Mad About Shanghai

Kevin Rudd speaks Mandarin?

I was channel surfing just the other day. In the nano second that I had my eyes on Phoenix Channel, I noticed a familiar westerner speaking in fluent mandarin to a reporter from Beijing. I thought nothing of it as dubbed interviews are not uncommon in China.

I soon realised that the interviewee was Kevin Rudd, the current prime Minister of Australia. Having spent some time in Australia before, naturally, I was quite interested to hear what he had to say.

I tuned back to the channel and tried follow the interview. It then occurred to me the "dubber" didnt have a Beijing accent. Oh. it was actually Kevin Rudd speaking in Mandrain! and very fluently too! His selection of some of the words used throughout the interview was excellent, perhaps even better then some oversea Chinese.

I then googled a bit on his background. Apparently, he majored in Chinese language and history in the Australia National University and then furthering this studies in Taiwan. He has a Chinese alias too, "陸克文".

You can catch an instance of him speaking in Mandrain here. Nice one Kev~.

The Chinese language has never been an easy language to master. Many consider the language to be the most difficult language in the world followed by Russian.

Impressive!  And like the Aussies says "Good on ya mate !"

Kids learning Mandarin

Our Chinese friends in Sydney Henry & Alice told us that their new baby girl Lucia is living in China now. Lucia was taken to China by Grandma three months ago and now she is just one year old.

It seems to be quite a common practice for young Chinese  couples living in Sydney to send their new borns back to their grandparents in China for a couple of years. At least we have seen and heard a few cases.

We imagine there are three major reasons are: 1.  the new parents can go back to work  fast to reduce the economic burden; 2. grandparents are better at looking after new borns than the unexperienced new parents; 3. the babies can learn Mandarin in China, which is regarded very important.

Brad and I had a discussion about the importance of learning Mandarin the other day. We would definitely make sure our kids can speak both fluent Mandarin and English. Regarding Mandarin learning, the best move might be living in China while learning it. So we started to imagine we moved back to China one day with our kids...for them to learn how to speak and write good Mandarin.

 

More Free Chinese Lessons

Free Chinese Lessons Part 2

For those of you learning, or wanting to learn Chinese, there is another free on-line resource available here.

The other one we wrote about previously is here.

On-line is a good way to start, but the services of a professional teacher will make sure your pronunciation and grammar is correct - two of the hardest parts of learning any language.

TsingTao Translation Goes Wrong

One of Brad's favourite things in China is  "TsingTao" beer - nearly every night he has to have at least one bottle or can of TsingTao.

He bought a 500ml can of TsingTao tonight and on the package there is symbol of the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a line "Official Sponsor of the Beijing 2008  Olympic Games" in both Chinese and English. What caught my attention is the big red Chinese characters and English line underneath:

“激情成就梦想”
"Passion dreams & success"

I guess this is the slogan of TsingTao Beer. But my point is not the purpose of the slogan, but the translation.

When you read the English, it is composed of three separate words - they are nouns and together they don't make much sense.

But when you read the Chinese, it is actually a sentence which means passion makes dreams come true.

After a second thought, I realised that the English translation is wrong - somehow the translator believed the Chinese sentence is made of three separate words, so he/she did a literal translation:
激情 - passion
梦想 - dreams
成就- success

To endorse my understanding is right, I found this news in Chinese which explained their slogan "Passion makes dreams come true".

As Beijing is carrying out campaigns to correct public Chinglish signs, I think the manufacturers and distributors (especially Olympics sponsors) should also pay more attention to the use of English - hire some professional translators (like me)  to verify  the accuracy of the English on their signs, products etc.

Learn Chinese - Free

The Chinese government recently launched an interesting website called Linese ( I think it is supposed to stand for Learn Chinese - go figure).

It is designed to help meet the surging demand for Mandarin learning around the world. It is full of podcast, vidcasts and other on demand methods including intercative classes and games, all designed to help people learn Madarin.

Zheng Zhongxiu, head of the website, said "The site features multimedia technologies including on-line interactive courses, virtual communities, and blogs and pods, rather than traditional Mandarin classroom activities."

It looks pretty good to me at my first look around. I listened to a couple of pod casts and watched a video. They seem to have managed to get in the education component as well as some good cultural information.

