The Chinese Earthquake

Elementary: The Chinese Earthquake

We asked for an elementary lesson filled with drama and terror. "Picture yourselves at the epicenter of a massive earthquake," David requested. "Give us something with tension and danger," Echo added, "with lots of buildings shaking and all that jazz." Our voice actors nodded gravely. Then they gave us this....

trevelyan

said on

March 30, 2010

If anyone is in Beijing and looking for a weekend trip, the city of Tangshan (6 million people, and I'd never heard of it before coming here....) is about two hours away by bus. The city is most widely known because of the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, one of the deadliest earthquakes in human history to date. Wikipedia has a good article on it. Surprising to read how much advance warning they had that a major quake was coming.

Anyway, it's an interesting city and worth checking out. Not exactly a tremendous amount to see besides the earthquake memorial, but there are nice parks and it's a really laid back city. There's also a much stronger military presence - many of the soldiers sent to help rebuild the city settled down there and the military is viewed quite warmly because of its efforts.

dhmountainfox

said on

March 30, 2010

As a couple that lived through the Wenchuan earthquake, we found the irreverent tone of this "lesson" quite offensive.

"Oh, it feels pretty good, this thing."...

"Yeah. It would be nice to have one every day."

What the **** were you thinking when you wrote that?

There's nothing cute, funny or ironic about your dialogue.

It is however, just plain stupid.

trevelyan

said on

March 30, 2010

@dhmountainfox,

I've lived through earthquakes myself, and didn't see a reason to stop it. Most are small and they are a fact of life. That's the kind of event dramatized - not the Wenchuan earthquake. Sorry you took it the wrong way. No offense is intended.

--david

saunders

said on

March 30, 2010

Everyone looks as things from their own context. I don't find this offensive at all, but then I also wouldn't leap to associate it with the Wenchuan earthquake. Sounds more like the slow rollers we used to get when I was a kid. Not strong enough for anyone to notice them in big concrete office units, but you'd feel them all the time in less rigid wooden housing.

Dave

said on

March 30, 2010

I think the name of the lesson is perhaps a mistake - mentioning "the Chinese Earthquake" surely, for the majority of people, evokes the memory of Wenchuan.

luolin

said on

March 31, 2010

Back in the day, if a person thought something was offensive or distasteful, we just turned it off. Anyways, as a premium subscriber, I count on the fact that 1 in 5...

Brendan

said on

April 1, 2010

@dhmountainfox - We were not referring to your earthquake; we were referring to the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake. Sorry for the confusion.

gbond1978

said on

April 9, 2010

Have to say, as a pretty neutral 3rd-party, visiting the site for the first time, and someone who is usually averse to political correctness, I think the tone of this lesson is very, very odd. Do people who live in earthquake zones really talk with such flippancy and casualness about experiencing an earthquake? It's a honest question, as I do not know the answer for sure. But I definitely have my doubts. The language content is great but, yeah, an odd choice of subject.

rizzo

said on

April 9, 2010

To the good people of popupchinese - please do not reduce the level of edginess for the podcasts. The odd, disturbing and pleasantly distasteful banter is the only thing that makes slogging thru memorization and study of this language palatable for me. Persons of sensitive, politically correct disposition can choose from literally hundreds of language textbooks and programs for Chinese. But sick, mildly anti-social nut cases such as myself have only popup chinese. Please don't water it down - language study made fun is a commodity as valuable and rare as gold. Well maybe cobalt, but worth mining nonetheless.

If anything, I vote to increase the shock value quotient. How are those gay vampires from that dialogue last winter faring nowadays anyway?

If I may quote the great philospher Al Bundy: "let's rock"

ckw4y

said on

April 10, 2010

@gbond1978

I used to live in San Francisco and I can confirm that in that region, people have a very casual view on earthquakes. Most of the people I knew when I lived there lived through the '89 quake, and are well aware of the fact that at some point in their lives, they will probably go through another quake of that magnitude, but it's just an accepted fact of living in that part of the world. During the time I was living there, I experienced an average of 1 quake in the 4-5 range every 2 months and there were countless more 2-3 range quakes that I would read about in the newspaper but which could only be felt in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter. My roommate at the time told me stories of how when she was working in an office in the downtown area, if a quake happened during work hours everybody would run to the windows (despite knowing how unsafe it is to do so) to watch the whole city sway. On the day after a quake, everybody would usually be talking about what they were doing when they started to feel the rumbling in the same way people would talk about the previous night's American Idol results. I would definitely say this podcast is an accurate representation of how people who live on major fault lines actually act when a 4-5 magnitude quake hits.

Brendan

said on

April 10, 2010

@rizzo - I've actually got a huge soft spot for "politically correct" Chinese teaching materials:

There's a great 1956 Peking University textbook that introduces the passive (被) construction by talking about a worker who was burnt by molten steel, but was rushed to the hospital by the factory manager. The factory manager was told by the doctors at the hospital that the injured man could not be saved, not even by medicine in developed Western countries. "You must save him!" the doctors are told by the factory manager. "Not only for steel, but for the Motherland!" Their thinking is liberated by the factory manager's speech, and the man is saved.

And then of course there are the even older textbooks, designed for missionaries. I've got a PDF somewhere of one great one that starts with "My name is..." in Chapter One, and proceeds to Chapter 18, "At the Opium Den" (Person A: "How many bowls does he smoke a day?" / Person B: "Ordinarily, only three, but he's been having a hard time of it lately.") and Chapter 22, "Why Your Religion is Wrong." Great stuff, all around.

rizzo

said on

April 10, 2010

back @ Brendan - Clearly the purveyors of curriculum at my local university are simply using the wrong textbooks. That stuff pretty much writes itself.

whybuy7

said on

September 20, 2010

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I have to concur with ckw4y. There seems to be many people living in glass houses with floors made of egg shells. However, I was rather offended by the lesson entitled "Watercooler Gossip" because my entire family drowned in one...you should tread carefully when broaching the taboo subject of water coolers.

I've lived for 30 years and Pop Up Chinese is one of the few amusements that convinces me to delay death each day. The last thing it needs is a P.C. make over. I say get more edgy. Brendon and Eco, crank up the crazy and rip off the nob...except when it comes to watercoolers. Those are sacred.

mike_underhill

said on

May 24, 2013

One reason I think Popup Chinese works so well is that it dislocates what we so often take for granted in conversations, making it hard for us to tune out, ie. makes the dialogues easier to remember. [eg. Underpants in the yoghurt bottle...] This really is not about earthquakes. If this lesson had talked about the Richter Scale, casualties, shoddy construction and official negligence, I would cancel my PUC subscription. I can find news anywhere.

rachel.friedman

said on

April 22, 2014

Extremely important request, and very serious: is there any way I can get the laugh at the end of this dialogue as my ringtone? Please say yes.

trevelyan

said on

April 24, 2014

We're actually planning to put together a page of ringtones. Can add this one to the list. :)

xiaokaka

said on

April 24, 2014

@rachel.friedman

You could just use a program to cut out the part of the audio yourself, e.g., the free software Audacity found at http://audacity.sourceforge.net.

rachel.friedman

said on

April 25, 2014

Two excellent responses! Thanks @trevelyan, @xiaokaka. Can't wait to annoy everyone in my office.

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