Learning Linguistics from a Masseur

One joy of living in a place that is wildly different from home, is that you can learn a lesson anywhere you go, at any time. One lesson I learn every time I go for a massage, for instance, is that I should never wait such a long time (10 whole days!) before going to a massage. At the incredibly low cost ($5-$20/hour depending how deluxe you go), it's really ridiculous not to treat my muscles to a massage at least once per week.

Recently though, my favorite massage professional at Bodhi, #93, also treated me to an explanation of the origin of the various Chinese dialects.

Here's a little background for those who need it (if you don't need background, skip down 2 paragraphs; if you're a linguist, my apologies in advance - I'm not a linguist, and this is just a simple explanation for those of us who are not experts). The official language of the People's Republic of China is Mandarin, a northern dialect. Since this is the language officially designated by the state for everyone to speak and learn, it is also referred to as 普通话 pu3 tong1 hua4 “ordinary speech," or 国语 guo2 yu3 "national language." However, there are anywhere from 7 - 17 different language or dialect groups in China, depending who's counting, and each of those groups has multiple dialects. Whether they are dialects or languages and how many exist are apparently matter of some heated debate among people who study these things, but I am not one of those people. Suffice to say this: there is more than just your favorite noodle shop's Chinese language out there.

The different Chinese languages are written with the same Chinese characters, but they all sound very different. Cantonese is the one you hear in Kung Fu movies that sounds like everyone is angry, even when they're not; Mandarin doesn't sound quite so angry, but each syllable is very distinct; Shanghainese flows much more smoothly and, to those of use who hear both often but understand neither, seems to have a rhythm more like Japanese than Mandarin; etc. So if you write a word in Chinese on a piece of paper in front of a bunch of Chinese people from different places, they will all think of the same meaning, but if one of them said the word out loud the others might not understand him at all.

My masseur covered the reason for these disparate pronunciations in a brief lecture of less than 5 minutes, all while working the lactic acid out of my shoulders.

Per #93, the mutual intelligibility/ unintelligibility of Chinese dialects is dependent on the similarity of the foods the speakers eat. In Sichuan, #93's home province, hot red peppers characterize most dishes. Thus, Sichuanese speakers can understand people from Hunan and Guizhou, the nearby provinces where spicy food is also popular, even though their dialects are a little bit different. (Note the Chinese saying 四川人不怕辣，湖南人辣不怕，贵州人怕不辣, "Sichuanese don't fear spice; Hunan folks - spicy, don't fear it; Guizhou people fear un-spicy.") Shanghainese people, on the other hand, eat a lot of sweet food and are unique in China for how many sweet dishes they like; not surprisingly, almost no one can understand Shanghainese, especially people from Sichuan. Got it?

After hearing this explanation, I realized it makes a lot of sense that I learned Chinese, because my family all enjoys Chinese food and we ate it often when I was growing up. Moreover, the Chinese food we ate was "Americanized" Chinese food, and I speak Chinese with an American accent! Just imagine if I had eaten dumplings every day...

Tallest Living Man is Chinese - and Married!

Per the China Daily:
World's tallest man Bao Xishun stands with his bride Xia Shujuan at home in Chifeng, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, after they registered their marriage on March 26, 2007. At 7 feet, 9 inches tall, Bao Xishun has been confirmed by the Guinness World Records as the world's tallest living man. [newsphoto]

Guess How Many Are in the Jar?

Sorry, no prize here, and in fact, I myself don't know how many are in that jar. The real game here is, can you figure out what that is, that was saved up in a large jar over God knows how long and set in a glass display window for all world the to see?

If not, perhaps this picture will make it a little clearer.


Yes, those are teeth. Human teeth. That is a dentist's window on a busy
street in YinChuan, Ningxia, China.

I can only suppose the purpose of the jar of dead teeth is to attract attention and draw potential patients to the office, but do you see how many black and brown ones there are?

This stretch of the street had several dentists offices, and although most did not have used molar collections on display, they all had dentist chairs right up by the window, so anyone outside could watch the dentist with his current patient. I cannot imagine the confluence of events that would result in my agreeing to have a rotted-tooth-saving dentist work on my mouth in front of an entire Chinese neighborhood.

