Chinese Kindle clone: Meet WeFound

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Despite being white as a bloody vampire, I only occasionally have people point me out as a foreigner. I remember when it first happened and I thought I was being amiable when I looked around surprised said "where?!" until I recalled that sarcasm is a bit of a lost cause in Chinese.

Actually, I like to refer to myself as the "Western Devil / 洋鬼子" (the mandarin version of the insult for foreigners which is virtually only used when a person is extremely upset at a particular foreigner, not as a general slur) when talking in Chinese and always get a good laugh from everybody. Now even my wife calls me that quite often when we are with friends.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Sorry, you are way behind the times. China is the most rabidly capitalist country on this earth. Money making and free enterprise is king -- with good connections the basis to being successful. Communism existed under Mao, and died somewhere in the early to mid 80's. A capitalist by any other name is still a capitalist.

Wouldn't that make the foreign devil's faux enthusiasm about better socialist tomorrow and rural bribe-lunches all the more amusing?

- Ahi

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ahi

Wouldn't that make the foreign devil's faux enthusiasm about better socialist tomorrow and rural bribe-lunches all the more amusing?

- Ahi

Of the foreigners that go to China for longer periods you can distinguish between two groups -- linguists (who often still make money teaching English on the side) and business people. The second group definitely won't dream of a better socialist tomorrow and the first group soon finds out what is going on. Bribe-meals, etc are definitely a way of life. But mostly bribe dinners!

If you are looking for foreign devils with enthusiasm for socialism, then just look around in the forums here. Many are espousing socialist ideals, such as "free access to all works in digital form" , "works of art do not belong to the creator but to society", etc. But we do not want to start yet another thread on that same topic?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Actually, I like to refer to myself as the "Western Devil / 洋鬼子" (the mandarin version of the insult for foreigners which is virtually only used when a person is extremely upset at a particular foreigner, not as a general slur) when talking in Chinese and always get a good laugh from everybody. Now even my wife calls me that quite often when we are with friends.

Yeah I have done that too, though usually only in response to the extremely common question of whether I'm half-Chinese or an overseas Chinese. I'm white enough to draw out the 混血兒 question, or to make Chinese girls jealous, but they often never realize that I'm not Asian whatsoever, so I've used 洋鬼子 before to distinguish myself a little more clearly. Doesn't quite seem to make them stop pushing for the possibility. They'll continue, "are you sure your parents aren't Chinese?"

[ahi]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Of the foreigners that go to China for longer periods you can distinguish between two groups -- linguists (who often still make money teaching English on the side) and business people. The second group definitely won't dream of a better socialist tomorrow and the first group soon finds out what is going on. Bribe-meals, etc are definitely a way of life. But mostly bribe dinners!

If you are looking for foreign devils with enthusiasm for socialism, then just look around in the forums here. Many are espousing socialist ideals, such as "free access to all works in digital form" , "works of art do not belong to the creator but to society", etc. But we do not want to start yet another thread on that same topic?

I think you are too intelligent to have had quite so much go right over your head.

Not that this makes your response any less tired or tiresome.

Keep safe from the socialist boogieman, Hans! It mostly comes at night. Mostly.

- Ahi

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ahi

I think you are too intelligent to have had quite so much go right over your head.

Not that this makes your response any less tired or tiresome.

Keep safe from the socialist boogieman, Hans! It mostly comes at night. Mostly.

- Ahi

Is that how they scare the kids into being quiet at night in Hungary?

[KYC]

You forget that the kindle does not support chinese text.

[KYC]

Homonyms in Chinese is always perceived as an impossibility but actually not a problem at all for inputting Chinese in pinyin (with a computer). Single characters represent the fundamental concepts in Chinese, but most thought units are phrases of 2, 3, 4 or more characters. long By inputting phrases instead of the individual characters homonyms are exponetially reduced the longer you make the phrase. A 10-character phrase will probably represent a unique string. Phrase input technology has been in use in the mainland for at least a decade. A google version is also available since 2008. Average users can input Chinese text about 2 - 3 times faster than they can write. The phrase input method is so precisely controllable that it is often used in the reverse mode: using a phrase to capture problematic words that cannot be spelt correctly with pinyin, eg, typing the phrase "aluminium alloy" to capture the word "aluminium".