The Detail on New Zealand Chinese Language Week

Thank you, Alexia Russell and Radio New Zealand, for giving voice to our concerns about New Zealand Chinese Language Week. You can listen to the episode of The Detail here. As they tagged Jo (chair of the NZCLW Trust), I decided I would get in touch via Twitter reply. This also addresses one of the […]

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New Zealand Chinese Language Week: a podcast entry

As we come to the conclusion of New Zealand Chinese Language Week, a review about how inappropriate it was by being the very opposite of inclusive, for those who’d prefer to sit back and listen rather than read one of my blog posts.     You’ll likely catch me on RNZ’s The Detail on Friday, […]

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In one poem: Chris Tse on Chinese Language Week

This is why poet laureate Chris Tse is awesome. Chinese Language Week Exam#NZCLW pic.twitter.com/p2mX09LeuU —Chris Tse (@chrisjtse) September 25, 2022 The Tweets that follow are must-reads, too, including: The organisers have been told and given feedback time and time again to no avail. I was told there aren't enough resources to promote other 'dialects' but […]

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The reality of Chinese Language Week for many Chinese New Zealanders

‘Chinese Language Week’ has rolled around again, and if you look on Twitter, there are plenty of Chinese New Zealanders (myself included) and our allies miffed about this. And we get the usual trolls come by. First up, it’s not Chinese Language Week. It’s Mandarin Language Week. I have no problem with the promotion of […]

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Rare: an Asus product not lasting the distance; awaiting its successor

I see it was only 19 months ago since I bought the Asus ROG Strix Evolve mouse. A mouse that cost several times what a regular one does, claiming the switches would last 50 million clicks. It has now developed a fault, and I wouldn’t even consider myself a heavy user. I’m certainly not a […]

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Testing the seven search engines in the world

After reading Mojeek’s blog post from last July, I learned there are only seven search engines in the world now. In other words, I was checking more search engines out in the 1990s. It’s rather depressing, especially as the search market is largely a monopoly with Google dominating it (and all the ills that brings), […]

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Putting the search engines through their paces

One more, and I might give the subject a rest. Here I test the search engines for the term Lucire. This paints quite a different picture. Lucire is an established site, dating from 1997, indexed by all major search engines from the start. The word did not exist online till the site began. It does […]

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The very simple Maramataka and Chinese lunar calendar conversion table

When I first started commemorating Matariki a few years ago, I had figured out, since both ancient Māori and Chinese worked out the lunar calendar, that it was roughly five lunar months after ours. I was also told that it marked the Māori New Year. Maybe it’s due to local iwi, but my recollection was […]

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Xiaomi’s tiny idiosyncracies

There were a few surprises switching to Xiaomi.    First up, it asked me to do a voice identification by saying these four words, 小爱同學. Only thing is, it doesn’t understand Cantonese.    The default weather app was able to give me details based on exactly where I am (location service turned on, and I […]

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Some surprises on day one with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 5G

Top: Decent enough specs for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 5G. Above: Very respectable download speeds (in the header) as the phone updates 71 apps.   My Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 5G is here, and it’s proved better than the reviews suggested.    First up, kudos to the seller, YouGeek on Aliexpress, who not only […]

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