README.adoc

** Soupe aux nouilles pimentées
--
* Noodle bar
+
31 Rue nationale, 75013 Paris, France
* Chez Shen
+
39 Rue au Maire, 75003 Paris, France
* Dosanko Larmen
+
40 Rue Sainte-Anne, 75002 Paris
+
Order big portion at your own risk. :-)
+
Last checked: 2017/04
* Chez Mamie (外婆家)
+
18 Rue du Grenier-Saint-Lazare, 75003 Paris,
+
Last checked: 2017/06

[[resturants--france--marseille]]
==== Marseille 马赛

* Shanghai kitchen
+
14 Cours Jean Ballard, 13001 Marseille, France

[[restaurants--uk]]
=== United Kingdom 英国

Bibilography:

* https://www.honglingjin.co.uk/category/foods-and-restaurants-in-the-uk/chinese-restaurants

[[restaurants--uk--london]]
==== London 伦敦

[[restaurants--uk--london--little-wooden-hut]]
===== Little Wooden Hut 小木屋

Address:

....
Little Newport Street
WC2H 7JJ
....

Last checked: 2016/08

Not yet on Google maps so I don know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.

Chinese review: http://www.ukchinese.com/News/2016-05-07/15299.html

[[resturants--uk--london--murger-han]]
===== Murger han

Address:

....
8A Sackville St
Mayfair, London
W1S 3EZ
....

Website: http://www.murgerhan.com/

Last checked: 2019/01

Cuisine: Xi'an

Biangbiang noodles with all extras zhongla is amazing!!! Niuroupaomo OK, but not exciting. Roujiamo not very interesting, too bland for my taste.

[[resturants--uk--london--tier-2]]
===== London tier 2

[[restaurants--uk--london--chinese-tapas-house-london]]
====== Chinese Tapas House

Address:

....
Little Newport Street
WC2H 7JJ
....

Not yet on Google maps so I don know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.

Jianbing guozi, interesting spicy fast food.

[[restaurants--uk--london--rice-coming-restaurant]]
====== Rice Coming Restaurant 米齐临

Rice noodles are good, and small dishes authentic.

Address: 10A Coptic St, Holborn, London WC1A 1NH

Last checked: 2019-04

Website: https://ricecoming.business.site/

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge]]
==== Cambridge 剑桥

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--spring-restaurant]]
===== Spring Restaurant 春天

Address:

....
66 Mill Rd
CB1 2AS
....

Last checked: 2017/08

Spicy chicken with pasta and potatoes.

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--seven-days]]
===== Seven Days 天天美食剑桥

Address:

....
66 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

[[resturants--uk--cambridge--72-china]]
===== @72 China

Address:

....
72 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

Douhuaniurou 豆花牛肉, kaoyu.

[[resturants--uk--cambridge--golden-house]]
===== Golden House

Address:

....
12 Lensfield Rd
CB2 1EG
....

Meicaikourou, luobo bing.

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--1-1-rougamo]]
===== 1 + 1 Rougamo

Tier: 2

Address:

....
84 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

Last checked: 2019/05

Roujiamo very good. Also good: broad noodles, 凉皮.

[[restaurants--uk--oxford]]
==== Oxford 牛津

[[restaurants--uk--oxford--a-taste-of-china]]
===== A Taste Of China 三秦百味

Tier: 2

https://goo.gl/maps/oERKCv6Q8a32

Last checked: 2019/03

Redamian good, Biangbiangmian not as interesting. Nice people working there. Two two seat tables only, mostly takeaway. Fair price.

[[restaurants--uk--oxford--xi-an]]
===== Xi'an

Tier: 3

https://goo.gl/maps/DrDCPKWnG2M2

Last checked: 2019/03

Not real Chinese food I'm afraid. Songshuyu not cut correctly into stripes and too much liquid sauce. Sijidou beans not dry enough, maybe need more frying. Early immigration (1968, mentioned on menu), almost no Chinese clients. Nice decoration and environment.

[[restaurants--uk--sheffield]]
==== Sheffield 谢菲尔德

* China Red Restaurant
+
3 Rockingham Gate, Sheffield S1 4JD, United Kingdom
+
Last checked: 2016/06, shuizhuyu.

