Lost in Chinese / Found in Translation.

. We were cruising along the highway from Dongguan to Shenzhen, China to attend an Annual Dinner. I have not met this friend of mine for man...

. Wanderlust asked what has the content of the poem Picking Mulberries 采桑子 cǎisāngzǐ got to do with the title. (see last post). I believe...

Tonight (written last night) I was kind of melancholy so I searched for a poem to reflect my gloom. With my limited command of the language...

Last week I was having breakfast with three new friends in Beirut 贝鲁 bèilǔ . We were among sixteen strangers from diverse backgrounds but...

Last weekend, I was standing at the edge of the crater ( 火山口 huǒshānkǒu ) staring into the mouth of the majestic Mt. Bromo ( 婆罗摩火山 póluó...

. If you watched Malaysian TV during this period, you may come across a man and a woman who kept repeating these four Chinese words 礼仪廉耻 lǐ...

During the Southern Song dynasty, there lived two Song brothers who were intellects. However, they did not want to work for the government c...

The first night in Hángzhōu 杭州 , we went to its most famous restaurant serving not only authentic Hangzhou dishes but also cooked in the 正...

. I’ll be going to Hangzhou 杭州 Hángzhōu tonight and spent a couple of days there before going to Suzhou and Shanghai. It is on company bus...

I am not much of a drinker and my capacity for liquor 酒量 jiǔliàng is not good. I do not enjoy getting drunk because I do not believe one ...

It has been some time since I was entertained to a formal dinner in China and things have changed. That night in Dongguan we were seated luc...

. In the past, when I saw someone wearing a T-shirt with a large 忍 in the middle of it, I used to think that he is a man who values patienc...

What my taxi driver said (refer to previous post) made me recalled the Chinese word 忍耐 rěnnài which means “to exercise patience” or “to ...

20 April, 7.30 a.m.: Ben, my regular taxi driver was ferrying me to KLIA to catch a flight to attend the Food Hotel Asia Trade Show in Singa...

. It is not easy learning another language. Especially Chinese which is universally acknowledge as one of the most difficult in the world. B...

. I waited in a long queue to have the book I bought signed. When it was my turn, I told Dr. Hsu that of the 19 books he wrote this was the ...

Sitting in the large hall with a few hundred other participants, the thought I must have bitten off more than I could chew 贪多嚼不烂 tānduō ji...

There were 3 main elements in the Butterfly & Sword. 流星•蝴蝶•剑 Wuxia story 武侠小说 (see earlier post – 29 Mar). The shooting star 流星 liúx...

I was intrigued by the newspaper article about 5 speakers from Taiwan coming to give a talk on the subject of emotion 情绪 qíng xù . Their ti...

Let us leave the Three Kingdoms to go to a land of eternal happiness – Peach Blossom Spring 桃花源 táo huā yuán . During the reign of Emperor...

. Something happened yesterday (Sunday) that made me wrote this instead of what I had intended. It had to do with the messy election of the ...

“For five bushels of grain 为五斗米折腰 wèi wǔ dǒu mǐ zhéyāo , I bow like a servant.” This was the lament of Tao Qian (365 or 372-427) 陶潜 táo qi...

The other famous saying from the Three Kingdoms should of course belong to none other than Zhuge Liang (please refer to earlier post). But s...

Cao Cao 曹操 Cáo Cāo (155-220), the chancellor of Eastern Han is another central figure in the story of the Three Kingdom. He was often port...

Wanderlust in her comment said that another Chinese character for smell is 闻 'wen' which consist of an 耳 (ěr) 'ear' insi...

As we flew over the South China Sea, we talked about the famous strategist of the “Romance of the Three Kingdom” 三国演义 [Sānguó yǎnyì] fame ...