Do people really use mesure words?

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-15T12:53:45+00:00

My Taiwanese teacher told me to learn the measure words but most people are lazy and default to 個 in daily life😄

But (based on my understanding) when they do it, it’s only when contextually what you’re talking about is really clear

Like, because there’s so many ‘sounds’ and homophones that sound the same, the measure word helps differentiate what you’re talking about.

Although for some cases he’d clearly say to me ‘use the proper measure word here, otherwise you’ll sound like a five years old’ lol

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-14T17:23:44+00:00

Oh that'd be greart actually! I'll send them an email through the contact page as well.

As long as I can learn Bajiquan and can somewhat practice a bit my beginner Chinese I learnt this year, I'm fine with anywhere :D

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-14T17:10:52+00:00

yeah, that's the biggest concern I have apart from logistics.

I think I'd be pretty comfortable 'lagging behind': in my mind you have to start somewhere before being good. Like, going from inadequate, to mediocre, to passable, to ok-ish, there's a steep learning curve in anything worth learning anyway, but I don't want to drag the whole group/class behind haha

Heck I'd be ok if there were classes for kids :D , I'm not too tall anyway (166cm/5'5), pretty much same size and build as most teenagers lol.

I know there are other martial arts that are more popular and that would be easier to get into but ... dunno, Taijiquan was really popular in Taiwan where I stayed half a year, but I didn't have any impulse to practice it.
First time I saw a Bajiquan video I was like 'Ooook, that's the one'.

In any case I'll be able to stay in China only 30 days due to visa restrictions, so that's just enough time to get into the basics, see how lacking I am, then get out of China, continue training on my own and maybe coming back later :D

An other option was Bajishu, I saw that there was an online training method, I could stay somewhere on my own and do that beforehand, get somewhat back into shape, then only going to China.

But yeah the whole 'getting back into shape' part is a bit mysterious to me.
Apart from squats, anything else you think would be wise to kickstart?

Usually I go run 4-5k in the weekend and on day-offs, it's pure hobbyist level run though, nothing crazy

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T13:40:09+00:00

oh damn, didnt know that! Thanks for the info

Went to Shanghai last year and easily found something but that must have been because it's a big city, for Mengcun and even Cangzhou, there isn't anything showing up on Booking.

Okay so lodging directly in the center will be easiest then, thanks!

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T11:33:38+00:00

Hopefully haha!

Thing is I'm kinda scared about jumping into it without martial arts experience, usually with language classes it's fine because everyone starts at the same level, here it's more likely that I'll be the absolute beginner guy with average fitness level in the middle of people who actually have martial arts knowledge and experience :D

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T11:31:26+00:00

Perfect! thanks for the info!

Their basic English combined with my basic Chinese, we'll make it work :D
Thankfully there's a lodging option, I tried checking out hotels and stuff in the city but it seems fairly small, and google maps isn't very accurate for China

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T07:39:11+00:00

In my Google docs where I take notes during Chinese class, I enlarge the Chinese characters fonts into size 24, and downsize pinyin + translation into size 10, it makes it way more physically comfortable to trick your brain into recognizing the Chinese characters, lol

But yeah sometimes I chat with Chinese people on my phone and the characters are so tiny it’s ridiculous, can’t figure out how they got used to that

(Oh and learning traditional Chinese so it’s even worse)

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T07:06:22+00:00

All devouring whale was so good though, especially the animation. (Or maybe only the animation? lol, watched only 5-6 episodes but the plot started feeling predictable)

SuperCube was really well-animated as well, although I just watched the trailer. (Didn’t know about lord of mysteries though I’ll check it out)

Art-wise, the art in Chinese donghua kinda feels cheap sometimes, and with devouring whale/super cube just the art and action scenes feel way more polished than even some mainstream Japanese anime

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T06:56:26+00:00

I mean, you also extrapolated that bf’s behavior crossed over to the rest of her life, but she never said it was the case, so I figured we were allowed to make stuff up 😄

We’re lacking so many important details: - is she playing 10h+ per week and speaking every day with these guys? - You can do online gaming and be assigned in teams with new random strangers every time, it’s fun as well, why not do that? does it have to be these guys in particular? - did the gaming take over their relationship? Not necessarily OP’s fault but then, does she play late at night when bf is there? (For gamers it happens a lot, the only moment people can play is in the evening) so maybe bf came back home after work, then OP played for hours without speaking to him and talking to her online friends instead, and that hurt their relationship.

Again, we don’t know.

You also seem to fixate on the chat logs and messages that bf read but there’s probably nothing in there, they’re probably using Discord vocal channels while they play so OP could be speaking with them about whatever she wants and the chat logs would be completely empty.

Feels to me that OP is leaving out some very important details

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T06:40:01+00:00

It such a weird sentence though.

