Hi, my name is Niel, otherwise known as Confused Laowai. I blog about my exciting, yet often confusing adventure learning Chinese.
BreakFAST! – An entertaining Taiwanese shortcom
Herman (from ChineseLevel) linked this on his Facebook a week or so ago. BreakFAST! It’s a short sitcom style comedy (hence the name shortcom) surrounding the lives of people in Taiwan. It’s short, funny, entertaining and has a nice upbeat atmosphere to it. Also it makes me hungry every time I watch an episode. There are currently 4 episodes online. I quite like the second episode. Check out the Shakespeare soliloquy in Chinese and the fail [...]
Clear the Stage for Banmaxian《斑马线来了》- Hit Chinese Web series by Feichang Fresh member
I just watched the first part of a web series called Clear the Stage for Banmaxian (《斑马线来了》). The creator is Antoine Shapiro, the same guy who’s part of Feichang Fresh. It got 650, 000 views on it’s first day on Youku. I’m seriously impressed. Feichang Fresh sings some of my favourite Chinese songs. Now Antoine has created another awesome Chinese show!? Who are these guys. Their Chinese is amazing. The show itself is also really [...]
Logograms, mysticism and why people get terrible Chinese tattoos
We all know those people. Those that get Chinese tattoos (纹身). The amount of fail that comes from bad Chinese tattoos are hilarious. There’s even a blog dedicated to it: Hanzi Smatter. But why do people get these tattoos? There are two answers: they are stupid and/or they don’t understand the Chinese language. I won’t go into the reason of why people are stupid, but rather I’ll look at why Chinese lends itself to these [...]
Omnipotent Youth Society – 万能年青旅店
I found this band a few months ago. They are from 河北 and make hauntingly beautiful Chinese folk rock. Not only do they incorporate the usual band mix of instruments, but add violins, trumpets and harmonicas. They have a Chinese flavor, but it’s devoid of the pop fluff that is often heard in Chinese pop music. Not only that, but their lyrics are amazing. Very advanced for a Chinese learner, but it’s just so poetic [...]
Defining the Sinosphere
I stumbled across this interesting wikipedia link the other day: The Sinosphere. It’s an article on a collective of countries (area?) that forms the sinosphere. Sino is a prefix used often to relate to China and its close knit Asian geography. Its etymology comes from the latin term: sinae, which is Latin for “The Chinese”. Even some popular Mandarin/Chinese sites use this as a prefix: Sinoglot, Sinosplice. Chinese fans would often call themselves Sinophiles. However, [...]
Feichang Fresh on repeat
You might have heard of these guys. The video did the rounds 1-2months ago and was also aired on CCTV. When I first heard it. I couldn’t stop listening. Not only is it sung by laowai, but the song is incredibly catchy. The song has been on repeat in my car. Even my non-Chinese learning friends are voicing along the sounds. I knew about 80% of the lyrics. So I recently went back to the [...]
Xiamen Impressions
On my recent trip, I spent most of time in Xiamen. Coming the busy & frantic Shanghai , Xiamen was literally a breath of fresh air. Upon arriving at the airport via the very affordable Spring Airlines I was eager to explore a different kind of Chinese city. Although Shanghai is supposed to be at the sea (上海 literally means on the sea), it was still an hour or so away. Xiamen Island, where Xiamen University is situated, is filled [...]
Shanghai Impressions
Shanghai, the pearl of the East. I spent about 8 days in Shanghai in total on my recent trip, sightseeing like crazy and walking as much as I could to explore and take in the city. I have heard a lot about Shanghai. I mean who hasn’t? It is literally steamrolling its way into massive development. It will possibly become the city of the future and heck it does feel like it, but is this [...]
Useful Chinese I picked up while in China
While travelling I picked up really useful Chinese. For some expats and other laowai these might be obvious, but I found this to be very useful. 打包 (dǎbāo) – Take Away With my girlfriend we’d often go to the Xiamen University canteens and order some delicious noodles, but because it was so ridiculously hot, we’d often get takeaways to go sit in air conditioned dorm rooms. I used this numerous times, from fast food to [...]
China Round 2: The Experience
So, like some of you know, I went to China for three weeks from 21 June to 12 July. This is my second time going to China. I went on an International Summer School to Beijing June/July 2009. This time around, I got a very different experience of China. One that left me almost disheartened at the country and my love and passion for its culture, which is a big motivation for me learning Chinese. [...]
