Hi, my name is Niel, otherwise known as Confused Laowai. I blog about my exciting, yet often confusing adventure learning Chinese.
A visit from Beijing JiaoTong University and how 姜 trolled me
Last week, a few professors from Beijing JiaoTong University visited the lab I’m doing research at. I was nervous the whole week as I knew I’d have to talk in Chinese to them. I hardly get speaking practice in South Africa, which I know is my worst ability in Chinese at the moment! I looked up a lot technical terms yesterday, which I didn’t even end up using when I talked. Yes, I’m nervous like [...]
Getting creative with 汉字
I’m following this rad dude on Twitter, @puerhan and he just posted this really creative card design for the festive season. He uses the character 木 (mù) which means tree. With the touch of a star on the top, symbolizing the Christmas tree, I thought this was really creative! Seeing as Chinese characters often started as pictographs, it just shows that some characters still represent what they mean. If you want to retweet this or [...]
