Any chance you remember that scene from Goldfinger where James Bond is trussed up on the cutting board, and he turns to the villain who then says something about expecting Bond to die in the slowest and most painful way possible? Well... if Goldfinger were a Chinese film we could replace his laser with a glass of iced water and show our villain laughing maniacally from the certain knowledge that Bond's mere proximity to the glass would usher in a fate at least as bad as and quite possibly much worse than death.

What we really mean to say is this: Echo and Brendan are in our studio today, and they both spend a non-trivial amount of time ignoring our dialogue in order to argue about the relative merits of Chinese medical superstitions involving food temperature. That may or may not be your thing, but if you're learning Chinese we think you'll find this lesson useful if only because it features an incredibly common sentence pattern you can use whenever you want to say "whenever". This is the 一/就 pattern and it's one of the most useful sentence structures to know in Chinese. So listen up and be sure to let us know what you think of the show in the discussion section below.
 said on
August 24, 2011
I've never understood the whole ice thing. Last summer I was in Jinan for work and it must have been 38 or 39 degrees C. When we arrived to our Chinese counterparts office, my VP and I were in suits sweating like crazy, and what were we offered? A refreshing glass of boiling water that nearly singed my fingerprints right off! Not only are many Chinese terrified of ice, but AC also falls into the same category. It's a real head scratcher. Most of the time I do believe in 入乡随俗, but I have to draw the line with my western ways of keepig cool with a nice tall iced beverage and a room with AC! I know, call me a soft westerner. :-)
 said on
August 24, 2011
I'm with you, drummerboy. On the other hand, the good news is that the general Chinese aversion to cold things means that there's no chance of a global milkshake shortage any time soon.
 said on
August 24, 2011
Each asian country seems to develop it's own temperature phobia. My favorite is the "fan death" of Korea. Many Koreans are convinced that if you stay too long in an enclosed room with an electric fan, you'll freeze to death.

This belief is widespread enough that officials have given public safety announcements about it, and most fans sold in korea have shut-off timers.
 said on
August 24, 2011
@Drummerboy, palafx, brendan,

I absolutely understand it, the Chinese believe that he stomach should not be suddenly chilled, it's bad for the digestion and makes it much more difficult to digest your food and easier to store fat around the midsection as it will put out your internal fire.

The least of all evils is sucking on ice cubes as it's slow and your body can cool down slowly, but downing glass after glass of an icy beverage, as we westerners have a tendency to do, is just bad all around.

I say we soft westerners join our Chinese bretheren in a milkshake boycott! Who's with me?
 said on
August 24, 2011
@Xiao Hu

I keep the fire lit with kung fu. In the downtime, I subsist on a diet of frozen yogurt and ice cream.
 said on
August 24, 2011
@PALAFX,

It's like having a bonfire doused by the fire department and trying to restart he blaze with a little kindling and water logged driftwood.

Let's add froyo to the boycott list, ane I'm not talking about Android 2.2....
 said on
August 25, 2011
I think Xiao Hu has just gone completely native. :) Milkshake boycotts? Only on Popup Chinese!

 said on
August 25, 2011
@Trevelyan,

I went native long ago. ;)

I don't know about cold things giving people stomach cancer, but it does promote weight gain and stomach problems.

Many originalities have been begun here on Popup Chinese, and a milkshake boycott shall not be the last.
 said on
August 25, 2011
@Xiao Hu,

哈哈哈,我要跟你握手!

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
August 25, 2011
Brendan were you having a bad China day/week/month?

I heard this ice/cold thing was all related to the fact that until recently hot / boiled water was the only guaranteed sterile drink, and therefore less likely to make you sick?

Anyway, one of my Chinese friends favorite head-spinning stories is about how crazy UK hospitals offer ICE-CREAM in meals for sick people and pregnant mothers...are they trying to kill their patients or what?!
 said on
August 25, 2011
@Echo,

我一直很想跟你握手。我总觉得互联网很神奇因为我们从来没有见过面,但我们的关系却是老师学生的关系。哈哈,我已经把你当我的虚拟老师!我要付多少比特币才能握你虚拟的手啊?
 said on
August 26, 2011
All this discussion of issues regarding the consumption of cold foods/beverages and not one single mention of the biggest and often most painful health problem associated with it.......the dreaded Ice Cream Headache.
 said on
August 29, 2011
@Xiao Hu,

哈哈,不用比特币,随时欢迎!

@crusty_138,

Sorry for my ignorance -- is it a real disease?

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

 said on
August 29, 2011
@Echo - haha no. It's that painful headache you get when you eat cold foods, like ice-cream too fast, but I guess you've never experienced it
 said on
August 30, 2011
@Echo,

可是你们家是收比特币的,我觉得目前比特币没有任何内在的交换价值所以就像大富翁币一样的可以随便花!后来一旦会有人来想要购买你的比特币,这样一来你可以把你的比特币出售而赚真正的钱!

归根到底,一分钱一握手,好划算!
 said on
August 31, 2011
@crusty_138,

Wow, first time I have ever heard of it! Thanks! And our conversation actually reminds me of those delicious ice cream I had in Chile...You know, there isn't much good ice cream in China....

@Xiao Hu,

哈哈哈,谁说“一分钱一握手“?

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
September 20, 2011
Actually, I was in the forefront of the poopoo-ers of what I thought was this obsessive conviction that drinking cold things was bad for the stomach--here in Guangdong, I considered it essential to my survival. But I developed some digestion problems due to low stomach acidity, and not finding a doctor who had any helpful solutions, I had to look for solutions on the internet. Lo and behold, everywhere I looked (Western, not Eastern websites, specifically dealing with this problem) reported that cold drinks inhibit the production of hydrochloric acid and should be avoided. I suspect that this is relevant only to those who have such problems, but it did take a bit of wind out of my poo-pooing sails.
 said on
September 20, 2011
@susanjallen,

Haha, I knew it!

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
February 8, 2012
Is the guy in this audio clip really just buying an ice cream cone?? He is sounding a little dodgy towards the end...

I could be wrong but isn't it supposedly incorrect to address a lady 小姐 in China? As I understand it, it's what you address a 'working girl'. In other asian countries where they speak Chinese, it is acceptable. However in China, you should say "服务员“?
 said on
February 8, 2012
@pixelposer,

I think we talked about the 小姐 issue in another show. You'll still hear it used casually on the mainland, so the consensus around here is that it depends on context. If you're in a restaurant talking to a waitress it is OK. And 服务员 works perfectly too.

 said on
May 18, 2012
Could anybody explain 要 versus 想 in expressing desire and requests. Is 要 more forceful as in 'I want X' and 想 more of a conditional i.e. 'I would like X.' I understand that the literal translation of 想 is 'to wish' but it appears to be used intechangeably with 要 in many instances. Are there any rules regarding which verb to use?

Thank you.
 said on
May 21, 2012
@cb577,

The difference of 要 and 想要 is that by saying 要,you are expressing a need straightly, but by saying 想要, you are expressing the need delicately.

--Amber

amber@popupchinese.com

 said on
May 21, 2012
@cb577,

Be careful when you use 想: if you use it alone, it only means to think, like 我想他今天不来 (I think he won't come today). If you want to say to wish or to want, you have to add another verb behind 想. For example, you can't say 我想苹果, you have to say 我想吃苹果 (I want to eat an apple) or 我想要苹果 (I want apples).

And as Amber said, 要 is more straight and forceful than 想 + verb.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com