Knowing how big this world is on foot, not that it’s any smaller by motorized transportation, I’m always worried about getting lost—especially in different countries. To this effect, I always try to learn the language(s) of where I’m going, so that I’m at least able to ask for directions. To this effect, I tried to make sure I knew enough Italian when going though Italy, though hearing my accent they would always switch into English on me. And in Paris, my French, while admittedly rusty, was sufficiently fluent to get us to where we wanted to go.
So in China, I’ve been quite pleased with my Mandarin skills, because I have found that while studying abroad, my travels have improved my Mandarin just as much as my Cantonese despite the fact that in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the primary language of 95% of the population.
So going around in Beijing I recall thinking that I practiced my Mandarin a lot—and I did; however, it was very localized. It was mostly all for haggling, because I knew that there’s what I like to call an “English fee” for foreigners. When it came to the important stuff though, I found that my friend who speaks much more Mandarin with much better aptitude than me did all the talking. And it worked well—we got what we needed, and again it worked in Guilin.
Nanjing was a different case in that I was traveling in a group where I spoke the most Mandarin. I figured that it would be an experience, especially since I kept telling myself and others that I would have really had trouble going around Beijing (and again in Guilin) with my level of Mandarin.
At the train ticket counter in Shenzhen I had to buy one person a ticket to Guilin, and the guy at the ticket counter found my Mandarin so bad that he asked me if I speak English in English instead seeing that I was struggling. I didn’t even try in Cantonese because I know my Cantonese is worse and from previous experience, most of the ticket people don’t operate in Cantonese.
As foreign languages go, my speaking proficiency from highest to lowest goes: Spanish, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, and Latin. On a side note, someone asked me if I conducted a conversation in Cantonese, which I laughed at, sarcastically saying that one semester of Cantonese for Foreign Learners did me so well that I could now speak it better than Mandarin.
Needless to say, my Mandarin is still way better than my Cantonese. And because I have treated Mandarin and Cantonese as such similar languages over the years, I’ve been going through sorting out the finer points of Cantonese that I totally misunderstood before taking classes.
For example, when talking about actions, soeng2 (想) in Cantonese would correspond more to yào (要) in Mandarin whereas jiu5 (要) in Cantonese would correspond to xūyào (需要) in Mandarin, with the sets meaning to want and to need, respectively. Xiǎng (想) in Mandarin means to think.
Back at the train counter in Shenzhen, I was buying the groups tickets this time to got to Shanghai South Station (上海南火车站/上海南火車站), later taking a high-speed train to Nanjing. Unlike the other time, I was able to get through the whole process in Mandarin alone. I also understood enough to grasp that we could only buy train tickets back in Shanghai.
And at Shanghai South Station, buying tickets for my two friends went even faster and even smoother. I managed to get them two hard sleepers for the way back.
The rest of the trip went along the same lines. I managed to be understood and to understand. Since Beijing and since Chinese school when in was in elementary school, I’ve come a long way.
Showing posts with label Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Chicken Feet, Shrimp Heads, and an Open Mind
I suppose if you grew up with it, it wouldn’t be so odd. In some ways, I guess I’m a picky eater. Studying abroad though and seeing how other international students deal with these differences allows me to better see how I fall into line. I can now say that I’m more open than others to different foods, though I admit there is some stuff that I would rather not go near.
A few weeks ago, my group of friends and I went to Queen Mary across the street. Yeah, it’s a hospital, but compared to Bayview Restaurant in the basement of Lee Hysan Hall, the canteen of Queen Mary Hospital is absolutely gourmet. Oh, and we get discounts there because Queen Mary also happens to be the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med School).
I’m a bit partial to the barbecue pork with rice that they have. When I go days without it, I begin missing it, and then when I order it, I realize that I don’t really care for it. I always ask for less rice (in Cantonese, of course), so instead of getting three portions of rice, I get about two (which I still don’t finish). That meal all comes out at like $16-17 HKD, which is like two bucks USD, so it’s well worth it. This meal also comes with a few stalks of Gai Lan (芥蘭/芥兰), which I used to mistaken for Bak Choy (白菜) until I was reminded that the vegetable before us is stalky, whereas Bak Choy grows in the same leafy manner as cabbage.
Now, I don’t eat Gai Lan at home, though I’ve seen it sold at the Chinese supermarkets. When I’m with my family, we tend to more often go along the lines of broccoli, Napa cabbage, and cauliflower. (Mom and Dad, if you guys are reading this I like the first two better than the third.) Here though, Gai Lan’s nickname “Chinese broccoli” becomes apparent as it’s served as the main vegetable to go with any meal that comes with a vegetable.
If you thought my mix-up was bad, my friend from northern Europe couldn’t tell what the vegetable was, so instead of assuming it was a vegetable he had never seen before, he decided that they must cook their vegetables funny here to get it to look that way and taste so different. I took it upon myself to set this logic straight and inform him clearly that this is a different vegetable.
At a different time, last week to be precise, I was having dim sum with my Cantonese classmates. In addition to this being a prime opportunity to practice our Cantonese, we also used it to try new foods. As such, we ordered chicken feet. (Unlike in the old days and at Chinatowns, most dim sum places in Hong Kong have you order food off a menu rather than pointing and choosing off of the 點心車/点心车 dim sum carts). At our table of ten, we ordered to share, splitting the bill evenly in the end.
Well, the food came and I made my stomach happy with the regulars like Haa Gau (蝦餃/虾饺) and Siu Mai (燒賣/烧卖) as well as the crowd-pleasing Cha Siu Bau (叉燒包). We went ahead and tried Taro Dumplings (芋頭角/芋头角) and Taro Cake (芋頭糕/芋头糕) , but when the Chicken Feet (鳳爪/凤爪) came out (literally Phoenix Claws), I couldn’t try it. I would have tried, but my stomach was well full, and trying new food, especially something I wasn’t sure whether or not would sit well, wasn’t a good idea. That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By the others though, I was told that it’s basically just skin and fat, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much. One of my friends at the table though was a seasoned chicken feet consumer. She could put the whole foot in her mouth and get all the edible parts off without hands, pushing the bones to one side of her mouth and when it was all said and consumed, she would spit out the foot bones onto her plate. It was impressive if not a little off-putting.
