h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So with the British Empire having gone the way of other empires, and the "US Century" over, what to do? I saw a documentary recently where non-Chinese Asians, once attracted by commercial aspirations to learn English, are now opting to learn Chinese. The opinion is that, communist country or not, China is finally getting its capitalism act together. Anecdotal info includes: the Port of Long Beach, California has ten times the imports from China as exports from the US; Walmart muscles its suppliers to set up shop in China to reduce costs, and Walmart itself has a huge corporate facility in China's newest mfg. center (Walmart!); a Chinese bidder bought the injection molding machines at Rubbermaid's bankruptcy auction (Rubbermaid!); a Chinese company just bought IBM's PC division (IBM!); China owns Hong Kong (OK, you know what goes here); etc.

Having escaped the rat race, I'm glad I don't have to learn Chinese, but if I were just starting out ... Kung Pao, Dude!

Wah, dimgaii neih lam hohk jungmahn yauh yuhng ga? Seuyihn ngoh hohk hou do nihn, juhng lam hohk tam "blues guitar" hougwo hohk jungmahn. Yatdihng haih jeui yauh yuhng ge yeh jouh. Hohk sik gong jungmahn neih wuih faatsaang dosou Junggwok Yahn janhaih chisin. Neih lam Meihgwok yahn hou cheun ma? Gam, hohk Jumahn jihauh neih wuih mihngbaak seuyihn Junggwok yahn jouh hou do sih, keuih m'mihngbaak keuihdeih jouh matyeh. Junggwok yahn sik gong yingmahn ge, daahnhaih hou m'tuhng. Haih keuihdeih hai Junggwok jouh bossi. Neih ji sik gong keuihdeih. Lihn neih jyuh hai Junggwok, neih wuih faatsaang m'yiu sik gong gam do Jungmahn.

That's easy for you to say ...

Aiiyaa! Neih janhaih lam gam yeung ah?

Ciamar a ha sibh?

...y'see, I'm learning it at the moment and hopefully in five years I'll be able to speak it with some degree of confidence.

You are obviously preparing for the future when the billion speakers of English suddenly develop lisps from articulating too many dipthongs and the only recognisable cure is to wrap the tongue around the gaelic... or is that the garlic?

What are you people talking about? Do I take this to mean you really want people to actually understand what you're learning?

C'mon, folks... learn Latin! Or, if you're more linguistically inclined... try tackling Texan. Just say "noo-ku-lar."

Yup, I cringe every time W says noo-ku-lar. But I saw a TV show recently where they claimed it was simpy an alternative pronunciation. Sounds like "Rove spin" to me, the kind of "black is white" pronunciations the current administration has adopted as "policy". "We have dozens of countries in our coalition of the willing." Right, like Tonga with a couple of guys they probably wanted out of the country anyway ...

This makes more sense:

http://www.bartleby.com/61/49/N0184900.html

Am attempting to learn Latin, and I already know Texan!

"Hey, man, your click is pretty goddamn swah-vey."

In the future nobody will speak. We will all Short Message each other from implants in our brain.

Post one should be taken seriously.
The Chinese are up and running and are likely to challenge world leaders in most aspects of life in the course of the next 5/10 years.
This is of some importance because it comes at a time when the USA are slipping down the charts.

Thanks, I did mean it to be a fairly serious comment. The future is hard to predict, but the Chinese I've dealt with seem to be pretty dedicated to their jobs - workers work and managers manage. That kind of work ethic seems to be in short supply in many US companies where "fast tracks", "creative accounting", and similar tactics are preferred. But there are some US companies with talent and good business plans (Pixar comes to mind, batting 1000 so far). So it will be interesting.

Hmm... having lived in China for fourteen years I'm not quite as certain about the Chinese Work Ethic or whether it is taking them anywhere in particular. There's an uncertainty about the future of China fuelled by inneficiency, an inability to assign responsibility, and a culture of bloody minded corruption and secrecy, all within an environment of authoritarian government largely powerless to control regions run unsubtly by gangsters and military governors full of millions of the poorest people you can imagine living beside tens of very very rich people. Throw into that a military itching to "re-take" Taiwan, increasing numbers of "incidents" in Japanese waters, the Spratly Islands full of oil and claimed by Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines and Taiwan already being garrisoned by Chinese "Scientists", not to mention a peculiar relationship with North Korea that threatens to implode and drag China in to "stablize" the country and protect it against American "invasion"... And then there's the Muslim west and some of the worst pollution in the world, and certainly the worst industrial safety record anywhere... In short, a twitchy working class, frustrated peasantry with little love of capitalism or communism - remember the Falun Gong? Pure Boxer at heart. And still around and waiting to evolve into something nasty -

China's future is a big question mark. A whole bunch of stuff could happen.

Interesting post, and from a whole lot more knowledgeable vantage point than mine (which is a decade old and based on project work with Chinese engineers in the USA). I had to smile, tho, at many of the points - if you replaced the word "China" with "USA", it would read like many US news editorials. For example:

" ... the future of China [USA] fueled by inefficiency, an inability to assign responsibility, and a culture of bloody minded corruption and secrecy, all within an environment of authoritarian government ..."

And especially:

" ... China's [the USA's] future is a big question mark. A whole bunch of stuff could happen."

As I type this, the Lou Dobbs CNN "debate" is discussing the Chinese acquiring the IBM PC ...

I think its an old Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times". A curse, as I recall ...

Don't get me started on America!

The place is giving Democracy a bad name... The argument against Democracy in Hong Kong is always, "Do you really want to be like America?"

There was a time when everyone would say YES! Now they shake their heads and say, Democracy is nothing to do with being like America.

A3346274
Do you speak Chinese with a Yorkshire accent ? <Smiley>

Unfortunately I do and consequently as far as the Chinese are concerned I am just speaking a funny form of English.

And when I'm speaking English, the rest of England agrees with the Chinese.

Your writing in English has no trace of an accent.
How about writing in Chinese ?

Can't write Chinese, though I did learn about two thousand characters and then woke up one morning thinking, reet then, thous bin learning this buggering language fer ten bloody years and can say nowt useful and read nowt of any bloody interest to anyone other than "this way to the toilet". Bleedin' Hell, I thought, wot a reet waste of time.