quote:

Careless parents mistakenly fed their three-year-old daughter a full bottle of expandable water balls on February 1 in Shuyang, east China's Jiangsu province.

The report on Huanqui, an affiliation to People's Daily Online, stated the father did not notice he was feeding his daughter expandable water balls until the mother picked the last one up off the floor.

The three-year-old girl, nicknamed Xiao Xin, was given medication to expel 200 water balls out of her body. The remaining water balls are expected to discharge within the next 24 hours.

The young mother told the reporter that she went out to buy sweets from a nearby mini market and thought the one she grabbed was her daughter's favourite sweets, which look like Wonka Rainbow Nerds.

The mini-market owner forgot to tell her that the colourful granules were in fact expandable water balls.

The woman gave the capsules to her husband, who fed them to Xiao Xin while his wife was cooking.

Xiao Xin's father recalled that he 'poured the water balls out on his palm and fed her in bunches.'

The parents didn't realise the error of their ways until they picked up the last 'candy', which had dropped on the floor.

The mother ate it and immediately spat it out.

'It's very hard and not sweet, then I notice it's not candy but the expandable water balls,' she recalled.

The parents panicked when they looked at the empty bottle. They returned to the mini-market to buy another bottle in a bid to find out how many balls it contained. They counted a total of 280 water beads.

Water beads expand when they are in contact with water. They are made of durable, super-absorbent polymers, absorbing water up to 50 to 100 times its original weight.

They promptly sent their daughter to Huai'an Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital.

Doctor Xia Sun Lin took an X-ray of Xiao Xin and located the water balls. He then prescribed medications with the effect of laxatives to stimulate her bowel movement.

That night Xiao Xin had expelled more than 10 water balls and they were slightly expanded.

The following three days, the parents took pictures of her excretion and counted over 200 water balls.

...

Pirate Radar posted:

Incidentally, in other Asia navy news: Taiwan has announced it's going to build 8 new submarines of an indigenous design.

angel opportunity posted:

No offense but you're insanely ignorant about Mandarin phonology and don't know what you are talking about. Pinyin is very good at certain things, namely it is extremely systematic and regular. It is good at representing all the phonemes and having a very systematic romanization that someone already literate in another language can learn in roughly a few weeks and be able to read anything without guesswork.

quote:

The choice of /x/ or /qi/ could be considered poor choices, but "why not ch?" because /ch/ is already being used for another phoneme? It can't be used for both. They probably could have found letters that were more obvious to native English speakers, but are those necessarily going to be better for native speakers of other languages? Are they going to be any better for native Chinese speakers?

zh, ch, sh, are the retroflex versions of z, c, and s. This is why they did it, any of those with an /h/ after indicates it's a retroflex, and this choice helps show that these sounds are very closely related to each other with one single difference (being retroflex).

quote:

See above, if you did /ts/ then the retroflex (ch) would have to be /tsch/, which isn't inherently bad but it's a lot of consonants clustered together. The "i" thing is just your native language biasing you; there is no "ur," /shi/ is simply the exactly same thing as /si/ but with the tongue in retroflex position. Lips and teeth and voicing etc. are all exactly the same between the two sounds. It's the exact same difference between /su/ and /shu/, you think they should use another confusing set of letters just because native English speakers think it sounds like "ur"?

Magna Kaser posted:

You're under the misconception Hanyu Pinyin was designed as both a romanization system and a pronunciation tool specifically for English speaking westerners when it is neither.

angel opportunity posted:

I will give you the /i/ thing representing a different vowel, that is a good argument I hadn't thought of. It's likely done that way because there is sound in mandarin of the i in qi + the z in zi, so rather than using another letter entirely or some accent mark, they just left it as /i/. I can't say with any authority if this is good or bad, confusing or not. In my experience it doesn't confuse anyone.

What DOES confuse native English speakers at least about pinyin is stuff like /x/ vs /sh/, /q/ vs /ch/, etc. and I think there is inherently no way around this. You can argue one one side that the "arbitrary" letters are extremely confusing and poorly indicate the actual sound, but I would argue that native English speakers simply cannot hear the difference between these sounds anyway and typically just fuse all these sounds--and more--together. Go into a first or second semester Mandarin class and listen to people pronouncing "xue" vs. "shui," many students pronounce it exactly the same. Writing it as "Tsue" or something wouldn't actually help, the students just hear /x/ and /sh/ as the same sound because English doesn't have those sounds.

The argument for using arbitrary letters in this case is that it can help some students more easily realize that these are "foreign" sounds and actually quite different from each other. For me personally this helped a lot when I was learning. I kept hearing the sounds as the same, but the letters being so different made me really look in and set me to realize that these must actually be different sounds that I need to listen more closely to.

