The top character is the traditional form, which I’ve heard has been in use about 2000 years.  Japan adapted it and it’s been simplified to an even greater extent in modern Chinese.  I like this example because it shows how it has changed in Japan slightly, and some words like hua (the 2nd character) haven’t been simplified to the extent they have been in China.

Image courtesy of this article on chinese medicine

Personally, one of the main things I’ve noticed in 8 months of studying is how many words there are with the same sound.  Ie.  There are more than 100 words with the sound “shi“  I would guess that using measure words helps to narrow it down a bit!  I particularly have trouble remembering another common sound in chinese “ji”.  On top of hearing the word, then you’ve got got to try and determine the tone, then hopefully you’ve got the meaning.  It can be laborious at times.

Below is an image from a handout in my class, with some descriptions of how measure words work in Chinese and some examples.

1. Stamp / Seal
2. Place
3. Peace
4. There / That

Clearly no meaning is connected.  I’m starting to see more and more characters “borrowed” for their sound, it’s nice because you don’t have to learn more characters and sometimes you can sound out the meaning.  After 7 months of studying Chinese characters, they are FINALLY starting to make some sense.

This is my also first blog post using wordpress. 

如果你從英文的國, 學中文學的困難. 英文跟中文真的不一樣. 我是美國人, 我不學習別的文. 我只會說英文. 我學完了, 就做工作. 這年, 我六年做工作.

今天, 又網路又最聰明的電機. 如果你要知道什麼,
就找得到什麼. 所以, 我想介世越來越小. 電腦很好,
很有用. 不過工作越來越用電腦. 人常常上網,
不見面. 我覺得以後, 找到工作常常跟人見面越來越小. 我要跟人見面,
所以我覺得學中文很有用. 聽說以後, 人用中文很多. 也聽說二零五零年大陸的經濟跟美國一樣. 對我來說, 大陸大概有機會得不得了.

Photo credit: X Mei Associates

我決定在台灣學中文. 我選台灣因為台灣有:

1. 說中文

2. 對日本人好

3. 根日本用一樣的字

4. 台灣人喜歡美國人,
對我們好

5. 台灣又便宜又好玩

6. 我喜歡喝茶

Picture of Taiwan Flag.  Photo Credit: Taiwan

A few weeks ago, I went to Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan (I also got engaged while there!).  It is one of the most famous places in Taiwan for tourism, it is very beautiful lake in the mountains.  While I was there the strangest things happened and I just had to share it.

While in an aboriginal town next to Sun Moon Lake, we heard a lot of people inside a particular business and went to look inside.  When we got in there we were shocked to see a chinese lady sitting at the counter with a wad of US $100 bills in her hand.  Just a few feet to the right, was a fresh deer antler (see picture) and they were grinding it up for her.

Lots of small slices of the antler were taken and put into a grinder.  After some time, what came out was a powder which was put into pill jar sized containers.  At my best guess, 3 of these jars were at least $500 USD.  She told me that they preferred to use US $ to Taiwan $ for some reason, and she was able to get a better price because of it.  Supposedly, eating this will improve your skin and especially the skin on your face.  After looking for an article about it, apparently this is big business in Asia, and does a lot more than just improve your skin.  See Here.  How about some Deer Antler Drops?

The other method they said you could use to utilize the deer was to put a fresh slice of the antler into hard alcohol for a month and then drink it.  They did tell us that the deer this was taken from was not killed and that it was fine.  The interesting thing is that we were there in November, it’s a little late for an antler to be growing in the US, so perhaps Taiwan climate has something to do with the timing.  Could also have been flown in from NZ, where it’s springtime and when this kind of thing should be growing.