[[restaurants--brazil]]
=== Brazil 巴西

[[restaurants--brazil--sao-paulo]]
==== Sao Paulo 圣保罗

* Chuanxiangyuan Restaurante (川香园餐馆 )
+
\R. Barão de Iguape, 47 - Liberdade, São Paulo - SP
+
Eat the big fish dishes, they are worth it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuqi_feipian was not very good.
+
Free tea was good.
+
Rice could be better.
+
Owners are actually from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin , not Sichuan, as implied by the 川 in the name of the restaurant. GF told me that those big fish dishes are typical from there.
+
Last checked: 2016/01/09

[[restaurants--canada]]
=== Canada 加拿大

[[restaurants--canada--montreal]]
==== Montreal 加拿大蒙特利尔，

Last checked: 2016/01

* Cuisine Szechuan
+
2350 Rue Guy, Montréal, QC H3H 2M2, Canada
* Kanbai
+
1110 Rue Clark, Montréal, QC H2Z 1K3, Canada Good
* Délice oriental
+
1858 Rue Ste-Catherine O, Montréal, QC H3H 1M1

Not worth it:

* Chez Chili
+
1050B rue Clark

== Chinese television 中国电视

Modern themed television is generally crap due to <<censorship>>, but this leads to a big focus on ancient stuff, and some of it is amazing.

* 1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms_(TV_series) | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/三国演义_(电视剧) The best  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms[Three Kingdoms 三国] adaptation of all time? Mind blowing. There seems to exist a version with full Chinese + English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_r3eWfTMDs&list=PLdAMXqGeRsOkXzuocRkBPhe5RhZ6RotGH&index=2

[[learn-chinese]]
== Tips to learn Chinese 学习中文方法建议

To read on the net, https://www.perapera.org/[Perapera] obviously, see also: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.

To overhear people and learn characters/new words Pleco: https://www.pleco.com/

When you want to learn "how to say something in Chinese", the only valid routes are:

* does it have a Wikipedia page? Go on the English one then change language
* put an English sentence on https://translate.google.com/[Google Translate], then Google for it.
+
If it is a common word, it will give useless dictionary results, so search instead with `site:bbc.com` or `site:zhihu.com`.
+
Then find a sentence that contains the word written by a native Chinese, and understand the full sentence to confirm that it means what you want it to mean in a similar context.
+
Just using the Google translate directly will lead 70% to a weird/wrong/incomprehensible translation that no Chinese person would ever say.

Good content:

* 几分钟看完: illegal 10 minute summaries of movies with clips from the movies and a narrator speaking quickly instead of movie sounds.
+
Some have Chinese subtitles, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFSMvtS6SYQ and it is great content to learn from, because it is someone telling a not too boring story in a natural and clear way, with supporting images to help with context.

=== Chinese character sentence component mnemonic systems

Associate one word to each character/character component.

One good way to find mnemonics is to just Google for whatever random words you want to fit into a sentence. You end up learning fun things this way, and those make the best mnemonics.

Then to learn a new character, break it down into components, and create a sentence or short story that includes all the component words.

* <<characters>>: our own!!!!!
* http://rtega.be/chmn/ CC-BY-NO-SA but not clear way to contribute to it
* Proprietary books
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824833236 "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson from 2008. This is the classic.
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/9881919339 STICK by Dr. Melanie Schmidt ed.
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/109565960X "Learn Chinese Characters: Easy Mnemonics to Memorize Hanzi: 400+ Characters, 700+ Vocabulary, 1300+ Practice Questions with Solutions" by L Castelluzzo

Japanese Kanji:

* proprietary:
** https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-radicals-mnemonic-method/
** https://www.wanikani.com/

== Chinese cheat

Single author open source Pleco + "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" in a single .adoc file? Let's go.

We'd use http://rtega.be/chmn/ as basis if it weren't for the NO in CC-BY-NO-SA? But that NO is evil, what the heck does it even mean to gain money from something? Too restrictive.

Format will be very constant, database like. Would therefore be cool to parse it from the Asciidoctor into a proper database as a way to verify and allow third party usage.

Base mnemonic components can come more or less directly from the 214 Kangxi radicals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radical

One key principle is that characters and words often don't have a well translatable meaning: the minimal always translatable unit is a sentence: <<sentences>>!

You can't fully learn a language by learning words and characters alone, you must learn sentences.

=== Characters

Format:

....
[[<character>]]
=== <character> (<pinyin>, <mnemonic name>)

Short forms: <<short-form>>, <<short-form>>

Mnemonic: <<mnemonic-story>>.

Words:

* <chinese-word-containing>
* <chinese-word-containing>

Characters:

* <character-containing>
* <character-containing>

Translations:

* <<english-word>>
** <<chinese-sentence-containing>>

Notes: <<random-text>>
....

