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How to Defend Taiwan
Yǒurén ma? It is a common Chinese retort. What would the perspective be of an American reading reading Yǒurén ma in this thread? Would they not have an American perspective? What then would their perspective be to see "is anyone there" written in Chinese. Without context? Or in context of the recent posts? My Chinese friends laugh at me when I try to speak beyond the basics. That is okay. Plenty of Americans laugh at my English, too. I hope one of my Chinese friends here goes with me to China as promised. One surprised me during one conversation. She has been here decades and pulled out a translation device for a word I thought was common enough for her to know. I have friends here from both Taiwan and the mainland. Some going back to when I was in college. My kid has connections in Taiwan. Or, at least, once did. But over there, I only know people on the mainland. I was talking to one in Chengdu this evening. She had been n Virginia and California in the Summer and Autumn. She is just about to get out of an 8 day isolation, but is required to go to the designated place to take what they call "nucleic acid testing" everyday. I really hate it when one of the people I know there tries to talk politics with me. Over freakin' WeChat. I have gotten vicious tongue lashings that were right down the party lines. I explain that politics are complicated and I am not a politician. For their safety, I do not want to argue or present an American point of view. For my safety too, since I intend to visit there one day. One friend here is the granddaughter of a man executed in the cultural revolution. Another, a much younger woman, felt that if she had stayed in China, she would have eventually been killed for speaking out. We are currently out of touch. Our relationship was centered on ballroom dancing, not business. My recollection was that she was finding her voice around the time of Tiananmen Square. We never talked about her education time line in depth. I think that being able to come here for her PhD, partly because letting her leave the country was a win win for the officials there - and her being valuable enough to be allowed to stay here- did save her life. If we ever reconnect, I will have to learn more. We are fortunate that we can delve into things here, even when, like this thread is, when we aren't talking about anything of importance. No philosophies. No politics. Nothing real. Fantasies. Nov 25 22 09:59 pm Link I think I can explain my intention a little bit better. I have seen more than a handful of times (online) "有人吗?" used in the following way. In an online space where only English is being spoken and you aren't necessarily expecting a response, because there has been no indication of anyone speaking Chinese. I've seen this on forums, comment sections, live chats to a streaming service etc. Sometimes it goes completely ignored and unnoticed, probably because no one even knew what it meant. Other times I've seen it spark a whole conversation in Chinese. This is also only my interpretation of this usage because that's how I read the situation. Of course, as someone who is still learning I assume there are MANY nuances that I have yet to discover with the usage. Similar to when one of my Chinese friends says "It doesn't matter" in English. I know that they are looking for an equivalent of "没关系" but in certain situations "it doesn't matter" may seem like a very blunt response and a "don't worry about it, it's fine" may be a better option. If that makes sense? So I imagine there are probably some undertones that I'm missing, and my usage here could have easily been a blunt retort even though that wasn't my intention. I know every language has both literal and non-literal meanings to words and phrases, but it seems Chinese is even more loaded in that sense. Mainly because there can often be MANY literal meanings depending on the context. Where as in English it tends to be a single literal meaning or some non-literal meanings. With exceptions of course. As for an the American perspective...It was exactly the American perspective that I was not looking for lol. Well, maybe I should say I was looking for a non Anglospheric perspective. Or even more accurately a Chinese or Taiwanese perspective is more of what I was looking for. I figured if someone was lurking in this thread, but they aren't comfortable having this conversation in English, that a simple "有人吗” may have been in invitation into the discussion. Again, I know my intentions vs how it is actually perceived can be two different things. Also, I wanted to use something that if you punched it into Google translate it wouldn't make much sense. Because I didn't want people randomly start using Google translate to start chatting in Chinese. It happens sometimes when I start using Chinese online. Lol. This is also why I replied to you using an idiom...