Archive for December 10th, 2008

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Cri – Lesson 168

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Y: Dajia hao, hello everyone, perfect your Chinese every day, right here in the Chinese Studio. Wo shi Y., and how’s Dracula today?
B: You’re so funny my dear, wo hai shi B, I’ve still B despite the lost tooth look. Guess what, I’ve got a dental appointment to get too.
Y: I’ll come along for the ride, and I’ll bring a few keywords too, here they are.

Key words of the day
Toothache, 牙疼 I’ve got a toothache 我牙疼。cavity, 蛀牙I need a filling.我要补牙。drill 牙钻，Open wide 嘴张大点儿。Just relax. 放松点儿. All in today’s Chinese Studio.

Y: Do you remember B we learned how to say, I’ve got a toothache.
B: I think so, wo3 ya2 teng2.
Y: Dui. Wo3 ya2 teng2.  ya2 means tooth,
B: ya2,
Y:  teng2 means ache,
B: teng2,
Y: wo3 ya2 teng2
B: wo3 ya2 teng2 I’ve got a toothache. The dentist told me I have a cavity. What do we call it Y?
Y: you can say:  zhu4 ya2.
B: zhu4 ya2.
Y: zhu4 means decay,
B: zhu4,
Y: ya2 means tooth,
B: ya2,
Y: zhu4 ya2.
B: zhu4 ya2. a cavity, And I need a filling. How do I tell the dentist?
Y: you can say: wo2 xiang3 bu3 ya2.
B: wo2 yao4 bu3 ya2.
Y: wo2 yao4 means I need to do something,
B: wo2 yao4,
Y: bu3 ya2 means to fill a tooth,
B: bu3 ya2,
Y: wo2 yao4 bu3 ya2
B: wo2 yao4 bu3 ya2.  I need a filling.

Conversation 1
A: 大夫，我牙疼。
B: 我看看。。。你有颗蛀牙。

B: I can see that nasty weapon heading my way, the dreaded drill.
Y: You are so melodramatic B, you’ve been watching too many b-rate movies. By the way, that thing you call a drill, is what we call ya2 zuan4 in Chinese,  as zuan4 means drill,
B:  ya2 zuan4. What’s that the dentist just said?
Y: I’ll repeat it, 嘴张大点.
B: zui3 zhang1 da4 dianer3
Y: zui3 is mouth,
B: zui3,
Y: zhang1 means open,
B: zhang1,
Y: da4 means wide,
B: da4,
Y: dianer3 means a little bit,
B: dianer3,
Y: zui3 zhang1 da4 dianer3
B: zui3 zhang1 da4 dianer3, oh I get, time to open wide.

Conversation 2
A: 大夫，我牙疼。
B: 我看看。。。嘴张大点。

B: I’m still nervous. Since I always have goose skin when I heard the sound of the drill.
Y: it’s okay, just relax, like what the dentist told you. fang4 song1 dianer3.
B: fang4 song1 dianer3.
Y: fang4 song1 means relax,
B: fang4 song1,
Y: dianer3 means a little bit,
B: dianer3,
Y: fang4 song1 dianer3.
B: fang4 song1 dianer3.  Just relax…I’ve made up my mind Y. After this, I’m gonna make a bigger effort to look after my teeth.  The drill is slowly wearing off and how about this for a million dollar smile.
Y: Yeah, that new tooth look’s pretty good, maybe not quite a million dollars worth, but certainly an improvement.
B: So my Dracula impersonation is over for today. How about a quick question before we disappear Y?
Y: Here we go, how do we say, “dental floss” in Chinese of course.
B: send your email answer to Chinese@crifm.com. Hurry along and you could win yourself a prize. Mingtian jian.
Y: Zai jian.

(Source:english.cri.cn)

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China Travel – Hemudu Site

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

The Hemudu Site is located in Humudu Village in Luojiang Town of Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province.

 

In the summer of 1973, the Hemudu Site was discovered accidentally by farmers of Hemudu Village when they built drainage facilities in the northeast of the village. The renowned Hemudu site, covering an area of about 40,000 square meters, is an important village site in the New Stone Age, with cultural relics of about 4 meters thick. The site has four cultural layers overlapped. According the measurement of C14, the fourth layer dates back to 6,000 and 7,000 years ago.

