160 million Shanghai rats celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Human last night, with rats in party hats enjoying the fireworks across the city. Rats celebrated by scurrying around, drinking baijiu and spreading bubonic plague. There was a particularly large concentration of rats in City Diner's kitchen.

Rats born in the Year of the Human are known for their intelligence, imagination, and regular destruction of the natural environment and each other.

For many rats there would be little to celebrate this year though, with the worse weather in a generation freezing sewer systems and preventing rats from visiting their relatives in other provinces.

本报讯，昨日上午一英国籍男子马田拨打本社新闻热线，希望将其亲身遭遇公诸于众。

据马先生口述，有次他迷路希望求助于路人，当他刚说到：“我可以问你吗？”该女子就回了句：“流氓”，转身离开，留下马先生一个人非常无助。在饺子店他客气地问服务员，“我要水饺，多少钱一碗？”，又一次遭遇了服务员的白眼。

马先生希望借助本报的力量呼吁全社会要善待外国客人，尤其是普通话不那么标准的。

本报记者王静随后与马田汉语老师取得联系。经过调查，“问”和“吻”发音相同，只差声调的区别；“水饺”和“睡觉”也相似；而“碗”和“晚”则完全一样。马先生恍然大悟，并表示决心一定要学好汉语声调。


王静，驻墨尔本汉语声调记者

Taxi driver Hu Wei has been working the streets of Shanghai for five years. On Friday evening he picked up his most famous passenger to date, Paris Hilton.

Hilton, in town for the MTV Music Awards on Saturday, slipped away from her bodyguards and boarded the blue Dazhong taxi near Lujiazui. Hu said at first he did not recognise the superstar, as she was wearing underwear.

"To my surprise, she spoke perfect Mandarin" noted Hu, "I had heard she was a brainless bimbo, but we had a long conversation about Confucius and the poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. She really nailed the tones, unlike that Da Shan I had in the back of my cab last week. He had to look up every other Chinese word in a little electronic dictionary!"

Shanghai based language pharma-school MandarinPill has announced record profits of 173 million RMB in the 3rd quarter following the launch of its Laowaicide line of tablets and suppositories.

The company claims that if taken hourly the drug allows a patient to absorb the Chinese language effortlessly at a rate 100 to 1000 times faster than with conventional learning based techniques. Moreover they state that this has been confirmed in over a dozen peer reviewed scientific studies.

Since its launch in April Laowaicide, which contains proven carcinogens, has become wildly popular within China's expat community, many of whom had previously spent months or years trying to grasp the vocabulary, tones and written characters of Chinese with no discernible results.

Some controversy has surrounded the reported side effects of the drug, which include nausea, hallucinations, leprosy and death. Nonetheless most users remain nonchalant about the risks - "Hey, this is China, you're risking your life just leaving the house! ... or even not ... a friend of mine went into a coma watching CCTV9" said Jing'An resident Mike Evans, 32, from Ohio, USA.


Early clinical trialists are not thought to have included Da Shan.

Others sounded a note of caution. Lucy Ashworth, 26, from Nottingham, UK says that while she is relieved at the hours of intense study and painful effort saved by taking the strange tasting pills, she has been worried by the sudden hair loss which started shortly after she began the treatment - "I can speak and read Chinese fluently now, but why couldn't I have done that as a blonde?".

But many users are quick to defend the product from its detractors. Speaking from his hospital bed Andrew Wilson, also from the UK, had nothing but praise for the drug, which has left him paralysed from the waist down - "It has improved my life immeasurably. Obviously I'll miss the use of my legs, but there is no country in the world more friendly to wheelchair users than China, so I think I'll be fine" he said, in Shanghainese dialect.

Analysts suggest that the products future is promising but not secure, due to legal challenges such as that launched in New Zealand last month after a local man acquired proficient Mandarin but was left speaking English in an Australian accent.

