Chinese football team goes to UK, fights break out everywhere

Apparently the Chinese side forgets that they are not in China and no angry mob is going to come to their aid. Nice spin by the chinese press even though it completely contradicts the video.

More fuel for the next Boxer Rebellion!

From what I saw on news, the QPR boys had been putting some fairly crunching tackles in throughout the game, but that's English football for you. And the lower down the divisions you go, the more physical it gets.

The flare up for the the fight was when the defender marking the Chinese striker clipped his heels when the ball was miles away. Not exactly legal, but again a fairly typical English footie thing done to wind up the striker, get in his head. And then came a display of typical Chinese mental toughness, because the wind up totally worked: the striker whirled round and tried to punch the defender. They start grappling, the striker gets picked up and thrown to the ground. and then everyone joins in. The Chinese striker gets knocked out and his jaw broken.

Not English football's proudest moment - and there's plenty of 'previous' let's face it. But the rough stuff is par for the course in lower league football there. And if the Chinese players can't handle anything more physical than a 'fight' where everyone waves their arms and yells and then gets pulled away by their buddies, then...don't go on tour to the UK guys! Go somewhere like one of those tiny Arab or S-E Asian countries you love thrashing in World Cup Qualifiers.

Not to worry, they can do another one of their internet lynch mob things now to restore hurt national feelings!

I can imagine the next few weeks will be a little rough for british expats in "super-dooper all mighty center of the world capitalists' paradise future and rightful ruler of the world".

Because everyone looks down on China.

R u ashamed, Bob? The reason I use English rathern than use Chinese is I am quite sure you never know any character of Chinese, do not you?

Yeah, but Chinese is a very primitive language without an alphabet and only rudimentary grammar. Children must spend years of their early development just to learn how to write this language. That, and it is perhaps the most unpleasant sounding language in existence.

How has such rubbish persisted for so long?

If somebody is desperately untutored for the culture and language of a great nation, I am astonished that he so louadly talks about it in public.

For Janet, maybe you are enjoying the modern technologies you have already own...but, is it wrong that these things are also owned by the commonest people in our country? Furthermore, are all these so-called advanced things solely developped by England? By you? What a joke!

My conclusion is: before you so silly call the Chinese football fans as "mob" - that is the reason make me so angry - wash your dirty ass and retreat your army from other countries, and return the treasures you shamelessly robbed from the Forbidden City...

References for those who are still living in the 19th century:

1. The rubbish "The Times"?

gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1003/0/6/4/100306406.html?coluid=48&kindid=0&docid=100306406

2. A very primitive American girl

gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1003/0/6/1/100306124.html?coluid=49&kindid=972&docid=100306124

Just look at the pictures. I know your primitive computer can never display Chinese, if its master is still living in an ancient time.
Just look at the pictures. I know your primitive computer can never display Chinese, if its master is still living in an ancient time.

1. Chairman Mao refused SU's request to establish a long-wave radio base in China
2. China-SU relation completely deteriated in the end of 1950s, no more than 10 years after the establishment of New China.
3. A War between China and SU in 1969. A distroyed Tank now exhibited in Beijing Military Museum.
4. China condemned SU's invasion to Afghanistan in 1979.
5. China fighted again Viet Nam in 1980s, which was supported by SU.
6. SU collapsed, and China says NO.
7. Russia and China...Dog? R u joking?

Go to hell, grandson of opium seller and robber - how shameless your ancestors have done in China!

Forget your wizard-lick prediction, which never realized in the past centuries...

Finally, i would help you to recall how confusedly HMS Amethystthe, the final british warship in China, ran away from Yangzi River. This, is your destiny, you should have already realized the sorrow of a falling empire. Let me comfort your deeply hurt heart and dignity Hahahahaha!!!

Look at Hong Kong before 1949, managed by the Great Empire for near 100 year: poverty, poverty, and poverty...

Why did Hong Kong rise so rapidly? Where was its democracy in 150 years? Its governor was nominated by a queen, was not it? Read more historic book, OK?

BTW, if the CNY:USD ratio steadily increases, the living conditions in most large Chinese cities will rapidly approach that of Hong Kong.

"Forget your wizard-lick prediction"? For the love of god, will you imbeciles stop using our language and just type some fancy characters to look at? I need some tattoo ideas for the moment.

It's shameful and frightening how few cool heads there are amongst the readership. Both sides.

