On 30 Oct 2005 15:58:52 GMT
Mother's eyes are sparkling diamonds, still the moon shows no light,
This rose is withered, may God deliver,
The rake at the Gates of Hell tonight!
<***@zedat.fu-berlin.de>'s soul is damned, writing...
/slash and burn/
Post by c***@zedat.fu-berlin.deThe Yuan is an altogether different word, with different pronounciation
(4th tone instead of 2nd), and a different character, the basic meaning
of which is 'court' (as in siheyuan) or 'institution' (as in guowuyuan,
State Council; xueyuan, Academy).
The problem in reconstructing old Chinese language is that we do know
how words were written, but because Chinese script is not a sound
script (at least not in general) but a symbolic script, we do know
nothing about the pronunciation of the old words. Only the researches
of Bernard Karlgren (1889-1978) and E. G. Pulleyblank (* 1922) helped
to reconstruct middle Chinese (Tang to Song Dynasties) and finally old
and archaic Chinese. Both used the rime dictionaries of the Tang and
Song Dynasties (Qieyun and Guangyun) and rime groups of the oldest
poetry book, the Shijing. From these studies, we see that the final
sound system of old Chinese was much more complex than today. While we
have today only open syllables (without consonant: cha, ji, bo, dao)
and the two finals -n (fan, lun, jin) and -ng (fang, cheng, qing). In
old Chinese there were also finals like -l, -m, -g, -k, -t, and -p, in
archaic Chinese even -gs. And there existed sound clusters at the
begin of a syllable, like gl-, hl-, tr-, mj-, shw- and so on. Such a
sound system makes old Chinese much more similar to Tibetan and
Burmese.
Compared to this, modern Chinese sounds quite crippled and
oversimplified. Even at the begin of the 20th century, there existed
not so much vowel-less syllables like in modern Chinese. Syllables
like [dzi] or [tsi] have died out. Southern dialects (or languages?)
in China still show final consonants like -m, -p, -t and -k. Chinese
loanwords in Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese show the vanished
syllable endings. The Chinese loanword "law" (modern Chinese falü, old
Chinese something like paplüet) in Korean is pôp, in Japanese a little
bit forced to hôritsu, in Vietnamese turned around to luât pháp.
Southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese still today show the ancient
syllable endings: "law" in Cantonese is faatleuht. The simplification
of the language was due to the central administration in a vast empire
that allowed people to come around. Different dialects had to near
each other and step by step threw away difficult sounds.
Now speaking in tones;
In modern Chinese, every syllable has four different tone pitches
(sisheng):
high pitch (yinsheng), rising pitch (yangsheng), lower rising pitch
(shangsheng), and falling pitch (qusheng).
The quickly falling tone pitch (rusheng) that once marked a final
voiceless stop, disappeared during the end of Song and the Yuan
Dynasties. Finally, in two-syllable-words, the second syllable is
sometimes unaccented, so to say a pitchless tone (lingsheng).
In Cantonese exist eight different tone pitches: high, upper rising,
upper falling, upper entering, low, lower rising, lower falling, and
lower entering; in daily use they are reduced to six.
The Pinyin system claims to be the correct pronunciation of the
capital Beijing. In that sense, it should be more coherent to the
northern pronunciation. Nevertheless, the Pinyin system should be
accepted as an official transscription of Chinese words that becomes
more and more common outside of China.
A language, as Mandarin or Somali, in which pitch or the pitch contour
distinguishes the meanings of words that are otherwise the same
phonologically.
The classification of a language as tonal is subject to
interpretation.