The one thing that just completely makes me feel sick is shrimp with heads and shells still on. I can de-shell them without making a fuss, but I dislike doing it while I’m eating.
I was informed though at a meal in Temple Street (廟街/庙街) near Mongkok (旺角) that they don’t de-shell because the shrimp are fresh (in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of work to peel shrimp). They quite literally pull the critters out of the tanks linking their storefronts and put them into boiling liquid. This means that they’re super fresh and that there’s no time to de-shell them.
Most people don’t eat the shell. A friend of mine who’s originally from Taishan, Guangdong, (台山, 廣東/广东) told me that you only eat the shell if it’s deep-fried. That way the shell is crunchy and enjoyable rather than fishy and unbearable. I tried it, and though it wasn’t fishy, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
At this fresh seafood restaurant, I witnessed something I doubt I’ll ever see again. He and another friend could and would put the entire cooked shrimp in their mouth and de-shell and de-head it within their mouths, spitting out the refuse politely onto their plates. It was starting to say the least, though most impressive. Never will you find me putting a shrimp head into my mouth.
The bottom line is that I don’t try everything, nor am I really expected to. I think that what’s really important is to maintain an open mind about different foods. This means that even if you don’t try it, you at least shouldn’t talk about it subjectively with objective terms. Better yet, don’t show any disgust that you may be harboring.
Balut (毛蛋 in Chinese) is a Southeast Asian delicacy that National Geographic taught me about. Over the years, I have found that many of my friends enjoy this food, and though I’ve never tried it, I maintain my doubts as to whether I’d actually like it personally.
For those who don’t know, Balut is a fertilized, partially developed duck egg. If I remember correctly, they boil the egg right before parts of the body such as the bill harden, yet it’s not like a hardboiled egg either. It’s runny, and it’s eaten fetus, yolk and all.
A friend of mine here whose parents are from Vietnam likes Balut a lot. On one episode of Fear Factor, contestants had to eat some as part of a competition and she said that she should have been there, because she totally would have won that competition.
Another friend raised ethical concerns about eating a fetus, which I thought were not necessarily irrelevant but rather illogical. I think that the only people who can argue against eating Balut are those who eat neither eggs nor meat, in which case they could say that eating such is unethical. The difference to me between eating an animal or a fetus of the same animal deals nothing with ethics. (In that sense, you can’t argue that you don’t eat human babies for that would imply that you’re a cannibal) I’ve seen how factories keep chickens cooped up in their own waste, lacking the space to turn around, and how pigs get their teeth removed from them forcefully and obviously without anesthetic when they are still young.
Though I’m not to keen on eating fetuses, I see little moral dilemma in the issue. Instead, I personally have concerns about whether I would like the texture of the item, seeing as it’s a whole undeveloped animal with extras.
A few weeks ago, my group of friends and I went to Queen Mary across the street. Yeah, it’s a hospital, but compared to Bayview Restaurant in the basement of Lee Hysan Hall, the canteen of Queen Mary Hospital is absolutely gourmet. Oh, and we get discounts there because Queen Mary also happens to be the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med School).
I’m a bit partial to the barbecue pork with rice that they have. When I go days without it, I begin missing it, and then when I order it, I realize that I don’t really care for it. I always ask for less rice (in Cantonese, of course), so instead of getting three portions of rice, I get about two (which I still don’t finish). That meal all comes out at like $16-17 HKD, which is like two bucks USD, so it’s well worth it. This meal also comes with a few stalks of Gai Lan (芥蘭/芥兰), which I used to mistaken for Bak Choy (白菜) until I was reminded that the vegetable before us is stalky, whereas Bak Choy grows in the same leafy manner as cabbage.
Now, I don’t eat Gai Lan at home, though I’ve seen it sold at the Chinese supermarkets. When I’m with my family, we tend to more often go along the lines of broccoli, Napa cabbage, and cauliflower. (Mom and Dad, if you guys are reading this I like the first two better than the third.) Here though, Gai Lan’s nickname “Chinese broccoli” becomes apparent as it’s served as the main vegetable to go with any meal that comes with a vegetable.
If you thought my mix-up was bad, my friend from northern Europe couldn’t tell what the vegetable was, so instead of assuming it was a vegetable he had never seen before, he decided that they must cook their vegetables funny here to get it to look that way and taste so different. I took it upon myself to set this logic straight and inform him clearly that this is a different vegetable.
At a different time, last week to be precise, I was having dim sum with my Cantonese classmates. In addition to this being a prime opportunity to practice our Cantonese, we also used it to try new foods. As such, we ordered chicken feet. (Unlike in the old days and at Chinatowns, most dim sum places in Hong Kong have you order food off a menu rather than pointing and choosing off of the 點心車/点心车 dim sum carts). At our table of ten, we ordered to share, splitting the bill evenly in the end.
Well, the food came and I made my stomach happy with the regulars like Haa Gau (蝦餃/虾饺) and Siu Mai (燒賣/烧卖) as well as the crowd-pleasing Cha Siu Bau (叉燒包). We went ahead and tried Taro Dumplings (芋頭角/芋头角) and Taro Cake (芋頭糕/芋头糕) , but when the Chicken Feet (鳳爪/凤爪) came out (literally Phoenix Claws), I couldn’t try it. I would have tried, but my stomach was well full, and trying new food, especially something I wasn’t sure whether or not would sit well, wasn’t a good idea. That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By the others though, I was told that it’s basically just skin and fat, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much. One of my friends at the table though was a seasoned chicken feet consumer. She could put the whole foot in her mouth and get all the edible parts off without hands, pushing the bones to one side of her mouth and when it was all said and consumed, she would spit out the foot bones onto her plate. It was impressive if not a little off-putting.