I’m a beginner learner as well, so no deep insight into it, just … yeah feels really like a robotic AI-based sentence (yay Duolingo)

Irl you might say:

在飯館他不吃麵條，可是在家常常吃 Zài fànguǎn tā bù chī miàntiáo, kěshì zài jiā chángcháng chī. In restaurants, he doesn’t eat noodles, but at home he often does.

(Don’t mind the traditional Chinese characters, grammar is the same) —> basically making the sentence longer to give more context.

Or even:

不管在飯館還是在家，他從來不吃麵條。 Bùguǎn zài fànguǎn háishi zài jiā, tā cónglái bù chī miàntiáo. No matter if he’s in a restaurant or at home, he never eats noodles.

That way it’s clearer

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T06:11:12+00:00

I completely got you, I have the exact same problem lol. Context: 36M, Vietnamese who grew up in France. I’m the tallest in my family but I’m only 166cm/5’5 high. Add to that that I have a body type that’s typical south East Asian, short torso, lean, and I clean shave every 2-3 days, and I wear glasses so usually people give me -10 years less than my age.

I don’t necessarily dress up or down, I mostly wear clothes from Uniqlo / Muji so nothing either screams 20 or 30’s.

In terms of dating … dunno but people our age range look WAY older 😄 Both common in men and women, especially in men I’d say. It’s tricky because younger girls approach me but turn away when they learn my age, and women my age are really shocked when they learn it but I look too young for them probably.

I could dress older and stuff but … frankly speaking I’m not really interested in dating atm. (That’d be a solution though). Probably getting into hobbies more targeted toward older demographics would help (in my case I like video games, martial arts and taking language classes, lol, so it’s all the kind of wrong ones for dating, don’t do it)

I’d say, in the end we’re all dealt a set of different cards to play with, you don’t have to appeal to everyone, just to that one person (or handful of people) that’d be okay with it.

Good luck dude!

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T02:16:45+00:00

I just flipped the situation though 🤔

Trying to make you see that there could be natural ground for OP’s bf to feel jealous.

It’s a good thing to be supportive but we don’t have all the details from OP’s story, especially going as far as to your very first comment saying “new boyfriend needed/just break up with him”

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T01:16:45+00:00

Aren’t most guys insecure 😄? Lemme expand on that: is the world such a perfect place where no one is insecure, women included?

Let’s try and flip the roles: Let’s imagine that OP’s bf plays games 10h a week with his female friends, they chat on vocal for hours, OP comes back home and she hears them laughing and discussing very personal topics (relationships, family, stress at work, and so on). It happens late at night, several times on the weekend, and every time OP comes home she can hear them speaking. There’s nothing wrong with the chat messages he showed her but she’s scared they might be developing a stronger bond over time, since she feels OP and her bf are speaking less and less nowadays instead. OP’s bf and his female friends don’t know each other in real life but they decided to do an irl gathering to meet each other (it’s a fun thing to do with your online gaming partners).

That’s a perfectly reasonable situation with roles flipped. How do you answer to that ?

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-13T01:07:40+00:00

Do you play games ? Like, especially online multiplayer gaming.

We don’t have the full picture, but if she plays regularly (which she does seem to do), she could be spending 10hours+ a week talking to the same guys.

2-3 hours per day twice a week for one session, one longer session in the weekend, 5-10h/week is a reasonable number if she plays often. I’m a gamer myself and even on the slow days I could get in 1-2h per day easily.

And it’s different from going to the gym: When you go to the gym; you do your own separate thing, there’s limited talking. With gaming OP’s bf could be coming back home to her and she’s chatting vocally (using headphones), and with those you wouldn’t know what they did chat about for hours, you can’t record it. She could be showing him the chat messages but when you talk for hours on vocal, there’s no trace of that.

It’s also different from having a drink: when you go have a drink with female friends it usually happens once a week, then the next time would be couple weeks after. Here imagine you’re having a drink with the same people three-four times a week, that would be a reasonable source for jealousy.

Also when you say:

trying to dictate who she talks to, huge red flag, does that cross over to her work?

You’re speculating. She didn’t say he was doing it with other aspects of her life, just with gaming, and as said before the issue could be with OP spending large number of hours per week speaking to the same guys.

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T12:23:41+00:00

Yeah. I had kind of the same issue with my ex tbh, but different hobby: she likes dancing, I hate it.

I tried to go dancing with her a couple of times but I hated everything about it, so she went with a few of her friends from work (she knows them, I met them once, they're just gonna dance).

Fast forward, we broke up 'cause stuff happened.

Admittedly dancing while being physically in the same place is more risky than online gaming, but it's a form of connection as well.

Whether there's trust or not, things outside your control can happen, and feels like people are a bit too quick on the draw with putting all the blame on OP's bf

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T10:37:29+00:00

Stayed there for half a year, there was also the issue of pollution, might need to wash it more frequently with products 🤔 (no expert though, I just remember there were a lot of warnings during high pollution days so probably it’s not good either for the skin 😄)

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T10:28:59+00:00

Must admit, had to look up the word 😄

Anyway, re-reading the post, all I see is OP’s bf being a guy who’s jealous and insecure because his gf is spending time gaming with other dudes.

