Yu Mao Qiu

Given the Tibet events, I am wondering if NPR will have opportunity to visit Tibet or Tibetan areas around Chengdu. That would be terrific additions to the Chengdu Diary for your audiences. I think your interviews with a wide variety of people, young and old may offer an excellent, non-biased, high-quality journalisic reporting sorely needed for the Tibetan reporting these days. NPR should be able to deliver this without dramatizing and sensationalizing the news.

Sent by Frank Wang | 10:23 PM | 4-7-2008

It's very interesting to see people all over the world are willing to know Chinese characters. Some of them even immigrate to China for they say Chinese culture never fails to fascinate them. I'm amazed that a few of them even speak Mandarin as if it were their mother tongue. And for us, it's a win-win situation. We learn different languages while teaching foreigners Mandarin.

Sent by Song Qiuying | 10:46 PM | 4-7-2008

Two bits of advice for your Mandarin, Melissa:

1 - Get one of the little red tall narrow pocket English-Chinese Chinese-English dictionaries. A foreign language bookstore or a college bookstore would be good sources.

2 - Have someone show you how to use the radical index. Once you know how to do that, you can find the pinyin pronunciation of a character and look up the meaning alphabetically in the dictionary.

With that book, that skill and plenty of time you can read a newspaper.

Sent by Jon Moulton | 7:00 PM | 4-8-2008

My husband and I lived in Chengdu for a year (1996-97) and advise you to check out the following for your blog (which we enjoy).

1. The Dujiangyan Irrigation Project (23 k from Chengdu). Built in 220 BC, this project turned Sichuan Province from a desert to China's breadbasket. It still operates and is one of many ancient and current projects that demonstrates China's special skill in doing marvels with waterways.

2. Tea houses where people hang up their birds. And, on the same note, watch for people walking their birds.

3. New facilities for retired party cadres and new attention to seniors. (The best indoor tennis courts I have played, had just been built for seniors in Chengdu.)

4. Chengdu's main river, which used to be so clean that white Sichuan Brocade was washed there as part of the manufacturing process. When we lived in Chengdu, residents fished that part of the river where fish congregated and that is where, not surprisingly, raw sewerage flowed in. (I never ever ate fish in China.)

5. People practicing their Tai Chi at 5 am. When we lived in Chengdu, most homes south of the Yangtze River were not heated. Folks got up and out early.

6. Local TV, which had more independence than the China Daily and was often muckracking in its coverage.

Have fun.

Sent by mickie winkler | 2:05 PM | 4-13-2008