I have spent two weeks touring China during the end of October and first week of November, 2006. My wife and I went to Hunan and Sichuan Provinces. Each time we travel in China we notice significant progress in all aspect of the society. However, an area of concern to us is pollution.

(The following are excerpts of email exchanges between my brother, RMT, and I)

JMT:

Pollution is everywhere in China. The only clean areas are in the remote territories. When I say pollution I mean the following:

(1) Air pollution: All populated areas are polluted -- the bigger the city, the worse. Many Chinese cities will no longer be livable in the very near future.

(2) Water pollution: The only clean water we saw were in 黃龍/九寨溝. It was a joy to see schools of fish swimming in crystal clear water. I have pictures to prove it, too.

(3) Noise pollution: Noise is everywhere except in the mountainous areas. People talked so loudly that it was unbearable. Chinese people have a long way to go to learn to speak softly and politely. In light of the noisy environment, it is an impossibility.

(4) Visual pollution: Chinese are absolutely the world's WORST in polluting the visual sense with tasteless slogans devoid of any meaning or purpose. Everywhere we turned we saw slogans and banners splashed over mountaintops, walls, buildings, homes, buses, and trucks. Examples are big, bold, and tacky slogans such as "XXXX集團歡迎您！" " XXX市歡迎您！"XXXX　利國利民. Political slogans are everywhere, too. The worst are the illiterate ones such as "服好務，育好人。Eyesores of China, I called them. I have a profound feeling that there is no sense of beauty in China. Anything touched by the Chinese instantly became ugly. The only beautiful areas are these untouched by them.

All these sins will come back to haunt China. There is a price for all the senseless drive for profit and "progress." The world will no longer be livable in the future; I know it by the laws of thermodynamics. And China will be the very first.


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RMT
One of Jenny's favorite pastimes on the road in China is to read the often wacky propaganda slogans on each side. They provide interesting glimpses into the Chinese mindset.

By the way, "服好務，育好人" is not so unreasonable. 服 and 育 are both verbs and 務 and 人 are objects (nouns). Grammatically, it makes perfect sense. A bit wacky and unconventional, but actually, I like it. :-)

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JMT:

You have a much more liberal tolerance for the usage. I would compare that to split infinitive in English. The meaning is understood, but to do so gratuitously is just asking for trouble. I suppose if 拉好屎 屙好尿 is OK, then how about 游好泳? 革好命? 犧好牲? One will soon be treading water in no man's land. :-)

Here are a few far-fetched ones that I can come up:

"你這個泳游得不好"

要先服好務，才能革好命


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RMT:

Ha, ha, All the examples that you mentioned are still better than "我去小個便就來" or ”你去哪裡小?" or even "你 parking 趴在哪裡?" :-)

By the way, shouldn't your "你這個泳游得不好" be "你這個泳游的不好" or perhaps even "你這個泳游地不好" in post-modern usage? Also, have you noticed that there is no such word as "遊" in modern China? It is entirely replaced by "游". There is also no such word as "傑", it is replaced by "杰".

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JMT:

Ha! Ha! Ha! So funny. Some of the colloquial usage is so pervasive that we don't even think about it. Now that I have time to let this idea simmer in my mind, I come to the realization that there is no satisfactory concise way to convey the idea of 要先服好務，才能革好命 in a grammatically correct manner.

What you said about the simplified Chinese characters is right on the money. It is annoying to see the "White Words" all over China. The worst example that I saw was 湖南師范大學 Now, how do you like to have a teacher like that to teach your kids Chinese? This is no joke. This is the modern Chinese's way to write 師範. If the teachers are like this, the students will never rise above the level of 皇后到后宮后面吃面去了. This is corruption of the Chinese culture, plain and simple. It is a disgrace.

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RMT

Come to think of it, 要先服好務，才能革好命 may just be concise and elegant! Next time I get substandard service from a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, I might say to him: "你這個務服得不好!"




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