C.J. Neff

产品 (chǎn pǐn) product

点击 (diǎn jī) click
按一下 (àn yí xià) informal way to say “click”

设置 (shè zhì) to setup, a setting
换 (huàn) to change

编号 (biān hào) model number
型号 (xíng hào) serial number

转速表 (zhuàn sù biǎo) tachometer
时速表 (shí sù biǎo) speedometer

搞定 (gǎo dìng) to fix

Location:Yángshuò

There are a bunch of fruits that are super similar to one another. Vegetables are the same case, yeah? Think about, for example, how many leafy green vegetables there are. But they all have a name, a unique name; they all must have a unique name; otherwise, how would we distinguish them?

I point this out because Chinese people commonly call crayfish “shrimp” in English. You can see how this would be an easy mistake. Both are small sea critters, similar in size, and similar in color once they’re cooked.

The word for crayfish in Chinese is 小龙虾 (xiǎo lóng xiā). It’s next to impossible for me to say correctly. I always say the “lóng” as “lǒng” (which is particularly disheartening because my favorite food in the whole world is called 小笼包 (xiǎo lóng bāo); note the first two characters are pronounced identically to 小龙虾 (xiǎo lóng xiā)). When Chinese people correct my pronunciation, I can only pretend to hear the difference; it’s super subtle to the nonnative ear.

It’s worth pointing out that the word for shrimp in Chinese is 虾 (xiā). So note that “crayfish” in Chinese literally means “little dragon shrimp”. I’m sure this only adds to the confusion.

The real point of this story, however, is how delicious these little guys are. It’s an incredible amount of waste (you only eat the tails), but it’s worth it. You just dig in and plan to wash your hands (and arms, if you’re me) later.

There’s something special about the way these are prepared too. They use Sìchuān pepper, which is hot, not overly so, but this pepper also has a numbing effect. The heat and numbing take effect slowly, and their effects are cumulative. So what inevitably ends up happening is you dive in and enjoy a whole bunch quickly, then you slow down as you start to feel the heat, and then finally you lean back in your chair and breathe in and out through your mouth attempting to cool down your half-burning-half-numb mouth and lips. Sounds delicious, eh? It’s worth it! I promise.

Location:069 Country Rd,Guilin,China

It’s been about sixty years since I last posted a Chinese Lesson. It’s not that I haven’t been learning Chinese. It’s that, for a while, I was contemplating making little videos, so I started stockpiling vocabulary so that I would have content ready when I got around to filming and editing. I don’t know how I thought I would have the time, but now I no longer have a Mac, and I’m not brave enough to try making videos on my Linux notebook, so I’m back to these simple, yet effective, text lessons. But, I digress!

Here’s the most random assortment of vocabulary that Lilly taught me ages ago on a day we went out climbing, just the two of us. It’s seems like totally useless stuff, but I’ve actually used it time and time again.

茄子 (qié zi) eggplant

迷信 (mí xìn) superstition
创意 (chuàng yì) creativity

矛盾 (māo dùn) contradiction
自相矛盾 (zì xiāng máo dùn) contradicts itself
中庸之道 (zhōng yōng zhī dào) doctrine of the mean

一致 (yī zhì) same

量词 (liàng cí) classifier, measure word

福特 (fú tè) Ford

Location:Yángshuò

Lilly solved a mystery for me the other day. I had been wondering why all these street vendors have been hauling around this shitty looking bamboo. I mean, what are you going to build with this?

And then Lilly asked me if I wanted some sugar cane, 甘蔗 (gan1 zhe4). “Sure, of course!”, I said. And we marched over to one of the “bamboo” carts. She ordered 一根 (yi1 gen1), which means “one stick”, and you can see the one separated brown stick that was to be ours in the photo above. You can also order 一节 (yi4 jie2), which means one section (about a sixth of the whole stick). It’s sold by the half kilo (approximately by pound (there is something natural about the imperial measurement system after all)), which is called a 斤 (jin1).

Lilly noted that the brown sugar canes are easier to eat. With both the green and brown sticks, you want to get the vendor to do a thorough job shaving off the bark, then you’re able to bite off a chunk, chew it and suck off the sugar juice, then spit out the stalky part. I do have to say that the sugar cane drinks I had in Singapore were a much more refined and enjoyable experience. I have a feeling you burn almost as many calories as you intake when enjoying this snack this way!

Location:Yangshuo, China

This guide is obviously for Mandarin Chinese, and (more specifically) it’s for the pinyin Romanization of Chinese sounds (there are, in fact, several other Romanization systems in existence, but pinyin is pretty much the standard).

The consonants always have the same sounds. There are more consonants than in English, but we have all these sounds in English, so I’m confident you can pronounce all of these correctly using the approximations I’ve underlined below.

b boy
c it’s
ch chat
d dog
f fat
g go
h hi
j jay
k kite
l low
m my
n no
p pie
q won’t you
r garage
s so
sh shut
t to
w want
x she
y yes
z cards
zh judge

The vowel sounds change sometimes depending on which consonants they’re paired with. I’ve indicated which consonants a pronunciation is paired with by following the pronunciation with the corresponding consonants in brackets. No brackets indicates all or all the rest.

a father
ai my
an flan
ang ahng
ao out
e serve
ei hey
en under
eng mung
er are
i her [ch, r, sh, zh], put [c, s, z], be
ian Ian
ie yes
in green
ing eeng
iu cheerio
o awe
ou I.O.U.
ong own + ring
u new
ua sauve
uan you + pen [q, x, y], Juan
ui way
un uno
uo wok

Location:Yangshuo, China

Every language has its own quirks when it comes to counting. All the languages (or perhaps “cultures” is a better word) I’ve come across use 10 as a base, which is definitely convenient. But there are surprising differences between languages in terms of how numbers are named.

After some reflection, I determined that there aren’t really much more than ten words for numbers in English. There’s “zero” through “nine”, and then there are each of “ten”, “twenty”, “thirty”, etc., but most of those are just the numbers one through nine with a fancy ending. Then there’s “hundred” and “thousand” and the suffix “-illion”. (It’s interesting to point out that the prefixes for the big numbers (million, billion, trillion, quadrillion) are just the Latin words for “one”, “two”, “three”, “four”.) That’s pretty much it in terms of unique words for numbers in English.

There’s a cool quirk in Chinese; instead of having an equivalent for “-illion”, they have a word for 10,000. It’s 万 and it’s pronounced wan4. Interestingly, the word means both 10,000 and also “a really big number”, a meaning that points to the fact that 10,000 was, in the past, a number out of reach in most people’s daily lives.

The way you say “million” in Chinese is 一百万, yi1 bai3 wan4, which literally means 100 10,000, which, if you do the multiplication, equals 1,000,000.

Location:Guilin, China