The one thing that just completely makes me feel sick is shrimp with heads and shells still on. I can de-shell them without making a fuss, but I dislike doing it while I’m eating.
I was informed though at a meal in Temple Street (廟街/庙街) near Mongkok (旺角) that they don’t de-shell because the shrimp are fresh (in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of work to peel shrimp). They quite literally pull the critters out of the tanks linking their storefronts and put them into boiling liquid. This means that they’re super fresh and that there’s no time to de-shell them.
Most people don’t eat the shell. A friend of mine who’s originally from Taishan, Guangdong, (台山, 廣東/广东) told me that you only eat the shell if it’s deep-fried. That way the shell is crunchy and enjoyable rather than fishy and unbearable. I tried it, and though it wasn’t fishy, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
At this fresh seafood restaurant, I witnessed something I doubt I’ll ever see again. He and another friend could and would put the entire cooked shrimp in their mouth and de-shell and de-head it within their mouths, spitting out the refuse politely onto their plates. It was starting to say the least, though most impressive. Never will you find me putting a shrimp head into my mouth.
The bottom line is that I don’t try everything, nor am I really expected to. I think that what’s really important is to maintain an open mind about different foods. This means that even if you don’t try it, you at least shouldn’t talk about it subjectively with objective terms. Better yet, don’t show any disgust that you may be harboring.
Balut (毛蛋 in Chinese) is a Southeast Asian delicacy that National Geographic taught me about. Over the years, I have found that many of my friends enjoy this food, and though I’ve never tried it, I maintain my doubts as to whether I’d actually like it personally.
For those who don’t know, Balut is a fertilized, partially developed duck egg. If I remember correctly, they boil the egg right before parts of the body such as the bill harden, yet it’s not like a hardboiled egg either. It’s runny, and it’s eaten fetus, yolk and all.
A friend of mine here whose parents are from Vietnam likes Balut a lot. On one episode of Fear Factor, contestants had to eat some as part of a competition and she said that she should have been there, because she totally would have won that competition.
Another friend raised ethical concerns about eating a fetus, which I thought were not necessarily irrelevant but rather illogical. I think that the only people who can argue against eating Balut are those who eat neither eggs nor meat, in which case they could say that eating such is unethical. The difference to me between eating an animal or a fetus of the same animal deals nothing with ethics. (In that sense, you can’t argue that you don’t eat human babies for that would imply that you’re a cannibal) I’ve seen how factories keep chickens cooped up in their own waste, lacking the space to turn around, and how pigs get their teeth removed from them forcefully and obviously without anesthetic when they are still young.
Though I’m not to keen on eating fetuses, I see little moral dilemma in the issue. Instead, I personally have concerns about whether I would like the texture of the item, seeing as it’s a whole undeveloped animal with extras.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Class Roundup: Cantonese
Cantonese is my second class to be done with and my only class this term to be half the units (3 instead of 6, to be transferred as 2.5 credits). In a roll of final assignments, the final examination was last Friday and the group presentation happened yesterday. I just got back a few hours ago from the optional dim sum lunch with the class, so I figured that now is as good a time as ever to blog about it, especially since I only need to proofread my last term paper (due Friday).
The final went better than expected. For the midterm I must have spent a few weeks studying for it, going over the vocabulary time and time again, to get 91%. For the final though, I had to allot my time tighter, so I ended up only spending a handful of hours over a day and a half to prepare. And I ended up with the same grade—91%. The one thing I noticed was the sheer number of tones I got right (most all of them).
I personally couldn’t care less about remembering words have what tones. There is just so much variation in the raw number of tones between speakers and locations, so all I aimed for was to be understood. In this aspect, I hoped to learn Cantonese much like a native speaker—trial and error, to just speak and see if I’m understood, to adjust my own sounds when I hear others say it differently. To this effect, I thought it was annoying that we had to remember the tones when we wrote down our Romanized Cantonese in the Jyutping system.
I got my final returned to me the day we had our group presentations in the form of skits. I paired myself with a German classmate, and I think we did pretty well. The week before, we had to submit our scripts for grading and correction, so Monday was when we got to perform our presentation from memory. Of course, the teacher allowed us to use our notes if necessary, because it’s better to be graded down rather than getting a zero mark. But my partner and I were the only group to not rely on our notes at all. Also a plus, our pronunciation was pretty good if I do say so myself, though I stuttered a few times.
Today, we had dim sum (點心) lunch at Star Seafood (明星海鮮餐廳). Though I’ve had my fair share of dim sum at Chinatowns back in the United States, this was only the second time I had gotten dim sum in Hong Kong, not including the one time I got it in Shenzhen.
I didn’t know most of the people at my table, mostly because the lunch was for all the Cantonese classes put together, but that was half the fun. At the end of it all, we took a picture with our Cantonese teacher and paid the bill. Four more classes to go!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
The final went better than expected. For the midterm I must have spent a few weeks studying for it, going over the vocabulary time and time again, to get 91%. For the final though, I had to allot my time tighter, so I ended up only spending a handful of hours over a day and a half to prepare. And I ended up with the same grade—91%. The one thing I noticed was the sheer number of tones I got right (most all of them).
I personally couldn’t care less about remembering words have what tones. There is just so much variation in the raw number of tones between speakers and locations, so all I aimed for was to be understood. In this aspect, I hoped to learn Cantonese much like a native speaker—trial and error, to just speak and see if I’m understood, to adjust my own sounds when I hear others say it differently. To this effect, I thought it was annoying that we had to remember the tones when we wrote down our Romanized Cantonese in the Jyutping system.
I got my final returned to me the day we had our group presentations in the form of skits. I paired myself with a German classmate, and I think we did pretty well. The week before, we had to submit our scripts for grading and correction, so Monday was when we got to perform our presentation from memory. Of course, the teacher allowed us to use our notes if necessary, because it’s better to be graded down rather than getting a zero mark. But my partner and I were the only group to not rely on our notes at all. Also a plus, our pronunciation was pretty good if I do say so myself, though I stuttered a few times.
