Saturday, August 18, 2007

David Arnold in Hohhot


Mimicking a "Beef" in Inner Mongolia. This is one way a foreigner can get "beef" for dinner in Hohhot. Another way is to bring your Chinese speaking friends. Still another way is to bring your Mandarin phrasebook and point at the Chinese characters for beef. Probably the least effective way is to put your language training to practical use and actually say, "Wo yao niurou," or "I want beef." This method is likely to be ineffective because the waiter will just stare at you blankly, as if you have just said something in Martian, which, in my case, you probably have.
This is largely a test post because the Chinese government blocks American blogspot.com sites. This means that I can post my blog, but I cannot actually view my blog from China. Can you see it????
Let me know. More posts to come!
Dave

1 comment:

# said...

Dear Prof. Arnold, would it be possible for you to contact me on info@linguamongolia.co.uk regarding Oliver - the Mongolian scholar mentioned in your blog. I'm in Hohhot conducting similar research and would like to get in touch with him regarding possible collaboration. Many apologies for the unrelated nature of my post, but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the blog posts of you and your wife.