"The dog ate my ..."

[Randy Alexander]

In northeast China, I considered it my cultural homework to eat dog -- a
popular dish there.

(Usually in soup, but sometimes the sliced meat with scallions.  Not bad;
kind of like beef.)

And just for a tad of linguistic content (not related to homework): after my
first son was born, my northeast-Chinese wife would put him on her shoulder
and in a typical Chinese seller-song melody, sing:

mai4 gou3rou4 lei!
jin1tian1 bu4mai3
ming2tian1 jiu4 chou4 lei!

(I'm) selling dog meat!
If (you) don't buy (it) today
(it'll) be stinky tomorrow!

Here's the melody in solfege letters (a following dot indicates the octave
below).  The rhythm is just even quarter notes with a break between the two
lines.

d s. m d
d d d s. d d d m d

--
Randy Alexander
Xiamen, China
Blogs:
Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
Chinese characters: http://www.sinoglot.com/yuwen
Language in China (group blog): http://www.sinoglot.com/blog

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