Notes:

* `Translations` is only used when it is a single character word, if it goes inside a word, only the word will contain the sentence

[[龶]]
==== 龶 (-, crown)

Mnemonic: the dot indicates something that stays on top of the head of a king (<<王>>)

Notes: there is no "proper" Chinese name for this, it is just known as "the top part of <<青>>" (青字頭) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/龶

Characters:

* <<青>>

[[巴]]
==== 巴 (ba1, Brazil)

Mnemonic: the first character of <<巴西>>

Characters:

* <<爬>>

Words:

* <<巴西>>

[[八]]
==== 八 (ba1, eight)

Short forms: 丷

Characters:

* <<单>>

[[本]]
==== 本 (ben3, potato)

Mnemonic: **one** (<<一>>) thing is always beloow a **tree** (<<本>>): **potato** roots

Characters:

* <<体>>

[[匕]]
==== 匕 (bi3, spoon)

Mnemonic: an ancient spoon, looks like this: https://read01.com/aAEn50x.html#.XnfZDN_niV4 "古人吃饭最早不用筷子，用的是“匕”，那“匕”是什么？

[[表]]
==== 表 (biao3, watch [device])

Mnemonic: imagine a soldier wearing **green** (<<龶>>) camouflage **clothes** (<<衣>>), and checking his **watch** to know if it is time to attack

Words:

* <<列表>>

[[卜]]
==== 卜 (bu3, magic wand)

Mnemonic: the kangxi description is "divination". Since this is completely unrelated to common contexts of modern people, we select a wand use a magic-related object that can be easily put into fun stories: a magic wand.

Characters:

* <<攴>>

[[不]]
==== 不 (bu4, not)

Mnemonic: unclear, possibly **magic wand** <<卜>>

Words:

* <<不幸>>

[[查]]
==== 查 (cha2, check)

Mnemonic: every **dawn** <<旦>>, men have to **check** if their penises are hard as **wood** <<木>>, and if so they have to stay in bed for a while longer because it is too embarassing to walk out like that, see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_wood

Words:

* <<审查>>

[[车]]
==== 车 (che1, car)

Characters:

* <<轮>>

[[彳]]
==== 彳 (chi4, step)

Mnemonic: Kangxi 60.

Characters:

* <<很>>

[[辵]]
==== 辵 (chuo4, walk)

Short forms: ⻌,⻍,⻎

Characters:

* <<运>>

[[寸]]
==== 寸 (cun4, inch)

Characters:

* <<讨>>

[[大]]
==== 大 (da4, big)

Characters:

* <<犬>>

[[歹]]
==== 歹 (dai3, supervillain)

Mnemonic: that **evening** (<<夕>>), **one** (<<一>>) **supervillain** attacked us!

Characters:

* <<列>>

Words:

* <<歹人>>

[[旦]]
==== 旦 (dan4, dawn)

Mnemonic: **dawn** is when the **sun** (<<日>>) is raising over the horizon (<<一>>)

Characters:

* <<但>>

Words:

* <<元旦>>

[[但]]
==== 但 (dan4, but)

Mnemonic: I saw a **person** (<<人>>) walking at **dawn** (<<旦>>). It was beautiful, **but** why wouldn't they be sleeping instead?

[[动]]
==== 动 (dong4, move)

Mnemonic: his **superpower** (<<力>>) is to **move** fart **clouds** (<<云>>) with his mind

Words:

* <<运动>>

[[刀]]
==== 刀 (dao1, knife)

Short forms: 刂,⺈

Characters:

* <<列>>
* <<尔>>

[[单]]
==== 单 (dan1, bill)

Mnemonic: that lunch **bill** cost as much as buying **eighty** (<<十>> <<八>>) rice **fields** (<<田>>)!

Words:

* TODO 买单

[[对]]
==== 对 (dui4, correct)

Mnemonic: to progress slowly, adding **inch** (<<寸>>) by inch, **again** (<<又>>) and again, is the **correct** way to progress

Characters:

* <<树>>

[[儿]]
==== 儿 (er2, son)

Characters:

* <<元>>

[[尔]]
==== 尔 (er3, you)

Mnemonic: I'll stab **you** with a **small** (<<小>>) knife (<<刀>>)

Characters:

* <<你>>

[[二]]
==== 二 (er4, two)

Characters:

* 元

[[肺]]
==== 肺 (fei4, lungs)

Mnemonic: he didn't have two **lungs**, but rather one **moon** (<<月>>) and one **lung** (<<巿>>)

Words:

* <<肺炎>>

[[巿]]
==== 巿 (fu2, lung)

Mnemonic: due to an infection, doctors had to dry up **one** (<<一>>) of his **lung** with a **towel** (<<巾>>) 

Characters:

* <<肺>>

[[干]]
==== 干 (gan1, dry)

Characters:

* <<幸>>

[[根]]
==== 根 (gen1, roots)

Mnemonic: **roots** one **root** (<<艮>>) plus one root and lots of **wood** (<<木>>)

[[艮]]
==== 艮 (gen4, root)

Mnemonic: radical of **roots** (<<根>>)

Notes: this is a Kangxi radical, but its English name "stopping" is just too close to the more important "stop" 止 and would cause confusion. So we just use the common phonetic compound **roots** (<<根>>) as the mnemonic. It was tempting to leave "root" for <<本>>, which looks perfectly like a root, but we did character first, and "potato" makes for even better mnemonics.