This makes me think about fireworks in the US.  The only places you can buy the good ones are on Indian Reservations, maybe this is a similar deal in Taiwan.  I have no idea if it’s legal or not, but it does seem to be a legitimate industry done all around the world (including the US).  Does anyone know that Wisconsin (the finest state in the entire US) is world famous for its Ginseng?  See this: the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin

I understood my first marketing tagline just the other day. Here in Taiwan toilet
paper and Kleenex are one and the same.
You buy big packs of them and you use them for just about everything in
your house. Also, you do not flush
toilet paper in Taiwan, so every
bathroom has a small trash can in it.

This is from a Kleenex pack. You can see the characters:

給家人最好的

給 = Give

家人 = Your family (lit. house + people)

最好的 = Very Good, the very best (lit. very + good + particle)

Alltogether this adds up to “Giving your family the very best”.  Sounds exactly like what is says in the USA.  BTW, as far as I can tell, all those characters in the lower right corner mean “3 ply”

All of the characters in the first line I’ve had to
learn for class individually, after less than 4 months of study.  Of course these are
basic terms, but it’s nice to see a connection between my classes and
the real world.  Here is a breakdown:

My first Chinese teacher in Taiwan gave me my last name, I got my first name from a nice Chinese lady in Porland (Thank you Carol !!).  I met her at the Portland Chinese Language and Culture Group, a free group that meets and practices chinese while having tea at the Chinese Garden in downtown Portland.

史	My last name: Shi (3) This character means history.  It is also a used as a family name.
哲	Zhe (2) This character means philosophy / wise.
瑞	Rui (4) This means lucky / auspicious.
哲瑞	These two together, Zhe + Rui sounds like “Jerry” which is about as close as you can come to Jered.

]]> http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/my-chinese-name/feed/ 1 http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/a-chinese-joke/ http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/a-chinese-joke/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:23:52 +0000 admin http://sleeplessintaipei.com/?p=11 Today for this first time, I made fun of someone in Chinese.  It wasn’t anything too special, but I realized I have never done that before.

I still haven’t had any dreams in Chinese, but I’m hoping that eventually I will.  I’ve gone to class 66 times now, that’s about 3.5 months and even though it’s not too long I’m happy with the progress thus far.  Today was a tough day otherwise.

Image courtesy of blog post titled “Yue Minjun – Laughing Art”

A couple of interesting things about studying mandarin in Taiwan, as opposed to China or somewhere else.

1. Taiwan did not simplify the characters back in the 1950′s when China did (Hong Kong also did not simplify).  So you could say the characters are more complicated to learn here.
2. Taiwan uses a 37 character alphabet called BoPoMoFo, as an alternative way of learning how to speak mandarin.  There are lots of different ways of writing chinese with english characters (mainly pinyin), but BoPoMoFo gets around the sounds that don’t quite match.  Some people get really frustrated with writing chinese in english characters, so it’s a nice alternative.  It certainly gets away from my own associations with the english alphabet.  (See this somewhat funny and scary rant @ the U Michigan Center for Chinese Studies website)
3. In Taiwan they don’t use the “RR” at the end of words nearly as much.  This is part of the Taiwan Accent you get here, but I’m told it’s no problem to communicate with other mandarin speakers.

Finally, studying at ShiDa was great.  They have a very well respected program with people from all over the world.  I was one of two americans in my class of 8 and it was great to be with people from other countries.

The other interesting thing about my experience was taking the certification test.  You can take tests to certify your level of chinese and there are 4 Levels:

1. Beginner – 800 characters (est. 6 months study in Taiwan or 1 year study abroad)
2. Basic – 1500 characters
3. Intermediate – 5,000 characters
4. Advanced – 8,000 characters

It’s nice that there is a standard here (and certification) that you can test and be able to put on a resume.  I’ve heard that 2,000 – 3,000 characters is what you need to be able to read a newspaper.  I didn’t come close to passing the Beginner test this time around (after 6 weeks of study) but I hope to be by the end of next semester (November).  Wish me luck

This picture shows how you say “Good Luck” or “Do your best” in Chinese.  The literal translation is “Add Oil” (image courtesy this blog)