Just a little reminder that even when you know the language, the customs, and the map, some things in a foreign country will always be just too foreign.


Also, a little reminder to brush and floss!

What Rocks!

I really do intend to make this blog more about China and things that I observe here, but this month is March, afterall, and the Madness is not yet over for the Hoyas. Final Four, here we come!

Hoyas Advance to Elite 8!!

Georgetown came from behind to best Vanderbilt in the 2nd half of the game.

From Almost the Middle of Nowhere to the Middle of Nowhere

Saturday morning, Alan and I boarded a bus headed through the thick, chilly fog toward BaYin (巴音), a town in Inner Mongolia. The ticket-taker asked, "Why are you going there?" As soon as I replied were were going to SanGuanKou (三关口), she nodded and exclaimed, "Oh, you are going to the Great Wall!" She promised the bus would drop us off right at the Wall. I took some comfort from the fact that she recognized the place, since this confirmed my belief that this part of the Wall, while remote, would have at least some minimum level of civilization so a couple of tourists could ask directions, buy some tea, or at least have cell phone service.

Over the next 2 hours or so, the bus filled with Chinese people, all of whom came to know that the two foreigners were going to the SanGuanKou Great Wall. At one point, when we stopped to pick up a passenger who flagged down the bus along the side of the road, Alan asked, "Do you think we're there? That could be the Wall on the left." I thought, "No, we're not there yet, there's nothing here. At SanGuanKou there will at least be some signs." About 1 minute later, the driver stopped the bus and the ticket-taker called out, "Hey, you two foreigners, SanGuanKou! Here's where you get out!"

As I glanced out the window, the thought of simply not getting off the bus crossed my mind. But 30 Chinese people's expectant stares forced us to pick up our backpacks and disembark. We surveyed the area: 1 long mud wall, several large mountains, 1 road (the one we just came on), + nothing else. No minimum level of civilization, no person, no cup of tea, not one ray of sunshine, and most ominously, not a single bar of service on the cell phone. Two words: cold and desolate.

But there we were, at the mud Great Wall of NingXia. It looks completely different than other sections of the Wall I've seen: the portions in the eastern part of China are huge, solid, brick structures built on top of mountain ridges, and they convey to the visitor a powerful sense of longevity and strength; this portion is down in the plains between the Helan Mountains, the same color as the surrounding sand, and clearly shows the wear of hundreds of years of rain and wind. It's lonely and beautiful.

The Ming Dynasty built this section of the Wall in 1531, but sand flows buried it. The Ming repaired it 9 years later, adding the three protective towers that give the area its name, SanGuanKou (三关口). Oddly, this section of the Wall was entirely forgotten, or perhaps discounted as not actually part of the Great Wall, until it was "discovered" in 2002.

We saw almost no one in four hours of walking along the Wall, and experience that jives with that of a couple who walked the whole Wall in 2006. We came across the dwelling of a sheep farmer who was apparently unconcerned that his dwelling violated the posted rule not to construct shelters or buildings on the Wall.

The photos below shows the first two of the three towers. We could see the third tower from the second, but we did not make it all the way there. I think it would have been at least an hour hike beyond the second tower. The first tower happened to be located on the hill behind the sheep farmer's in-wall residence. The sun finally came out by the time we hit the second tower, giving us a little warmth and some better light for photos.

If you would like to see more images, please click on the photo links below:

Ningxia Mar 16-18

Alan's pictures Ningxia & Xi'an

Almost the Middle of Nowhere: NingXia Hui Minority Autonomous Region (宁夏回族自治区)

This past weekend, in the hopes of dazzling my visitor with a rarely-seen part of the Great Wall and and area with the Muslim influence of the Hui minority, I dragged Alan to YinChuan (银川), the capital of NingXia (宁夏). Everyone - both Western and Chinese - who heard we were going there asked, "Why?" Fortunately, Alan has a sense of adventure and doesn't question much.

