A good quality online Chinese language TV station to watch

There are lots of Chinese language TV stations available online, but almost all of them are bad quality slow to download or not even there when you want to watch them. I went to watch some CCTV channels recently and they wanted me to install extra software to see a video embedded in the web page. Why wouldn't they just use a Flash player like everyone else?

Anyway the one online station that I have so far found that is always there and good quality is the CTV (China TV) news channel from Taiwan.

Go to the main page through the link above and click on the green circular button to watch the live feed, or the blue button to watch archived programs.

The sounds of a Quick Stir Fry Restaurant

I recently found a new Chinese Takeaway that makes excellent Special Fried Rice. The restaurant is very small with the counter taking up about a third of the available space, leaving only enough room for three small tables. However because it is so small you can’t help hearing everything that is going on in the kitchen. It reminds me of a type of restaurant in Taiwan called a “kuai chao can ting” or “Quick Stir Fry Restaurant”.

You order your meal, which is then yelled to the nearby kitchen. Before long the first ingredients are dumped into a hot wok making a loud “Swooooooooosh” sound while at the same time filling the restaurant with the smell of Stir Fry. Almost immediately the contents of the wok are stirred with a load “Clang Clang Clang”. Then more ingredients go in and are stirred while you sit there next to the kitchen tortured by the smell of it all and listening to the “Swooosh, Clang Clang Clang, Swoosh, Clang Clang Clang.

How to cook jiao zi

There is no real reason why I did this. I just realy like chinese dumplings.

Those hated measure words.

Here is an article from pinyin.info for anyone who gets confused by measure words.

Taiwan schedule is set

My planned trip to Taiwan is now booked and it's ended up both sooner and shorter than I expected. I will now be in Taiwan for the last half of May.

This doesn't leave me with a lot of time to brush up on my Mandarin. I'm going to have to try and find ways of optimising my time and just learn the stuff I'm most likely to need.

More pictures from around Kenting

The first picture shows a volcanic gas vent. The fire burns non stop.

Pictures from Kenting

More pictures from around Kenting on the southern tip of Taiwan.

A good YouTube channel to practice listening to Chinese speech

I was searching for a good Mandarin language TV station that I could watch online as a way to practice my listening ability, when I came across the website for Taiwan's FMTV. As with many TV station websites FMTV shows clips of various shows on their website, and FMTV uses YouTube to host these clips.

The clips on the FMTV168 YouTube channel are all from light entertainment shows with a relaxed conversational interview style. Perfect for practicing to listen to conversations spoken in Chinese.

Error found in first flashcard file

I found an error in the first flashcard file.
In the 3rd lesson I had a tone wrong. Yi2 ge instead of yi1 ge.
It's now fixed.

Chiang Kaishek memorial

A little while ago I remade the video I put on the website of the Chiang Kaishek memorial in Taipei city, Taiwan in Mpeg format and uploaded it to YouTube.

My very first video

I found an Mpeg copy of my very first video and uploaded it to YouTube a while ago.

The Taiwan Music Scene

Here is a short video about the current Taiwan Pop music scene from monocle.com.

How China See's it's Place in the World

Here is a very interesting podcast interview from jennyzhu.com about China and how it sees the rest of the world. It's well worth the fifteen minutes it takes to listen to.

The only point I really don't agree with is that China wouldn't become militaristic beyond it's boarders, because it has too much to worry about internally. I'm sure that if it was in China's best interest they wouldn't hesitate to send their military into another county.

Other than that one point though the interview is well worth the listen.