A party in the guardhouse – by Cobus Block

Yafeng was standing at his post beside the guardhouse, rocking back on his heels and looking into the sky when I walked through the gate. A gray, padded overcoat bloomed out over his slender frame like a worn traffic cone. Topped off with a battered officer’s hat, he looked more comical than intimidating. As the most sociable guard in our apartment complex, he had a habit of talking with residents whenever he saw an opportunity. It was not long before we became friends.

Eating dinner last night, someone pointed to a dish containing snow peas and said, “You know how in China we call them Holland beans? [荷兰豆 hélándòu] In Holland they call them Chinese beans!” I expressed my opinion that this was unlikely to be true, but promised to ask a Dutch friend of mine.

He got back to me quickly and said that in a way it is true, because while technically snow peas are called something else, certain species of green beans are indeed called Chinese beans in Dutch. I wonder how that happened.

A short story, by Katrina Hamlin

THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN H.A.L. PUBLISHING

The small blond girl opens the door, and steps out onto the landing. She drags a big suitcase with broken handles. She’s late.

A Chinese man – timid stance, mid-50s – is standing at the top of the stairs.

He is shocked to see a small blond girl on the landing. He spills a “Hello” before he can stop himself.

Tadpole is 蝌蚪 (kēdǒu). I find this interesting because both characters seem to only mean tadpole, but are never used alone, and also because they both consist of the same meaning radical, 虫 (chóng) – often referred to as the “insect radical” – with a different phonetic radical. In the first character the phonetic radical is 科 (kē), and in the second it is 斗 (dǒu or dòu). You may notice that 科 also contains 斗, but in 科 it is not a phonetic radical, but a meaning radical along with 禾 (hé) – which may or may not be the reason 科 is said kē. This is why I love Chinese.

The woes of Chinese street food vendors – by Michael Taylor

THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN RAMBLIN' MIK

It’s 4am. In the damp dark coolness of morning in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, nothing seems to stir – huge expanses of roads are left empty, basking in the unused yellow glow of street lamps. You could be forgiven for thinking that the whole city is sleeping, but if you look behind the huge, developed face of Ningbo, into some of the darker corners and alleyways away from the main roads, you will find someone like Mrs X – who does not wish to be named – busily preparing for the day ahead. She, and thousands like her across China, is an unlicensed street food vendor.