Today, we had dim sum (點心) lunch at Star Seafood (明星海鮮餐廳). Though I’ve had my fair share of dim sum at Chinatowns back in the United States, this was only the second time I had gotten dim sum in Hong Kong, not including the one time I got it in Shenzhen.
I didn’t know most of the people at my table, mostly because the lunch was for all the Cantonese classes put together, but that was half the fun. At the end of it all, we took a picture with our Cantonese teacher and paid the bill. Four more classes to go!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Storm that Passed without a Fight
Yeah, I’ve been traveling a lot, I know. This latter half of the semester, I’ve been jetting off to different cities, with my last conquest being Phuket, Thailand, four hours away. There is less than a month left, and though deadlines are looming and finals are approaching, I remain calm and look forward to a few more excursions before my departure back to the States.
It’s funny how people think that something has to give for something else to happen—and it’s true. It’s like you can’t be in two places at once (not yet, though I believe not ever), or how matter can’t just disappear. The funny thing then is that people don’t realize that there’s no need to give because there already is so much give—and by give I mean time, of course.
Back at UCSD, the normal course load is about four classes. The minimum is three to be a full-time student. I took five—and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first quarter, I took the standard four. I was bored out of my mind. I caught up with many different television shows (including the nine-season Scrubs and the now-ten-season CSI) and at the end of the year I took to reading a lot.
Because of my boredom, I decided why not take an extra class? I can handle it well and I’ll graduate earlier and spend less of my parents’ money on my education. After all, the UCSD levies tuition against all full-time students equally, regardless of actual credit hours. And after that happened, I was still bored. I started a blog for my upcoming study abroad trip and started brainstorming ideas for extended prose.
Here is not all that different. Each class that I attend here is about three hours per week in duration, except Cantonese, which is about two. Add it all up and I go to class 17 hours per week. With studying, it probably works out to 48 academically-focused hours. A seven-day week is 168 hours long. I sleep off around 56 of those. So 168 minus 56 minus 48 leaves me with 64 spare hours per week.
Last weekend, the Thailand trip lasted about three full days—that’s 72 hours, and two of the three nights I spent studying for my Fine Arts final that I got over with yesterday.
So the time is there—it’s just how you use it, I suppose. I found that working on deadlines early, getting projects done a few days before they’re due (at a minimum) keeps me at rest. That way if I find something (fun) to do, I can easily be spontaneous. Last week, I turned in an essay due Friday at 7:00 p.m. on Monday at 9:00 a.m. The professor hadn’t even given the department office instructions to collect it yet.
I found out that I hate procrastination, and it’s been keeping me afloat ever since I discovered this little preference of mine. At UCSD it was the same way. My first quarter, I had a paper due week eight of the term. The week before, we were to do a peer review in tutorial/section, so I finished it in the middle of week six. I found that my paper was the only one in the class that was really able to be peer-reviewed, so nearly everybody read it. Cool.
So that’s how I do what I do—good ol’ hard work—and it really works. But that’s just one side of the coin. The other is the realization of many of us here—where does the time go at home?
I know the answer for my own situation. It drains into the tube (though my computer functions as my television). I don’t mind reading—in fact, I really like reading, but the television usage can go down. That would renew my spare time.
The funny thing is that while I’ve seen more of the United States than the average American (by means of a thirty-state road trip when I just got my driver’s license in 2006), there is still so much that I’ve never seen. I would struggle to say that I’ve been to New England. I’ve still not been to New York City. I’ve been to many, many national capitals now, yet my own isn’t on that list. Most sad (though common) is that I’ve not been thirty miles south of UCSD. Admittedly, there’s a current travel warning from the Department of State advising travel to Mexican border areas because of recent increases in drug-related violence, but the fact that I can’t say that I’m not well traveled makes it pathetic that I’ve never been to Mexico.
I’ve been to Canada quite a few times, actually, which can be construed as ironic seeing as Mexico is but thirty miles south and Canada is more than a thousand miles north. So I’ve made a personal pact to see more around North America (and South America), time, money, and parent permitting. (Though that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to travel some more with my family).
We’ll see where life takes me when I get back to California.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
It’s funny how people think that something has to give for something else to happen—and it’s true. It’s like you can’t be in two places at once (not yet, though I believe not ever), or how matter can’t just disappear. The funny thing then is that people don’t realize that there’s no need to give because there already is so much give—and by give I mean time, of course.
Back at UCSD, the normal course load is about four classes. The minimum is three to be a full-time student. I took five—and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first quarter, I took the standard four. I was bored out of my mind. I caught up with many different television shows (including the nine-season Scrubs and the now-ten-season CSI) and at the end of the year I took to reading a lot.
Because of my boredom, I decided why not take an extra class? I can handle it well and I’ll graduate earlier and spend less of my parents’ money on my education. After all, the UCSD levies tuition against all full-time students equally, regardless of actual credit hours. And after that happened, I was still bored. I started a blog for my upcoming study abroad trip and started brainstorming ideas for extended prose.
Here is not all that different. Each class that I attend here is about three hours per week in duration, except Cantonese, which is about two. Add it all up and I go to class 17 hours per week. With studying, it probably works out to 48 academically-focused hours. A seven-day week is 168 hours long. I sleep off around 56 of those. So 168 minus 56 minus 48 leaves me with 64 spare hours per week.
Last weekend, the Thailand trip lasted about three full days—that’s 72 hours, and two of the three nights I spent studying for my Fine Arts final that I got over with yesterday.
So the time is there—it’s just how you use it, I suppose. I found that working on deadlines early, getting projects done a few days before they’re due (at a minimum) keeps me at rest. That way if I find something (fun) to do, I can easily be spontaneous. Last week, I turned in an essay due Friday at 7:00 p.m. on Monday at 9:00 a.m. The professor hadn’t even given the department office instructions to collect it yet.
I found out that I hate procrastination, and it’s been keeping me afloat ever since I discovered this little preference of mine. At UCSD it was the same way. My first quarter, I had a paper due week eight of the term. The week before, we were to do a peer review in tutorial/section, so I finished it in the middle of week six. I found that my paper was the only one in the class that was really able to be peer-reviewed, so nearly everybody read it. Cool.
