However, the chances for the whole family to perish from air crashes do become significantly smaller, considering that it takes all the planes the family members take to crash for the whole family to decease, and I guess this is what makes sense for that family. Yet I have another idea: it would be a tragedy for anyone of the family to survive the accidental death of other intimate members, and it is far more comfortable (at least for me) to go along with my family, alive or dead, which means, taking the same plane would be the 'rational' choice for me, as we can they live and die together.

My colleague laughed hard. He'd never looked at the problem from this angel before. But he admitted that my opinion made sense to him.

And so much as I'd like to generalize for the East and the West, this opinion might be just mine and mine alone. What do you think? Will you device a strategy to outlive your family, or would you rather be with them, for eternity?

Public transportation in the big Chinese cities are almost always busy, and I feel rather safe pushing this prejudice over to the IfGoGo readership. The so-called shock came to me when I witnessed three incidents in a row: not offering seats to the old, skipping the queue, and not offering seats to a woman with her baby. For sure, it is just coincidence that I met such incidences at this high frequency, and in Shanghai there are indeed many good-ordered taxi queues, but this day in Shanghai still makes me uncomfortable. Skipping the queue is quite common in China (I saw the taxi queues first so this still comes as a shock); not offering seats to the needed is against basic Chinese culture and morality... But I may be too quick to condemn these people, or Shanghai in general. Even if these are all acceptable behaviour in Shanghai, it might just be evolution of the ethics, and I am a bit slow to catch up. However, I'd rather believe that today's incidents are lone cases, and Shanghai is still as beautiful as she should be.

However, the care taken of food safety is perhaps a bit too far for a Chinese to accept. Indeed, my Indian friends (and all my formal roommates, maybe) would not agree with this Q&A on StillTasty: 'I Left Pizza Out Overnight - Is It Still Safe to Eat?' and the answer is a 'startling' NO. Admittedly, my standard for food safety isn't that high, but it is still too hard for me (and for the sake of my life) to believe that 'it’s dangerous to eat any cooked food (including takeout foods like pizza, fried chicken or Chinese food) that has been allowed to sit at room temperature for two hours or longer.' I and my friends lived on such food throughout the year in London; and I grew up on such food. I should not have been alive right now, at least according to the StillTasty guides... How terrible!

Now I don't really know whether it's the StillTasty admins being too cautious, or it's me being to barbarous? It's still good to know that Chinese people are quite resistant to low level food poison. Foreigners visiting China are advised to exercise great caution, though.

There are many who disagree with this view, but hey, let a thousand flowers bloom.

'Let a thousand flowers bloom'? This sure sounds very familiar, although the expression is indeed new to me. Isn't this phrase from the Chinese (百花齐放)?

My intuition is proven quite easily. According to the Phrase Finder:

Let a thousand flowers bloom is a common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong's "Let a hundred flowers blossom". This slogan was used during the period of approximately six weeks in the summer of 1957 when the Chinese intelligentsia were invited to criticize the political system then obtaining in Communist China.

And the rest of the entry does not invite good memory... But, hey, I was right in spotting this one. Before this, the one and most famous Chinese-rooted English phrase is 'Long time no see'. Breaking every grammar rule, this phrase is nevertheless  in regular use in modern English. Other ones like 'People mountain, people sea' and 'Good good study, day day up' don't count---they are still no more than jokes, and is little understood by a non-Chinese English speaker.

What other interesting Chinese phrases have been translated and regularly used in English? Can you name any one?

After being a lurker for some time, I am just recently offered the privilege to join this fantastic group of authors. Excited :)

I am from Nanjing, but took my first chance to go abroad the last school year to London, where I began to feel that there ARE a lot of things about China that should and could be told to the world. I met fabulous friends there, most of whom cheerful and thoughtful, very knowledgeable and still open to new ideas. Sadly, sometimes information does not go through from China to Europe as well as it should have, people still do not realize who I am, what my country truly is.

I am not sure if it is alright to feel responsible for clearing up the image of China to the outside world, but as I am an economics teacher-to-be starting next school term, it might not be a bad idea to employ my professional techniques in familiarizing China to as many people as possible. And of course, to make friends in the same process. Search for Lechuan Huang on facebook and add me as a friend :)

Yesterday I met with a British lady who was working in Nanjing. During our talks she told me that among things she did not understand so well about China was this 'face-saving' behavior. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to go further on the topic.

Afterwards I read in a British teacher's guide, that students might resort to 'face-saving' if criticized improperly. So face-saving is present in the Britain (and probably in the Western world) as well.

My question is: is there a difference between the Chinese (or East Asian) way of face-saving and the Western way of doing so? What do you think?