問我anything with Demonic_Duck

[tysond]

Hey, I like these desert island questions.

 

If you were on a desert island (near China) and needed to make a message (in Chinese) to attract help, what would you spell our with stones on the beach?

 

If you were on a desert island and could only bring one chinese dictionary, which one would it be?

 

If you were on a desert island and could have an unlimited supply of any condiment, why would it be Sriracha sauce?

[Demonic_Duck]

@jbradfor: Yeah, my degree was very much focused on western philosophy. I've delved a little into (ancient) Chinese philosophy whilst I've been here, but only fairly superficially. I've enjoyed what I've read of the 《庄子》, but it's very slow going. At the same time, I don't really have much motivation to get deeply into Confucian texts, simply because Confucianism (on the surface, at least) seems like such an anti-fun, anti-progress, anti-critical thinking type of worldview. Saying that, I've read about half of the 《三字经》, although I don't really think that counts as a philosophical text, even if it counts as a Confucian text.

@tysond:

1. I'd write: “这边有很多美女，快来！”
2. I'm assuming I'm not allowed to pick “Pleco”. In which case, I guess I'd pick an offline version of 百度百科, which doubles as a dictionary. Quality might be variable, but coverage good. It would also give me a crapload of reading material.
3. I'm ashamed to say that I actually can't picture the taste of sriracha sauce in my mind, although I'm sure I've tasted it. With that in mind, the reason I would pick sriracha sauce is so that I could recall what it tastes like with 100% accuracy every time.

[Lu]

...taking up teaching philosophy, although I'd think the market for foreign teachers with a bachelor's degree teaching philosophy would be minimal to nonexistent. I don't think it's a common subject to be taught in state schools, still less in international programmes, and at the university level I assume they'd want a higher level of education.

Not sure whether this is of use to you, but when I was studying in Taiwan, I also took some classes with a guy who I think also studied philosophy (or similar). He had started his own school, teaching a few classes a week to small groups of interested students of various ages. Apart from the philosophy class, he taught several English classes and a Spanish class as well. I think he had studied further than a bachelor's degree, and I don't know where he found his students or how long it took him to get to the point that he had several filled classes, but perhaps this is something you can consider. He made a decent living, as far as I could tell.

[jbradfor]

 

I've enjoyed what I've read of the 《庄子》, but it's very slow going.

 

How do you read it?

 

I assume you don't just read the original by itself with a dictionary.

 

I'm asking in large part because reading 《庄子》 in the original is one of those "I want to do before I die, but given my lack of follow-though I probably will die first" type projects.  [That, and understanding Ulysses.]  When in Taiwan I bought a copy of it published by 三民书局印行.  It consists of about one part original (with bopomofo), with 1-2 pages 白话 gloss.  I'm wondering if you found a better way.