The name NingXia literally means, "The Pacification of the Xia," and refers to the fact that the Western Xia people ruled the area now known as NingXia from about the year 1000 AD to 1227 AD, when Genghis Khan blew through town and "pacified" them, i.e. slaughtered most of them. Pretty much all that remains of the Western Xia emperors now is their large tombs, which are surrounded by the tombs of their servants and concubines, many of whom were buried alive to accompany the emperors to the afterlife.

NingXia is one of five ethnic minority "autonomous regions" in China, and is one of the smallest and poorest provinces. The other four ethnic minority autonomous regions are: Inner Mongolia (Mongols); XinJiang (Uighur), Tibet (Tibetan), and Guangxi (Zhuang). By law, autonomous regions guarantee certain rights to ethnic minorities: use of their local language, organization of their own local police; a head of government ("chairman") of their own ethnic group, etc. In practice, some observers question the level of independence this affords, since the chairman and other government officials, while of the local ethnic minority, are still appointed by the central government. The Hui, one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities, are ethnically indistinguishable from Han Chinese, but they achieved official minority status by virtue of their religion - the Hui have practiced Islam for several centuries.

As I mentioned, I hoped to see some Hui influence in YinChuan. Many cities in China have Muslim quarters (Beijing's Ox Street "Niu Jie" 牛街, for instance) where you will find one or more mosques, restaurants with some delicious halal food (usually some seriously cooked-up meet with great doughy bread sprinkled with spices & hot pepper), and a market with white-capped vendors selling products that look at least vaguely Persian in origin. I expected YinChuan would express at least this much Hui Muslim influence, if not more. I was a bit disappointed in this regard. It turns out the one large mosque in YinChuan burned down in 1981 and was rebuilt with money from the state, resulting in a modern white tile structure that looks much like many Chinese government buildings, but for the round dome on top. The rest of YinChuan, as you can see below, was a typical pollution/ pagodas/ KFC/ construction and bikes everywhere Chinese city combo.
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On the plane on the way home, I asked the Han Chinese YinChuan native sitting next to me what she saw as the Hui influence in NingXia. She replied - in a comment that surely reflects her own ethnic pride - that although the Hui are more prevalent in NingXia than anywhere else in China, they are still very few in number and far overwhelmed by Han Chinese, thus they don't make a very big mark on society, even in NingXia.

We did come across an interesting aspect of Hui culture on our visit to the Great Wall (more details on the Wall in my next post). We noticed dozens, if not hundreds, of grave sites in the countryside near the border between NingXia and Inner Mongolia. Since 1977, the Chinese government has encouraged its citizens to cremate the dead, citing space concerns and the environmental effect of cutting down trees to build so many wood coffins. Zhou EnLai and Deng XiaoPing, good Chinese examples to the end, had their bodies cremated and ashes scattered on the mountains. Rules are more lenient for ethnic minorities who practice an officially recognized religion, however, and the Hui are free to bury their dead according to Muslim tradition. Below are pictures are some of these tombs, which were along the base of the Helan Mountains.

Chinese Citizens, Keep Your Dignity

Foreigners arriving in China for the first time have their illusions of shy, courteous, reverent, clean Chinese people violently ripped from their minds by the shouting, pushing, spitting masses in the large cities. While many of us learn to love China despite the constant sensory assault, even the Chinese government has finally identified etiquette education as a serious societal fault.

The high-level attention to the issue was probably spurred by a series of articles in different foreign publications in 2006 reporting on noisy, impatient, Chinese tour groups in Thailand, Singapore, and Europe. This Asia Times Online article is just one that describes the problem in detail, including complaints and even cancellations from host country tourism officials. Of course, the ever-looming Olympics creates both a lot of pressure and a useful tool for local officials to change the People's behavior and present a better face to the world in 2008.

It's hard to have a lot of confidence that any combination of initiatives could change the personality of 1.3 billion people in just one year, but then again, authoritarianism does get some things done that democracy and freedom don't achieve as easily.