(again my usage could have been weird.) But instead of asking you, "do you actually speak Chinese?" I figured I would use something that if you DON'T, Google translate would leave you scratching your head. Lol. So in a weird way I was also trying to filter responses to be authentic and not someone having fun with translations. I can relate to your friends laughing at you when you speak Chinese. I remember having a conversation with my friend and I said "我知道" and they burst out laughing and they said "wo zhidaoWuh" in an American accent, because I guess in English the "ao" sound has more rounding at the end of it than in Chinese. Or when I used to say "不" instead of the clean "u" sound, it would be more of the glide from an ew to u, like in the word "blue" in American English. But, them laughing helped me pick up what I was doing, so it was productive lol. You're clearly very well spoken, so any slack you catch from your friends when you speak English probably doesn't hold much merit. I especially avoid political talks with my friends for the same reasons as you. Although, my friends from Taiwan and HK tend to be more open to those discussions than my mainland friends (via messages.) On voice calls though, my mainland friends do open up a little bit more 😁. That is a shame with your friend. When I first started learning Chinese, one piece of random advice I found online was "never ask about Tiananmen Square." That is something I will abide by. And yes, I remember a couple of my friends having to do "nucleic acid testing" daily at one point. Again, I didn't have much to bring to the initial conversation. I just saw that it was derailed a few times and although I personally don't feel knowledgeable enough to add anything of value, I figured I would try to open the door for someone who this may hit "closer to home" to possibly engage with. Nov 26 22 02:31 pm Link Good explanation and good post. I have been advised multiple times that if I was going to invest in learning a language from that part of the world, don't pick Chinese. On the other hand, Chinese friends tell me it is so simple. A friend from Vietnam (now deceased) wouldn't tell me her Vietnamese name. She said I could never pronounce it. I have a handful of Thai and Vietnamese customers. I muddle through. But the few people I know from each country doesn't seem to make it worth the investment, though I would like to travel to both of those places. See what I missed by a few years. I have also been told it is easiest to learn Korean. But again, I have few friends and customers from there and I am less interested in visiting. But, I watch a lot of Korean TV and movies. Same with China. Nov 26 22 02:53 pm Link For me, I have been told "Mandarin is easy, Cantonese is hard." Although, I think from a complete beginners perspective it initially felt like "Mandarin is impossible and Cantonese is beyond impossible." Currently they both feel challenging, but completely in reach. In some aspects Chinese does actually feel "easy." Specifically verbs not needing a conjugation, some convenient particle use, and some very logical formation of words...Speaking of logical, and you mentioning Korean, I have heard that Hangul is one of the best designed writing systems on the planet. It being non tonal is also inviting, compared to the other languages your mentioned. I have noticed the phonetics are difficult for native English speakers though. There are variations of plosives, aspirated and non-aspirated sounds to certain degrees that are indistinguishable initially to the ears of anyone who doesn't have this feature in their native language. As for return on investment of time...I think I will pursue a Romance language next. 🤣 The way I see it with language learning is...It's about the journey, not the destination. I enjoy learning, and I feel the process is enough of a return simply because I have fun doing it. The ability to communicate and better understand an area of the globe that would have otherwise been completely alienated to me is also a great benefit, but I honestly have no practical reason to learn. Nov 26 22 03:42 pm Link As far as my English goes, I am often asked where I grew up because of my accent. I have had people remember me as the guy with the accent, but they can't remember my name. I definitely don't sound like I am from the greater Philly area. Living in Florida didn't help. Consider Marlee Matlin's enunciation and the cause. My hearing is better than her's, but that is why people laugh at me when I talk. English might as well be a foreign language to me. I worked in a Chinese restaurant for a couple years in college. The people that ran the roach filled place were Cantonese. Their eldest child, their daughter, just a bit younger than me (and cute), told me I needed to learn some Chinese words for the times I was serving Chinese patrons. She taught to me to say hello by saying "Fàngpì!". (pronounced phom pee- for everyone else's benefit (at least that is how I would spell the sound- good luck with it)). I was smart enough not to ever use it and they eventually came clean on the meaning. Decades later, I was telling this story to a table of Chinese women at a dance. They were laughing hysterically. One of my favorite dance partners is from Singapore. She speaks all of the major dialects of Chinese and her fluency in them and English has been integral to her employment from time to time. We were at the same venue, different month, and one of the other Chinese ladies that frequented the place walked up to her and started speaking Cantonese. A little while later, another woman started speaking to her in Taiwanese. She was certainly capable, but she was surprised they didn't ask her which language she used before starting a conversation. Cantonese was the dominate dialect around Philadelphia. Now it is Mandarin. So