Yes it is true they did,pretty awful when you think about it, but glad you mentioned it came from India. Maybe you should add India to your dislike list as well. Maybe I should turn the other cheek.......jb

 

Really Miguel? Anyone can copy from Wikipedia...How many years did you LIVE in China? I promise I have a better education than you do and I can bet that I lived and worked in more countries than you have. Naive? Never been...Ignorant....Hardly. Simple fact...In five years, I haven't met a Chinese person yet that I would trust, not with anything of even no value. I have seen them cheat on everything, steal anything and everything, and they will lie about anything and everything. They care nothing about anyone's life and any thought of helping is thought of as a weakness. I could spend hours telling about the things I have seen here in five years that would shock and disgust anyone with any sense of decency.

You can find all the polite terms for their words you want, but the absolute literal definition of Lao Wai IS white devil and so is Kwai Lo. Any of their words have many different meanings depending on the tone (4 of them) and the word after. I did take Chinese language lesson for a year...learned just enough to get by.

 

India was then British colony. Chinese emperor sent a letter to queen Victoria 1839 asking if selling opium is ok also in Britain. He never received reply.

 

thisz thread skate omn thin ice...

 

Maybe we should smoke a pipe of peace!:dnr:

 

Sure man. But right must be right. Too much wrong information spinning around...

FYI: mandarin has five tones, cantonese nine, some say maybe eleven

 

Never mind how many tones as long as it's the right tone...

 

Big difference: The cook might kill Your wife instead of chicken, on Your orders, in wrong tone

 

Yup, that is true....depending on tone, the word or phrase could change to something that you really did not mean to say! Referring to someone's mother as a horse can be quite embarrassing...tone is everything...although I have met many Chinese people that have given up on tone and just speak with no tone (as possible). The different dialects all over the country can drive them crazy. In Sichuan province, they speak Sichuanhua, a local dialect. Some teachers teach this to their students, but most will try to teach Putonghua which is standard mandarin. One of my students (from Sichuan) went to Beijing for summer vacation and when they came back, they said they had a hard time speaking with people there. This is more prevalent in people over 40, as they taught Sichuanhua in schools here until 1990 when the government demanded standardized testing across all provinces. My first learning of Chinese was in learning that they will never tell you "No". They tell you "maybe" as it is embarrassing for them to strictly refuse anyone. That took some getting used to and learning to read between the lines...to them, "maybe" is telling you that is probably not going to happen without actually refusing you. Another thing that drives me crazy is that they consider it a loss of face if they tell you that they don't know something. If you ask someone directions to somewhere, they will give you directions, even if they have no clue about where you want to go. Ask five people for the same directions, you will get five different answers...they save face...you are going on a wild goose chase.:p

As far as 5 tones or 4 tones, we are both right and both wrong depending on who is doing the teaching. Chinese teachers teaching Chinese as a first language to Chinese students teach four tones. Teachers that teach Chinese as a second language will often teach five tones. :dnr:

What little Chinese I do know, I learned from a Chinese teacher that teaches first language Chinese. I have some Putonghua mixed with Sichuanhua which basically means no one can understand me nor I them most of the time.