Chinese whispers

'Tis the season for sneezes, sniffles and infectious diseases. As I get older, I seem to become ill more easily. I've definitely had to take more sick days over the last 18 months than I ever did in the first 25 years of my life. Having never taken a painkiller at all until I was 25, I've certainly made up for it since.

My resident symptoms are usually a sore throat, after which the inflammation seemingly spreads to my ear canals before camping out there for a few days, sometimes accompanied by a banked campfire of mild fever. However, the main point of this post is not to complain and try to garner sympathy, but rather to muse on the relationship between vocal chords, languages, and throat infections.

Why? When my recurring throat infection reappears for an encore, enlisting nose blocking-mucous for extra effect, I find my voice becomes a little harsher and it's harder to speak more loudly. Interestingly, this is more of a problem when speaking Cantonese than when speaking English, whilst my Mandarin just becomes rather more nasal. When speaking Cantonese, I find it more of an effort to enunciate clearly and tend to whisper. English is less difficult, maybe it's because it is a less tonal-dependent language and so having a blocked nose is less of an impediment? Perhaps it's due to the different phonation of the languages, and how the vocal chords are able to oscillate whilst inflammed? Strangely though, I find Cantonese softer on the ears and requiring less concentration to understand when my ears are affected. This is rather inconvenient, as it means that it's easier for me to speak English, but less difficult to understand Cantonese. Maybe there is a non-tonal language that doesn't have many harsh tones and simple grammar that I could learn? Of course that would involve gaining a new social circle with whom I could use it.

A more practical solution would be to carry a writing pad and stylus with me at all times.


Photo credit: Taken from www.nottingham.ac.uk Microbiology departmental webpage

Anyone still here?

It's been a busy year, 2011, with an awful lot going on at work, some good and some not so good. Visits to friends and keeping in touch with both friends and family have been slotted in where I can, but my poor blog has suffered greatly, especially since I STILL don't have internet at home (and never will unless I move elsewhere I suspect) and I'm now too lazy to go to work to update it at the weekends.

However, after this list of excuses, which apparently labels me unmistakingly as Typically British, I will try and remedy my neglect of this webspace and resume usual sporadic service. Fittingly, it is just over a year since my last post, a similar period of time to the maximum available period of maternity leave. Although I most definitely have not been gestating or been pregnant, in interests of equal rights, if people get time off to have babies, there should be special circumstances under which childless people can take a corresponding time off, non? Something to discuss over the dinner table perhaps, if you run out of other contentious topics to explore, such as the Euro, homelessness, benefits, the NHS, politics and religion.

So that was my non-maternity leave. I will continue to bore you with the tears, tantrums and teething problems that crop up in my life. Discussions around baby food, nurseries and schools and the latest baby pushchair models are optional.

only to moan

I haven't posted anything for quite a while, as I'm sure you're aware. There's been a lot to do, and with no internet at home, there never seems to be a time where I can sit down and collect my thoughts together for a post. A lot of things have come and gone, but by the time I get a chance to sit in front of the computer and type about it, the timeliness, or the urge to discuss it and find the right words to do so, has gone.

These last few months have been mostly busy, and mostly happy, when I've managed to think about whether I am happy or not. Right now though, I sense that I'm starting to burn out, and things seem to be crowding in on me. I'm still a little lonely, away from my older friends and no chance to see much of my family this year. The good side is that there are several people now at work I'm getting to know better, though it's hard to find a day/evening when we can just get together and talk and laugh and drink a little. Unfortunately, some of my other friends are having relationship and family problems, and I'm finding it a struggle to drench up enough energy and support them, over long phone conversations that are cutting into my sleeping time. I feel a bit bad for feeling it's a struggle, but it's becoming very emotionally draining, especially since I can't seem to help them, and I'm listening to them going round and round in circles.

And sometimes I do feel as if I am more someone to talk AT and my input is not really needed. But isn't that what everyone wants really, just someone to listen to them?

I find that as I get older, I'm drawn more and more towards female friends. I have always had more male friends than female friends, generally because I found male friends more straight-forward, I didn't need to decipher their moods or their meaning. If they were annoyed at me, they told me, if they were pleased to see me, they showed it. I disliked the possibility of being forced to take sides if my female friends had an argument, or the petty bitching that teenage, not-yet-confident, girls could show.

As I grow older and the world seems more complex to me, and I no longer find it possible to see things in shades of black and white, I find more affinity to women friends, those who also see shades of grey and show more tolerance of things they don't quite understand or are unfamiliar with. The black and whiteness, the quick anger and intolerance of some (I hasten to add, only some) of my male friends wear me down sometimes. They are often right in their opinions and in their anger, but right in the sense that they are not wrong. And they hold fast to this righteousness and are unhappy with it, believing they have been wronged. If they were happy in their righteousness, or even unhappy but accepting, then I would not say a word. But to be unhappy and to ask my opinion yet be annoyed when I give them my true opinion and it differs from theirs..... I guess they don't expect me to not agree with them because they are certain of themselves.

One day, I will sit down and record all the phrases I might be expected to say in a conversation and just leave it running on a tape next to the phone whilst I do something more soothing.

For now, I will stop my rants and think of something more amusing/entertaining/light-hearted for my next post!

Sorry folks, thanks for your patience if you've managed to read this far. I think I do understand why I get so many late night calls and am only talked AT - a monologue can be soothing sometimes too.

Snakes on a plane

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11203270

Annual floods

Throughout history, it has been said that the Emperor or ruler who can tame the Yellow River and Yangtze River, and delimit the devastation caused by the flooding of their banks will win the people, heart and mind.

Thousands of years on, you can still understand why. Engineers over the millenia have struggled with the problem (early engineering was quite advanced in China), but the logistics are tremendous, given the size of China's prone-to-flooding regions and the sheer numbers of people and communities that rely and live on the fertile plains in those regions criss-crossed by the rivers.

Every year it's hard to tell how bad the flooding will be. I wish all the very best for the rescue workers working hard in Zhouqu at the moment, and hope that there isn't worse coming.