Today, I came across a pamphlet entitled, "A Guide to Civilized Behavior." Page 1 covers domestic travel. Page 2 covers Chinese citizens traveling overseas, and it is separated into simple 4-character phrases, just like important texts children are forced to memorize and recite in school. Some of the instructions are striking simply for the fact that they have to be said at all (don't carelessly spit phlegm?); some for their unique peculiarity to China (forcibly taking photos with foreign visitors); and some because they reflect inappropriate behaviors that are absolutely universal (graffiti and vulgar language). Please enjoy/ excuse my rough on-the-fly translation.

CHINESE CITIZENS DOMESTIC TOURISM
Building a civilized, harmonious travel environment will directly benefit every traveler. Becoming a civilized traveler is the responsibility of everyone, please observe the following conventions:
1. Protect sanitation. Don't carelessly spit phlegm or chewing gum; don't litter; don't smoke in non-smoking areas.
2. Observe public order. Don't cause uproar and ruckus; observe order and line up; don't block the way; don't chatter loudly in public areas.
3. Protect the natural environment. Don't trample on green spaces; don't pick flowers or fruits; don't chase, throw things at, or feed animals.
4. Protect cultural and historic sites. Don't scrawl graffiti on historic sites; don't climb on or touch cultural relics; observe regulations about taking pictures.
5. Cherish public facilities. Don't defile and destroy guest rooms; don't damage public facilities; don't steal small items; economize on water and electricity; don't waste food.
6. Respect others' rights. Don't forcibly take photos with foreign visitors; don't sneeze on others; don't spend too long on public facilities; respect the work of servers; respect the customs of all religions and minorities.
7. Take care to treat people courteously. Clothe yourself neatly and appropriately; don't bare your chest or torso in public; give way to the old, young, ill, and disabled; let women go first; don't use vulgar language.
8. Advocate healthy entertainment. Boycott superstitious activities; refuse sex, gambling, and drugs.

CHINESE CITIZENS TRAVELING ABROAD
Citizens of China, traveling overseas, pay attention to etiquette, keep your dignity.
Be particular about sanitation, lovingly protect the environment; wear appropriate clothing, please to not make a ruckus.
Respect the old, love the new, help others to be happy; give women priority, be courteous and yield.
When doing things on a long journey, mind the time; line up orderly, don't jump the line.
Be civilized in your lodging, don't cause damage; eat quietly and don't waste.
Healthy entertainment is good for the body and mind; gambling and sex, steadfastly refuse.
When visiting sites, observe the rules; never violate customs or taboos.
When you encounter difficulty, seek advice from your consulate; journey in a civilized manner, return home safely.

Little Eats 小吃

The Chinese word 小吃 (xiao3 chi1), literally "little eats," is usually loosely translated to mean "snacks," but it really refers to so much more. 小吃 can be appetizers or snacks that you have at home, but the word really brings to mind the small - and usually very yummy - bites of street food one can find at stalls and stands everywhere in China. There are some standards (the supposedly Arab, Turkish, or XinJiang style grilled meat kabob with hot pepper, for instance), but every place in China has its own local specialties as well. I wouldn't exactly say 小吃 are healthy for you, as they nearly always involve a substantial soaking in oil (and that's not extra virgin olive oil) but they are cooked right on the spot with local ingredients.

Monday night, Alan and I visited the 小吃 night market street near the busy WangFuJing area. Due to my lack of vocabulary about all things marine, Alan ended up eating shark fin soup (鱼翅汤). It was a small bowl, and now he can impress Chinese people with the fact that he has eaten one of their most prized traditional banquet dishes. So, as the Chinese would say, 黑暗中总有一线光明, "in the darkness there is always a ray of light," i.e. every cloud has a silver lining. And with any luck at all - this is China, after all - they were lying about the shark's fin really being in there, so eating the soup was not actually contributing to the decimation of the shark population.

I was fully capable of identifying the rest of the treats, which ranged from the delicious to, well... check out the images below!


The first plate, in case you don't recognize it, is caterpillars. After that, you've got your standard cockroach and scorpion option, then some sort of sea creature. Needless to say, we didn't eat these particular snacks!

Once again, thanks to Alan for the photos.