So that’s how I do what I do—good ol’ hard work—and it really works. But that’s just one side of the coin. The other is the realization of many of us here—where does the time go at home?
I know the answer for my own situation. It drains into the tube (though my computer functions as my television). I don’t mind reading—in fact, I really like reading, but the television usage can go down. That would renew my spare time.
The funny thing is that while I’ve seen more of the United States than the average American (by means of a thirty-state road trip when I just got my driver’s license in 2006), there is still so much that I’ve never seen. I would struggle to say that I’ve been to New England. I’ve still not been to New York City. I’ve been to many, many national capitals now, yet my own isn’t on that list. Most sad (though common) is that I’ve not been thirty miles south of UCSD. Admittedly, there’s a current travel warning from the Department of State advising travel to Mexican border areas because of recent increases in drug-related violence, but the fact that I can’t say that I’m not well traveled makes it pathetic that I’ve never been to Mexico.
I’ve been to Canada quite a few times, actually, which can be construed as ironic seeing as Mexico is but thirty miles south and Canada is more than a thousand miles north. So I’ve made a personal pact to see more around North America (and South America), time, money, and parent permitting. (Though that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to travel some more with my family).
We’ll see where life takes me when I get back to California.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Guilin: Sleeper Trains and Airplanes
My latest journey started in Shenzhen, from where we were to catch the thirteen-hour sleeper train to Guilin. This was a Friday, as my plan was to arrive in Guilin on Saturday morning, spend the night, and then take the sleeper train back to Hong Kong via Shenzhen in time for Monday classes. Looking at Wikitravel, it looked like there was about enough in Guilin and vicinity to last for about two full days, though actually being there, it was obvious that this trip could have easily lasted for at least a week.
Like I said, it all started in Shenzhen, land of the Special Economic Zone. With this being my third time to China, I wasn't particularly thrilled about roaming about, but since the train was to leave at 5:25 p.m. and three of my friends had not yet seen Shenzhen, we decided to make Friday before the train a Shenzhen train trip.
Other factors made it desirable to see Shenzhen that day. I was lucky enough to be granted a multiple-entry Chinese visa (meaning I could enter China as many times as I want during my visa's validity for no more than 30 days per entry). I'm not sure whether it's because I've gotten a Chinese visa once before or they've got a soft spot for me because I'm ethnically Chinese, but many of my friends were only allowed to apply for double-entries. Since Shenzhen is Hong Kong's land gateway to Mainland China, it just made sense to see Shenzhen on the same entry as Guilin since they had limited entries.
That day was odd in a couple ways. First, I had never gone long-distance overnight on a train before in a foreign country. I've been on long-distance trains and I've been to foreign countries and I've been on long-distance trains in foreign countries, but never overnight. This teensy weensy fact that this journey was my first sleeper train ever in any part of the world created this sort of aura in my head.
What also made this journey special (and this first Shenzhen leg odd) was that there are certain unwritten stipulations in my study abroad experience set in place by my sponsors--my parents. I am to learn Cantonese to the extend that I can speak decently with my mother. I am to travel as much as especially to see places that I have not yet been too. I am to travel to Guilin, because it's beautiful and easier to get to from Hong Kong than from California. Besides, many a poet over China's several-thousand-year history has posed Guilin as China's national treasure (though not necessarily in those worlds).
So because of that, the day kind of floated by. To start, I forgot my Shenzhen map in my room so we had to get a new one (which wasn't nearly as good) when we got there. I'd only been to Shenzhen twice before this trip, but my natural sense of direction took over as my friends noticed I wasn't even looking at the signs when I went from one MTR line to another and another, and then through immigration, where I knew where the shortest immigration lines were and where to fill out the health forms to enter China, and to crook my neck to the side so they could take my temperature.
In Shenzhen, I took them to the same place that I had street food the time before. We found some good stuff, and I maintain that while I've had my fair share of complaints about not-so-good food at restaurants, I've never felt poorly about street food--plus it's way cheaper.
But before that, we went to two places. The better one (by far) was Lianhuashan (莲花山) Park, which was an easy walk from the current northern terminus of Shenzhen Metro Line 4. There we took a brief-but-enjoyable hike (which was worsened by the heat) to a lookout point. After breaking many points along the way, it probably took us half-an-hour to hike to the that lookout. It was (very recently) paved as an open space, with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the form of an impressive statue looking out at the same view as the people over Shenzhen.
The park was great, minus the speakers that kept counting in Mandarin. It sounded like commands in square-dancing songs, so we figured it must be to facilitate some sort of similar activity. It was nice to get a proper view over Shenzhen though, because down on the ground, it is not nearly as noticeable how developed Shenzhen is, especially if you live on Hong Kong Island, where grass gives way to a sea of skyscrapers.
But before that, we went to the Chinese Folk Cultural Village (中国民俗文化村), which was meant as a showcase for China's fifty-five minority ethnic groups. While interesting as a concept, the way the park was laid out and the fact that the concept is never fully explained to foreign tourists who know little about China's ethnic groups, combined with the price of entry, we probably could have done without it.
As we finished up with our Shenzhen day trip, we made a run from street food to the train station, arriving just fifteen minutes before departure, physically getting onto the train just five minutes before it left the station. The pictures in later posts don't really show the conditions of the sleeper trains. There was nothing wrong with them, but they are very old style and according to what I've read, the trains being put on China's new high-speed rail network are a lot more modern.
I got the hard-sleeper class, as did all but one of my friends, who got a soft sleeper (for nearly double the price) because he got his ticket later than the rest of us. In the hard-sleeper compartments, there were six beds total, with three stacked above each other on each side, illustriously named top, middle, and bottom (上,中,下) on our tickets. The beds appeared clean and we were given linens to stay warm. Though I didn't see it first-hand, I was told that the soft-sleeper compartments had four beds--two on each side--and were equipped with doors that closed. The floor was not so clean though, and when walking from one train car to another, you could see the grime originating from the bathrooms (with pooper stooper toilets). On the bright side, I didn't get sick off of this trip.