Evidences of racism:

"angry mob" in comment 1,

" Go somewhere like one of those tiny Arab or S-E Asian countries you love thrashing in World Cup Qualifiers" in comment 2

I am just astonished why the administrator here did not delete these notorous sentences.

As for Hong Kong, forget your wonderful achievements before 1949 - Shanghai was much much more outstanding in Far East then!

A more convincing proof is India, where you planted opinium and sold it to China. The poor indians became the poorest slaves in the 19 and 20 centuries!

And more countries ever shamelessly occupied by the Empire: Iraq, Afganistan....what you brought to them? War, hungry, rape, heavy taxes,...anything else? Iraq became a strong country after independence, and now your troops again distroyed this country, for what? God bless you and let you find any convincing proofs there!

One more fact you silly head will never understand: Hong kong, before 1997, had already controlled by Chinese underneath societies, and it was Chinese there achieved the economic growth. Your foolish governers could do nothing but hoggishly collecting numerous taxes to your queen to support their luxery lives!

Right, I'll judge it by the lack of not unintelligent comments and assume that those people who choose not to comment would have something really intelligent and insightful to say or have better things to do. Of course, that assumption is absurd.

The fact that so few amongst the readership have anything useful to add in response to the above says plenty about the readership, which as of this posting is one fewer.

@ byebye

We don't censor comments on Shanghaiist. Your comment (if you also go by the name "More funny") got flagged by our SPAM filter. I am assuming it was the word "rape" that caused the holdup, since lots of spammers like to post comments about their awesome rape video websites. Anyway, sorry for the delay -- I am on vacation. Your comment is up now.

Dan

"And what has China done for the countries it occupies? Tibet, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Mongolia? Nothing but pollution, resource stealing, complete subjegation, corruption and abuse."

Amen to that.

UK did that 50 years ago, China still does that today, even so far as to commit gays as "mentally ill". I imagine a Chinese mental institution is just a ball, especially for someone who has no mental illness. China doesn't enslave those it conquers? Today, the natives of the occupied territories around China, even the minorities that were conquered long ago, must go through their Han masters for any kind of business loan. Political aspirations? Forget about it. Just keep making toys for tourists and shining shoes.
Bad, bad china.

Ya..UK doing very well, but yet their Lotus have to be sold to Malaysian car maker, UK is like a dog of American...

Thank you, Dan.

Thank you so much. I should have used words more cautiously, and I fully understand the spam-filtering rules of your system.

I just hope this website will allow the historic facts and justice speak out loadly, rather than racism, prejudience, and rumors.

Even my son in the primary school can also tell you what they are learning about...sign, why dont you study in a Chinese primary school for a few years? I am tried of teaching brainless guys like you.

BTW, If he's in a good school, then I am sure he's learning English!

i can see a lot of rich men and wise guy don't speak or write excellent english like nanheyangrouchuan does. Anyhow, i can see why they are gaining more respect than most of us here. A respected man should be able to analyze the whole situation well to give everybody his fair opinion on the issue but not raising out the weaknesses of their opponents not related at all to the argument. How can we criticize something that we have no knowledge in it at all, am i right nanheyangrouchuan?

i can see many other languages that is far worse than Chinese/ mandarin in term of its complicated characters and grammar. Why leveraging the opportunity to attack Chinese in this case?
A fair comment here, academic education of sportman in Asia is generally lower than other atheletes in Europe or America. It is maybe one of the reasons that Asian sportman don't handle well in a lot of tense situation besides throwing out their punches to vent their anger. Language is another main reason. It would maybe not end up in fighting if the chinese lad had the ability to have the verbal arguments with the blacks. Nothing he could do to provoke the niggers but doing something which is stupid enough to cause himself and his country in shame.

After I watched this video, I felt shame on this QPR, F.... Brits.... Why they always use the black dogs for their low class sports? the 19th century is over, now is 21st, British, you have nothign can be proud for now!

Not having an alphabet is stupid and primitive, period.

@incheef. ever thought that you might be the stupid (and primitive) one for not understanding anything other than alphabets. Also as I understand it, doesn't the Chinese language have an alphabet system for aiding dumbasses like you. I believe it's called pingying.

Oh, that's "word game." So sorry, my English very poor.

