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July 23, 2003
do you sell playboy?
11:31 PM
[A bitchy-looking middle-aged woman approaches C.S.R. Matt near the Bargain Book section holding a gift card, and seems a little puzzled on what to purchase]
Woman: [In a frustrating tone] Excuse me? Where’s your Playboy?
Matt: [Thinking I might have heard wrong] I’m sorry?
Woman: The magazine Playboy? Where is it?
Matt: I’m sorry ma’am, we don’t carry that here.
Woman: [Surprised] What? But you have so many magazines!
Matt: Yeah, I don’t think that would be too appropriate in this store.
Woman: [Gives me weird face] Okay, alright then.
WOWSERS, talk about a very interesting story. OMG, either she has no idea what kind of content Playboy provides, or she is completely clueless that this is quite the family store. For the love of Pete, go the convenience store! Man, the questions we get here are unbelieveable.
And twice today, perhaps it’s a new trend, but customers have started calling me “Chapters Guy.” Perhaps it is somewhat appropriate, since, well, I’m a guy and I work at Chapters, but still, I don’t like that name. I’ve become so accustomed to people calling me “Excuse me” that “Chapters Guy” seems kinda weird. Tee hee.
I’m quite bored tonight. not “quite”— VERY. anyway, had a nice dinner at the dragon dynasty place cause my grandma wanted to celebrate her 10th anniversary upon stepping into our beloved Canada.
Haven’t done all that much since my last update. Didn’t do the movie thing this week. Hopefully we’ll resume our tradition next week. YAY!.
MY LATEST RANT:
(This one is kinda boring, so if you don’t like politics or China, read no further.)
Well, since I’ve been kind of bored for the past few days, I begin to question and wonder weird things. I was pondering, when and where did Simplified Chinese get here? So after doing some research, I have another reason on why the Chinese Communist Party is utterly retarded— I will explain later.
Well, I have always had a rant of Simplified Chinese to begin with— I think it’s ugly. Doesn’t it look like something is missing? Perhaps that is the Taiwanese-Hong Kong attitude. But seriously, do you guys see the HSBC at Oriental Centre at Brimley and Sheppard?— Simplified Chinese. Ewww, yucky.
Anyway, back to why the Chinese government is retarded. Okay, well, back in the day, they’ve realized that the Chinese language is very difficult— and indeed those strokes can be quite tricky— I completely agree with them. So, as a result, the government decided to enforce specific characters to “simplify” the language. The government believes that Simplified Chinese is easier to learn in school— that is so dumb. Geez, first of all, if you don’t know how to write a character, it doesn’t matter if there are 7 strokes or 14 strokes, if you don’t know, you don’t know. Instead of “simplifying” the language, how about putting your energy to more worthwhile things, building a better education system, and perhaps have a way to teach kids to write correctly?
This is another way of the Communist Party to abuse their power, and change for the sake of change. The last thing you need is to have a langauge that confuses its users. Language is supposed to evolve naturally. Words like “Emoticon”, or “Spam”, have naturally evolved after increased usage in the English speaking world. But the deliberate and enfoced change by the Communist Party is completely ridiculous.
In short, this is just one of a few reasons on the craziness of the Chinese government. I’m sure in the non distant future, Simplified Chinese will not be understood by Traditional Chinese folks— let’s drink to that!
Filed under Work Life, published In Toronto
14 Comments
July 24, 2003 01:15 AM
Apparently tho, the simplified chinese had reportedly increased the literacy rate in china.
Ppl in china seems fine... it's only people in HK and Taiwan that hates it (like me)
July 24, 2003 01:58 AM
my name in chinese(mandarin) sounds like pig. safe pig.
an zhu! hehehe
July 24, 2003 08:55 AM
like u said matt its a communist party. they can do whatever they damn well please and speaking of dams they just recently built the world's largest and it flooded countless cities all in the name of progress
July 24, 2003 10:00 AM
personally i hate the simplified version....tho i know people in china hold it in high regard.
frankly it all comes down to how UTTERLY UGLY the characters are when they are simplied. It's all these X's and dashes (or lack thereof) that makes it look incomplete. Anyway that's my stance. (Besides I'm not the person to judge cause I can hardly write any chinese, if at all)
but yes....that is your new nickname..."Chapters Guy"!! haha
July 24, 2003 09:16 PM
i can't even read the simplified version! hahah.....that woman was funny.....hahha......ask you for a playboy magazine..........hohohohoh
July 25, 2003 12:15 AM
the woman might have been buying one for her husband so they can have kinky sex... and she really had no idea where to buy them! you never know matt!
hell i'm buying u a porno for your bday... can i get it at chapters?
July 25, 2003 11:41 AM
i agree completely w/ the simplified chinese thing too!!!! i mean, it's hard enough for me to pick up a few words every now and then, but then ppl hafta go CHANGE it on me! i mean geez, if they simplify the word they should at least make the simplified work resemble the original one... but NO, it's like a completely new language! (well, at least to me it is)
July 27, 2003 02:49 AM
u should have told the lady "i AM the Playboy magazine" hahahaah
and waht i have to say in the following are entirely my OWN opinions so NO ONE mock me for it...
first, I grew up learning both form of chinese writing...simplified in the early part of my life and traditional in the later part of my life...and I really have to say that simplifed is the easier version...and yes it may be bad that ONLY china is using the simplified system and hk and taiwan are using the traditional system and soo all the confusion...but simplified IS no doubt, the easier way to learn chinese, believe it or not
Second, most of you ONLY learned how to read/write the traditional system, so u really don't have enough basis to make ur opinion..
Thirdly, EUGENE, simplified version is NOT ugly....just because u can't understand it or make some sense out of it, u shouldn't mock a language to be ugly ... that's like saying "egyptian language...it's so ugly"...it's an art form...language writing is an art form and it shouldnt' just be judged by only face value i.e. beautiful or ugly
July 27, 2003 02:51 AM
wow don't i sound like such a major bitch?? but hey, i'm chinese and i defend for waht i believe in
July 28, 2003 01:41 AM
Hehe jenn just illustrated my point. Although i still don't like it cause i'm from HK haha.
July 28, 2003 02:02 AM
hhaha ME, then u should go to china for a month....u'll be surprised how quickly u learn to read them
July 28, 2003 04:40 PM
bottom line:
It's UGLY! (I'm stubborn) and I feel it's "easier" only because there is less to write. Like Shorthand in english-- I feel it is not "easier" but simply, faster.
July 29, 2003 12:14 AM
well that's actually the point of it matt... less to write...
February 25, 2005 01:04 AM
as long as the script is naffed up china will never reach her full potential. could you imagine if china had a script even remotely accessible to the rest of the world instead of the half-baked simplified scheme?
TRY THIS: determinant+phonetic= character. let every "ma" character have the same phonetic sign. then use a determinant (animal, plant, speech, etc.) to specify. the script would remain as beautiful but learning time would be greatly reduced and a great barrier between china and the world would be surmounted.