学语言上了瘾

They/them/他 Queer🌈.English native. Advanced 中文。Novice 日本語. I dabble in 台湾话/闽南语

[radiofreederry]

[cannibalchicken]

[prospitianescapee]

This one is pissing me off because there’s cheese in it. I’m not sure there’s a period of Chinese dynastic history wherein the type of dudes likely to be having rap battles would also have been familiar with hard cheese. There’d be political fucking implications to that. Fermented dairy products were often seen as uncivilized foods, and were associated in particular with northern “barbarian” cuisine (see: <lactose intolerance in Eurasia>), whereas competitive poetry was viewed as a civilized and scholarly pastime appropriate to civil servants and courtiers. Mentioning cheese in a verse which also references the heavens could be seen as an effort to legitimize the presence of these dangerous foreign elements within Chinese society, and, thus, as seditious. If dairy were to become a common theme in rap battles, it might be viewed as a dangerous sign of poor morale and defeatist thinking among the literati. “Emperor, we have got to move the capital to the south. The scholars are rapping about cheese. It’s all falling apart.”

[cryptotheism]

Now this is a fucking post

[acheronspride-deactivated202302]

wait i am a little confused..

in chinese i hear both 看 (kan) and 读 (du) as "read"

is it correct to think that 看 is for like reading silently or studying a book, and to think of 读 as reading aloud or being able to say/comprehend a sound?

like an example 我想看书 being i want to read books, compared to 这个字怎么读？being how does this character read?

[sooloosulu]

讀 (du) and 唸 （nian) can be used both for reading silently and reading aloud. 讀書 particularly has more of an academic feel usually.

看 means look and is thus only used for silent reading

I would say that 看 is usually more casual whereas 讀 and 唸 are a little more formal, like for casual reading I would use 看 and for academic reading and studying I’d use 讀

Take this with a grain of salt, I’m not a native speaker, this is just from my observations of usage having studied Chinese for 12 years and lived in China for 1 year and in Taiwan for 4 years

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Liberal gays will be like “you can’t support communism because past communist regimes had homophobic policies” while living in the United States of America

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Homosexuality was decriminalized under communist leadership in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. The German Democratic Republic was fiercely supportive of the LGBTQ community at a time when all of the capitalist world was quite literally leaving us to die, and their publically provided transgender healthcare was so great that Leslie Feinberg mourned its collapse and absorption by the FRG as a historic defeat for the trans community.

[rui-cifer]

Vietnam currently beats out Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and in some aspects, Thailand in LGBT+ rights, if we’re leaving Europe. 

Outside of her capitalist counterparts, Vietnam does better than Laos, as well as PRC in some aspects, but that’s another topic.

[sooloosulu]

Not to detract, but the Vietnam does not have better lgbt rights than Taiwan. Taiwan has anti-discrimination laws and marriage equality. Vietnam doesn’t.

Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure Vietnam is a nice place to live, but this particular point is false

[rui-cifer]

Vietnam has anti-discrimination laws, as well, and marriage equality is nice and all, but like with the USA, it is not the be-all-end-all of LGBT+ rights. Vietnam offers blood transfusion for MSM without condition, IVF for lesbians, and offers surgeries for trans people as a Right (socialist medical care doing this is different than capitalist countries declaring this to be a right, then pricing poorer trans people out), rather than via capitalist model like with Taiwan. Sure, there’s more bells and whistles for Taiwanese LGBT+ people, but materially, Vietnamese LGBT+ people, especially trans people, are better off.

A lot of people are hugn up on Taiwan’s marriage equality, but if you asked me if I would rather have a legal distinction or socialized healthcare that includes trans healthcare, I know what I would take. Same arguments (and other similar arguments from Cis LGB+ people) were made btw when Obgerfell decision was being made/announced even in the USA. This is a materialist analysis of the condition, not liberal legalise and I didn’t need to mention it in my first response, because it was between the OP (a leftist) and me (a leftist), both of whom take Marx’s writing and material analysis as being true as granted.

[sooloosulu]

I could not find any information about anti discrimination laws or trans healthcare being covered in Vietnam when I made a quick search online. Would love to learn more if you have sources you can share.

I just want to clarify that I’m not disagreeing with the overall message of the original post, I’m on the left myself although I personally haven’t read theory so I may not understand all the jargon.

My experience transitioning in Taiwan has been surprisingly smooth, so it was a little weird to see it lumped in with other countries that I’ve heard much less positive things about regarding lgbt rights.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Liberal gays will be like “you can’t support communism because past communist regimes had homophobic policies” while living in the United States of America

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Homosexuality was decriminalized under communist leadership in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. The German Democratic Republic was fiercely supportive of the LGBTQ community at a time when all of the capitalist world was quite literally leaving us to die, and their publically provided transgender healthcare was so great that Leslie Feinberg mourned its collapse and absorption by the FRG as a historic defeat for the trans community.

