j a m e s f o r s y t h ✡ n e t

Hi all,

Really, not much to report. Hence, I’m not reporting. As you probably know, on returning from China a few months ago I was able to visit Japan and Singapore. Hopefully in a few months we’ll be going away again soon. So here I am in the middle. Working. Enjoying weekends. Etc. I’ve also been playing computer games with Asher. We use a logitech precision gamepad:

Asher’s getting very used to using it. I’ve used some freeware to map the keyboard to its buttons for those games which only have keyboard input.

Did you know there will be a new Astroboy movie? See the site, complete with 2 trailers here. Looking forward to it. Hopefully there’ll be a Chinese version coming out around the same time for us to show Asher.

I’m writing this more or less as a memo to myself:

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. - Warren Buffett

Hi all. I’m back in Melbourne getting back into the coffee habit.

Instead of the mad scramble of “queueing” and guessing as experienced in many other countries, this McDonald’s in Nagoya has a true first come first served arrangement. Because when you want to get fed, you don’t want to get fed up.

先来先给

I just wrote the following here:

Lao Zhong (15) says: 老X is a neutral word, as in 老李, 老师, 老毛, 老蒋, 老鼠, …

It’s not the 老 that gets to me, it’s the 外. I’m in China, but from Melbourne, Australia, and in both places I’m called a 老外 by the Chinese. Chinese people are welcomed to Melbourne and treated like locals pretty much as soon as they arrive. If I was to live in China for 20 years, however, I’ll still be referred to as 老外 in totally irrelevant situations, such as buying something to eat.

It’s not up to the person using the term to distinguish whether a term is 贬义词 or 褒义词, it’s the audience.

Some Chinese have recently expressed shock at my objection to the term 老外 saying that, if they don’t say it, they’ll have no way to actually refer to me. It’s almost as if 老外 is one of the pronouns of the Chinese language. With such thinking it is difficult to argue.

Instead of parents in China telling their children “看，那边有老外，说’hello’“, they should teach them that outside China there are a wide range of nationalities, of many different languages and colours. Otherwise, it’s akin to Westerners in Western countries saying “Look, there’s an Asian, say こんにちは”. The latter is actually less ignorant than 老外, because at least some attempt has been made at identifying the person. 老外 simply means “outside China”, which inherently carries no meaning whatsoever.

I applaud Nick’s (8) comments, but feel that 老外 is also a term that should be phased out (i.e. given a wide berth) if China is to truly develop, not only in technology, but also in mindset.

I’m procrastinating - there’s a big pile of essays still to be marked.

One thing I feel more and more about China is that everywhere one goes there is something worth seeing or worth knowing that is essential to one’s knowledge of China as a whole. The more I see the more I realise there’s so much more to see that I’ll never have the opportunity to see. In my opinion I’ve seen the greatest highlight of all, the Great Wall. Walking and, at times, climbing on the Great Wall gives one the feeling of being on top of the world. It’s so high and the air tastes so fresh. On reaching the Wall, one can choose to go the easier route, where there are more tourists or the steeper, which is more difficult to climb. I chose the latter, simply so I could savour the moment and have a moment’s peace. Thoroughly worthwhile.

The wonder of the Great Wall doesn’t detract from all the other cities, as I’ve already alluded to. Every city has some kind of a story, special food, idiom connected with it, or some historical figure was born there (or lived or died there).

I don’t intend to return to China for quite some time. But there will be plenty of good memories of places, foods and eye candy. Basically anything that is a lexical entry (or addable as a lexical entry) has been worth seeing. Lately if the English definition of a vocabulary point is too easy or obvious, I’ve been substituting it with the Latin scientific name for things like spices, flora and fauna. The same can be done if there’s a saying or idiom with the same meaning in both Latin and Chinese. I don’t know why, but doing this just seems to give me a far greater appreciation of the thing being studied. For example, instead of just saying “snapper”, one can learn lutjanus stellatus - 笛鲷.

“Foreign” is the term used by the Chinese for anywhere outside of China. However, it’s something of a misnomer, because a number of Chinese people have told me that “foreigner” refers to people who are white and have big noses - which is not the case for inhabitants of much of Japan or South East Asia.

But we’ll let the definition “anywhere outside China” stand… And going by this definition I am very homesick for “foreign”.

Soon I’ll be able to view Youtube videos! Hooray! Interestingly, a website that’s not available in China is downforeveryoneorjustme.com. I wonder why a website that lets netizens know whether a website is down in only their location or for everyone would be out of action? hmmm….

I was thinking of going to Jinan for the labour weekend holiday, but buying a train ticket just proved too bothersome, so I’m just sticking around the uni for the long weekend. Boring, I know. But I do get some work done, and a bit of reading and get the chance to have a look at the internet and so on.

At the end of this week I’ll be half way through my stint here. I miss the family and the outside of China very much (the area most Chinese refer to as ‘foreign’ - quite a large area, but one I miss). It’ll be great to be back.

The video says Throw that D. I always remember it as Throw the D. Whatever.

Today I washed my clothes by hand because the only washing machine in my hotel was broken. But at least the internet was working, I wasn’t chased by the hotel rooster and my shower was hot. It’s been a good day.