Black Dragon Cafe

230-year-old tortoise dies
(From ChinaDaily.com: ) Updated: 2006-12-26 09:44

A rare 230-year-old tortoise died at Shanghai Zoo recently, where it lived for 35 years, leaving only four of the species left in the world.

The zookeeper said the tortoise was found in Gejiu, Yunnan Province, in 1971. The rare species has only been found in two regions in China the Taihu Lake in Jiangsu Province and the Honghe River in Yunnan Province. The zoo was saddened by the loss as it considered the tortoise to be in good condition. But a post-mortem examination showed its liver was damaged.

(Shanghai Morning Post )

Actually a turtle, Rafetus swinhoei , commonly known as the Shanghai soft-shell turtle or Yangtze giant soft-shell turtle, it had a shell one and half meters long when it died. More information in English at the asiaturtlenetwork.org and Wikipedia. Of the four left, only two are together (in the Western Temple, Suzhou), of venerable age and sex unknown, so the chance of them getting their Darwinian freak on are depressingly slim.

A Yunnanese expression that means to be extremely angry. It was explained to me as someone being so outraged that green flames start shooting around their head.

鬼火绿 literally “ghost fire green”
gui1 huo4 lu4

You can also separate it:
鬼火一头就绿起来的
gui1 huo4 yi4 tow4 jiu4 lu4 qi3 lair4 de3

Example sentence:

那个崴人做点事雀神怪鸟呢, 我鬼火太绿啦。
ner4 ge4 wey1 ren4 zuo4 dier3 si4 chuo1 shen1 guai3 niao4 ne, wo4 gui1 huo4 tair4 lu4 la.
Literally: That twisted person does things in a “sparrow spirit strange bird” way, it makes my ghost flames too green.
English: That sketchy bloke does everything so half-arsed, it pisses me off no end.

In Mandarin, 鬼火 gui3 huo3 means “will-o-the-wisp”, green ethereal fires that appear at night, especially around graves, said to be lit by ghosts. It is unrelated to the above expression. If you wanted to convey the “ghost fire green” anger in Mandarin, the usual equivalent is pedestrian expressions like 愤怒 (fen4 nu4) or just 非常生气 (fei1 chang2 sheng1 qi4). There is however this one that I’ve mentioned before:

七窍生烟
qi1 qiao4 sheng1 yan1
Which means “[so angry that] smoke shoots from every orifice of the head”

Xin Ru Yue Vegetarian Restaurant - View of Santa

Just behind Santa in Dali is a new vegetarian restaurant opened by Stanley Tong (Hong Kong director of The Myth, Rumble in the Bronx) and his rumoured girlfriend Ruby Lin . In 2005 Lin shot a CCTV television serial near here entitled Dali Princess , and as far as I can figure out Tong’s new film Love in the City also used Dali as a backdrop.

To get there take the No. 19 bus from Dali old town to the square at the bottom of Santa, then a RMB 5 minivan up to the main entrance of Chongshengsi temple , it’s right next door.

The restaurant menu includes “mock” dishes , using tofu, mushrooms, and other vegetables to replicate meat – the cold duck starter is particularly realistic.

A private room - free for minimum ten people

Shang Kaiwei owns and runs a chain of driving schools and several taxi cab firms. A successful businessman in his sixties, he has long been a collector, though his collections are a little diverse. They include Mao badges and photographs from the Cultural Revolution, laughing Buddha statues, weird crystal formations, American-made toy cars, bonsai, millstones and antiques.

Millstones	Photo of Zhu De meeting Mei Lanfang.	Each draw contains over one hundred badges, a collection of thousands.

These hand-turned millstones were used to grind various grains and legumes (soy beans and peas) into a paste. They’ve now largely been replaced by machines.

The car collection….

It may be a little difficult to make out from the photo, but it’s a model of President Kennedy’s car just before a shadowy figure poked his head above a grassy knoll.

Christmas supplies available at Yunfang wholesale market in Kunming (云纺商业区) under and behind Carrefour on the Double Dragon Bridge bustop (双龙桥), south ringroad. In Dali go to the Purple Cloud Traders Market (紫云商贸区).
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