Posts Tagged ‘chinese’

Anti-Japanese mob surrounds international dormitory in Shanghai

Some trouble broke out at the Shanghai International Studies University after a group of drunk Japanese students returning from a birthday party made some noise near Chinese student dormitories between 9 and 10PM on Monday night:

Students from the apartments protested, and some of them threw empty plastic bottles from the balconies, according to the statement. The revellers then got abusive, according to some reports.

Japanese students then went to the ninth floor and knocked on several doors. A fresh round of quarrels broke out between the Japanese and Chinese students, according to the statement. The situation was brought under control by security guards.

A witness told Shanghai Daily that more than 100 people had gathered outside the students’ dorm. But the Japanese students continued to be abusive as they left the building. This in turn angered local students.

Check out ChinaSmack for some translations of Chinese BBS postings from students apparently involved in the incident. Here’s an excerpt from one posting about the situation after the police arrived and apparently took away a few drunk Japanese students:

4-5 police cars came and escorted the little Japanese away. One Japanese who had drank too much was also sent to the hospital.

Throughout all of this we were screaming fuck Japan, fuck your mothers, etc…the entire school was very magnificent…I estimate over 80% of the guys had come downstairs…

Seeing as how they did not even give a single apology, and were so arrogant, students who could not accept the situation shouted, “Rush the international guest house!”

So the big team [crowd] again changed to rushing the international guest house.

People started yelling, fuck Japan, little Japanese, fuck your mother, etc. One by one the lights in the international guest house flickered on.

There were foreigners upstairs taking pictures (this was indeed embarrassing), and people from other countries were sticking their country’s flags on their windows, afraid we would charge up there and accidentally cause them harm.

The situation was brought under control a few hours later, with police and security having prevented the angry mob from actually storming the international dormitory.

[hat tip to Jay K.]

Examples of Japanese words adopted into Chinese

We all know that the Japanese got their writing system from China, but what about Japan’s influence on the Chinese language?

The Japan Times has an interesting article today about Japanese words that have made their way into the Chinese language. Here’s an example list from the article:

Examples of Japanese words adopted into Chinese

直接 chokusetsu (direct)
注射 chūsha (injection)
出口 deguchi (exit)
伝染病 densenbyō (contagious disease)
電子 denshi (electron)
動脈 dōmyaku (artery)
原子 denshi (atom)
百貨店 yakkaten (department store)
入口 iriguchi (entrance)
時間 jikan (time)
決算 kessan (closing of accounts)
企業 kigyō (business)
小型 kogata (compact)
工業 kōgyō (industry)
広告 kōkoku (advertisement)
国際 kokusai (international)
空間 kǖkan (space)
民族 minzoku (people)
農民 nōmin (farmer)
大型 ōgata (large scale)
歴史 rekishi (history)
劣勢 ressei (inferiority)
政党 seitō (political party)
社会 shakai (society)
市場 shijō (market)
自然科学 shizen kagaku (natural science)
所得税 shotokuzei (income tax)
出版 shuppan (publishing)
主体 shutai (main subject)
相対 sōtai (relative)
体育 taiiku (physical education)
体操 taisō (calesthenics)
投資 tōshi (investment)
優勢 yǖsei (superiority)
絶対 zettai (absolute)

Japanese reporter eats insects

One of NTV’s reporters in Beijing goes to a local food shop and tries to eat cicada on a stick:

Leaflet: Stop killing alpine plants

The Nagano Mountaineering Association and the Chubu Regional Forest Office have teamed up to produce a special 4-language information leaflet aimed at educating tourists about the preservation of alpine plants (report from SBC):

The leaflet was created because growing numbers of hikers from countries like China and Korea are coming to Nagano, and existing leaflets warning against picking or damaging alpine plants were only printed in Japanese. The new leaflets contain information in Chinese, Korean, English, and Japanese.

New Movie: Kung Fu-kun

Chinese child martial artist Zhang Zhuang will be hitting Japanese theaters tomorrow with the release of Kung Fu-kun, a wacky action comedy that teams the kid up with al all-star cast of Japanese celebrities and comedians. Here’s the official film trailer and a plot summary from Eigapedia:

A young shaolin martial arts student defeats a series of foes and is told his final enemy is located in Japan. When he arrives he befriends a middle-aged woman who manages a Chinese restaraunt called Koraku. Together they get mixed up in various kung fu mayhem.

And a video of Zhang Zhuang showing off some cool moves on a morning news program:

If you’re interested in this movie, you might want to check out Mark Schilling’s review of it over at the Japan Times.

[props to Danny Choo for discovering these cool videos!]

Shukan Asahi Concerned About Chinese Toilets

Yesterday’s Mainichi WaiWai column summarized an article in the Shukan Asahi that was concerned about the quality of public toilets in areas where Olympic events will be held in China:

While Beijing has been widely blessed for the excellence of its newly opened National Swimming Center, where the Games’ aquatic events will be held, not everything about the stadium is as world-class as its pools.

Nearly every toilet in the center is a squat style, not the sit-down type of loo most Westerners — and Japanese — are accustomed to.

Squat toilets are the dominant style nearly everywhere throughout China. And though individual cubicles have become the norm on trains and public toilets in smaller cities, doors on the cubicles are still a rarity.

“There are growing numbers of Western-style toilets in southern China,” a Shanghai-born Olympic facility worker tells Shukan Asahi. “I guess squat-style toilets are still the norm up north.”

Toilet paper is also posing a problem. Outside of classy hotels in the big cities, most toilet paper used in China is a rough, harsh type that doesn’t dissolve well in water, the weekly says. To avoid blockage, it’s more common to dump the dirty paper into a trash can instead of the cistern. And though most Chinese are well aware of this practice, there are no notices anywhere informing visitors to the country of the proper way to prime the potty, running the risk of clogging the crapper. It’s a point the Games’ organizers concede.

“We have to put up signs,” an organizer says.