For instance, the Burmese language has phonetic tone, but each of its
three tones is accompanied by a distinctive phonation (creaky,
murmured, or plain vowels), and it could be argued either that the
tone is incidental to the phonation, or vice versa.
siheyuan - http://snipurl.com/jaih
"The Chinese Quadrangle"
Article from "Things Asian" 3/27/03 concerning the SanYanJing Hutong
Destruction of Beijing city center escalates
By AFP/Robert J. Saiget
In a controversial cultural preservation campaign that has residents
howling, the Beijing government is planning to tear down shabby
traditional homes in the Chinese capital's historic district and
replace them with modernized high-rent courtyard houses. The project,
entitled "The Protection Plan of 25 Beijing Historic and Cultural
Protected Districts" is centered on demolishing "old dilapidated and
dangerous homes" and replacing them with "modern homes with the
traditional courtyard architecture."
"This plan will raise the cultural demeanor of Beijing as a historic
capital, push forward new construction in the old district and display
to the world the traditional architecture of the Chinese people," the
government says of the plan. Local residents, however, are aghast at
the project that has also drawn concern from the United Nations
Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
A pilot project to destroy some 900 homes in the Nanchizi district,
including 173 privately-owned homes, next to the historic Forbidden
City was announced in January 2001, but due to widespread opposition
the wrecking ball did not begin swinging until last month. "We weren't
asked if we wanted to move, or if we wanted to sell our home, we are
being forced out," Xie Yuchun, a disgruntled private owner, told AFP.
"This is all a real estate scam, they say our house is too old and
falling apart, but they won't let us fix it up ourselves because they
want the land." Xie and his family, including two 80-year-old
grandparents, have lived in a 150 square meter (1,650 square feet)
courtyard home on Nanchizi since 1947 when his father bought the
property.
Nanchizi residents have besieged the city's eastern district
government with petitions to halt the project, but to no avail, with
city arbitrators all siding with the government. Countless hutong (or
alley) homes in Beijing's center have already been destroyed as the
city widens roads to make room for cars and developers seek to cash in
on a booming property market that many believe has already reached
bubble-bursting proportions.
The government also has an eye on the image it wants to project to the
world when it hosts the Olympics in 2008. The city has already widened
several main roads that criss-cross the heart of the old city center,
turning what used to be quaint tree-lined residential areas into 150
meter-wide (495 feet) grand boulevards lined with high rent shops and
largely empty apartment and office complexes. "I call it the
destruction of the four Ms," said Ed Lanfranco, a 10-year Beijing
resident who writes a column on the city's history in the Beijing
Weekend and is compiling a book on the destruction.
"Beijing was first destroyed by the Mongol invasion (1264), then the
Mings (Ming Dynasty 1368-1644), next Mao Zedong ripped down the city
walls (1950s) and now money is destroying old Beijing," he said.
Nanchizi is designated by the state as a "historic and cultural
preservation area" and is considered by UNESCO as a buffer zone to the
Forbidden City where emperors of the Mongol, Ming and Qing Dynasties
lived, and which is now a World Heritage Site.
In February, UNESCO raised concerns over the destruction of Nanchizi
with the Beijing government, but the city has not formally responded
with the destruction continuing. "Nanchizi is not actually a part of
the Forbidden City World Heritage Site, but it is near the buffer zone
so we think it is important to raise our concerns," a Beijing-based
UNESCO official told AFP.
"I have lived all my life in this historic area," said Shen Guizhi, an
elderly woman in her 60s. "This area is next to the dragon throne, the
feng shui (traditional Chinese geomancy) is perfect, no one wants to
move out of here."
Besides the Nanchizi pilot project, the formal destruction plan also
began late last month and calls for the tearing down of 1,617 hutong
homes in a 4.5 square kilometer (1.8 square mile) area in the
Sanyanjing district just north of Nanchizi. Xie, 56 and retired, said
the government was offering him about 1.5 million yuan (180,000
dollars) for his family's 153 square meter (1,650 square feet)
Nanchizi private home. People living in publicly-owned houses in the
area were getting much less. "They said they would welcome me back to
live in the district in one of the new homes, which I could buy at a
discount for 3.1 million yuan," Xie said. "I don't have that kind of
money."