I personally think adding in ' or something to indicate retroflex would be bad because they already have tone marks and umlauts in there. They end up almost never using those, but they are used in textbooks. Imagine seeing "lǜc'á" for 绿茶

Magna Kaser posted:

Zhou Youguang, the dude who lead the team that developed Pinyin, goes into this in his very good book on the history of the Chinese language. IIRC (it's been a while since I read it) said they tried a lot of things like going back to invented glyphs like zhuyin fuhao and even making their own entirely new set of symbols. However, at the end of the day because Pinyin was a system for pronunciation to help Chinese people pronounce Chinese, and not intended to explicitly be a learning tool for non-Chinese speakers, a way to replace characters entirely, or (at the time) even a romanization system, they used Latin characters because they were already made, time-tested and ubiquitous. The romanization thing happened almost immediately after it was developed but wasn't really one of their mission statements.

Cyrillic was discussed and tbh I don't remember if he gives a reason why specifically it wasn't chosen, but by the late 50's Mao and Stalin's relationship was already on the rocks so I'd guess that was a non-trivial factor. Zhou himself lived in Western Europe and the USA before WW2 and the Chinese Civil War so he was also probably just partial to Latin letters on that as well.

Magna Kaser posted:

I actually opened up the book this morning and there's a small section called "Issues with c/q/x" and his explanation is basically "This is weird for non-Chinese speakers, and most other systems use mult-letter things for this, but we wanted simplicity so we did it anyway!" so it's more listed as a "known issue" than anything which was kinda funny to find.

We do have a Chinese Language Thread you're welcome to post more in. I'm sure angel opportunity, I and the other language nerds would be fine keeping this topic going.

LimburgLimbo posted:

The solution is of course for everyone to use 注音

Grand Fromage posted:

I've literally had this conversation back when I had an ASUS. "Wow, you bought a Chinese computer!" "No, ASUS is Taiwanese."

Vesi posted:

The weirdest job belongs to my buddy who's the CEO of the China branch of a Utah based (Mormon owned) company, he used to be a bartender, a super affable guy, heavy drinker and not a Mormon. He basically flies around the country and drinks with the suppliers and business partners while his staff handles the negotiations. They tried that first with a Mormon boss but couldn't get anything done because the Chinese didn't trust anyone who doesn't drink.

Volcott posted:

I hope he and the crazy Mongolian girl run away together.

Haier posted:

By 2020 in the machine elf reality:

Buy this at the local herbal medicine shop with the billions of bottles full of old roots and leaves:
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.13.XXi3Ek&id=544748441361&ns=1&abbucket=10#detail

Combine it with this, preferably purchased at another medicine shop:
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.3.lfyPjG&id=545540912088&ns=1&abbucket=10#detail

Grind up. Measure. Boil for a bit separately in hot water. Strain. Drink the harmala first, wait 30 minutes, and then drink acacia. Lay down and have your ego death legally, because you just made Formosahuasca (Best China ayahuasca drink).

https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=12190

Can someone please make this as TCM for an aunty? At least the acacia alone when brewed will give someone a trip.

Would going on a DMT in your room in a Chinese megacity throw you into some sort of hellish deadzone for 30 minutes?

BONGHITZ posted:

lol nice marketing

quote:

Parents seeking a coveted place for their children at top Chinese schools are being forced to take tests, prove their ancestor’s academic credentials and even show they are not fat.

At least two private schools in Shanghai, China’s richest and most modern city, have been admonished by authorities for testing parents and carrying out intrusive surveys, while applicants at a third school complained about a ‘fat parent’ criteria.

“They check parent’s body shapes,” a parent applying to Shanghai’s Qibao Foreign Language School bemoaned, according to a screenshot of social media published by thepaper.cn.

“The reason is that fat parents display poor self-management skills.”

Education officials rebuked Qingpu World Foreign Language School and the nearby Yangpu Primary School for probing applicants’ family histories and setting logic tests for parents.

China’s increasingly wealthy generation of parents often take desperate measures to give their children a good education in the hope that their offspring will land a place at a prestigious foreign university.

Although the one-child policy was abolished in January 2016, many families chose to have one offspring for cultural reasons and because of busy lifestyles.

That child will often be the sole breadwinner in later life.

Shanghai Municipal Education Commission said Qingpu and Yangpu schools had been forced to “apologise in public” and to “cut down enrollment plans next year,” without elaborating.

Private Shanghai primary schools sanctioned after setting IQ tests for students' parents during enrollment.

Qingpu apologised on its website, adding that “negative social impacts were caused because of our ignorance of regulatory requirements.”

Yangpu, meanwhile, said its tests were not related to the enrollment procedure, but were aimed at “relaxing” parents.

The “graphics-based reasoning” was said to be too difficult for most of the test-takers.

An official at Qibao school told The Telegraph that authorities had ordered the school to conduct a “deep investigation”.