I think it is likely to give Chinesepod (a paid Mandarin podcasting program) a run for its money - but I think Chinesepod has the edge with the content, style and ability to download the transcript of lessons as pdfs as well (plus they got Jenny Zhu - thats a big plus ;)

 

Have You Practised Speaking Mandarin Today?

I received one of those surprise emails yesterday - it was from one of my former Mandarin student and he just flew to China to further his Mandarin study.

This is his blog .  There is some of his insights about learning Mandarin, which might be helpful for any of you who has also decided or just started to learn Mandarin.

Andrew was one of my best students - he was always a fast learner, asking lots of questions,  always did his homework and always passed my unexpected test. I'm so glad to know that he had decided to further his study in China. Good on you, Andrew! GO! GO! GO!

One of his tips of learning Mandarin are practising whenever he can.  He used to tell me that he would go to Chinatown after work and would talk to any Chinese people he met and also would read signs on the street and would listen to other Chinese people's conversation whenever possible.  This is the best way to practise a new language - use it in real life.

I used to have some students who were too shy to use the new language in real life; they were afraid to make a mistake or were worried the other people would laugh at their accent.Being so self-conscious is definitely not helpful for learning Mandarin or any other new languages.

I often tell the Mandarin learners in Shanghai to go out of the town and practise with people in the rural area. They do not speak English and they are patient with you. That's the best way of practising your Mandarin because you will force yourself to speak Mandarin and will have to try hard to make yourself understood.

A tip for all of you who is learning Mandarin: speak Mandarin whenever and wherever possible and you will be used to it.

Good Shanghai Taxi Drivers

There are some great taxi drivers in Shanghai.

Today I was out in Pudong near Century Park for a meeting and had to catch a cab back to Puxi.

I jumped in the cab all bundled up in my winter gear and the cabbie was giving me a big smile. He looked to be about 25 and was one of those happy kind of guys.

I told him I want to go to Huahai Lu and Xizang Lu, the Huahai part he got right, but like most taxi drivers, he couldn't understand my Xizang Lu. After I had said about 4 times, each time pronouncing Xizang slightly different, he got it. So off we went.

Once out of the car park we were at a set of traffic lights and he looked at me earnestly and shook his head and said "not American". I replied dui (correct) and said Audalia (Australia) - to my surprise he replied, `"Oh, Australia, Sydeney". I smiled and yes I'm from Sydney. He then rattled off what I think was Canberra and Melbourne as well.

Next he said "Australia, football, World Cup" and stuck his thumb up in the air. Thats right, Australia has recently qualified for the 2006 German hosted World Cup. Next he said "Olympica" and started a  swimming motion and said "Ian Thorpie". I was laughing by now and pointed at my feet then held my hands about 2 feet apart and said "Ian Thorpe" - he nodded and laughed.

The next sport on the list was tennis, he told me "Tennis - Lleyton Hewitt", then said "Shanghai, bo" and held his thigh. I'm sure that meant that he pulled out of the Shanghai Masters last month and that was bad. But the funniest thing after that was he started rubbing his stomach and did the old pregnant shape and said "Hewitt, wife, baby girl" - there he was telling me how Lleytons wife (Bec Cartwright) had just had a baby girl.

We proceeded to `discuss' diving, pistol shooting (that was a sport he participated in), volleyball, badminton, judo and golf (Tiger Woods).

It was great fun, I know that he enjoyed it to because at the end of the trip he gave me his name card (I told you everyone in China has a name card) and gave me his name and number, and told me "Taxi" and then did the universal small finger to the mouth and thumb to the ear symbol of the telephone - in other words, if I need a taxi  - call me!.

I certainly plan to do just that, we can talk about horse racing and maybe the Tour de France next time.

He was from Dazhong taxi.

How Chinese People Select Their English Name

The choice of English names amongst some Chinese people has often been cause for my amusement. My first experience with unusual names comes from a guy I used to work with in Sydney. His Chinese name (Pinyin) was Run Hua, but he called himself Wentworth. The problem was that he really couldn't pronounce Wentworth properly, and every time he answered the phone he said "Hello, Wentworse speaking" - I would regularly yell out - "Went worse than what?". He was a good guy with a good sense of humour, so I could get away with it.

Recently here in Shanghai I have been coming across more and more Chinese people with intriguing English names. I have recently spoken to Logan, Stormy, Desu, Elvis, Edison and several Winnie's.

