Chinese learning websites/apps discounts on 11/11/18

[fabiothebest]

Today is 11.11 (Singles' day in China) so there are many discounts online. Taobao is going crazy  I stumbled across a discount code for Chinesepod if anyone is interested (code: "SINGLESDAY" gives you 51% off the annual or the quarterly premium subscription). Note: I'm not in any way affiliated with them, don't consider this as advertisement. I'm just a person learning Chinese and if there's a way of saving, why not. Do you know of any other valid discount codes for other well known websites like Skritter, The Chairman's Bao or others? I'd like to purchase a subscription to some of them in order to boost my Chinese learning.

[fabiothebest]

Not exactly 11.11 related, but I also found a current discount code for The Chairman's Bao back to school promotion (20% off of 6 months+ subscriptions) with the code: "school18".

[DavyJonesLocker]

Thanks Fabio

[mungouk]

I was chatting with my teacher in Shanghai today about 双11.  She was very pleased to be able to buy lots of cheap clothes online for her young daughter, who's growing very quickly.

 

Today is also the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1.... major cognitive dissonance between East and West here... consumer-frenzy versus solemn remembrance. 

 

Not trying to claim any moral high-ground here, just finding it odd to process the two different things happening on the same day.  Anyone else?

 

 

[Balthazar]

On 11/11/2018 at 3:32 PM, mungouk said:

Today is also the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1.... major cognitive dissonance between East and West here... consumer-frenzy versus solemn remembrance. 

 

Not to be a pedant, but that's incorrect usage of "cognitive dissonance".

 

Also, in my part of the "West", Norway, the anniversary of WW1 was given a few headlines in the papers but hardly more than that. Singles's day, on the other hand, is growing exponentially year by year.

 

PS, @fabiothebest, I used the code "mwtcb2017" back in August and got 35% off my annual Chairman's Bao subscription. Found it here and was pleasantly surprised to see it still working.

[Zbigniew]

3 hours ago, Balthazar said:

Also, in my part of the "West", Norway, the anniversary of WW1 was given a few headlines in the papers but hardly more than that. 

The role Norway played in WW1 makes this understandable perhaps.

[mungouk]

20 hours ago, Balthazar said:

Not to be a pedant, but that's incorrect usage of "cognitive dissonance".

 

 

Please feel free to correct me on the usage. (seriously)  My understanding is that it describes trying to to accept two contradictory viewpoints simultaneously.

 

OTOH 40 million dead while Norway was largely neutral... let's not go there.

 

 

[fabiothebest]

Mungouk it also feels strange to me if I think about it, anyway I prefer if we don't go "off-topic".

[mungouk]

1 minute ago, fabiothebest said:

I prefer if we don't go "off-topic".

 

Fair enough, mate — it's your thread ?

Did you get any bargains on 11.11?

 

 

[fabiothebest]

At the end I decided to renew my Skritter subscription with no discount. I had to choose what was the priority for me and now it is practicing writing since it's a skill I'm lacking. Also the Chairman Bao and Chinesepod could be useful for me, but it will be for next time. Apparently for those, coupons are still valid (not limited to 11.11) and there may be discounts also on Black friday for something.

[Balthazar]

2 hours ago, mungouk said:

Please feel free to correct me on the usage. (seriously)  My understanding is that it describes trying to to accept two contradictory viewpoints simultaneously.

 

Cognitive dissonance usually refers to psychological discomfort experienced by a person when, for example, engaged in behaviour he/she knows to be wrong. One example would be if you had a classmate who was constantly being bullied, and you chose to take part in the bullying of this kid yourself, in order to be a part of the cool kids. Yoǘ know what you are doing is wrong buy you still do it, and this leads to cognitive dissonance. A normal defence mechanism employed to cope with the mental discomfort of cognitive dissonance is to find some sort of justification for doing what you're doing (in the example  of the bullied kid, you might convince yourself that he really deserved it for being so annoying, or something like that).

 

So a "cognitive dissonance between East and West" doesn't really make sense...

 

I guess you could say that you think people ought to experience cognitive dissonance if they spent 11.11 buying cheap stuff instead of remembering all of the the tragic fates of WW1, though.

 

 

2 hours ago, mungouk said:

OTOH 40 million dead while Norway was largely neutral... let's not go there. 

 

Not sure what you mean here. My point was simply that there was no unanimous shared feeling of grief enveloping all of "the West" yesterday, which your juxtaposition of "consumer-frenzy"  in the "East" versus "solemn remembrance" in the "West" sort of implied.

 

And I don't think it has anything to do with some subconscious feeling of shamefulness among us Norwegians about not having played a larger part ?

 

Buy yeah, let's stay on topic.