The man, who did not want to be named, said allegations were based on a “rumour”, but refused to deny the school tested parents, saying: “We don’t take foreign media interviews.”

Qingpu charges 30,000 yuan (£3,360) a term for six-year-olds entering the school, while Yangpu charges 11,000 yuan (£1,230) and Qibao 12,500 yuan (£1,400).

While many parents took to social media to complain about the strict enrolment procedures, some were less critical.

“Just like some schools in other countries require parents to be Christian, I think the requirements from these private schools are reasonable,” a mother who is hoping to enroll her daughter at the one of the schools told the Global Times newspaper.

China has a catchment area system for public schools, and competition for places has seen desperate parents splurge on extremely poor quality property near elite schools.

The Telegraph last year reported on an insect-ridden alleyway in Beijing being sold for a price similar to plush homes in Kensington and Chelsea because of the desirable catchment area.

Private schools – which make up about six per cent of enrolments at Shanghai primary schools - accept students on the basis of interviews and are not permitted to test applicants.

Reports in March said a private school in the southern city of Guangzhou would only enroll students whose parents achieved college degrees or above.

Known Lecher posted:

Outrail posted:

Ok what's the answer? I'm usually pretty good at pattern recognition but I can't see it.

Efexeye posted:

it's telling how there are so few 'after' pictures of the deliciously-carpaccio-seeming meat actually cooked. it's waterlogged, skinny sliced beef with all the fat rendered out. the plate i posted? each piece results in one bite.

the promise is



the reality is

Efexeye posted:

at least at the one i ate at, you got individual pots of water, they said health code wouldn't allow one big pot for everyone to marinate their chopsticks and poo poo in, maybe that's the difference

bring back old gbs posted:

idk what the hell i thought it was now. I honestly thought it was a cast iron pan over a heat source with a suuuuuper shallow layer of oil and u barely touch the meat to the oil to cook it, just for like a second.


but the google image pics are like:

and u soak the stuff in it and it doesnt even look hot enough to cook ur stuff, though im sure it is

BONGHITZ posted:

Do you drink the boiling water?

Jimmy Little Balls posted:

No, you have gained many face since you got away first, what happens after is irrelevant. China is basically one giant game of last one to ... is gay.

ocrumsprug posted:

Do you think a joint EU-Chinese statement condemning Trump's Paris withdrawal is "meaningful"?

VideoTapir posted:

What about little kids eating hotpot?

Or eating little kids as hotpot?

Stringent posted:

Willing to bet the driver in the car died pointing at the truck screaming this was the truck drivers fault.

Xerxes17 posted:

Sinofield.

"He's a uighur Jerry! A uighur!"

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Do you not have Android/Apple pay in America? I just hold up my phone to the card reader and it beeps and it's done.

bamhand posted:

Went to New Orleans recently and it was basically the same thing but with white tourists. Asians don't visit New Orleans for some reason.

Baronjutter posted:

Yep, it's not a uniquely chinese mindset for tourists.

quote:

Panama Cuts Ties With Taiwan, Opts To Support China Instead

Panama's minister of foreign affairs, Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, shakes hands with China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, during a joint press briefing Tuesday in Beijing.

Panama has announced that it is cutting ties with Taiwan and instead establishing relations with China. The shift is a major win for China as it seeks to isolate Taiwan, which now has diplomatic relations with just 20 countries.

China and Panama announced the move in a joint statement, saying it was in the "interest and wishes of both peoples." The two countries agreed to exchange ambassadors.

"The Government of the Republic of Panama recognizes that there is only one China in the world, the Government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing all of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory," the statement reads.

"Eleven of the 20 countries left that recognize Taiwan are in Latin America and the Caribbean," NPR's Carrie Kahn reported. Of the countries that still have ties, Panama has the largest economy.

The Panama Canal is a crucial waterway for trade. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing that Panama "is emerging as a hub for China to ship its goods to South America, and Beijing has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure around the Panama Canal."

China considers Taiwan a breakaway territory, and relations between Beijing and Taipei have recently grown more tense. "Beijing does not trust Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party has traditionally taken a pro-independence stance," Anthony says, "so it has used investment and other incentives to lure away Taiwan's diplomatic partners."

Taiwan is slamming the shift in ties. Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee called it "most unfriendly" and said that Panama had been deceitful "until the last moment," according to the Taipei Times.

Taiwan "strongly protests and condemns Beijing for luring Panama to switch diplomatic ties, squeezing Taiwan's space in the international community and hurting Taiwanese feelings," Lee said.

Other countries in the region with ties to Taiwan have issued little response. Guatemala declined to comment, Reuters reported. An official from Honduras, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the news service that the country intended to maintain ties.

Ross Feingold, a senior adviser at D.C. International Advisory, tells The New York Times that Panama was one of Taiwan's most important allies – and now, "it is very possible that the remaining countries will switch."