Characters:

* <<根>>

[[冠]]
==== 冠 (guan1, corona)

Mnemonic: when Queen Elizabeth was crowned, the **first** (<<元>>) thing they put a one **inch** (<<寸>>) **hajib** <<冖>> on her head, and then the **corona** of a Christian saint saint appeared on her head

Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona

[[禾]]
==== 禾 (he2, grain)

Mnemonic: imagine **one** <<一>> **grain** of rice coming out of **wood** (<<木>>)

Characters:

* <<私>>
* <<和>>

[[和]]
==== 和 (he2, harmonious)

Mnemonic: nothing is more **harmonious** than putting some **grains** <<禾>> in your **mouth** <<口>>

Characters:

* <<私>>
* <<和>>

[[很]]
==== 很 (hen3, very)

Mnemonic: **stepping** (<<彳>>) on a tree **root** (<<艮>>) is a **very** bad idea, it might be a tree spirit that gets angry and eats you!

[[火]]
==== 火 (huo3, fire)

Short forms: 灬

Characters:

* <<炎>>

[[巾]]
==== 巾 (jin1, towel)

Mnemonic: person carrying bath towel over shoulders.

Characters:

* <<巿>>

[[口]]
==== 口 (kou3, mouth)

Chars:

* <<台>>
* <<和>>

[[里]]
==== 里 (li3, mile)

Mnemonic: his **field** (<<田>>) streched over one **mile** (<<里>>), but it consisted of barren **soil** (<<土>>) without any plants

Characters:

* <<重>>

[[力]]
==== 力 (li4, superpower)

Characters:

* <<动>>

[[列]]
==== 列 (lie4, list)

Mnemonic: there must exist a **list** of **supervillains** (<<歹>>) with **knives** (<<刀>>) on the web? A knife-yielding supervillain **list**! https://techland.time.com/2010/09/03/top-ten-heroes-and-villians-with-big-knives/

Words:

* <<列表>>

[[仑]]
==== 仑 (lun2, logic)

Mnemonic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory[spoon theory] is very logical and explains how using **spoons** (<<匕>>) is a good metaphor for a **person**'s (<<人>>) energy consumption

Characters:

* <<论>>

[[论]]
==== 论 (lun4, rationale)

Mnemonic: "**rationale**" the fancy way that engineers **say** (<<言>>) "**logic**" (<<仑>>)

Words:

* <<理论>>

[[轮]]
==== 轮 (lun4, wheel)

Mnemonic: it is pretty **logical** (<<仑>>) that a **car** (<<车>>) needs **wheels**

Words:

* 法轮功: <<falun-gong>>

[[冖]]
==== 冖 (mi4, hajib [Muslim female head scarf])

Notes: the Wikipedia Kangxi is "cloth cover". Ciro guesses this was originally something to do with food covering. But let's just go with hajib which will allow for easy politically incorrect mnemonics. "Crown" from <<冠>> would also be another good one, but we had already used crown for <<龶>>.

Characters:

* <<冠>>

[[宀]]
==== 宀 (mian2, roof)

Characters:

* <<审>>

[[木]]
==== 木 (mu4, wood, tree)

Characters:

* <<根>>

Words:

* <<木头>>

[[你]]
==== 你 (ni3, thou)

Mnemonic: **person** (<<人>>) **you** (<<尔>>)

[[爬]]
==== 爬 (pa2, climb)

Mnemonic: you need **claws** (<<爪>>) to **climb** (爬) **Brazil**'s (<<巴>>) tallest mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_da_Neblina[Pico da Neblina]

Words:

* <<爬行>>

[[攴]]
==== 攴 (pu1, to tap)

Short forms: 攵

Mnemonic: to transform a frog into a princess, you have to **tap** your **magic wand** (<<卜>>) **again and again** (<<又>>) on it

Characters:

* <<政>>

[[千]]
==== 千 (qian2, thousand)

Mnemonic: a super powerful <<十>> with an extra trace

Note: careful to not confuse with <<干>> which has a straight top.