The duration was something I was afraid I wasn't going to deal with well, actually. My flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles happened also to be thirteen to fourteen hours long, and by the time that plane was about to land, I was more than ready to just get off already. However, this trip was quite bearable. For a few hours, I wrote blog posts on my computer while on my bed. (I only brought my computer because I put myself under the impression that I was going to study in some fashion while in Guilin.)
The hours following, the group socialized in the diner car of the train as we winded down for the coming day. Getting to bed a bit before 11:00 p.m., we were due to wake up before the train was to arrive at Guilin at 6:42 a.m. the next day. So we tucked ourselves in and right as we went to sleep, I saw one of the train attendants with a flashlight crouching in our compartment neatly moving our shoes to one side.
After the constant clunking of the wheels on the tracks (especially since I was in the bottom bunk), we woke up at 6:15 a.m. to find the train going seemingly in the opposite direction. While one of my friends thought that we'd missed our stop and were heading back, I assured them all that trains work by turning around at terminal stations, giving the illusion that you're then going in the wrong direction. (Newbs!)
The train screeched to a halt at around 7:00 a.m. and we, in all our lethargic glory stumbled off the train and into Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region (province equivalent).
To skip all the meat of the story, I'm going to continue by going back to Hong Kong, leaving you watering at the mouth for my favorite trip so far, Guilin.
Sunday night, I found myself in a different train car than the others because of a possible mistake when we bought our train tickets in Shenzhen. It wasn't a big deal though, as the main objective was just to get back to Hong Kong, hopefully in time for my 2:00 p.m. class (as my 9:30 a.m. class was canceled that week). As expected, the train was just like the last with pretty much the same exact ammenities.
That night, I read for a while before going to sleep, and waking up well before when the train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. (though it arrived closer to 11:30), I did my Cantonese homework. Starving and knowing I wasn't going to get the opportunity to eat before 5:00 p.m., I heard the train attendant selling Guilin noodles (桂林米粉) passing by. I bought it, and though it wasn't nearly as good as what I actually had twice in Guilin, it was fulfilling. I ate with ease as I convinced myself that it had been boiled at some point, because by the time I'd gotten it, it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
Needless to say, I got to class on time and in one piece, though I actually got lost trying to find the immigration counters getting back into Hong Kong. I blame the signs.
Not yet have I have I ever been late, much less absent from a lecture or a tutorial here at the University of Hong Kong.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Like I said, it all started in Shenzhen, land of the Special Economic Zone. With this being my third time to China, I wasn't particularly thrilled about roaming about, but since the train was to leave at 5:25 p.m. and three of my friends had not yet seen Shenzhen, we decided to make Friday before the train a Shenzhen train trip.
Other factors made it desirable to see Shenzhen that day. I was lucky enough to be granted a multiple-entry Chinese visa (meaning I could enter China as many times as I want during my visa's validity for no more than 30 days per entry). I'm not sure whether it's because I've gotten a Chinese visa once before or they've got a soft spot for me because I'm ethnically Chinese, but many of my friends were only allowed to apply for double-entries. Since Shenzhen is Hong Kong's land gateway to Mainland China, it just made sense to see Shenzhen on the same entry as Guilin since they had limited entries.
That day was odd in a couple ways. First, I had never gone long-distance overnight on a train before in a foreign country. I've been on long-distance trains and I've been to foreign countries and I've been on long-distance trains in foreign countries, but never overnight. This teensy weensy fact that this journey was my first sleeper train ever in any part of the world created this sort of aura in my head.
What also made this journey special (and this first Shenzhen leg odd) was that there are certain unwritten stipulations in my study abroad experience set in place by my sponsors--my parents. I am to learn Cantonese to the extend that I can speak decently with my mother. I am to travel as much as especially to see places that I have not yet been too. I am to travel to Guilin, because it's beautiful and easier to get to from Hong Kong than from California. Besides, many a poet over China's several-thousand-year history has posed Guilin as China's national treasure (though not necessarily in those worlds).
So because of that, the day kind of floated by. To start, I forgot my Shenzhen map in my room so we had to get a new one (which wasn't nearly as good) when we got there. I'd only been to Shenzhen twice before this trip, but my natural sense of direction took over as my friends noticed I wasn't even looking at the signs when I went from one MTR line to another and another, and then through immigration, where I knew where the shortest immigration lines were and where to fill out the health forms to enter China, and to crook my neck to the side so they could take my temperature.
In Shenzhen, I took them to the same place that I had street food the time before. We found some good stuff, and I maintain that while I've had my fair share of complaints about not-so-good food at restaurants, I've never felt poorly about street food--plus it's way cheaper.
But before that, we went to two places. The better one (by far) was Lianhuashan (莲花山) Park, which was an easy walk from the current northern terminus of Shenzhen Metro Line 4. There we took a brief-but-enjoyable hike (which was worsened by the heat) to a lookout point. After breaking many points along the way, it probably took us half-an-hour to hike to the that lookout. It was (very recently) paved as an open space, with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the form of an impressive statue looking out at the same view as the people over Shenzhen.
The park was great, minus the speakers that kept counting in Mandarin. It sounded like commands in square-dancing songs, so we figured it must be to facilitate some sort of similar activity. It was nice to get a proper view over Shenzhen though, because down on the ground, it is not nearly as noticeable how developed Shenzhen is, especially if you live on Hong Kong Island, where grass gives way to a sea of skyscrapers.
But before that, we went to the Chinese Folk Cultural Village (中国民俗文化村), which was meant as a showcase for China's fifty-five minority ethnic groups. While interesting as a concept, the way the park was laid out and the fact that the concept is never fully explained to foreign tourists who know little about China's ethnic groups, combined with the price of entry, we probably could have done without it.
