(no subject)

The Chinese "reverse racism" is quite depressing. Especially when two Chinese huaren (people of Chinese descent) are in a rather heated argument with two foreign feihuaren (the other people) including me, and a random Chinese guy comes up and says of the other foreigner "He speaks Chinese that well, he must be right." (This is all in Chinese, of course, to be clear, and I prefer to translate almost literally despite the awkward English that often results.) It almost makes me want to reverse my own argument. Phooey. And if you find a common Chinese person who /doesn't/ consider Chinese inferior to Americans, it's only because the inferior feelings in some aspects are balanced out or surpassed by superior feelings in others, which isn't any better. Sigh. Not that I'm completely innocent of making value judgments on the behavior of Chinese people vs. Americans in one direction or another, but inasmuch as that's possible (in theory, everyone's a little bit racist) they're not based on their race or citizenship or innate personality, just what the culture etc. has probably taught them.

Along these lines, I think the Chinese way of tallying is awesome--it even beats the square-with-a-diagonal tally that I've kept to for a while because four sticks and a cross is just really dumb--I mean, you have to count the sticks. The tally in Chinese is a character (not connected in meaning), 正。 So I've been away from home for 正正正正正正正正正下 days, and have left 正正正下. (That's comforting, I think I can do that.) OK, so Chinese doesn't have exactly the incomplete character I want, oh well. To have such a progression would be /truly/ awesome--maybe I'll try to think of such a character, unless lord_codfish beats me to it in which case I'll kill him when I get the chance.