I am told. I am hoping to trim the work schedule significantly this winter. My Singaporean friend is recovering from cancer treatments she has undergone the last few months. She needs distractions from time to time. We may get together to help me advance my conversational abilities and to keep her mind occupied. Another Chinese born American I have worked with tells me I know all I need to know to go to China, but I don't think so. Nov 26 22 06:26 pm Link Could have (should have?) posted this in politics or pandemic threads- but here it is: https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-healt … osition_02 SHANGHAI (AP) — Protesters pushed to the brink by China’s strict COVID measures in Shanghai called for the removal of the country’s all-powerful leader and clashed with police Sunday as crowds took to the streets in several cities in an astounding challenge to the government. Police forcibly cleared the demonstrators in China’s financial capital who called for Xi Jinping’s resignation and the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule — but hours later people rallied again in the same spot, and social media reports indicated protests also spread to at least seven other cities, including the capital of Beijing, and dozens of university campuses. Nov 27 22 08:17 am Link Ok, now I understand. I searched on YouTube and I found plenty of videos of her using ASL but nothing actually demonstrated her enunciation, but now I know where you're coming from in regards to accent. That's a funny story with the restaurant. You always have to be suspicious when someone teaches you a random word in another language lol. Cantonese was also the dominant Chinese dialect in NYC when I was growing up. I wasn't smart enough to understand what my Chinese friends meant when they would say "he speaks a different Chinese" than some of my other Chinese friends. I believe the majority of the Chinese population in North America from the Gold Rush all the way through (sometime in the mid 1900's, my history sucks) were mainly from those southern Chinese cities that had access to ports. So in comparison to 普通话 the minority dialects that originally came to America out numbered Mandarin until (again my history sucks) the mid 1980s??? Whenever the combination of American restriction policies, and Chinese isolation policies were again adjusted...that's when the amount of Mandarin speakers in North America began to trend up. So by now it's believable that there are more Mandarin speakers here than in the past. Sounds like your friend has certainly put all those languages to use! I hope she's able to make a strong recovery. Off/still on this already derailed topic...🤣🤣🤣🤣 !!!!!(MODS Please allow me to edit this out if needed???)!!!! I'm not sure if this will be considered spam or not, because it's not a completely random solicitation at this point, and the suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with modeling and has no competition with the site...and I have no affiliation either... Ok, after that disclaimer. The app Hellotalk is EXTREMELY useful for language learning and finding native speakers in your target language. I've been able to make leaps and bounds using it. So if dabbling with languages is something you enjoy, which I have gotten the impression that it is, then maybe check it out. It's not only useful for listening and speaking, but reading and writing as well. Nov 27 22 12:59 pm Link The US military planned to invade Taiwan during WW2, when it was occupied by Japan. The US Tenth Army was organised under the command of Lieutenant General Buckner for this purpose in 1944, but a change of plans resulted in their being sent to Okinawa instead. Nov 30 22 07:04 am Link Is there a summary/digest of these hundreds of posts on how to defend former Formosa?🇹🇼 Nov 30 22 07:15 am Link Keith NYC wrote: I totally agree. Standing in Tiananmen Square I mentioned to my personal guide this is where the students protested in 1989. She totally froze. I dropped it and we proceeded across the street to visit the Forbidden City. Also across the street on the west side is the Great Hall legislative building. A very central spot in Beijing. And at 250 acres, a great place to gather. Nov 30 22 11:29 am Link How many actually believe China will invade Taiwan? A military invasion would take less than a week to overtake Taiwan. I think it's more saber rattling anti-American press to take their citizens minds off domestic issues. Is it working? China's medical system is struggling. One doctor per 60,000 residents. Covid vaccination rates to it's citizens are behind the U.S. and Europe, especially for the elderly. And it's own vaccine is of questionable effectiveness. Total city lockdowns are to limit the impact of a major outbreak to their limited medical system but are affecting business commerce and individual pay. China's annual GDP is down which besides businesses is impacting citizen payrolls and happy workers. Summer drought effected river commerce and hydroelectric power generation but that seems minor now. It's own citizens are seeing the rest of the world getting back to normal and surviving in large groups without masks. They just see pay loss and lack of mobility. So protests are spreading across the country. And the there's foreign trade. Around 25% of it's RMB income comes from the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. Invading