It's a conceptual matter. By definition, modern languages have certain attributes, an alphabet being one of the most basic. Chinese is a primitive language. You see a dog, so you draw a picture of a dog, and that drawing comes to represent both dog-object and the spoken word meaning "dog." However, there is no logical connection between the spoken and written form in Chinese.

Say,

A = written word
B = meaning of the world
C = pronunciation of the word

In English and modern language (and even not-so-modern languages), there are logical connections between each component (this won't show-up very well, but I am trying to make a tree-like structure):

A
/ \
B - C

A is connected to B, B to C, and C to A. There is a complete circuit of meaning.

In Chinese, however, the connections are only

A
/
B - C

A is connected to B, B to C, but NOT C to A. This is more complicated, and less meaningful.

Sorry. You can be as angry as you like, but it won't change anything.

The subcomponents are called "radicals" (in English) and sometimes they give you an indication of pronunciation, but it is by no means a purely phonetic language. Chinese is what is referred to as a "ideographic" language, which is a more advanced version of what you will find in cave-paintings wherein writing actually represents the object it describes.

Further, the Chinese language has a great deal of difficulty approximating other languages. If you will read a Chinese map, then you will notice how incredibly clumsy the language is at approximating other languages and place names, then you will understand why the Chinese use the Roman alphabet to approximate the sounds of their own language: it is simply more accurate in expressing the full range of sounds.

Additionally, there are a huge number of homonyms in Chinese, which is why Chinese will go to such great lengths in speech in order to clarify to which character they are referring (e.g. gege de ge) and why attempts at alphabetizing Chinese have failed. Moreover, the vast majority of words in mandarin end in vowels (not a concept in Chinese), which further limits the ability of the language's range of expression.

Sorry if I sound chauvinistic to your ears, but when I look at systems for doing things be they languages or engineering tasks, I tend to look at them based-up fairly objective criteria. As the argument develops, it becomes more civilized. Anyway, you can read about this stuff written by professionals whose only concern is deducing the structure and origins of languages, but most fundamentally, it's just a waste of time and effort to memorize thousands of characters just to become literate. If Chinese were a computer language, it would not be very popular.

As for the phonetic alphabet, I will not address your arguments directly, but let's suffice it to say that ideographs are not the way of the future. As for the "tadpole" argument, that is absurd, and makes about as much sense as Chinese who believe that if you eat an eggplant you will have nice skin because an eggplant has nice skin. This is just simple, childlike thinking.

As for tenses and pluralization, any language could do without those attributes if they, like Chinese, relied upon being contextual. In Chinese or in any language, if you understand the context, you do not strictly need to apply these conventions for understanding. But still, there is greater room for misunderstanding if the meaning is not intrinsic to the language but relies upon the externalities of context.

Ending on a positive note, let me say this: the written form of Chinese is certainly more aesthetically pleasing than most other, if not all other languages, which is why it is often used decoratively.

I have been checking in on the development of this comment thread for awhile, and only recently felt a desire to add my two cents' worth.

incheef, you have a reasonably well-argued position, and while I agree on several points, I take issue with the core of your original comment that Chinese is "very primitive" and that its grammar is "rudimentary." I won't address the obviously biased opinion that it is also "perhaps the most unpleasant sounding language in existence."

The development of an alphabet more closely (although as ange pointed out, also not directly) linked does not necessarily imply that Chinese is more primitive. One could reasonably argue that it is more advanced, such that it is more difficult to learn, as you point out. So perhaps your word choice was not the most appropriate... "inefficient" perhaps? But even then, Chinese works as well in allowing Chinese speakers to express themselves as English does English speakers.

And no language is particularly great at approximating other languages, so I'm not sure how this is an indictment of Chinese. There is now an accepted romanization of Mandarin, pinyin, which you note. But it is only loosely based on the accepted standard pronunciations of those letters--it does not follow the pronunciation of standard English (or any other language using the same alphabet); students of Chinese must learn it separately because applying English/French/Spanish/etc. pronunciations would be incorrect. English (my own native language) is also quite poor at accommodating other languages, in this case Chinese. I invite you or anyone else to write 上海 or 厦门 in English (not pinyin). To exclude the issue of tones, I would argue that whatever anyone could come up with would sound no sillier than, say, "Dekasasi" (the pinyin for Texas).

