Toward Better Tones in Natural Speech - Dr. Liao (of the Defense Language Institute) suggests re-conceptualizing tones in Mandarin to take into account natural speech patterns and tone changes within sentences:

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Stumbling Towards Apotheosis

First Sentence: I had Santa Clause in the cross-hairs…

Last Sentence: Granted but a single wish, he asked only for the wisdom to use it. 

No characters or plot yet. Help me fill in the details.

In an editorial, ‘Walking along a French Corner, Revealing T|bet’s History” (走上法国街头，展示西藏历史) in yesterday’s Global Times, Professor He Qing (of Tsinghua and Zhejiang Universities) writes:

During the 10 years I spent in France, I conversed with countless French people about T|bet. You could say that for every 10 French people, 9 would be of the opinion ‘T|bet is an independent state – China’s army invaded and is currently occupying (T|bet).’ I’m not sure if this is because of the French education system, the media, or the result of long-term indoctrination. Regardless, the general conviction (among French) is that T|bet is an independent country. 

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“It’s really very difficult to say for certain, as these problems are extremely complex, but I feel that Great Leader Chairman Mao would agree with American Treasury Department Overlord Paulson and his “save-market scheme.”**

其实很难说，因为这些情况挺复杂、但是我觉得伟大领袖毛主席会同意美国财政部保尔森霸主的“救市方案”。
(Qí shí hěn nán shuō, yīn wèi zhè xiē qíng kuàng tǐng fù zá, dàn shì wǒ jué de wěi dà lǐng xiù máo zhǔ xí huì tóng yì měi guó cái zhèng bù bǎo ěr sēn bà zhǔ de “jiù shì fāng àn.”)

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If current trends continue, the CCP and its subsidiaries will soon own most of the U.S. – ironic that. There is only one logical choice: capitulation and appeasement. As such I’ve expedited my Chinese resume project – though the glamour photo will probably be replaced by something more stern and serious, indicating efficiency and productivity. 

And you can have one too, with my user friendly template (turn comments on for translations) and a little copy-pasting from an online dictionary like www.nciku.com. Chinese resumes are pretty formulaic – it’s like filling out a character sheet or application, so directly translating things isn’t all that difficult. It’s also not unusual just to list “Date – Employer – Title” without lengthy explanations of duties. You could even use English for the aforementioned. 

You will of course notice a few linguo-cultural format differences:

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English is one of the eleven official languages in South Africa. English was introduced by the British at the end of the 18^th century. Most white settlers at the time were either of Dutch descent and spoke Afrikaans, or of British descent. Over time, words from Afrikaans and other indigenous languages (Zulu, Xhosa) were incorporated into a form of the English that is distinctly South African. Here are some South African words and expressions.

Bakkie = pick up truck

Braai = cook out

Is it? = really?

Plaster = band aid

Robot = traffic light

“Just now,” “now” and “now now” = expressions to describe Africa time

After creating a google earth kmz file to instruct people as to my present location; it occurred to me that someone such as myself – who has lived in all sorts of places but has no real remunerative skills to speak of, could create a semi-interactive map-resume (resumap) using a kmz file. You could even attach pictures / other types of files to demonstrate skills, and fill in entry details with material you’d otherwise put in the content section of a resume. Here’s the start of mine:

Not quite sure how to send this to employers. Will report on success, if any.