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When you learn something new the best place, the only place, to start is with something you already know. In our case, we're going to learn Chinese, which is a language, so where should we start? With a language we already know - English.
Language and culture cannot be seperated. They are two side of the same dynamic. And this is the chief reason why there are such things as xenophobia and racism. If you don't know another person's mother tongue you have a marshmellow's hope in Hell of every gaining even a rudimentary understanding of how they think. Even after eight years of intensive study of the Chinese language I come way short of the understanding I hope to have of Chinese culture.
What do you know about the English language? History? Structure? Pronunciation? Think about these questions for a while and get those language-oriented synapses firing. Next time I'll address these ideas in detail to begin building a solid foundation on which to form our language skills.
I will be following this post up in the next few weeks with a syllabus I'm writing at the moment, but for now enjoy the ad which has inspired four whole people in my locality to learn Chinese from me...
LEARN MANDARIN CHINESE
Dont think you can speak Chinese? What about: no tenses; minimal grammar; strict phonetic structure? The language may as well have been invented. Perhaps it was.
If you already know that Chinese is going to be a nightmare to learn to write and impossible to ever pronounce, then read on
Lets first have a look at the benefits of the study of Chinese. Most obvious is the gaining of the door-opening ability to communicate with a massive percentage of the worlds population in their own language. For most CSL students this is the primary, if not only reason for studying Chinese, and reason enough.
But consider these other helpful side-effects, which I have personally experienced. Improved memory, more focussed concentration, enhanced lateral thinking skills, improved all-round English, more refined handwriting.
I was five years on the Chinese mainland teaching English and found that pronunciation was something that English nor Chinese teachers seemed to spend much time with. Ive found that Chinese is easily reducible to its simplest building blocks. To me, it is one of the beautiful mysteries that a language which has no word for logic suits the workings of the Western reductionist mind down to the ground.
Fortunately, the phonemes (speech sounds) in Putonghua (Standard Chinese/Mandarin) are dont require the oral yoga of some of the English ones. They are easily pronounced by reproducing identifiable positions of the mouth and tongue, to some extent the throat. Another advantage is that Romanized Chinese (Pinyin) is almost flawless when compared to the English Alphabet and its own relationship to English pronunciation.
What about those troublesome tones? Remember Home Improvement with Tim Allen? At the end of the title theme music Tim calls out like a demented gorilla whos just got his tax return. Thats your first tone. Instead of saying just uurrgghhh though, try it with a ma or song or fun. Do it the other way, a bit quicker, and thats the fourth tone. And there are only four, so youre halfway there already.
Theres a whole other kind of challenge waiting for those willing to take on learning to read and write Chinese characters. Forget Sudoku. Not only will learning how to write reinforce your speaking skills, it will also give your brain a satisfying workout. All those benefits I mentioned before are mostly a result of studying written Chinese.
If politicians can learn Chinese so can you. Dont take my word for it. Ask one in four people in the world.
I was there...
Cough, cough, ahem,
I've just declined Cherry's invitation to spend the three hours in a queue outside the local traditional medicine shop. Unbelievable, eh? (the queue, not the three hours - the only other queue I've seen in all of China is outside the German embassy). The subways are starting to look like they've been chartered for a Michael Jackson impersonators convention. Last night had the highest number ever. I did a quick calculation and came up with a figure of 23 per cent for mask-wearing passengers. I expect it will be much higher today - yesterday I had coffee with a senior producer from CCTV (making contacts in high places). He said that that very morning all the heads of the media had been called to a meeting with the Ministry of Keeping SARS Information Under Wraps and they'd been informed that from now on everything that the officials knew would be imparted to the media. Considering the lines today, I think he was telling the truth. That and the fact that the locals don't believe the press anyway, and the officials
know it. A lot of dodgey types are making a quick buck out of the panic - traditional medicines which were 20 yuan last week are selling for 200 today. Personally I'm not worried - there's a permanent coating of dust and grime on my lungs from inhaling the local atmosphere - oxygen molecules have a hard time hitting my bloodstream, let alone some mutant monster from Guangdong.