Prize-Winning Visitor, Prize-Worthy Photos

Alan Isaac has just achieved a status no one else will have the opportunity to seek for over three years: my first visitor at a particular overseas post. For those of you who follow my Visitors Point Tally, this gives Alan a total of 2 points (1 visit point + 1 "pioneer" point for being the first at this post). For a complete rundown of the Tally, please see the Comments section of this posting. To dispute your or anyone else's score, please leave a comment.

In addition to his adventuresome spirit and easy-going personality, Alan also possesses a very nice camera and a great eye for pictures. He has also been kind enough to agree to make the photos he takes on this trip available on the web through Picasa web. Pictures from his first day are already there, and we will add more over the next week and a half.

Alan's pictures in Beijing

I will be posting several of Alan's pictures directly on the blog, but you can see the whole album by clicking the photo of me above. I ordinarily would not slap a picture of my face right up here, but Alan swears this is the "perfect picture for a blog." So, here you go.

Arbor Day in China

Chinese mobile phone customers received the following broadcast text message today (both of the mobile phone companies in China are state-run, which makes text messages an extremely effective way for the government to inform The People):

国家林业局提醒您：今天是植树节，请您积极参与义务植树活动。

The National Forestry Office reminds you: Today is Tree Planting
day. Please energetically participate in voluntary tree planting activities.

Beyond the green-for-the-Olympics hysteria that resulted in a mountain being painted green, the Chinese government is quite seriously and realistically concerned with the destruction of China's forests and the spread of the Gobi desert. Ask any Beijinger about Arbor Day, and they will immediately mention the intense sand storms that sweep into the city because there is no significant forest between the desert and the city to stop the wind and sand.

This Chinese article about Arbor Day and the tension between economic development and forest protection also mentions that Arbor Day in China is the anniversary of Sun Yat-Sen's death. As the founder of the Republic of China in 1911, Sun Yat-Sen is known as the "Father of Modern China." Although his Nationalist Party later fought against the Communists and set up its own government on the island province of Taiwan under Chiang Kai-Shek (leading to the current issues of cross-straight relations, "One China" policy, etc...), Mao Tse-Dong believed in Sun Yat-Sen's political message and praised him for bringing China out of its feudal past. Thus, both Mainland China and Taiwan honor Sun Yat-Sen on the anniversary of his birth and death. Apparently, Sun Yat-Sen initiated the tradition of planting trees on a day in March back in 1915.

You'll be glad to know, Arbor Day was a gloriously clear blue sky day!

The Hoyas are Back!!!!

First Big East Men's Championship Title since 1989. NCAA Tournament, here we come...

The Georgetown Fight Song
(aka "There Goes Old Georgetown")

It's been so long since last we met,
Lie down forever, lie down;
Or have you any money to bet,
Lie down forever, lie down.

There goes old... Georgetown
Straight for a... touchdown
See how they... gain ground
Lie down forever, lie down,
Lie down forever, lie down."

Rah! Rah! Rah!
Hurrah for Georgetown
Cheer for victory today
'Ere the sun has sunk to rest,
In the cradle of the west
In the clouds will proudly float
The Blue and Gray."

We've heard those loyal fellows up at Yale
Brag and boast about their Boola-Boola
We've heard the Navy yell
We've listened to Cornell
We've heard the sons of Harvard tell
How Crimson lines could hold them
Choo Choo, Rah Rah, dear old Holy Cross
The proud old Princeton tiger
Is never at a loss
But the yell of all the yells,
The yell that wins the day
Is the 'HOYA, HOYA SAXA!'
Of the dear old Blue and Gray.

It's been so long since last we met,
Lie down forever, lie down;
Or have you any money to bet,
Lie down forever, lie down.

There goes old Georgetown
Straight for a (rebound)
See how they gain ground
Lie down forever, lie down,
Lie down forever, lie down."

Diplocat Promotes Cross-Cultural Understanding

General Tsao, the rags-to-riches cat who lives with me since being rescued from the streets of Shanghai 2 years ago, likes to chase coins when I toss them. Sometimes General thanks me by picking up the leftover coins while I'm out and depositing them in my shoes or my bed as a present.

