jpliu@英文博客网

Simple and Efficient

jpliu — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:22:34 +0000

… Deal struck-90 Yuan, I went with the young woman，Kang being her surname, by bike to her “ factory ” at Anhuai Cun 3 kilometers away outside Zhongyang Men, a simple open shed with only a cutter. A man cut a marble slab for a washstand with the size I gave him, cutting while ...

A Cool Mall

jpliu — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 22:24:46 +0000

Shop for shop ’ s sake is days of the past. Nowadays ， citizens ， families & individuals ， tend to spend their weekends, especially in cold & hot days or bad weather, in a shopping mall, where they play, loiter, eat & drink, party, date, read, body building, health car ...

Common language

jpliu — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:44:23 +0000

“ Mi,mi, little black lamb,”Grandson came to me again gesticulating.“?”No respond. I remember Ms W, one of my young colleagues, said to me 20 years ago:“If you do not read Jin Yong, you’d find it hard to have common language with us.” Still earlier, a veter ...

Taller or Not, Water Speaks?

jpliu — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 05:17:09 +0000

If my two and a half years old grandson is grown up not as tall as his father, uncles or grandfathers and granduncles, the water may be to blame. Referring to my less than expected stature, my eldest uncle from Qingdao, Shandong, once told me that my family members of his g ...

Not Homer Alone Nods Sometimes

jpliu — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:47:08 +0000

I was in the lift upstairs with an off-school 4-grade boy with glasses, during which I heard with interests of what he did at school. Stepping out on the fifth floor where he lived, he bid me adieu. The door closed, and, instead of moving up, it opened again, when I was ...

Climbing is Climbing

jpliu — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 09:02:17 +0000

Mt Emei, a stock listed on Shanghai stock exchange, is really hopeless. At least till today. I first bought it below 7 Yuan on broking firm’s recommendation in April last year for its advantage of business monopolistic. However with pandemic lingering on, the firm, not so optimisti ...

The Art of Complaint

jpliu — Sat, 25 Jun 2022 01:40:31 +0000

“ Dig again!”Yet I do not complain in public. Instead I respond to the apologies of drilling workers outside the unit I live: “Convenience at doorstep doesn’t mean nice walk in the street nowadays.” On another occasion I compare urban renewal with sycamore trees: “Those comp ...

A Key Talk

jpliu — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 04:35:00 +0000

Now my turn comes to be forgetful. This morning no sooner had I closed the door than I remember my key was inside. Things like this happen more often than before. What a poor memory! On second thought, I believe it's reasonable. It is rather the mind and attention tha ...

Like Grandfather, Like Granddaughter

jpliu — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 07:09:03 +0000

Waiting at bus stop near Zijinshan telpher this morning, I heard a man in his 70s boasting of his granddaughter (following his comment on the fierce quarrel minutes earlier on a bus between an old man of similar age with the driver over wearing face mask in the bus): ...

Men in Vigilance

jpliu — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 09:49:08 +0000

With two fried leek pies & a cup of soybean milk, I slipped through the small door into the community DT Homeland, the only side gate convenient for home owners’small shopping and breakfast in no eyes of door-keepers & security guards. Loitering aimlessly around the well planned pa ...

Real Business

jpliu — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 08:35:50 +0000

Kept indoors for days, many ladies are busily finding something to do, say, to let a broom stand on end. Except daughter，who, busily preparing for an exam, told me:“Review textbooks really matters.” “Aren’t you already an engineer since last December?”I asked. “That’s diffe ...

Cat and Rat

jpliu — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 04:47:23 +0000

Dog eats rat we’d say “It’s none of your buisiness.” What about cat eats rat? “Good, but some other time. It’s pet now,”we’d say.

Rat the Cowrie

jpliu — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 12:15:55 +0000

Now a rat crossing the street is met by people who are yelling “Well! Well!” instead of “Kill! Kill!” Time is the best choice before anything else.

On the Move

jpliu — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 13:12:12 +0000

Laptop broke down. I had to be hurry. It started raining a few steps outdoors, drizzle at first and then more than drizzle… Navigating for a Lenovo shop exhausted the last percent of the phone power so that I had to wait for a 5% recharge in the service centre before receiving ...

Sleep or Not

jpliu — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 06:37:22 +0000

Aunt asked me to translate a Chinese meditative poem to help her to sleep. Enclosed here is my rough translation: Worries away in the still of night, Desires leaving behind with attention to Dantian. Breathing at leisure to bridge the Meridian gap, As if floa ...

Low Profile Can Make a Big Fuss

jpliu — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 13:14:32 +0000

“ Justice was done ” is a text in New Concept English I learnt when I was a freshman. I paraphrased it into a funny story in which Santa Claus gets stuck inside the narrow chimney of the fireplace on his night trip to slip gifts to the fast-sleeping boys and girls of the house. Thoug ...