language

Last night I had an IM conversation with a new friend of mine whose English name is Patrick. During the conversation he told me that he turned down an offer to do some hacker programming against paypal. Now I know the Chinese word for hacker.

黑客

The word is a transliteration. Transliterations are several Chinese characters that form the sound of the word but by themselves mean nothing. Broken down this is

Well my spirits are back and if you watch this video you'll know why. This afternoon I went to a dumpling restaurant for lunch but not only could I read the sign of the restaurant's name but I could also read about 20% of the menu (maybe 30%). That was, apparently enough for me to go into the restaurant alone and order off a menu that contained no numbers, no pictures and no English. When it gets down to it if you don't read Chinese you're not ordering from this restaurant.

It was bound to happen. All of the books, magazines, websites and blogs I've have read said it would happen. I just didn't think it would come this early. I really didn't.

Four days is about how long it took to boil to the surface.