seems Beijing can't have it both ways. The Times of India's Chidanand Rajghatta points out that Beijing has argued on the strength of the old figures for increased voting clout at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. So the revised figures (which say China is poorer) are a setback for more voting muscle.

Beijing hasn't officially commented on the World Bank's new estimate and isn't likely to. In any event, taking a position is a double-edged sword. If Beijing were to embrace the new estimate and cry poor, then it undermines its own argument for more clout at the WB/IMF. If, on the other hand, it dismisses the figures, it negates its own case for keeping the yuan as it is.

The story seems to have had a trickle down effect in the international press. The FT picked it up as early as November 13 (with an editorial on December 18), the NYT on December 9 (and again by Keith Bradsher in the Times'-owned Trib on December 20, and by Howard French also in the Trib on December 21), The Times of India on December 19, and the Los Angeles Times on December 30. The FT went with the witty headline "From riches to rags" while the LA Times gave us the groan-inducing "The great fall of China".

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It is the new year 2008, Happy new year from Need2LearnChinese.

2008 will be a very special year for Chinese people, since among other events the Olympic Games will be celebrated in Beijing, and also it will be the great year for  Need2LearnChinese, we have more and more people all over the world express interest in the Chinese language and culture. and more people start learning Chinese. We are stay committed to deliver the latest Chinese learning books and materials to our customers around world.

We plan to introduce more new Chinese learning books and materials during the new year. also some interesting books cover Chinese history and culture are planed, we are looking forward to a great 2008.

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