Comments on: More Scuffles with the Bank, Part 4: My ‘Happy Ending’

By: Okay, No More Excuses, I Don’t Even Have a Job - China, China Construction Bank, Chinese, Linyi, Phil, Plane, RMB, Shanghai, stolen, wallet, yuan,

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:44:07 +0000

[...] well have been. He just forgot his pass code. You can read all about it here, here, here, and here. It’s a lot of reading, but worth it. The memory of this post put the fear of God in [...]

By: Lu Kai Rui

Lu Kai Rui — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:55:58 +0000

Hello Ben… where can I get a copy of your kindergarden writing scrap book and a typhoon to ensure I’m not distracted

By: Benjamin Ross

Benjamin Ross — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:30:12 +0000

@ Tong

150/hr was the standard laowai tutor rate when I lived in Fuzhou from ‘05 to ‘07. At one point the rate was dipping down to between 100 and 125, but thanks to a text message campaign among Fuzhou’s several hundred Westerners, we were able to work wages back up to 150/hr by systematically refusing all offers of less. And who says China doesn’t have labor unions?

By: Tong

Tong — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:46:09 +0000

150 RMB/hr? Tutoring during the college days, we would be thrilled to get 15RMB/hr, most often than not we got 10RMB/hr. The pretty and bold ones would dress in tight red shots and high white boots and work in the bars as Budweiser girls, they got 1RMB per Budweiser they sold.

150RMB/hr * 40 hr = 6000RMB, a week salary of one foreign tutor > a Chinese professor’s a month salary. Wow!

By: penny

penny — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:48:34 +0000

It’s really a good place to learn english! Thanks!

By: chriswaugh_bj

chriswaugh_bj — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:08:22 +0000

English learner, I’d say there’s no real difference between single and double quotes. Both are used for pretty much the same reasons. It’s a question of style, not grammar or “the rules” or ‘the rules’.

By: Benjamin Ross

Benjamin Ross — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:12:59 +0000

@ English Learner

Good Question. Glad you asked. As a former teacher, it’s one of my own major pet peeves when English learners ignore punctuation rules, (especially proper spacing after punctuation when typing, which is a huge problem with Chinese students for some reason).

To answer your question though, there really was no real reason. Sometimes I use English quotes when I am drawing emphasis to a word, or indicating it might be implying a double entendre. I’m really not sure if this is a proper use for quotes or not (my guess it’s is not), but it’s something I’ve just gotten accustomed to doing from time to time over the years. Usually for magazine names, I would put them in italics.

By: English learner

English learner — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:59:02 +0000

Do you mind English punctuation question? Why did you use single quotes in ‘My happy Ending’ rather than double quotes? Isn’t it that single quotes are more for things like brand names (like magazine names etc)?