[rui-cifer]

Vietnam currently beats out Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and in some aspects, Thailand in LGBT+ rights, if we’re leaving Europe. 

Outside of her capitalist counterparts, Vietnam does better than Laos, as well as PRC in some aspects, but that’s another topic.

[sooloosulu]

Not to detract, but the Vietnam does not have better lgbt rights than Taiwan. Taiwan has anti-discrimination laws and marriage equality. Vietnam doesn’t.

Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure Vietnam is a nice place to live, but this particular point is false

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[parkchanwoohoo]

I'm generally having a lot of fun learning characters but it does drive me nuts sometimes when a word is just composed of two different characters with the same meaning. Like 感情 being just Feeling + Feeling = Feeling is so...

[parkchanwoohoo]

There being multiple ways to write forest depending on how many trees you decide to draw is making me lose my mind

[parkchanwoohoo]

[parkchanwoohoo]

2 types of asks

[iguessweallcrazyithinktho]

Imagine being in your 80s and looking this good 😭 they so badass

[6-phds-and-no-sense]

sometimes people try to tell me that scientists are paragons of rationality and I have to break it to them that I have yet to work in a lab that didn’t have at least one weird secret shrine in it

[6-phds-and-no-sense]

new guy: why is all of the equipment in this room covered in toys?

me: dONn’t touch those

new guy:

me: they need the toys to function. if they don’t all have toys they get jealous.

new guy:

new guy:

me: when something breaks just take the wizard and wave it around for a while. they seem to like that.

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Science is rational, scientists are human. 

[eabevella]

In Taiwan we have a special brand of snacks named 乖乖 (literally means “well behaved” but in a casual way like when one’s compliment a child or a pet of being good) that has green package.

It has become the lucky charm in the IT industry because engineers believe it will make machine acting good (like the name of the snack) and stay in green light (like the color of the snack’s package) when a 乖乖 is put on top of a server.

It is the only food allowed in a server room and the biggest semicondoctor company in Taiwan (which is also the biggest worldwide) even commissioned the snack factory to make a customized version with blessing on the package.

This is how a server room is blessed by 乖乖. You put at least one on top of each server. It’s important that the engineers change them before the expire date because legend says the snack looses it’s power after expire date.

You’ll hear engineers swearing up and down that their server room crushed down the one time they forgot to change the snack.  Or some newbie ate the forbidden snack put on top of their server and caused a disastrous crush down.

The 乖乖 religion later spread to all people who want their machine to act nice. In the lab we put 乖乖 on ultra-low freezer (you really don’t want it to drop dead along with your 2 years’ worth of sample/data), mass spectrometer etc.

When Taiwan’s about to launch the first self made satellite in 2017, the develop team even put 乖乖 around the satellite model to prey for a successful launch (it did). This shit is real.

[askfordoodles]

Broke: Humans are inherently good

Broke: Humans are inherently evil

Woke: Humans are, for good or evil, inherently ridiculous

[mylifetherant]

Bespoke: Humans are so incomprehensibly insane that the power of their wild joint beliefs affect the fabric of reality.

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

Thoughts on the gendering of Chinese pronouns

[moika-palace]

Comrades, Henry Scott Tuke 1924.

[harcules]

Two bros chilling at the beach 5 feet apart cuz they’re not gay

[piss-bong]

…and they were comrades

[thegirlinthebyakko]

oh my god, they were comrades 

[sooloosulu]

同志 哈哈

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

street fashion of seniors in Shanghai by 老年时装俱乐部

[kkachi95]

I don’t normally post non-Avatar stuff, but here is my small contribution to raising awareness regarding China’s recent cultural appropriation campaign against Korea and other neighboring states. It seems petty on their part, but it’s part of their larger effort to assert dominance over the region.

It’s reassuring to know that Chinese scholars, at least the ones worth their salt anyway, recognize the absurdity of it all.

[bitchesofostwick]

a friendly reminder from your local korean blogger that “lunar new year” is inclusive of the many cultures who celebrate, and “chinese new year” should be used only if you’re referring to specifically chinese cultural practices of the new year. thank you!!!

[moltre-s]

chinese new year is coming so I wanted to share a fun tradition :)

look at this gorgeous illustration by Lenny Wen! see anything interesting about the 福 characters on the windows?

people often display this character around cny. but why do they hang it upside down? 

it’s a pun!

the character 福 (fú) means “good fortune” or “happiness” the word for “turn upside down” is 倒 (dào), which sounds identical to the word 到 (dào) which means “come”

so…    福倒了 (“fortune” is upside down) and    福到了 (fortune has come) sound the same!

[catasters]

[sleepanon]

today my mom called me so i could translate this video for her. apparently it was funnier when i literally translated it as she watched it than when she watched it the first several times. anyway. if anyone would like. and if i have time. i will add a transcription + translation.

also if anyone has the source that would be much appreciated, but sources disappear in Whatsapp groups