Taiwan would probably put all 3 countries on military alert along with evaluating trade status. Nov 30 22 05:16 pm Link rxz wrote: I do think it's quite possible. The current Chinese leadership seems to have a very large ego about their "rights", and how the rest of the world has "no say" on what they believe are strictly "internal" issues (see Hong Kong, etc). The HOPE is that the reaction to Russia's invasion of the Ukraine might just surprise China. But is it enough to actually change the leadership's mind? That's another question altogether. Massive egos do very stupid things, as we've seen over and over again. Nov 30 22 06:30 pm Link LightDreams wrote: Some examples: Nov 30 22 06:58 pm Link LightDreams wrote: What do you do if, like Vladimir Putin, you're the head of a corrupt and increasingly unpopular regime? You start a war to give yourself an excuse to clamp down on dissent in the interests of "national security". Dec 03 22 05:55 am Link LightDreams wrote: What do you do if, like Vladimir Putin, you're the head of a corrupt and increasingly unpopular regime? You start a war to give yourself an excuse to clamp down on dissent in the interests of "national security". Dec 03 22 05:55 am Link JSouthworth wrote: Yes, "Wag the Dog" is the first chapter in "Statecraft for Dummies", First Edition. Subsequent editions note the presence of a large and vocal pre-existing opposition/protest movement making the tactic liable to backfire and be in fact counterproductive. Dec 07 22 09:42 am Link Good article here about Operation Causeway, the planned US invasion of Taiwan in 1945. https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/08/ope … of-taiwan/ Apparently they decided to go for Okinawa instead because it was considered easier to capture, and equally suitable as a staging post for the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. More information here including detailed plans for the invasion with maps: https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/dashboard/se … 6376.xhtml Dec 11 22 05:32 am Link JSouthworth wrote: "Relevance is the concept of one topic being connected to another topic in a way that makes it useful to consider the second topic when considering the first." Dec 14 22 03:24 pm Link JSouthworth wrote: Concerns over operation Causeway seem to have been centered on the limited availability of suitable landing sites, the West coast was apparently considered unsuitable for amphibious landings because of the muddy topography, much of it being in use for rice cultivation. Of course, they didn't have hovercraft in those days... Dec 21 22 06:13 am Link Taiwan, then called Formosa did not see any land combat during World War Two, but aircraft of the Japanese 1st air fleet based there were among those involved in kamikaze attacks on US Navy vessels during Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. The 1956 film Away All Boats contains what is probably the most convincing cinematic portrayal of a kamikaze attack. A lot of money was apparently spent on the action sequences, and these are still quite impressive even if the rest of the movie now seems a little dated in some ways. Jan 01 23 09:00 am Link Meanwhile, back to the topic, and in the real world, "WAR GAME SUGGESTS CHINESE INVASION OF TAIWAN WOULD FAIL AT A HUGE COST TO US, CHINESE AND TAIWANESE MILITARIES" 'A Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026 would result in thousands of casualties among Chinese, United States, Taiwanese and Japanese forces, and it would be unlikely to result in a victory for Beijing, according to a prominent independent Washington think tank, which conducted war game simulations of a possible conflict that is preoccupying military and political leaders in Asia and Washington." "CSIS ran this war game 24 times to answer two fundamental questions: would the invasion succeed and at what cost? The likely answers to those two questions are no and enormous, the CSIS report said." “The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of service members. Such losses would damage the US global position for many years,” the report said. In most scenarios, the US Navy lost two aircraft carriers and 10 to 20 large surface combatants. Approximately 3,200 US troops would be killed in three weeks of combat, nearly half of what the US lost in two decades of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. “China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war,” it said. The report estimated China would suffer about 10,000 troops killed and lose 155 combat aircraft and 138 major ships. