Word: learned
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Power-hungry Gov jocks, take advantage of this unique opportunity. You too can learn how easy it is, with CIA support, to plunder a country, crush political dissent and still be respected enough to be invited to give a speech on the nobility of peace to the adoring students of a prestigious university...
None of Bi's personal problems are on his mind this day. Instead he is incensed about work. "Meiyou," he says once, and then again. Meiyou (pronounced may-o) means "No, it cannot be done," or "No, we don't have it" -- a word foreigners learn quickly. "Too few primers," says Bi. "One hundred eighty-two students and 15 English books. Bad enough, right? But look at the books. They're about 40 years old, and boring. We can barely get by the first story...
...change your allegiances and enthusiasms quickly -- or at least appear to. The elements are simple enough. Trust the papers only for sports. In politics, believe nothing until it is officially denied. Report your own opinions by saying things like 'I heard it on the bus,' or 'The rumor is . . .' Learn to recognize euphemisms...
...University ((in Shanghai)) and was immediately assigned here," he says. "I don't know anything about the work here, so I can't judge product quality very well. I wish I could go somewhere else, but I may be stuck here for the rest of my life. I could learn the job, but moving up is almost impossible without guanxi" -- that word again -- "which I don't have. If I had it, I maybe could have arranged it so I wasn't sent here in the first place...
...Once you start singing," Berlin said in later years, "you start thinking of writing your own songs. It's as simple as that." Although he could not read or write music (he never did learn), he could pick out a melody on the piano in the key of F sharp. In 1909 Berlin, now calling himself Irving because it sounded tonier, landed a $25-a-week job with a Tin Pan Alley publisher. Two years later, he picked his way into American musical history with Alexander's Ragtime Band. More a march than a rag, it made Berlin famous, erroneously...