 

Rows of wooden poles and board stakes were orderly arranged along the small hill. This was a railing-style construction, with large stake of 23 meters long and 7 meters deep and the front porch about 1.3 meters deep. Most of these wooden poles had mortises and tenons, the earliest ones that have ever been found in China, indicating that such kind of techniques were adopted then.

 

A large amount of rice was unearthed in the site. The well-preserved rice, including indica rice and japonica rice, was proved to be cultivated rice. The large amount of well-preserved rice with a wide distribution area made the Hemudu Site a rare Neolithic site in China and wrote a new page in the archaeological history of the Neolithic Age with the first-time discovery of indica rice. Other objects unearthed included tools used in agricultural production and processing, such as spade-like bone plough, wooden box, bone sickle, and timber. These proved that agricultural production had become a main sector in local area 6,000 and 7,000 years ago. The discovery of rice in the Hemudu Site has another significant meaning. People originally believed that India was the origin of Asian rice, while the discovery in Hemudu proved that rice unearthed there was over 3000 years older than that discovered in India.

 

Also unearthed in the Hemudu Site was a large amount of animal bones, including man-feed pig, dog, buffalo, wild deer, red elk, river deer and bear as well as some extinct species such as elephant and rhinoceros. These bones provided important data to the study of weather changes in ancient times and the beginning of primitive stockbreeding.

 

The Hemudu Culture had a colorful primitive art. Pottery wares were decorated with animal and plant patterns. Other relics included pig, sheep and human head figures made of pottery, and bone-enchased and ivory-enchased objects. The unearthed bone whistle can still make sounds.

 

The discovery of the Hemudu Site bears proof that as early as 6,000 and 7,000 years ago, there appeared quite developed primitive culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River that is believed to be one of the cradles of the ancient Chinese civilization.

(Source: chinaculture.org)

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Chinese Culture – Bamboo and Wooden Strips of State of Wu at Zoumalou

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

 

Bamboo and wooden strips of State of Wu, the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280)

 

Location: Changsha, Hunan Province

 

Period: 220-237

 

Excavated in 1996

 

Significance: It has supplied important materials to the study of the social, political, economical developments and other related systems of State of Wu during the Three Kingdoms Period.

 

 Introduction 

Bamboo and wooden strips: (left-up, length 47.6 cm-53.6 cm); Bamboo and wooden strips: (right-bottom)

 

From July to November 1996, the Cultural Relics Work Team from Changsha in Hunan province, in coordination with construction work in the city, excavated 57 ancient wells inside the walls of the construction site on the southwest side of Zoumalou Street in downtown Changsha. In the process, they excavated several thousand items of all sorts made of steel, iron, ceramics, and bamboo. Approximately 100,000 bamboo manuscripts from the Wu Dynasty (222-280) of the Three Kingdoms period were unearthed from the site. The earliest date recorded in these bamboo strips was the 25th year (220) of the Jian’an era under Emperor Xian of the Eastern Han, and the latest was the 6th year (237) of Jiahe reign of the Wu Dynasty.

 

Because of the damp climate of the south, relatively high underground water level and soil pressure, and concentrated pollution at the bottom of the excavation, the condition of the bamboo documents is relatively poor, but a small portion are well-preserved. The documents that have been sorted out include bamboo strips, wooden tablets, bamboo plates, inspection seals, and sealing-clay boxes. Judging by the surviving vestiges, the bamboo and wood-strip documents were bound together to form a volume, generally read from top to bottom, were first bound and then written on, with several volumes left blank at the bindery. The bamboo documents recorded taxes, census registers, storehouse management, land tax flow, military and civilian opening of wasteland for cultivation, and correspondence — touching on every aspect of social economy, government, and law.

 

In the 20th century, bamboo slips have been found continually all over China, before the excavation of Zoumalou, the total of these items had already surpassed 90,000 pieces. But there were approximately 100,000 pieces found just at Zoumalou! Discovering such a vast number of ancient documents in one place at one time is incredibly rare, and can be called a find of the century. Only a small amount of historical documentation survives from the Three Kingdoms Period. The bamboo documents unearthed from Zoumalou, which recorded the reign of the Wu Dynasty, possess academic value from various perspectives.

（Source: chinaculture.org）

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