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/politics … index.html Jan 09 23 10:02 am Link Interesting, but the RAND Corporation have come to different conclusions and they have more credibility I think. https://www.rand.org/blog/2021/12/preve … aiwan.html Jan 10 23 08:27 am Link Both of these think tank reports have a focus on US goverrnment policy and US military capabilities but it is of course the Taiwanese who are primarily responsible for defending the island using whatever resources are available in the event of a Chinese invasion. Sea mines are perhaps the most obvious means of delaying a Chinese amphibious landing, they would have to clear them before they could put troops with tanks and heavy equipment ashore. The Chinese have various air cushion landing craft, some capable of carrying tanks. These would be vulnerable to mines in shallow water I think. You could have a mine that would sense the sudden drop in the light level as a hovercraft went overhead. Hovercraft are very noisy, so an acoustic sensor could be incorporated as well, this would reduce the risk of accidental detonation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinsha_II-class_LCAC Jan 10 23 09:02 am Link JSouthworth wrote: You misthink. In fact, the Center for Strategic and International Studies is a premier think tank: Jan 10 23 09:01 pm Link Focuspuller wrote: CSIS is a widely respected think tank, but the RAND Corporation employs three times as many staff and if you check their roll of present and past participants, it's very impressive. They became well known for their role in US government policy making during the Cold War in the 1960s. Herman Kahn was a prominent figure during that period. Jan 11 23 04:57 am Link JSouthworth wrote: " the RAND Corporation employs three times as many staff' Jan 11 23 10:56 am Link The US taking advantage of China's strategic blunders in realigning Philippines towards China and away from the US: China Has Lost the Philippines Despite Duterte’s Best Efforts https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/03/ph … -alliance/ U.S. BOOSTS MILITARY PRESENCE IN PHILIPPINES TO COUNTERACT CHINA’S INCREASING AGGRESSION https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-b … aggression "The United States and the Philippines reached an agreement allowing American military forces to operate in four new locations across the nation. The move is aimed at confronting China and its focus on Taiwan, which is only a few hundred miles from one of the new locations where U.S forces will likely operate." Chinese response? Sending a "weather balloon" over the United States. Feb 03 23 10:19 am Link Focuspuller wrote: Herman Kahn was indeed the author of "On Thermonuclear War", a study of the problems of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence theory. The title paraphrases that of Karl von Clausewitz's "On War", published in 1832. He was also a futurologist, he wrote quite a few books on various subjects. Feb 06 23 02:54 am Link JSouthworth wrote: I hope that the "Big Guy" sees this thread. Feb 06 23 09:38 am Link JSouthworth wrote: No, "Strangelove" is not an engineer. Feb 06 23 08:13 pm Link Useful article about Dornberger here; https://nuclear-news.net/2021/08/26/sta … cas-nazis/ Dornberger worked closely with Wernher von Braun on the V2 rocket program and after moving to the US was director of launch operations at Cape Canaveral for some years. Feb 11 23 07:12 am Link Focuspuller wrote: The words "overkill" and "megadeaths" may have found their way from the book into the film, that's possible. But in some ways, "On Thermonuclear War" is really more like a mathematics or economics textbook. Kahn uses the Greek alphabet to denote different types of deterrence, and there are lots of charts and tables, it's quite abstract. He was originally a physicist so he would have been accustomed to writing that way, thinking in mathematical terms and inventing new words for new concepts or to save space, so "million deaths" becomes "megadeaths"; one word replaces two. Feb 11 23 07:25 am Link JSouthworth wrote: ...And unknown to the public, making him a non-choice for caricature in "Dr. Strangelove", which I doubt you have even seen. You see, for satire to work, the references have to be recognizable to the audience, otherwise, you LOSE THE JOKE. As such, Kissinger, Teller, and von Braun were more suitable subjects for caricature, and since you probably have not read On Thermonuclear War, you probably wouldn't know that many Khan concepts were in the movie, like "Doomsday Machine" and “Tragic but Distinguishable Postwar States. ” not to mention "mineshafts." Feb 12 23 10:25 am Link Focuspuller wrote: I read a library copy of "On Thermonuclear War" about 20 years ago, so I'm going by memory to some extent. Feb 13 23 09:09 am Link Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War can be downloaded free in PDF form here; https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1441635907764.pdf Kahn's basic argument is that preparedness for nuclear war can prevent it through deterrence. He considers various different possible nuclear war scenarios as well as the design of nuclear weapons and their effects. Feb 14 23 09:09 am Link JSouthworth wrote: Advocating "deterrence" would not have gotten Kahn the notoriety he popularly achieved. Feb 14 23 02:15 pm Link Focuspuller wrote: Which brings us full circle, back to the infamous Dr Strangelove line: Feb 14 23 04:59 pm Link LightDreams wrote: Exactly. Feb 14 23 05:32 pm Link LightDreams wrote: In his book, Kahn is attempting a comprehensive survey of the problems of nuclear conflict, so for the sake of completeness, he has to mention the doomsday device and plans to use mine shafts as shelters, but they don't receive the emphasis that they get in the movie Dr Strangelove, that is the difference. Feb 15 23 05:26 am Link JSouthworth wrote: Only a dumb ass would not understand that Dr. Strangelove is a completely fictional satire created to mock those that would espouse a limited nuclear conflict. Yet here you are comparing it to the very real and (stupid) Kahn musings. Par for the course with you. Feb 15 23 06:31 am Link |