Scholars from the Ministry of Education, the guardians of the Chinese language, have announced that a new tone will be added to Mandarin in time for the Beijing Olympics.

Li Yuming, a senior education official, said: "With the rapid cultural and social changes in recent years, as well as thriving new concepts in our daily lives, we felt that four tones were no longer sufficient. And the neutral tone has always been a bit of a 光棍."

The new tone joins the 1st tone (high, level, long), 2nd tone (high, rising, medium), 3rd tone (low, dipping, long), and 4th tone (loud, falling sharply, short). It will be denoted by a complex squiggle above the syllable.



"The sound is difficult to reproduce precisely in English," commented Mr Li with an evil chuckle. "Even Da Shan is going to struggle with this one".

So I'm in the gym changing my clothes and this older Chinese man, maybe 70 years old, asks me "How long have you been in China?"

So I say "a year", as I get ready for the standard stream of questions. He comes back with "Do you have a Chinese girl yet?" to which I reply "No, I'm too busy". He laughs and says "You shouldn't waste your opportunities." I tell him "I keep my eyes open", he returns with "Just your eyes?" I try to sneak one by him with "I keep my heart open too." However he shuts me down with "Yeah, but you've got to use your hands and lips."

Game, Set, Match.

Shanghai computer engineer Li Chao has endured a week of teasing from his colleagues at Internet advertising company Pikopo.com this week, after he announced he now intended to be known as John Li. "What a ridiculous English name to choose!", giggled secretary Paperclip Chen. "He probably doesn't realise how silly it would sound to a foreigner", added marketing executive Haddock Liu.

According to HR manager Chimpanzee Zhang "At one time, only the very few Chinese who had contact with foreigners had English names. In recent years, more and more young Chinese are choosing to use an English name."

The ribbing continued in the company cafeteria, where the IT department were trying to outdo themselves recounting the names of former colleagues. "Xiao Li could have chosen worse", laughed Tampon Qin, "I used to have a friend called 'Colin'!"

Do 99% of expats need to speak Chinese other than when ordering food and making girls giggle with their hand in front of their mouth? No.

Do most people feel a sense of being unique and clever when they utter a few simple sentences to a taxi driver, or a girl giggling with her hand in front of her mouth? Yes.

This is where Casual Mandarin comes in.

We have spotted a niche gap in the language teaching market - for a reasonable 20,000RMB fee, which includes 6 hours of classes, a CD, and a night of inflexible and squeaky passion with a language teacher, you will learn how to make the necessary Chinese hand-signs from one to ten.

Tired of getting 1 apple given to you instead of 2?

Tired of getting 5 apples instead of, say, 6?

Come to Casual Mandarin - the sex is bad and the price ridiculous - but at least you WILL have sex.

Ordering in Chinese restaurants can often be a challenge. Our intrepid restaurant reviewers make it simple for you...

By Chen Kaotao, Shangzilla's food correspondent

If you're craving authentic Shanghai specialities, you can't go wrong with local joint Mài dāng láo. There are numerous eateries around the city, just look for the distinctive yellow characters on a red background.

To order, approach the counter and jab your finger vigorously at the menu. We recommend the 7RMB qīzi burger. The Hàpǐ Meal and chīkīn McNuggets are other specialities.

The waitress may ask you Do you want fries with that. You should reply yes (if you would like a container of salt with your meal) or no (you would not).

After your meal is freshly prepared, take it to an empty table and enjoy. It's considered proper manners to shout "wǒ jiù xǐhuan" as you leave.

Rumours suggest Mài dāng láo may even be opening a branch in the United States soon.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day passed Shanghai on September 19 by with about as much consequence as Typhoon Wipha.

In Beijing, by contrast, everyone seems to think they are a pirate, adding the piratical "rhotic -r" suffix to their words.

"Shiver me timbers, maties, hoist the anchor, duan yidianrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Avast ye varmint, wode grog zai narrrrrrr?"