要 (yào) meaning ‘to want’ may have been the first verb you learned when you began your Chinese learning journey. It was for me, and even if I sounded like a 3-year-old child saying ‘我要 (wǒ yào), 我要。。。(wǒ yào…)’ all the time, 要 (yào) gave me the freedom for ask for things I wanted in a supermarket, restaurant or cafe…. Read More
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, emotions are connected to specific organs. When emotions are suppressed or inhibited this can cause disease or serious physical complaints. By ‘balancing’ the organ associated with that emotion, the emotion will also rebalance. In order to make a diagnosis, a practitioner of TCM will ask many questions about the patient’s… Read More
Eating and drinking in Chinese culture is quite different to that of the West. The idea of Chinese dining etiquette is said to have come from the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC) and is often a noisy and social affair. Dining in restaurants with friends, family or colleagues is enveloped in respect for your elders and… Read More
You’ve made friends, maybe you’ve even gone on a date or two. Now it’s time to have your first big fight in Chinese! Of course, I’m not condoning violence or being nasty in general, but sometimes you just need to blow off some steam and say what you really think. Enjoy another of our no-frills… Read More
This week our question comes from Anne, who asks us “How do Chinese people feel about nudity?” If you want to ask us a question just go to our voicemail page and leave us your question! In This Episode We Talk About… Great comments from Bob and Shannon on Episode70 Shanghai ‘sharing fridges’ plagued by… Read More
Food vocabulary in any language is probably the most fun and also most challenging to learn because there are just so many words to get to grips with. Although some food words share the same Chinese, most of the time this can actually make learning new words easier because you simply add an extra character… Read More