As we finished up with our Shenzhen day trip, we made a run from street food to the train station, arriving just fifteen minutes before departure, physically getting onto the train just five minutes before it left the station. The pictures in later posts don't really show the conditions of the sleeper trains. There was nothing wrong with them, but they are very old style and according to what I've read, the trains being put on China's new high-speed rail network are a lot more modern.
I got the hard-sleeper class, as did all but one of my friends, who got a soft sleeper (for nearly double the price) because he got his ticket later than the rest of us. In the hard-sleeper compartments, there were six beds total, with three stacked above each other on each side, illustriously named top, middle, and bottom (上,中,下) on our tickets. The beds appeared clean and we were given linens to stay warm. Though I didn't see it first-hand, I was told that the soft-sleeper compartments had four beds--two on each side--and were equipped with doors that closed. The floor was not so clean though, and when walking from one train car to another, you could see the grime originating from the bathrooms (with pooper stooper toilets). On the bright side, I didn't get sick off of this trip.
The duration was something I was afraid I wasn't going to deal with well, actually. My flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles happened also to be thirteen to fourteen hours long, and by the time that plane was about to land, I was more than ready to just get off already. However, this trip was quite bearable. For a few hours, I wrote blog posts on my computer while on my bed. (I only brought my computer because I put myself under the impression that I was going to study in some fashion while in Guilin.)
The hours following, the group socialized in the diner car of the train as we winded down for the coming day. Getting to bed a bit before 11:00 p.m., we were due to wake up before the train was to arrive at Guilin at 6:42 a.m. the next day. So we tucked ourselves in and right as we went to sleep, I saw one of the train attendants with a flashlight crouching in our compartment neatly moving our shoes to one side.
After the constant clunking of the wheels on the tracks (especially since I was in the bottom bunk), we woke up at 6:15 a.m. to find the train going seemingly in the opposite direction. While one of my friends thought that we'd missed our stop and were heading back, I assured them all that trains work by turning around at terminal stations, giving the illusion that you're then going in the wrong direction. (Newbs!)
The train screeched to a halt at around 7:00 a.m. and we, in all our lethargic glory stumbled off the train and into Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region (province equivalent).
To skip all the meat of the story, I'm going to continue by going back to Hong Kong, leaving you watering at the mouth for my favorite trip so far, Guilin.
Sunday night, I found myself in a different train car than the others because of a possible mistake when we bought our train tickets in Shenzhen. It wasn't a big deal though, as the main objective was just to get back to Hong Kong, hopefully in time for my 2:00 p.m. class (as my 9:30 a.m. class was canceled that week). As expected, the train was just like the last with pretty much the same exact ammenities.
That night, I read for a while before going to sleep, and waking up well before when the train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. (though it arrived closer to 11:30), I did my Cantonese homework. Starving and knowing I wasn't going to get the opportunity to eat before 5:00 p.m., I heard the train attendant selling Guilin noodles (桂林米粉) passing by. I bought it, and though it wasn't nearly as good as what I actually had twice in Guilin, it was fulfilling. I ate with ease as I convinced myself that it had been boiled at some point, because by the time I'd gotten it, it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
Needless to say, I got to class on time and in one piece, though I actually got lost trying to find the immigration counters getting back into Hong Kong. I blame the signs.
Not yet have I have I ever been late, much less absent from a lecture or a tutorial here at the University of Hong Kong.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
我咳香港大學嘅學生。
Right after presenting my self-introduction speech to the class, I jetted of to Taipei. That day was made thoroughly busy with the addition of a term-paper project proposal and a Phonetics midterm examination.
But back to the topic of this post, my Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1 class, I have a few more assessments to deal with. Besides the self-introduction speech, there is a group presentation in which we perform a dialogue on any topic we’d like, as well as two reading assessments in which we record ourselves reading a passage and email it to the professor, and a midterm and a final examination.
Like I said, I think I did relatively well on my self-introduction. I believe I hit almost all the tones and got all of the consonants and vowels close to perfect. Especially in comparison to my classmates (who I believe tried dearly), I have reason to believe that I got something in the range of an A on my presentation.
The midterm, which we took the class before the self-introduction presentations I did better than expected on. Using the Jyutping system of Romanization for Cantonese, we have to write either tone marks or tone numbers alongside each individual syllable. While I am confident that I can say words so that they are understood, by direct knowledge of what tone it is wavers with my mood, I suppose.
I got most of the tones right through direct memorization, but when I couldn’t remember, I’d try to remember how I’ve heard the professor say it in my head, and then try to assign a tone number to it. This worked about half the time. Lucky for me though, the professor only marked off like half or a quarter of a percent for each wrong tone. So since I got the actual sounds right on almost everything, I ended up with 91% correct on the midterm.
The class session before the midterm, the first reading assignment was due. I did it in my room while my roommate was away to Macau. I read it over about four times and then proceeded to ask my Cantonese-speaking friend to critique my pronunciation. I probably would’ve asked my mother to critique it as well had it not been for the inconvenience of time zones.
Handing it back, the teacher printed out the dialogue for each of us, circling parts of individual words that we had trouble with. On my sheet, she only marked two tones that I executed poorly, both of which fourth tone (low falling). I ended up with a letter grade A on that assignment.
Half the assignments are done with half to go. My second Cantonese reading assignment is due in her email inbox next Monday and the group presentation script is due the Monday after that with my final examination taking place the Thursday right after that.
So, off to rehearsing for the second reading assignment!
Oh, and by the way, the title is colloquial written Cantonese for the title of my previous Cantonese class post.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
But back to the topic of this post, my Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1 class, I have a few more assessments to deal with. Besides the self-introduction speech, there is a group presentation in which we perform a dialogue on any topic we’d like, as well as two reading assessments in which we record ourselves reading a passage and email it to the professor, and a midterm and a final examination.
Like I said, I think I did relatively well on my self-introduction. I believe I hit almost all the tones and got all of the consonants and vowels close to perfect. Especially in comparison to my classmates (who I believe tried dearly), I have reason to believe that I got something in the range of an A on my presentation.
