Filler

[muckefuck]

Can't I think of anything to say that isn't hopeless recondite or just petty bitching? Consider this a test.

• Last meal at the nearest Japanese restaurant to work, I think. I don't know that I could quite roll better sushi myself, but I know enough to demand that, at those prices, someone should be. Small portions, insipid flavours, intrusive service--goddamn did it make me wish I worked within striking distance of Oysy. People in the Loop! You owe yourselves a special lunch there. I know you don't have all damn afternoon to walk down to 900 S. Boul Mich so splurge for a cab. Their lunch specials are an absolute steal and, if my Monday-afternoon trip was any indication, they're not at all crowded after about 1:30 p.m.
• Following in our long tradition of being on the trailing edge of hot technology, monshu has finally procured for me an iPod Mini. So far, I'm liking it a lot although a few design decisions puzzle me:
  1. You can only charge it through a computer? How convenient is that? Very, if you carry around a laptop or return home every night; not so much if, say, you're on vacation for a week (which is when I suspect I'll be making the most use of mine).
  2. I need to return to the top-level menu to turn on the backlight? What gives! The reason I'm turning on the backlight is so I can navigate the menus in the first place.
• My other new acquisitions--with the notable exception of that Chinese music CD--have chiefly been books. In particular, monshu found an abridged bilingual edition of 西游記--with pictures! The English text is brief and colourless compared to the Chinese, so I've plenty of incentive to read the latter, but I can always fall back on the former (not to mention my own knowledge of the story) for the gist. The language is a curious mix of Modern Standard and Literary Chinese, with archaicisms like 道 for "say" (something I've only seen in Classical works) sidling up next to 那兒, which is so 北京話 it hurts my ears!

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Liu laoshi has a bit of the n/N confusion, too. During dictation this Monday, she baffled me with yong4ping3 until she glossed it as "useful things" and I realised she was saying 用品.

I think the 西安人 I met two weekends ago might've had some l/n confusion, but I had such a hard time comprehending them in general that I'm really not sure.

[mistress-elaine.livejournal.com]

Yes, Xi'anren might have a bit of the N/L thing going on, but as you said, they're so hard to comprehend in general that it's hard to tell. I had a hard time understanding the locals when I was in Xi'an. If you want clear examples of the N/L confusion, without much other confusion going on, go to Jiangsu. The people of Nanjing notoriously call their own city Lanjing.

The F/H confusion seems to be a Yunnan thing, mostly restricted to the Lijiang area. I was rather baffled the first time a hotel receptionist asked me for my fu4zhao4 rather than my hu4zhao4, but I quickly got used to it.