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Tom[ei]to, tom[a]to
A popular Chinese magazine Vista published a funny fact of mistaken linguistic identity.
Why does Yao Ming like tomatoes? - asked one American reporter.
What? Why? When? Says who? Why again?
But every time he misses the basket, Yao would look somehow unhappy and mutter - with various degrees of loudness - one word - "TOMATO!" Does it help him or ( Read more... ) -
Pa Ruski
The events of late have clearly shown that the reality could be refracted through the prisms of different languages with their own je ne sais quoi beauty - hues of meaning that are hard to grasp had another language been used. Had another set of values been superimposed on an event. Had another phonetic system been ripping through the air... You ( Read more... ) -
Merry Christmas
The years have somehow taken away the holiday feel. Do you get this blues these days, when Christmas and the New Years come - like it is not a holiday anymore, nothing like that magic crystal-sparkling time you used to have back when you were a kid? Maybe you don't - but I had lost the elation of the holiday season a long time ago, the magic frayed ( Read more... ) -
Rubbin' yer back
In my graduate school I had this idea - Did you know that in Russian a grad student is called аспирант, something like an 'aspiree' - the one who, it seems to me, aspires to have a degree and a pile of knowledge (and books) to go with it. So, I was indeed an aspiring writer. I aspired. Still am, covertly dedicating my time to writing prose in ( Read more... ) -
Panda dog
Here's a pooch who lives in our city. I really want to believe it is not an artificial veneering but the real thing.
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Arcadain update
The weather's treating us nicely, 20 C (70F), sunshine and I don't wanna think about the coming chill. Is it really coming? Oh those rhetorical questions ( Read more... ) -
You can take the girl outta the village....
My wife was born in a tiny village in Fujian province. Really tiny. 8 houses. Up in the mountains. The joys of bucolic life are not strange to us, city dwellers, and I too enjoy planting dill up on our roof in clay pots. But my wife was adamant in her wish to grow stuff on a larger scale - the pleasures of mucking about in freshly plowed furrows ( Read more... ) -
taciturnity interrupted
As the saying goes, much water was passed under the proverbial bridge since I last wrote in my ex-blog - more than a year. The bridge reeks, the water's stale, and in order not to venture into the undoable task of entering the same river under that bridge twice, I had to open a new blog on livejournal - because I cannot breed silence any more, I ( Read more... )
