u/Weatherball

My guess is that the artist copied it from a piece of calligraphy that had a signature/date/seal mark in that spot, but to me it looks like it could be昏

Y

They look modern to me too, but they are made to look like rubbings from ancient roof tiles, (Han dyn.) each of the four animals is an emblem for a cardinal direction. Bird for the south, tiger for west, tortoise for north and dragon for east.

Episode 18: “Sh-Boom” by the Chords – A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs https://share.google/VpHdKGouf99Br3k6

metal tab/finial at the end of the belt?

This timeline makes sense. The inscription says it was painted in a xinwei 辛未 year, so probably 1931 meaning it would have been done a few years before grandma purchased it.

Same goes for my wife.

I find it helps when I tell people that I need to both hear them and read lips to understand them. Maybe you don’t think you’re reading lips but I bet you are to at least some degree. It was my doctor who first noticed I was looking at his mouth when he spoke to me. I had no idea. But even if you’re not reading lips, being in a direct line of sight will mean the sound will be travelling to you directly.

Thanks for the link to the Galambos video. It was quite informative. It’s interesting how many of the ‘punctuation’ marks are more like what we would today consider proofreaders or editors marks. As is the case above. I guess those are really needed when the texts are passed on primarily through manuscript copies.

No prob. It's an interesting coin. A friend of mine has a coin from the reign of Wang Mang (like yours the authenticity is in doubt) and I've often thought it would be fun to make a collection of coins from reigns usually taken to be outside the 'legitimate' line of succession.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_cash_coins_by_inscription?wprov=sfla1

This page has a photo of the same coin and the footnotes link to two other photos. (Scroll down to Ming-Qing Transitional Period, then Rebels)

But they're really sexy kittens underneath

In Paris the two best places to visit are the National Museum of Asian Art: Guimet and the Musée Cernuschi. Both have far more on display than you'll see at the Louvre.

Other large collections of Chinese artifacts in Europe include the Museum of Far-Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and the Rietberg in Zurich.

In Britain, besides the British Museum, the V&A has a fairly large display and there are less well known collections at Durham University, Compton-Verney (in Warwickshire, ancient bronzes only, but a large collection), the Burrell in Glasgow and the Museum of Asian Art in Bath.

USA: Freer-Sackler in DC. The Met in New York. Harvard Museums. Art Institute of Chicago. Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Good collections in Kansas City, Boston and Cleveland too.

Show them the picture. If it's just a language problem, they'll understand what you want. They still might not want to do it, of course, if they have the mi fen already prepped in some other way, the cook is too busy, etc.

This was a big summertime favorite when my kids were little. They already loved peanut butter, so I made a sauce with PB, soy sauce, garlic a/o ginger, cut with water until thin enough to toss into the other ingredients.

Growing up in Michigan I heard eavestrough a lot, but not as much as gutter.

Also be aware that a significant proportion of older people (and an increasingly large percentage of younger people who are habitual earphone users) won't be ABLE to hear the bell. I'm 64, and a hearing aid wearer for 10 years. You might as well be whispering to me when you ring. If you shout at me, I may still get startled and grumpy, but I'll know you're there.

Sorry, I didn't have a specific memory of q being discussed there. I was just suggesting it as a possible place to look. It sounds like the kind of thing Mair and some of the LL regulars would find interesting. Looks like you've got it covered.

Over the years I too have heard the general claim that the quirks of pinyin come from the influence of1950s Russian linguistics, but with no details attached. Maybe it's just a plausible sounding theory that gets repeated without having been investigated?

UPenn's linguistics blog Language Log has covered Zhou Youguang and Pinyin many times over the years. You might try searching there for references on q.

He's got a Bubble Brick for ya alright.

I avoided phone calls whenever possible ( if I even heard the damn thing ring). After I got Bluetooth, I actually started to enjoy talking on the phone for the first time in 15 years. A lot the features on my (NHS) aids have been lackluster, but Bluetooth has really improved my quality of life. It gave me back the phone, radio/podcasts and music. Hope that's true for you too.

I've been wearing aids for 10+ years. For me, Bluetooth connection to phone/computer is by far the single biggest improvement in that time. Couldn't have a phone or zoom conversation without it.

Not a guitar player, but someone with long time high frequency hearing loss.

Every time I get new aids I notice a disturbing amount of hiss in sounds where I never noticed it before. As annoying as it is, over the course of a few weeks/months your brain adjusts to it. My guess is that before too long you won't notice it. And, of course, to other people listening to you play, your playing sounds the same as it always has.

Of course. I think OP is referring to a a secondary test that assesses how well you HAs are working

I've had this test once. The "almost speech like sounds" are a really freaky mix of languages.