Hey All,   I've been working on an extension to help myself (and hopefully others) learn Chinese more effectively via Youtube / Netflix.    A quick summary: - Word highlighting: Click on any word from the subtitles to look up it's meaning. - Example Sentences: View example sentences for any word you click on.  - Anki List: Add any words/sentences to a downloadable .txt file that can be uploaded to Anki. - Works for any video with Chinese subtitles   Definitely aware that there are other products out there like this.   However I really wanted one with a simple interface that allowed you to quickly look up a word and learn about it context. As an intermediate learner, I found these two things are what really moved the needle for me so thought I'd share it with others who might feel the same.   Still working on this so any feedback/feature requests are welcome.   It's free to use.   https://popchinese.app/    

Good evening everyone:   Recently I came across the expression 歲寒知松柏 (simplified: 岁寒知松柏), which apparently comes from Classical Chinese and can be translated as “In the cold of winter, one comes to know the pine and the cypress.” (meaning that in times of difficulty, a person’s true character is revealed, considering that during winter the pine and cypress, unlike deciduous trees, do not lose their leaves). The other day I got it tattooed, and now I’m not sure whether I made the right choice or if it might seem ridiculous if I travel to China or if any Chinese person sees it in my country. Could any Chinese person answer my question? Or have I misunderstood the meaning of the tattoo? It would have been a good idea to ask here before getting it, but it didn’t occur to me until after it was already done... Thank you in advance (and crossing fingers)!

I recently received a pre-admission offer from Tsinghua University, but unfortunately, my CSC Type A application was already marked as “in-process” by then, and the deadline had passed. Because of this, I wasn’t able to upload the pre-admit letter to the portal. I’ve already emailed my local dispatching authority to check if they can help attach or consider the document at this stage. I’m also wondering if should I formally request Tsinghua to directly communicate or send my pre-admit to the CSC or embassy? Has anyone tried this route, and does it actually make a difference? If you’ve been in a similar situation, I’d really appreciate knowing: Whether late document additions are ever considered If involving the university helps Any other workaround I might be missing Trying to figure out the smartest next step here.   I am from India for context

I recently started working on a fictional universe and I noticed that I had a character who was named 奇李木 which to me sounds quite strange but I want confirmation because I honestly have no idea why I named him that.

Dear China-friends!   I was accepted as an artist to do an artist-in-residence-program in China (Xiamen). They cannot cover travel costs however. Any help on how to find travel funding, who to contact, where to research etc. is very welcome! More information below!   Greetings to you all!    Felix     More info:    I am Felix Erdmann, performance artist and writer from Germany, and I write to you with a question for funding advice. I will be participating in the Lucitopia Residency Program (https://www.c-platform.org/lucitopia-residency/?lang=en) in China provided by C-Platform Institute this summer, along with my international colleagues Carlo Sella, Evangelos Biskas, Line Lee and Nori Tsouloucha. We are so thankful for C-Platform for this amazing opportunity! And we are extremely excited about the prospect of collaborating in Xiamen and Jiangxi Province in China. We are especially hoping to be in exchange with other Chinese artists and with local residents and think that the residency is a great chance for new transcontinental (artist) networks.   While the residency does cover housing and living costs during our two month stay, it unfortunately cannot pay for travel costs. However, for some of us it is a necessity to find funding for this as we cannot afford to pay flight tickets etc. ourselves. Do you have any tips or suggestions on who to contact? Any ideas on where funding could come from? We are very much willing to be creative about this - any thoughts are helpful. I have applied to funding from Goethe institute but have not received any.    I can provide a letter of invitation from C-Platform as well as my Artist Portfolio and my project proposal for the residency as some information for you. I could provide the same for my colleagues! Generally, the residency focuses on ecological questions and art projects working with the natural surrounding of the rural "Lucitopia Town", a large open air museum in rural Jinagxi, run by C-Platform.    Thanks a lot for your help!    And you are welcome to check out my website www.felix-erdmann.de for more info about my work!  

Hi all, I took the HSK5 test yesterday essentially just to know what the test would be like. I had not really studied properly at all, and the result may have been about 10% to 20% depending on how well I guessed at the MCQs. I often tried to get a sense of mood even if not specific content for questions. (Summary: I'm a somewhat wasteful student, but money and opportunity cost of going to an exam are no objects to me. Plus I had passed HSK4 on 3rd attempt with my progressive mindset.) The 5及考试 had a weird aspect, whereby after the listening section was complete, 5 minutes were expected to be spent on reviewing listening and, if the student had opted not to do this it as he/she handled each question, transcribe the answer to the mark sense sheet. One student prudently asked "我们可以花那个5分时间预习阅读部分吗？“ and the invigilator said no, it was strictly pencils down. The student asked ”不过，我愿意不写，但是还可以至少看看阅读问题吗“ and the invigilator said no. So, when this time came, everyone was twiddling thumbs, wondering what to do with themselves. Everyone had wanted to dot the mark sense sheet as time went by and they sure as sure didn't want to second guess their answers based on audio content that was long gone into the ether. Is this a standard HSK5 experience? I did see that one person looked at the reading anyway but the invigilator turned their page back saying they had to wait. 🧭     🧭   The other thing that was really weird was that the invigilation was all done in English. Now hear me out, I'm not a standards officer, but each of the 3 times I took the HSK4 test the mode of instruction was Chinese. This time it was all English, even when students communicated in Chinese to the overseers. It was run under the auspices of the Confucius Institute. My nation does not have an official language. Even when I told the invigilator that I was a Chinese speaker there were attempts to ignore this and it was awkward as I explained this could be nipped in the bud. If I were to socialize with the invigilator in a café I would use English as the de facto language, but this was an environment where students were highly inferably adept at Chinese well beyond a baseline, and Chinese proficiency was furthermore their aim. I grant that the Confucius Institutes are no longer strongly supervised and have been left to run laissez-faire by whoever has kept the job after Beijing (essentially) offloaded them. I think this is a big deal because if CI people consider it neither their job nor civic duty to advocate for Chinese communicability, they miss an opportunity to nuture the developing generation of students. It's actually discouraging, and suggestive that giving up would be fine. Chinese language ostracism by people who actually speak Chinese is a widespread issue, perhaps worthy of its own post (though it can get very ideological, very burn-after-reading 感觉). In this context here, it would be easy to talk about. Anyway, I hope this feedback has proven interesting. I look forward to fielding genuine responses. Thanks all!