Characters:

* <<重>>

[[丬]]
==== 丬 (qiang2, split wood)

Characters: <<状>>

[[青]]
==== 青 (qing1, blue)

Mnemonic: the **crown** (<<龶>>) of the king was **blue** and **moon-shaped** (<<月>>) 

Notes: it is more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyan[green-blue/Cyan], see also https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/青色 but let's call it blue because it will be used in many constructs.

[[清]]
==== 清 (qing1, clear)

Mnemonic: imagine a Caribean sea **water** (<<水>>) was is **blue** (<<青>>) and **clear**

Note: clear in the sense of "not dirty" and "a clear explanation". "Clear colors" use TODO 浅 as in 浅蓝.

Words:

* <<清>>

[[犬]]
==== 犬 (quan3, dog)

Mnemonic: imagine one **big** (<<大>>) **dog** wagging its tail, the extra dot is the tail

Short forms: 犭

Characters:

* <<状>>

[[人]]
==== 人 (ren2, person)

Short forms: 亻

Characters:

* <<仑>>

Words:

* <<歹人>>

Sentences:

* <<肺炎疫情下的武汉幸存者我是不幸之中幸运的人>>

[[日]]
==== 日 (ri4, sun)

Characters:

* <<旦>>

[[肉]]
==== 肉 (rou4, meat)

[[申]]
==== 申 (shen1, God)

Mnemonic: TODO

Characters:

* <<神>>

[[神]]
==== 神 (shen2, The Greek Gods)

Mnemonic: **God** <<申>> **spirit** (<<示>>)

[[审]]
==== 审 (shen3, inspect)

Mnemonic: if you are going to **inspect** what's making those noises on the **roof** (<<宀>>), you will certainly find that it was **God** (<<申>>)
[[十]]
==== 十 (shi2, ten)

Characters:

* <<单>>

[[示]]
==== 示 (shi4, spirit)

Short forms: 礻

Mnemonic: imagine **two** <<二>> **small** <<小>> child **spirits** playing with one another, maybe they died during a nuclear explosion and never noticed what happened

Characters:

* <<神>>

[[水]]
==== 水 (shui3, water)

Short forms: 氵,氺

Chars:

* <<治>>

[[厶]]
==== 厶 (si1, private)

Chars:

* <<台>>
* <<私>>
* <<云>>

[[私]]
==== 私 (si1, privacy)

Mnemonic: **privacy** is all about storing your precious **grain** <<禾>> in a **private** <<厶>> location

[[树]]
==== 树 (shu4, trees)

Mnemonic: it is **correct** (<<对>>) to say that **trees** (树) are made out of of **wood** (<<木>>)

[[讨]]
==== 讨 (tao3, discuss)

Mnemonic: in their **discussions** (<<讨论>>), they always **talked** (<<言>>) about how his penis was only one **inch** <<寸>> long

Words:

* <<讨论>>

[[台]]
==== 台 (tai2, platform)

Mnemonic: he was doing something **private** (<<厶>>) to her with his **mouth** (<<口>>) on the train **platform**

Characters:

* <<治>>

Words:

* <<台湾>>

[[田]]
==== 田 (tian1, field)

Characters:

* <<单>>

[[体]]
==== 体 (ti3, body)

Mnemonic: the Irish **people** <<人>> eat so much **potato** (<<本>>) that 90% of their **bodies** are made out of potato molecules

Words:

* <<体重>>

[[土]]
==== 土 (tu3, soil)

Notes: the normal Kangxi translation is "earth", but we are afraid that this could be ambiguous with the "Planet Earth", so choosing soil instead

Characters:

* <<幸>>

[[亠]]
==== 亠 (tou2, pan lid)

Characters:

* <<言>>

[[王]]
==== 王 (wang2, king)

Characters:

* <<龶>>

[[夕]]
==== 夕 (xi1, evening)

[[小]]
==== 小 (xiao3, small)

Short forms: ⺌,⺍

Characters:

* <<尔>>
* <<示>>

[[幸]]
==== 幸 (xing4, luck)

Mnemonic: you will have much better **luck** cycling when the **soil** (<<土>>) is **dry** (<<干>>)

Words:

* <<不幸>>
* <<幸运>>

[[言]]
==== 言 (yan2, speak, say)

Short forms: 讠

Mnemonic: imagine **two** (<<二>>) flying **mouths** (<<口>>) trying to speak, but they can't because a plastic **lid** (<<亠>>) has been placed on them

[[炎]]
==== 炎 (yan2, inflammation)

Mnemonic: getting burnt by two **fires** (<<火>>) tends to cause skin inflammation

Words:

* <<肺炎>>

[[一]]
==== 一 (yi1, one)