Unbeknownst to me, General Tsao found a new hiding spot for his coins in our apartment: under the edge of the area rug in the living room. When I came home from work today, my ayi asked if putting small change under rugs was an American custom. In response to my "huh?" reaction, she folded back the edge of the rug and told me, "I've never seen this in other American homes where I've worked, but I know all American families have different cultural backgrounds, so I realized this might be your tradition."

After I got control of my laughter, I explained that the custom came not from my own culture, but from my Chinese-American cat's.

The Drawbacks of Blue Sky Days （蓝天的坏处）

I looked out the window Monday morning, and thought, "Beautiful!" It was so clear, and the sky was a sparkling blue - not the sun-reflecting-off- strange-chemical-dust sparkle of a Beijing sunset, but a true blue. I was so excited, and rushing out the door of my building I noted how refreshing it was to be able to breathe easily.

But ask yourself, what makes a Beijing morning clear? The answer is wind. Oh, yes, wind. I should have realized this, because the night before was Lantern Festival, and the wind battering the apartment building was so loud it drowned out the sound of the fireworks.

It was 18 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday and the wind was only about 1000 miles an hour from every direction. Despite my religious and extensive morning moisturizing routine, my face and hands were stinging dry within minutes. And I was out in the freezing wind for many minutes, because taxis in Chinese cities magically disappear in any sort of bad weather. Although the minimum taxi fare (10 RM/ $1.25) is more than 20 times the price of a bus ride for a holder of a public transport card (4 mao/ .4 RMB/ 5 ¢) - I have one! - it is still cheap enough that Beijingers jump into them at the slightest spot of rain or apocalyptic gusts of wind, thus exhausting the supply.

One poor foreigner at the front gate of my building waited for 1 hour for a taxi. My fearless neighbor Mark and I were not that patient and chose instead to dive in front of a 67-pound Chinese girl who was also racing for the one available taxi we saw after about 20 minutes of searching.

Later that evening, a taxi driver went through a very convoluted string of logic to try to convince me the sudden onset of chilly blasts was good for Beijingers' health. Something along the lines of, if it were too comfortable this early in Spring, people's bodies would get accustomed, and sprout like young shoots too early in the season. Then, a stiff chill could be lethal. So the cold weather now prevents that situation by sending people back into their homes to nurse their windburn. I fully allow that my Chinese language skills might have made this even more confusing than it already was, but this guy was talking for a while, and he was pretty adamant about his opinion. I left the cab wondering if perhaps a serious but subtle Chinese political commentary had just gone over my head.

Here is the view from my apartment on the blue sky day:

In & Around Beijing 2007

There Goes Old Georgetown, Straight for a Rebound

Ahem! Georgetown's first win over UConn since 1997 locked the Hoyas into the Big East top seed. Man, am I sorry I couldn't make myself stay up past midnight to watch this!! NCAA March Madness on Demand bball games over the internet starts soon, though, and then I will be able to watch and re-watch momentous events like this all March long.

Speaking of Weather...

I guess I forgot an entry in my guide to weather forecasts for Beijing:
Light Snow = light snow

I was surprised to wake up this morning and see snow! It's so dry in Beijing that snow is pretty rare, despite the cold climate. So, although it is still not a clear, blue sky day, here is what my apartment complex looks like in snow.

Beijing Weather Euphemisms

For those of you who love The Weather Channel as I do, here is a guide to understanding TWC's weather reports for Beijing, China, on www.weatherchannel.com.

Smoky = Beijing wrapped in a warm blanket of pollution
Foggy = fog trapping pollution in the city; result: same as "smoky"
Light Rain = clouds and light mist trapping pollution in the city; result: "smoky" + damp
Heavy Rain = acid rain and liquid coal dust pouring down on Beijing
Sunny = visibility unknown; possible "blue sky" day!
Windy = wind may blow pollution out of city, possibly resulting in "blue sky" day!
Windy = wind may blow pollution and sandstorms into the city, preventing "blue sky" day
Clear = please confirm you have actually searched for Beijing, China

The Dolls Formerly Known as Friendlies

Below are the 2008 Olympic Mascots, the FuWa (福娃). Fu (福) means good fortune, and Wa (娃) means baby or doll, making these "little good fortune babies," indeed a good choice for Olympic Mascots.
There are a lot of reasons why the Fu Wa (there are no plurals in Chinese, so it's one FuWa, two FuWa) make good mascots, and a lot of reasons why FuWa is a great name for them. Before I get to that, though, I'd like to ask, do you think FuWa is a better name than "The Five Friendlies"?

