Organization: Penn State University
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 19:05:06 EST
From: <SCW112@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.tv.seinfeld
Subject: Re: >>>>>>A small complaint
 <1992Nov14.001203.17240@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
 <FRANL.92Nov14204653@draco.centerline.com>
 <1992Nov15.182802.2203@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

In article <1992Nov15.182802.2203@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
mlibucha@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Libucha) says:
>
>In article <FRANL.92Nov14204653@draco.centerline.com> franl@centerline.com    n
>(Fra
>Litterio) writes:
>>mlibucha@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Libucha) writes:
>>
>>> ssimmons@convex.com (Steve Simmons) writes:
>>
>>> >I think that his Chinese fine; it may just be Cantonese.
>>>
>>> He was certainly understandable, but the speech was so halting and stilted,
>>> I'd bet your life that he's not even a speaker of any Chinese
>>> "dialect" (language).
>>
>>According to Yuanhui Liu (liuyh@vis.toronto.edu):
>>
>>  ... he was speaking PROPER Mandarin on the phone about
>>  the "101" hair grower, and then took of on a tangent on other things with
>>  the speaker on the other end of the phone while George eagerly waiting
>>  there for an answer, Understood what he was saying I was rolling on the
>floor,
>>  dying of laughter.
>>
>>Read the followups to your own articles.
>>--
>
>Lighten up, Fran. I do read the follow-ups to my articles.
>
>It's not clear that "proper" means "fluent" or "native". In fact, I'll bet
>it means "standard". There are a lot of dialects of Mandarin, and the
>dialect spoken in Beijing (and/or in Dongbei) is considered Standard
>Mandarin. The often-used term in Standard Mandarin for "Standard Mandarin"
>is "biaozhun putonghua". I assumed this is what Mr./Ms. Liu meant. Only
>s/he can say for sure.
>
>Mark
>
>
>
>
Yeah. The guy was speaking the kind of Mandarin that you'd learn if you were
taking it in college or something. I'm not a native speaker (born here in the
States) but my parents speak it to each other and since I'm always listening in
I can understand it pretty well. I haven't seen that episode in a while, but as
I remember you could tell the actor wasn't a native speaker because he was
speaking very slowly. His pronunciation was good, though, but I seem to
remember a _slight_ American accent. Not sure. I guess that's what got the guy
who complained about his pidgen English -- the fact that the actor was an
Asian-American who probably spoke fluent English but had to play a role in
which he had to fake an accent. Of course, that is how most Chinese delivery
people speak, granted.

As to what he was saying, if I had a tape of it, I could tell you. From what I
remember he was asking about the guy's family and stuff and talking about
totally unrelated topics like the weather (I think). It was funny because
George was all excited about what the guy was saying and about the hair tonic,
when he was actually just carrying on a conversation that had nothing to do
with the hair tonic. I seem to remember also that after like 30 seconds, while
George continues to hassle the guy about the hair tonic, the person talking on
the phone says something like "Well, I'd better go, this guy is annoying the
hell out of me." Something like that.

Steve Wei
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