Talking to Sabrina (and believe it or not, her first English name was Unice) she said that most Chinese people get their English names from one of three sources.

The first is from TV, books and movies. All the Winnie's I have met and spoken with are young women, so I am guessing they are Winnie the Pooh fans, and thought it was a cute name. I asked Logan about his name, he said he got it from watching the movie X-Men (the character Wolverine's name is Logan). Sabrina herself picked `Sabrina' from the Audrey Hepburn film of the same name.

The second source is usually from English teachers. I think this is where a lot of the unusual ones come from. Most English teachers in China are Chinese people who were good at learning English, but have never travelled overseas or really had much interaction with native English speakers. As such, their ability to understand names is limited. Sabrina when teaching English before she moved to Australia starting giving people names so they could be `unique'. Some lucky girl ended up with Sabrina's abandoned `Unice'. Wentworth also told me thats where his name came from, his high school English teacher (who had never met a native English speaker) had been reading about Australia and was impressed by the explorer and publisher William Charles Wentworth.

The third source is from people who just make up their own names from things they like or just make a name. Sabrina used to teach a girl called Peach because she liked peaches, a girl called Sea because she liked the sea, a girl called herself Apple because (you guessed it) she liked apples and Edison was just a big fan of the guy who invented the light bulb - Thomas Edison. Then there are people like Desu, he just plain made the name up himself.

On top of that, I also think that some strange Westerners also confuse the Chinese people, and quite possibly it is these examples that make Chinese people oblivious to what is an accepted style of name. In the past week alone I have met an American girl called Michael (no its not Michelle, she actually calls herself Mike), an Italian guy called Nicola, an American guy called Rindy and another American guy called Henning. With examples like these, who can blame Stormy and Desu for their `unusual names'.

Everyone Speaks English In Shanghai

I have been reading some threads on Shanghai Expat  about people finding it difficult to practise their Mandarin when they are learning because everyone in Shanghai speaks English.

Now I personally think that's a bit of a stretch saying that `everyone' speaks English, but certainly it is prevalent. English has been a compulsory language at schools for about 30 years and as such many people have learned basic English - the problem is that most Chinese don't have a chance to practise it, so whenever they see a `white' face they will try to get in some English practise.

Two classic examples of this we came across yesterday. As we were walking up to Nanjing Road, there was a shoe shine guy on the footpath, and he looked at me and smiled his toothless smile and said `want a shoe shine friend?' . I smiled and said no thanks (because I was wearing white sneakers and he held up a filthy looking black rag).

Then when we were on Nanjing Road we had a beggar walk up - he looked at me and held out his hand and said 'hello, I need some money'. I was most surprised and gave him a smile, patted my empty pocket (Sabrina carried the cash) and said `bu renminbi' (no money – that’s not correct Chinese, but it’s all I could say – my Chinese is not as good as the beggar’s English!), he smiled and walked off.

So when the lowest rungs on the socio economic ladder are bilingual (at least to some degree) you know that the English language is really getting a strong hold on the country, or at least the major trading centres. The governments decision to have compulsory English in school is obviously getting results, although it really only benefits the younger generation.

The continual development of English as a language in China bodes well for business and tourism for the country, but whether or not its a good thing for the local customs and language is another discussion altogether.

Sense of Belonging

I felt overwhelming nostalgia when listening to Zhengjun  (a Chinese singer) tonight.  I used to listen to Zhengjun when I was in university. Most of his songs are written in beautiful Chinese language - like a poem or a fairytale. Even though he is labled as a rock singer by some people, most of the rhythm sounds really melancholy.

Anyway I guess what really got me was the Chinese language. The melodic lyrics have brought back to me  a strong sense of belonging -  the Chinese culture - I was born as a Chinese and I am attached and influenced to that culture so deeply that no matter where I am, whenever I hear Chinese, I feel at home.

I remember I just had a very interesting discussion with my friends recently. I said that I found it interesting I always try my best to defend Chinese culture almost instinctively and that no matter what passport I would hold, I will always feel myself a Chinese.  My friends who also have been living in different cultures pointed out that it is human's instinct to love and protect their culture where they were born; they might not agree with their current government or political policies, but they always love the culture which has been existing much longer than the country's name or that particular government.

I can't wait to go back to China! 20 days to go...