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Post by chefying on Nov 17, 2014 3:10:08 GMT
I have just returned from Xi'an and here are some of my non-wuxia observations from this trip. Along the way to Big Goose Pagoda 大雁塔 there was this tourist trap complex all decked out in Ye Olde China style. On the ground was this "decoration", with the obligatory twelve zodiac animals and the Eight Trigrams. Anyone spotted what was wrong with this Eight Trigram? It is more like Seven Trigram, with Qian (three solid horizontal strokes) repeated, and Kun (three broken strokes) missing. You can see it quite clearly in the NW and SE corners. Also, this arrangement look neither like the Xian Tian Gua 先天卦 nor the Hou Tian Gua 后天挂. I have a feeling the Chinese aren't really Chinese anymore!
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Post by chefying on Nov 17, 2014 15:46:32 GMT
The locals are quite serious about eyesight. This is a kiosk by the side of the road, and on its side were posters for sight testing. There is an option of the "E" test, and the "pictures" test - I presume the latter is for those children who do not quite understand the "E" and the directions of the prongs. My eyesight is good enough, and my eyes hurt when I saw this young woman wear this coat which this wordings/message.
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Post by chefying on Nov 23, 2014 14:41:38 GMT
It seems the present rage in Xi'an is this... Vendors sell it almost everywhere! They process the raw seed in front of the purchaser. The outer "husk" is ground way and then polished. Of course it brings luck - to the seller. And yes, I bought one too, CNY10 - that's about USD1.50.
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Post by Admin on Nov 26, 2014 8:02:56 GMT
The locals are quite serious about eyesight. This is a kiosk by the side of the road, and on its side were posters for sight testing. There is an option of the "E" test, and the "pictures" test - I presume the latter is for those children who do not quite understand the "E" and the directions of the prongs. My eyesight is good enough, and my eyes hurt when I saw this young woman wear this coat which this wordings/message. chefying : usually for the E test, the doctor will ask if it upward, backward, left or right. So basically if the people don't know what E is, they still can tell the direction. Anyway... yeah...there's a lot of weird wordings clothes in China. Once I saw a girl wearing a tee with wording : "you can press on here!" right on her chest!!
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Post by chefying on Nov 27, 2014 7:00:48 GMT
chefying : usually for the E test, the doctor will ask if it upward, backward, left or right. So basically if the people don't know what E is, they still can tell the direction. Anyway... yeah...there's a lot of weird wordings clothes in China. Once I saw a girl wearing a tee with wording : "you can press on here!" right on her chest!! I wonder if I would dare to comply with the message on her T-shirt and press right there! Any sign of the Thousand Eye "Puti" seed craze in Beijing? I like mine - I think it looks really nice.
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Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2014 11:32:55 GMT
Any sign of the Thousand Eye "Puti" seed craze in Beijing? I like mine - I think it looks really nice. What is that? I don't know...never seen anything with a thousand eyes stuff.
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Post by chefying on Nov 27, 2014 13:58:52 GMT
What is that? I don't know...never seen anything with a thousand eyes stuff. Mine looks like this.. it is all the rage in Xi'an right now. I photographed it with a pen next to it to show scale.
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Post by caiyi on Dec 2, 2014 4:13:59 GMT
I love the pictorial eye test board. The maker is so considerate. He/she knows, not everyone can read English. The pictures are cute too.
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Post by chefying on Dec 2, 2014 5:02:05 GMT
I love the pictorial eye test board. The maker is so considerate. He/she knows, not everyone can read English. The pictures are cute too. I agree! I am sure the children would not feel embarrassed over taking an eye test.
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Post by chefying on Dec 5, 2014 10:10:09 GMT
I do not know how many of you are familiar with the story of the scholar Tang BoHu 唐伯虎, who seduced the housemaid, QiuXiang 秋香 as his eighth wife. This story was depicted in Stephen Chow's "The Flirtong Scholar" - "Flirtong" was used because the Cantonese pronunciation of Tang Bohu is Tong BakFu, Tong being the family name. There is a section within the Southern End of Xian's Walled City that sells brushes, paper, paintings and other art products. This was one shop that used the name Tang BoHu but somehow I feel those paintings it sells is totally un-Tang BoHu.
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Post by siuyiu on Dec 5, 2014 16:24:07 GMT
hahaha, very un-tang bohu!
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Post by Admin on Dec 17, 2014 15:38:42 GMT
chefying : what about the food? Did you eat something special in Xian? When I went there, my Xian friend took me to Hui Street, it's basically a muslim street. it has a kind of night market there. The food is pretty good, but I was not really impressed. I mean...I could get those kind of food in Beijing too. Not that special. I like the night market though. They sold a lot of interesting stuffs.
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Post by chefying on Dec 18, 2014 4:19:36 GMT
chefying : what about the food? Did you eat something special in Xian? When I went there, my Xian friend took me to Hui Street, it's basically a muslim street. it has a kind of night market there. The food is pretty good, but I was not really impressed. I mean...I could get those kind of food in Beijing too. Not that special. I like the night market though. They sold a lot of interesting stuffs. I ate a lot of the rou jia mo 肉夹馍(?) and they were delicious. It is stewed pork, chopped up, and placed in a unleavened bun. I was also in Muslim Quarter, and I ate other stuff while I was there. I need to dig up more pictures to show you what I ate - I absolutely cannot remember the name of the foods I ate.
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Post by Admin on Dec 18, 2014 14:06:36 GMT
Yes, rou jia mo 肉夹馍 - is indeed delicious. You can find a lot of it in Beijing too. Actually what most impressive from Xian was that kind of noodle, it's made from green bean flour. the noodle was flat and thick. The texture is more like jello like that. I don't really remember how did I eat it though. I only remember I pour a lot of old vinegar to make it tastier.
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Post by chefying on Dec 28, 2014 11:38:33 GMT
When I was at Huashan these were two signs I noticed. This was good advise, but the spelling and translation can do with a bit of a tweaking. Apparently there was a fire up on the mountain a few years ago and the old wooden structure got burnt down. After that fire is banned up there. At the entrance point of Huashan was a box where the visitors were asked to leave their cigarette lighters - you can collect it back upon departure. However, I still saw smoker up in the mountain.
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