Archive for December, 2005
merry x mas day
Meanwhile, Looks like our friends in Chengdu are enjoying X Mas beatings again this year.
More about Xmas beatings in Chengdu
Playing with Bubbleshare - a new photo sharing service
Check out my album created at this cool new photo sharing service called Bubbleshare
Educators may also find this service interesting; quick and easy way of building narrated slideshows.
Let me quickly run you through how the service works.
Seirogan- The ‘beat the Russians’ pill
Seirogan is a generic natural medicine for diarrhea in Japan. Most people who have taken it remember it for its foul odour. The characters for Seirogan reads æ£(sei)露(ro)丸(gan). The name seirogan does not mean anything. About a hundred years back during the Japan- Russia war (1904,1905), the companies manufacturing the medicine changed the first character to å¾ instead of æ£. It still reads sei-ro-gan but this new å¾ (sei ) means conquer. Also, the second character 露(ro) could be read as Russia. So å¾éœ²ä¸¸ now read “Conquer Russia Pill”.
The Japanese army was one of the biggest consumer of this medicine - the soldiers had to take these pills everyday. Adverts for the medicine appeared on newspapers with this new characters playing on people’s patriotism and thus increasing sales.
After the war the characters were reverted back to æ£éœ²ä¸¸ like on this box sold these days.
Here is another longer article - JAPAN AND RUSSIA: MUTUAL IMAGES, 1904-39 a good read if you are interested in how the Japanese and the Russians perceived each other before the WW2.
Learning Chinese Podcast and other language learning podcasts
Want to learn to speak Mandarin? Head on to chinesepod.com and subscribe to their podcast.
I have seen many “learning Chinese” books, audio and video content but I have to say that this is the best presentation I have come across. The shanghai based producers follow a very practical approach in introducing Chinese language.
I liked the particular episode where they compared the differences between Mandarin and other dialects. I also liked another episode where they got a foreigner to speak a few sentences in Chinese and they go through each of the mispronunciations and correct his tones - the four tones in Mandarin being one of more complex things for us learners.
Sushi Stall in Thailand - Time travel to Edo Japan
I found this sushi stall in Ubon Ratchathani in Eastern Thailand.
The guy opens the stall as the sun comes down. From then on there is a constant arrival of customers - some eating on the table laid out and some ordering takeaways.