More worrying is the apparent US strategy to piss Nth Korea off enough to take its own pre-emptive measures. I mean, they do have a point when they say they need a deterrent against potential aggressors. My Tip on World politics, number twenty-two - crazy Koreans are really f***en dangerous. Has Syria been invaded yet? We've been told that "tens of thousands" of Iraqis have taken to the streets of Baghdad to protest the occupation of their country. Is that true? If it is we could be in for some serious splattering from the proverbial fan. Anyway, I'm still living far enough away from the capital that it would probably take more than 20 mega-tonnes to knock me out.
Of course, I still spend a fair amount of time "downtown". I'm more afraid of the Wrath of Cherry than fatal diseases and imminent disintegration, so bringing home the bacon is top of the agenda. Although when Jamie (a Canadian colleague with Mad Moose disease) darted past me (as I was sipping a Caramel Mochaccino at the Starbucks on the ground floor of the Parkson Plaza where I work) in a very agitated manner, carrying a weighty-looking bowling ball-type bag, I was a little unsettled by Brian's (an uninfected Canadian) theory that the sixth floor was about to explode in a homemade fireball. Jamie is the strangest person I've ever met. For a start he knows everything, I mean everything, about Australian politics. He was telling me the other day about the policies of some Western Australian premier in the 70's. Hmmm. Way too much time on his hands. Last week he was giving Joe and I advice on how to handle women which would have made a Taliban extremist turn green with envy. He hates the Chinese, he says, with his Chinese wife sitting beside him. And don't get him started on East Indians and the curry smell in their cars. Or which websites which teach you how to kill someone without leaving marks on their body. I give him a wide berth if possible, even if I have to engage in conversation with Tom, the only truly redneck Chinese I've met. Though, to be fair, I've discovered why he is so pro-US and anti-China - the famous "Six Four Event". The what? Oh, you mean the 1989 massacre, in which several of his friends died or went missing. Although, according to Tom, no one actually died in the Square - they were dragged off somewhere else and killed.
Which reminds me, I have an appointment nearby this afternoon, and I'd better not be late or I'll get the same as the stall-keeper at the Silk Market the other day. Again, to be fair, the b#@&h did deserve it. They tend to be very arrogant there, so many foreigners with no idea that they are paying ten to twenty times the local price, even after heavy bargaining - it just wouldn't be cricket to let a big nose get away with a fair price. My tactic is to first give the impression that I'm a tourist from the US - easy targets. I guess everyone's a bit on edge, what with SARS and the close proximity of the US embassy keeping shoppers away in droves, so when the seller refused to drop the price of a shirt which had caught my eye to only five times it's value and then insulted Cherry with some off-the-cuff comment on her inability to translate to me, a shouting match ensued. Not wanting to inflame the situation I gently, ever so gently, began to lead Cherry away until the seller directly insulted me. I had no choice but to explain a few things to her in Chinese. She was quite embarrassed when she realized I had understood what she'd been saying. Much to Cherry's satisfaction - had I not quickly ushered the feisty lass away it would have gone the full circle again. As it was, several hundred face masks were hastily fixed into position as the two continued their hissing for as far as their voices would penetrate the crowd.
Anyway, I really do risk one of the Nine Ancient Punishments by dallying so long here (I hope it's not number six).
So long, stay healthy.
I'm just getting divorced at the moment. There'll be another informative post coming your way tomorrow.
Zai jian
Being my first blog ever, I've decided to take the easy option and begin with stuff I've already written, just to keep you interested (hopefully) while I learn all about this here internet contraption.
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Welcome to my blog on all things Chinese. I'll be putting in my two cents on what I have learned about China and the Chinese (and perhaps the nature of reality) during the time I spent on the Chinese mainland.
I first went to China in January 2000. I had completed a dodgey four-week ESL teaching course run by the Scientologists, and planned to teach English for twelve months. I stayed five wonderous, eye-opening years, during which time I learned to read and write the language, saw things which beggar belief, and became somewhat of a local celebrity (which I'm told also beggars belief
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Comment by Balmung
on In the beginning
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