Hi everyone,   I’ve been working on a Chinese reading tool and one issue keeps coming up: it’s surprisingly hard to find texts at the right difficulty level. Often things are either: too easy (no progress), or too hard (too many unknown words → frustrating) From my experience, reading only works well when you understand most of the text, but still encounter some new words. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to better match readers with appropriate content (HSK level, vocabulary size, etc.), but it’s not trivial. I’d be curious to hear: How do you personally choose what to read? Do you rely on HSK levels, word count, or just trial and error? Have you found resources that consistently hit the right level? I’m still refining the tool, so any insight would help a lot.

Yangtze Restaurant in Ontario, CA, (Southern California) was a long-standing landmark on Euclid Avenue, operating from April 22, 1961, until its closure on March 31, 2015.  Founded by Ray and Edna Gin, the restaurant became a cherished fixture in the Inland Empire, known for its classic Chinese-American fare—especially pork and shrimp chop suey—and its nostalgic, vintage ambiance with avocado-green vinyl booths.  Despite its enduring popularity among generations of local families, the restaurant faced declining business after the opening of major shopping centers like Montclair Plaza (1968), Ontario Mills, and Victoria Gardens, which drew customers away from downtown Ontario.  The restaurant remained largely unchanged over the decades, preserving its 1960s aesthetic and menu, which some longtime patrons loved, while others found the food outdated.  The closure was announced in early 2015, with Edna Gin, then 91, still actively involved in food preparation on the final day. Her son, Gary Gin, who managed the restaurant since childhood, expressed deep emotion over the closure. The property was sold in September 2016 and has since been redeveloped, with the restaurant space now part of a mixed-use commercial complex. --------------------------- Ontario was my home town until 2005 and we as a family frequented the restaurant, usually bi-monthly, it was a standard for our family of 5 for takeout, whatever we bought if one brought a sauce pan they would fill it with soup!! We were at the grand opening on April 1961 when I was 8, I am now 73 living in a different state. The Yangtze introduced me to Chinese and oriental food in general and it only grew from there.   They had a signature version of Almond Chicken that was unique and I would like to replicate it, and I do not know what style or where in China or Taiwan it came from. Picture chopped celery, ground or finely chopped chicken, chopped almond, maybe some chopped onion and garlic obviously cooked in a chicken stock with a corn starch slurry to thicken. Some scallion slices were added as a garnish. Can any one help with a recipe or clues?

Hi everyone. I've been looking for a straightforward free VPN that actually works without constant disconnections or speed throttling. I recently started using Maximum VPN and it’s been surprisingly stable so far. The UI is clean, it's easy to set up, and most importantly — no hidden subscriptions or credit card trials required. Has anyone else here tested it? I'm curious how it holds up long-term compared to other free services. Link for those interested: https://maximum-vpn.com

Hello! I wanted to share a website I recently put together for to help Chinese learners read real Chinese social media posts tailored to their level of Chinese ability. It's called Mandarin Melon, you can see it here: Mandarin Melon   I've found comprehensible input and extensive reading to be really helpful for learning Chinese, but it's a struggle to find enough content that is at just the right level and is still interesting to read. Resources like DuChinese, The Chairman's Bao, and graded readers are all great, but eventually you run out of interesting content at your level. I wanted more.   I also wanted to be able to read more native content. However, when I tried to use Chinese social media sites directly, it was really difficult. As an intermediate learner, I wasn't understanding enough for it to count as "comprehensible" input, and it would get frustrating quickly.   This is why I made Mandarin Melon. I have a collection of several million posts from Chinese social media, and I've filtered them based on the vocabulary you would know based on your HSK level.   For example, if your Chinese is at HSK level 3, here is a collection of 56,000+ posts that only use characters from HSK 3 and below:   HSK 3 Posts   Or, if you want, you can allow it to show posts with a limited number of characters you haven't learned yet. For example, here are 200,000+ posts that use HSK 3 level characters, but allow up to 1 character to be new to you.   HSK 3 plus 1 new character   I've found it's a really fun way to practice Chinese. It's also a really fun way to increase my passive vocabulary, since there will be words I haven't learned yet, but comprised only of characters I already know.   I find it's a really fun to practice when I'm reading social media posts. They're bite-sized pieces of content, and you get a peek into peoples lives.   I also created an experience targeted at people who don't know any Chinese characters, but are interested in reading Chinese social media. It's a bit sillier, but also pretty fun, as it introduced characters based on getting you to read posts as fast as possible. You can read more about it here: Learn from scratch.   The site is totally free, and I hope people get a kick out of it.   Cheers!