As to the idea of Chinese having rudimentary, as in basic, immature, undeveloped: sure, it is basic. But if you meant to include that it is also immature, I disagree. The simpler structure of it is able to accommodate complicated grammatical points. Is this not the mark of an advanced language? You say it is silly that students must learn thousands of characters to be proficient in Chinese; is it not silly that students of English or French must memorize thousands of verb conjugations and other grammar? Which language is more modern in this sense? You use the word "contextual" as if it were a pejorative, and as if English did not rely on this to a certain extent as well.

yes, and verb conjugations and grammar are not simply memorized, but based upon rules, admittedly to which there are exceptions.

and two, "shang high" and "shya mun" are a much closer approximation than "Dekasasi," which isn't remotely close. Approach English and Chinese speakers and test this, and I assure you that the Romanized Chinese place names are more recognizable. "Dekasasi" doesn't even begin with the same consonant and it has four syllables instead of the original two, where as in the romanized Chinese, the sounds and syllable count is well-preserved.

No language is perfect, but some are highly developed systems with more-or-less internally consistent rules and interrelated parts that facilitate learning, preserve the clarity and accuracy of meaning, easily incorporate new concepts and new words, and are simple to use.

Okay, that's the end of my part in this conversation. Thanks.

incheef:

1) "One could reasonably argue that it is more advanced, such that it is more difficult to learn, as you point out." is ridiculous AND indefensible? I didn't propose it as fact, but rather offered it as a possible argument, logically constructed. As in: one could argue that calculus is more advanced than arithmetic.

A better example of a ridiculous and indefensible comment would be your own: Chinese "is perhaps the most unpleasant sounding language in existence."

2) Your belief that "shang high" and "shya mun" would necessarily be better understood than "Dekasasi" illustrates how little you know about the Chinese language in general, and the importance of tones specifically. Assuming (and this is a big assumption) the speaker would have enough cues from those romanizations to pronounce the word correctly, the absence of correct tones would render the word almost incomprehensible to a Chinese speaker. Ask any person that has used the wrong tone, and the confusion it has generated. And before you point to this as another example of its lack of utility, there are many examples of this in English as well (incorrect syllable stress, for example, creates similar confusion, or simple mispronunciation of consonant/vowel sounds).

Why can't we agree that all languages are bad at accommodating other languages?

3) Yes, let's allow the market to decide. Pick up a newspaper (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201547.html) or listen to the radio (www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5410553) and you will find stories about how the United States can't find Chinese teachers fast enough to meet demand, and how the US government is promoting the study of Chinese language with federal funding. Like it or not, Chinese is going to be around even longer.

Did you just say Esperanto is perfect? I hope that's a joke--I'm bad at reading sarcasm in comments. Its spectacular failure would go very much against your argument that the market will choose your perceived "better" language(s).

Point well taken on the imperfect math analogy. You are correct, Arithmetic: Calculus is not exactly :: English: Chinese. However I stand by the basic idea I was trying to get across, which is that, frequently, when something is more advanced, it is more difficult to understand and master. Simply a little devil's advocate stab at your argument.

Your self-assessment that your Chinese is good has clearly won the argument. As an aside, I find it odd that you would take the time to study such a backward, unpleasant-sounding language. Oh, right: it's decorative.

incheef:

You have got to be kidding me. Please, don't take yourself so seriously. I have given credit to you in several cases, and conceded your well-argued points. There have been some playful digs at you as well, in the spirit of this forum. How can YOU accuse ME of "bitchy, childish attitudes" when this was the conclusion to your first comment on the subject:

"[Chinese] is perhaps the most unpleasant sounding language in existence. How has such rubbish persisted for so long?"

You think pretty highly of yourself and your debating skills, yet you do not actually address most of my questions or positions. Nor do you really support some of your own bold claims. A couple of my favorites:

"...by definition, the lack of an alphabet sets Chinese among the world's most primitive languages." Who's definition?

"Not having an alphabet is stupid and primitive, period." How mature. Obviously an intellectual heavyweight.

Regarding Esperanto, I didn't claim to be an expert, and I don't know how me demonstrating encyclopedic knowledge of it is necessary. I do know that it was created with the intention of being a universal language, and with simple, easy-to-learn grammar. I also know that almost nobody speaks it, and that its future as a universal language is bleak at best. This is an excellent example of what you consider a modern, efficient language in contrast to the "primitive" "rubbish" that is Chinese--yet it will not survive. I think bringing it up is relevant.