You see, the FuWa were originally announced with an English name, the Five Friendlies. Each Friendly had a different name, and they represented the Olympic flame plus four popular China animals (the fish, the panda, the chart-topping Tibetan antelope, and the summer sleeper hit swallow bird).

If you go to the official 2008 Beijing Olympics website and click on "Image & Look" then "mascot" now, the name Five Friendlies is nowhere to be found, and the good fortune babies are called only, "FuWa." Someone on the Chinese Olympic Committee realized (imagined?) that foreigners - foreigners, mind you, not Chinese people with hastily acquired Olympic English skills - would misread the word Friendlies, which has a very positive meaning, as Friend Lies, which has a decidedly negative meaning. China would not want to be the Friend Who Lies, nor would it want to propagate the belief that Friends Lie, thus the name had to be changed. Apparently, they did not consult any foreigners on this change, since foreigners certainly would have pointed out the potential mis-readings of a name that starts with F-U.

So, the Friendlies are now the FuWa, still a group of small children each representing a different animal/ symbol and the color of a different Olympic ring. I have to say, although I think the thought process of ditching the name "Friendlies" is laughable, I think the result is a good one: the Olympic mascots for the Beijing Olympics should have a Chinese name, or at least a name that reflects China in some way.

In case anyone out there doubts the Chinese are capitalists to the core, I assure you, these dolls were made to sell. Not only are they charming, but there are five different ones, forcing the enthusiastic consumer to purchase five times as many products. Some previous Olympics have had bi- or tri-mascots (Athena & Phevos from Greece, for instance), but leave it to the Chinese to have the most ever. I believe there are also plans to have a mascot image for each sporting event, for instance, YingYing the Tibetan antelope playing table tennis, and Nini the swallow kite diving for a volleyball. I know I will not be able to resist buying several (how on Earth to choose between HuanHuan, the Olympic flame whose name also means "welcome", and JingJing, the panda with a lotus flower on his head?).

I definitely recommend anyone with even the slightest interest check out the Beijing Olympics official mascot page. There is a lot of information there, and like so many things in China, a mind-boggling amount of reflection went into the design for these little stuffed animals. The selection of their names really illustrates a lot about Chinese language and culture. Most notable:

• Each FuWa has a double character name: Beibei, JingJing, HuanHuan, YingYing, NiNi. Chinese love 2-character words, especially nouns, and particularly when referring to cute or familiar things. Thus, "Thank you" is "xie xie" 谢谢, a repetition of the same word, because to just leave a single "xie" hanging out there would be somehow incomplete, lacking. Likewise, nicknames are rarely ever a single-character name. Addressing a friend with a single word might sound harsh. Soft, round, 2-character words sound much nicer to the Chinese ear.
• Take the sound of the first character of each of the FuWa's names and string them together, and you get the sentence, "Beijing welcomes you!" The actual characters don't have that meaning (the "bei" in BeiBei the fish's name for instance, actually means treasure or baby, not "north" as in Beijing), but as I mentioned when talking about tigers, a symbol that looks or sounds like the real thing is often as good as the real thing in Chinese traditions.
  
• The stringing together of the FuWa's names also brings up another point: Chinese often refer to groups of things or complex concepts by abbreviating each component from it's 2- or 3-character word to it's first character. For example, the administration and policies of President Hu JinTao and Premier Wen JiaBao is called the Hu-Wen Xin Zheng (胡温新政): Hu 胡 is short fo Hu JinTao, Wen 温 short for WenJiaBao, xin 新 means new, and zheng 政 is the first character in the words for government, politics, and policy. So four syllables represent several concepts and a very long English phrase.
  

As Professor Yu, my first Chinese teacher, would say, "Chinese is so elegant, so logical!"