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History of the PRC – Part Fifteen Posted by sasha on Mar 4, 2011
After the Nanjing Massacre, the city of Wuhan became the political, economic, and military center of China. With the fall of Shanghai and Nanjing, this city on the Yangtze River (长江 – Cháng jiāng) was basically the wartime capital of China, and Chinese focused their efforts on defending it. Japanese forces believed that if they…
History of the PRC – Part Fourteen Posted by sasha on Mar 2, 2011
With the New Year festivities behind us, it’s time to dive back into our history lesson on the tumultuous period between China’s last Emperor and the founding of the modern day People’s Republic of China. When we last left off in Part Thirteen, Chiang Kai-shek and his army had just suffered a crushing defeat at…
Harbin Part Two Posted by sasha on Feb 27, 2011
For day two in Harbin, we visited the Tiger Park and the International Snow Sculpture Art Fair. 老虎公园 – lǎo hǔ gōng yuán Tiger Park 我们迷路了 – Wǒ men mí lù le We got lost 虎园欢迎您 – Hǔ yuán huān yíng nín Tiger Park Welcomes You 菜单 – cài dān menu 一些老虎喜欢玩儿，一些喜欢休息 – Yī xiē…
Harbin Part One Posted by sasha on Feb 25, 2011
Last month, I took a weekend trip up to one of the coldest places in China. The capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang (黑龙江) province, Harbin (哈尔滨) literally translates as “a place for drying fish nets.” The 10th largest city in China looks like a mix of China and Russia (俄罗斯), thanks to its complicated history…
Lantern Festival – Video Posted by sasha on Feb 19, 2011
In my last post, I covered the Lantern Festival, which is the final day of Spring Festival celebrations. As I mentioned in that post, there was an insane fireworks display going on right outside of my window all night long. Just so that everyone can see exactly how ridiculous said display was, I made sure…
Lantern Festival (元宵节) Posted by sasha on Feb 17, 2011
Having just returned to Beijing last night after a month in Thailand and Laos, I made it back just in time for the final day of Spring Festival revelry – the Lantern Festival (元宵节 – yuán xiāo jié). As I type this post, a constant stream of fireworks and firecrackers are being set off right…
Stay in Tone! Posted by sasha on Feb 14, 2011
When it comes to learning Chinese, understanding how to 读 and 写 the thousands upon thousands of 汉字 is obviously the most difficult part of the learning process. However, if you are simply interested in learning how to 说中文, you will probably encounter the most difficulty whilst attempting to learn the four 声调 (shēng diào…