Contradiction

People often say that studying a foreign language is also studying a whole other culture. And when it comes to Chinese, this is true much more than with any other language I have ever studied. One reason is the Chinese characters that come from the original pictograms. When you realise where they have come from and the kind of associations they have behind, it gives you a little peak to the life and minds of the ancient Chinese...

But another, even more visible thing is how the everyday Chinese frequently uses words and experessions derived directly from ancient stories recorded over various dynasties. At first, you only learn words as words, but getting to know the 'whys' behind them takes you an a whole other trip :)

Here's an example: The word in Chinese, which translates as 'contradiction', literally reads 'spear-shield'. The story behind it , recorded around 250 B.C., goes like this:

In the kingdom of Chu there was a man, who sold spears and shields. He would stand in the market place and cry out loud, praising the products he was selling: "Come by my spears! They are so sharp that they will pierce through absolutely anything, there is no material so strong that it could defeat my spears!" He then went on: "Come by my shields! They are so strong that nothing will get through them, there is no weapon so strong that it could cut through my shields!"

As one of the passers-by heard the man's cry, he stopped and asked: "If I take your spear that will cut through anything and with it attack your shield that will defeat any weapon, what will happen?" The man could not find anything to say in reply.

And that's why even today, 'spear-shield' stands for 'contradiction'. :)

Yet another face story

Recently I was faced with a situation where the issue of face and my own sanity were at odds.

Last term, I managed to sit through hours of lessons, which I found less than useful. My Chinese teacher has a habit of talking through the text of every lesson in the book, which in practise means that he goes through every sentence in the text and explains the background and culture and whatever pops into his mind. Sometimes this could take very long, when his mind went of on sidetracks. Needless to say, that left us with not so much time for learning actual language points and at the end of the term we hadn't even gotten through half of the book we were supposed to do.

This term, the texts in the new book are much longer and more complicated than before. I was dreading the lessons of 'talking trough the text'. And sure enough, reading the text was followed for hour after hour of endless monologue, while we were still wondering what this or that word ever means.

By the sixth hour of monologue I was grinding my teeth to a powder, and came to the decision that I have to ask the teacher to change his methods. Otherwise this term do very little for our Chinese learning, but would fill our heads with little trivial details. Not to mention my low tolerance for boredom and inefficiency.

So, after consulting with one of my classmates, whose eyes had been rolling more than usual during the past lessons, I approached the teacher after the class. I had a fully prepared little speech, which was suggesting in the most polite of ways that because the texts are so long, we'd skip the explanation bit, and instead concentrate more on the language points, and maybe give us more chance to practise ourselves. If needed, we could ask him for clarification of the parts we didn't understand. But I didn't get very far with my speech before the teachers experession turned to stone. It was as if I had spat on him, he just said "ok, ok" and walked straight out.

I was left in the classroom, feeling like a complete fool. In Chinese culture, teachers are very respected and stand well above their students in power position. Although I had try to use the most polite expressions possible, and in all possible ways avoid it sounding like a criticism of his methods, obviusly the result was not so good.

Face was lost.

I was dreading going to class the next monday, wondering if had just made an enemy. But instead, the teacher was even nicer than usual, coming over to chat about this and that.

Later, I found out, he had found the perfect solution, one that would save his face, but at the same time give us what we wanted. This was it: He announced in class that he had been thinking, and came to the conclusion that because the structure of the new book was so different, and the texts much longer, he would no longer be 'talking through the texts'. Instead, we could ask him about the bits we didn't understand, and we would have more time to concentrate on grammar and exercises.

As he was speaking, I kept nodding my head in accordance. All in all, I thought his new suggestions we not bad at all.

Let's talk

As I am newly connected to the outside world again through the very efficient China Telecom internet service, those of you who are using some messenger service, do let me know, it would be nice to talk.

You can look me up on MSN Messenger under my email address, or let me know what username you have for any other messenger service.

Hope to talk to you soon!

Sunny studies

Today it seems like the sun is shining straight into people's minds and hearts. After many days of cold, rain and mist, of hiding in our little wholes trying not to move too much, the world is again full of light and getting warmer.

And it seems to be affecting people. Even a car stopped for me today as I was aiting to cross the street. I was too confused to smile at the driver or thank him, as I kept looking for the reason why the car had stopped. Only when I was already on the other side of the street did I realise that it has actually just stopped for me!

And many smiles, 'byebyes' and 'hellos' -- said in the nice way.

The first of our spring term at the university is almost over, and we're getting used to our new classes. The level of the books we use has gone up a big leap, but it remains to be seens what that really will do for our classes, seeing that the level of the students has still stayed pretty much the same. But I guess we'll all just have to work that much harder for it.

We have some new courses, including Old Chinese and Chinese Culture, the first of which seems like a really interesting addition to the syllabus. It gives me a new chance for those "wow, I see it now!" -moments, as the ancient poems and stories where just a few characters say what in modern language would take at least double the words suddenly start making sense and you see the beauty of writing them just the way they did.

(The picture is from the mountain that I can see through the window at this very moment as I am writing this, taken last week.)