Heh, saw this article, Gaelic football gains flavour among the Chinese women, and it's really amazing that the sport is being picked up so fast over there. More so with the women than men (men's teams are mainly made-up of Irish ex-pats). Don't you notice that the Chinese love the Irish culture? Well, I do. Lots of Chinese music students love playing Irish music. They love listening to Irish music (my parents included, more so with mom). And probably be one of the fav destinations for holidays, because the temperature is not too hot, or too cold. Apart from Chinese with Dub accents, and probably even more in China from all those TEFL courses. Imagine, it'll be English with Irish accents in China in 5-10 years time!!! It's going to be like back at home in Ireland, now coupled with rising popularity of GAA.

I still remember the episode in Fr. Ted with the Chinese in it. That was hilarious!

I have noticed the word sino used in many articles. I sometimes use it (not alot), and I have always wondered how on earth does the word sino relate to anything Chinese? I suppose, the easy way to find out is to do a search in the dictionary... meaning from Oxford dictionary

combining form Chinese; Chinese : Sino-American. —ORIGIN from Latin Sinae, from Arabic.

Wikipedia did not help here.... it only redirected me to China!

Saw this article in the Belfast Telegraph online about advertising to the ethnic minority to entice them to vote.

Advertisements in Chinese, Portuguese and Polish are being placed to sign up new Northern Ireland voters.

Although I did see one mistake in the ending paragraph

"As well as placing advertisements and editorial in publications such as the Sing Tao Daily in Cantonese and in Portuguese and Polish within specific local Northern Ireland papers, our campaign will be targeting key groups in workplaces, hospitals, schools and colleges,"

Should be Chinese, not Cantonese...but all-in-all, I think it is a good idea. Especially when Bank Of Ireland has kicked start a campaign to target minority groups here in Ireland. We should take it another step further.

Saw this article about Shanghainese to brush up on their Mandarin and then seeing this article about TV hosts not to use HK or Taiwanese accents when speaking Mandarin. Interestingly enough...

Only just over half China's 1.3 billion people can communicate in Mandarin, the official Xinhua news agency cited a national survey as showing last year, while almost 90 percent can speak dialects ranging from Cantonese to Hokkien and Hakka.

Saw this article in The Standard about HK students who are too shy to speak English, even with foreigners around. They would speak in Cantonese more.

Suffice to say, I tend to speak Cantonese when I have Chinese friends around, and yes... I do translate what we are talking about. Please don't take this as being rude or ignorant, but for me personally, I find it hard to speak Chinese when I am away from home. And when I do meet up with Chinese friends, we have Irish friends with us also (and other nationalities whose English is not their mother tongue of course).

But I would try to speak in English as much as I could. It does not help that a group can sometimes be split because of this, and I have to try and bring everyone back together (but you know, after a few pints, we all forget).

Heh... I just wonder if anyone who have had this experience as well?

So have you all eaten your mooncakes yet? By golly, you should take a look at this monster of a one! That is one big mooncake!

I know, that does not narrow it down, but this particular friend has a blog of his ongoing adventures over there in Dailan. It's pretty cool to read up on what he's been upto. Maybe I will get a section together with links to non-Chinese blogs living in Asia.

I notice myself when talking to my friends (especially my fiancé), that I tend to say "my mom's younger sister" instead of my aunt.

Chinese has a very complex way of calling relations. It depends if they are related to your mom/dad's side. If you had kids, they will call your brothers/sisters by a certain name depending if they are older/younger than you. It's all puzzling, but I always wondered why back then.

My dad said it is a good way to know who belongs to which side of the family, and where they are in the "hierarchy". It's a very traditional thing for Chinese. I can grasp the simple names as far as grandparents.. but what about grand uncle/aunt? Or cousins i.e. twice removed (still biu gou/dai/dje/mui?). What about great-grandparents/uncles/aunts etc...?

I found a cool site that covers the family basic name calling in Cantonese.

If I get a change, maybe I'll draw out some sort of chart? I think it is great to be able to see which side of the family your relatives are, plus you know if they are older than you.

Other than that, any other Chinese have a seating arrangement based on family hierarchy when you go home for family dinner? Ours use to be dad, followed by mom, then me and my siblings. But this has changed, as my youngest brother (who is now the baby of the family, even though he is 12!), sits besides my mom. But then it's me, and my other 2 brothers. I was always brought up that way. It's nice to have order in the family. But that is just my opinion.