Guowuyuan [State Council] the executive branch of the Chinese
government and is defined in Article 85 of the Constitution as "the
Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, the
executive body of the highest organ of state power (i.e., the National
People's Congress and its Standing Committee), and the highest organ
of state administration." Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Xianfa
[Constitution of the People's Republic of China]
A most frequent appearance of the word is within the official
Legislative gazettes.
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guowuyuan Gongbao [Gazette of the State
Council of the People's Republic of China],
another being...
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui Changwu
Weiyuanhui Gongbao [Gazette of the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress of the People's Republic of China]
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Chinese: Beijing
hángkong hángtian dàxué, in short: Beiháng; sometimes abbreviated as
BUAA in English) is a university located in Beijing, China.
Beihang was founded in October 1952 as Beijing Aeronautics Institute
(Beijing hángkong xuéyuàn) and renamed in April 1988. The current
president of Beihang is Li Wèi (since 2002).
Spotlights on college admission abuse... http://snipurl.com/dmhe
Post by c***@zedat.fu-berlin.de: Although the exchange rate fluctuates, over recent years it has
: stabilized to the point where US$1 is equivalent to approximately
: 1,100 tögrög (subject to daily fluctuations). Mongolians formerly had
It is closer to 1,200 t these days.
That's a few tugs you have on me...
You may pass me on that... but the fluctuations may be very pronounced
on the black market. I would wish those good luck in their
transactatorial endeavors.
The 2005 budget, passed by Parliament in November 2004, aims for a
budget deficit equivalent to 3.5% of GDP. It incorporates a new system
of cash payments to children in families below the poverty line,
fulfilling a promise made during the election campaign. This program
will cost about $14 million a year. The budget allocates 20.8% of
total expenditures to education and 10.8% for health. The president
vetoed the excise tax provisions of the 2005 budget, which will reduce
revenues by about $10 million, so a revision to the budget is
required.
Late in 2004, the Bank of Mongolia raised the interest rate on its
bills by 6 percentage points to 15.5% to damp inflationary pressures.
This helped contain M2 growth to within relatively moderate levels for
the first time since 2001. The slowing growth of the money aggregate
indicates that demand for money and the monetization of the economy is
decelerating after 3 years of fast growth in bank deposits and credit,
a period when public confidence in the banking system improved. The
central bank's guidelines for 2005 aim to contain the growth of money
aggregates and bring down inflation to 5%.
The Bank of Mongolia expects the exchange rate of the togrog to remain
fairly stable, its policy having avoided sharp swings in the currency
in the past 5 years. In other areas, it plans to strengthen regulation
and surveillance of the financial subsector and to draw up laws to
fight international money laundering and terrorism-financing
practices. In order to project the expected effect of monetary
policies on the overall economy, this year the central bank also plans
to develop a general equilibrium model for the economy.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a
great enemy to human happiness (Samuel Johnson)
Now, the yuan (¥) which is rarely spoken, nor is jiao, the written
form for 1/10th of a yuan, equivalent to 10 fen (there are 100 fen in
a yuan). Instead, the Chinese speak of "pieces of money," kuai qian,
usually abbreviated just to kuai, and they speak of mao for 1/10th of
a kuai. Fen have been overtaken by inflation and are almost useless.
Often all zeros after the last whole number are simply omitted, along
with kuai qian, which is taken as read, especially in direct reply to
the question duoshao qian -- "How much?"
Morpheus Descends (http://tinyurl.com/6gkxv)
"Out of the belly of Hell cried I, and thou heardest me."
Domine Satanus dabit benignitatem et terra nostra dabit fructum suum.
"...another strange thing happened. He said, "Don't you understand?
I am in hell...Don't let me go back to hell!" ...the man was serious,
and it finally occurred to me that he was indeed in trouble.
He was in a panic like I had never seen before."
"Out of the bottomless abyss of Heklafell, or rather, out of Hell itself,
rise melancholy cries and loud wailings, so that these can be heard
for many miles around...there may be heard in the mountain fearful
howlings, weeping and gnashing of teeth." ©666