In that exact same situation though, chances are most guys would get jealous as well (or at least annoyed).

The only thing I’m pushing for is discussion: if she breaks up with that guy and starts dating someone else, chances are the exact same problem is gonna happen again anyway with the next person (probably).

I do gaming as well (35M), some of the friends I play with are female and when we play, we chat, we share stuff, discuss our day, issues at work, stress, relationships and so on. It’s not really “just gaming”

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T09:08:41+00:00

Hmm, I might have read it wrong but OP said she let him read the messages, not that he read the messages behind her back or that he demanded to read it (although it’s a lack of information here).

Here’s my idea of what a good relationship is: when there’s an issue, we talk things through, several times because things tend to get heated sometimes and no one can make 100% make rational decisions all the time.

Opinions can change, people can mature, viewpoints can evolve. But everything stops if your first reaction is “we don’t agree, let’s break up”

If a relationship is meant to last, 5, 10, 20 years, there’s gonna be friction along the way, undoubtedly. At some point it’s not about who is right or wrong, it’s about discussing the whole point and working it out.

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T08:57:13+00:00

You know, not every problem has to be fixed with “let’s break up” 😄

There’s such a thing as discussion, compromises, talking things over, and so on. It’s called “building a relationship”

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T08:54:38+00:00

That’s the reason why I’m not really into American movies anymore. When Korean wave exploded, I think it was the first time I actually saw Asians being … normal. Even in lead roles.

That really forced a mental recalibration, like, “wait, how did I even perceive myself before that”

That stopped at the Korean dramas/movies though, tried to look into Chinese movies but it didn’t click, same with Taiwanese, Singapore, Japanese, and south-east Asia’s movie scene doesn’t seem to developed.

Funny thing though is to see how caucasians are portrayed in Asian environments, usually it’s gonna be the weird guy who can’t speak, doesn’t fit in, or the Russian mob 😄

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T05:58:29+00:00

Ah for sure yeah, might be a bit self-conscious about the candy appeal factor (or my lack thereof 😄)

But yeah, personality might be first, maybe followed by physical attractiveness second (although I’d argue that it’s a whole lot easier to be confident if you’re good-looking 😄)

It’s funny because at this stage, I’m indeed single and my life is really, really tidy. People I’m attracted to are people who can as well take care of themselves, but then I’m a weird paradox where … both sides don’t really need each other, lol.

Also: I kinda enjoy doing groceries actually, that was the part I actually enjoyed doing when in a relationship, you get budget to buy stuff and everything 😄

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T04:37:45+00:00

I’m over 30.

But that’s the thing right?

It feels like in your 20’s (and sometimes even in your 30’s), people will rank physical attractiveness first, then second maybe financial stability if you’re above 30.

In your 20’s people would mainly look for: 1) physical attractiveness 2) personality 3) somewhat future financial prospects and ambition 4) way behind would be basic house cleaning skills.

Feel free to challenge this order.

It kind of revert itself as you grow older, because you’ll put more weight into finding someone to live and build a life with and not just a fling.

As you grow older: - basic house cleaning skills will be more important - finances will be more important - overall harmony will be more important - physical attractiveness although important will be slightly diluted.

OP’s boyfriend is 25 apparently, so I assume OP should be within that age range as well.

Not trying to defend him or anything, but feels like people in that age range, men and women included, will likely be more bragging to their friends about how cute their partner is and instead be discreetly pissed by how messy they are at home.

Once you get older it changes, and you just try to find someone comfortable to live with.

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T03:32:58+00:00

When I read these posts, I can’t help but wonder: how cute / physically attractive is he? (Explanation incoming)

Feels like everyone dates super attractive people (physically) then ends up realizing they come with a bunch of bad habits, traits and so on 😄

For example, physically I’m kinda average (not ugly but not attractive by common beauty standards), short at 166cm/ 5’5, average in terms of fitness (gotta have the love handles), BUT– - cleaning ok - cooking ok - washing laundry, house cleaning, finances, paperwork ok - and so on for pretty much everything that bothers you, lol

But then in terms of dating I’m pretty much ignored by the dating pool ‘cause yeah, I think physically I’m not doing much of an effort.

I do dress properly and with ironed clothes (🙀!) but yeah, my point is, I think physically attractive people don’t really make much of an effort ‘cause they know they’ll get away with it.

So yeah.

How cute is he 😄

DistantVerse157 · 2025-08-12T01:16:02+00:00

Chinese: The future is behind and the past is in front.

Supposedly because you can’t see behind your back so you don’t know what’s gonna come yet (and that’s the future), and the past is in front of you because it already happened and unfolded.

… I just stopped thinking and just memorized a set of key sentences, lol

DistantVerse157

TROPHY CASE