The midterm, which we took the class before the self-introduction presentations I did better than expected on. Using the Jyutping system of Romanization for Cantonese, we have to write either tone marks or tone numbers alongside each individual syllable. While I am confident that I can say words so that they are understood, by direct knowledge of what tone it is wavers with my mood, I suppose.
I got most of the tones right through direct memorization, but when I couldn’t remember, I’d try to remember how I’ve heard the professor say it in my head, and then try to assign a tone number to it. This worked about half the time. Lucky for me though, the professor only marked off like half or a quarter of a percent for each wrong tone. So since I got the actual sounds right on almost everything, I ended up with 91% correct on the midterm.
The class session before the midterm, the first reading assignment was due. I did it in my room while my roommate was away to Macau. I read it over about four times and then proceeded to ask my Cantonese-speaking friend to critique my pronunciation. I probably would’ve asked my mother to critique it as well had it not been for the inconvenience of time zones.
Handing it back, the teacher printed out the dialogue for each of us, circling parts of individual words that we had trouble with. On my sheet, she only marked two tones that I executed poorly, both of which fourth tone (low falling). I ended up with a letter grade A on that assignment.
Half the assignments are done with half to go. My second Cantonese reading assignment is due in her email inbox next Monday and the group presentation script is due the Monday after that with my final examination taking place the Thursday right after that.
So, off to rehearsing for the second reading assignment!
Oh, and by the way, the title is colloquial written Cantonese for the title of my previous Cantonese class post.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Taipei: The Republic of China
A week and a half after I got back from Beijing, some of us jetted off to Taipei for a three-night weekend trip. It was honestly a spur-of-the-moment trip, as we planned and booked the trip all of about four days before we left. Leaving on Thursday night, we picked up our itinerary on Wednesday morning and checked in for the flight on Wednesday night via the very convenient Airport Express Station in Central.
The reason why we had to check in so early was that I needed to make it to my last class on Thursday (Cantonese) to make a presentation. It ended at 5:00 p.m., and with the flight leaving at 8:55 p.m., I felt pressed for time. Back home, the main international flights leave Los Angeles International Airport. You leave super early because there is no subway/light rail system to get you there efficiently from my suburb, so you have to drive—and since everyone drives, you get stuck in traffic. Depending on your route there, you either go along the Pacific Coast Highway and hit traffic lights or you go on the 101 and 405 (which happens to be “at capacity” a.k.a. congested for fifteen hours of the day). On top of that, with such high security at airports, it’s not uncommon to wait for an hour to get into the terminal.
It’s different at Hong Kong. First off, there are airport buses going everywhere in the territory. The one from my dorm takes about an hour and costs half of what the Airport Express does ($48 HKD vs. $100), and after you take a bus to get to Central, which is where you’d pick up the Airport Express from, you’ve already lost half an hour, which is followed by the much-advertised 24-minuted train ride to the airport that would take 24 minutes if you didn’t have to wait so long for it to depart. So thinking time was in a crunch, since I had four hours to get to the airport, go through immigration, customs, and security, I opted for the Airport Express. It took me about an hour total to get there, and forgetting how efficient Hong Kong International Airport is in comparison to Los Angeles International Airport, I got through security in five minutes and immigration in four, not to mention that I forgot that Hong Kong doesn’t have exit customs (because I remembered China does). Basically, I ended up rushing to the airport, and after everything was all said and done, I waited two and a half hours for the airplane to leave. But enough about that…
Honestly, when I came to Hong Kong I never thought I would visit Taiwan. I remember looking out the airplane window when we flew over a corner of the island, never thinking for a second that I’d get my way over there before the semester was out. Lo and behold I did.
Taiwan holds a funny place in my mind. Partially because of my upbringing, I’m of the One China mentality—that is that there is one China (which includes Taiwan), which is the standpoint for any state that hopes to have relations with the big China. Before I get in trouble with some of my separatist friends back home, just read this post out. So in off-the-record contexts, I would likely suggest that Taiwan is a part of China, though I realize that in practice it is not.
After landing in Taipei Taoyuan International Airport after a one-and-a-half hour flight, we stepped of the plane. Officially the Republic of China (with China being the People’s Republic of China), immigration put a nice ROC stamp on our passports. The entry card was carbon-copied to a departure card, the latter of which was stapled into our passports. One of my friends drew political swords when his passport was stapled right through his Chinese visa.
Walking through their capital’s international airport, it seemed dark and dingy, which, while not speaking to the vibrancy of their city, did not bode well for first impressions. It seemed like this airport, which was built in the 1960s, was thought of as a temporary venue until the Nationalist government could return to Beijing. This sense of temporary placement seemed to follow me through Taipei. Having been mostly developed in the 1960s, it seems like everything was a little too new and that things weren’t built to last. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist when they were exiled, is not even interred; his body is in an above-ground casket, ready to be transported back to his proper burial space in Mainland China “when” the Nationalists capture back all of China.
Another thing that I reminded myself of was that more than a handful of my friends back home are on the Taiwan side of the cross-strait relations, which, while having warmed up lately, are still unstable at the core and in principle, which either party claiming the entirety of the other’s controlled territory. Many of my friends spend their summers there in Taipei and say that they are not (ethnically) Chinese but Taiwanese because they aren’t communist. Fine, but when I told them about Taiwanese aboriginals, they said that they weren’t that either. It seems they’ve lost the fact that Taipei looks very similar to Mainland China and that they speak the same “national” language, not to mention Taiwanese is mutually intelligible with the Fujian dialect of Chinese on the mainland.
That’s fine and all. We weren’t there anyways to talk politics.
Like my serial about Beijing, I have two more text posts about Taipei and two photograph posts. As for now, I need to call the United States consulate and see about getting refill pages in my passport.
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
The reason why we had to check in so early was that I needed to make it to my last class on Thursday (Cantonese) to make a presentation. It ended at 5:00 p.m., and with the flight leaving at 8:55 p.m., I felt pressed for time. Back home, the main international flights leave Los Angeles International Airport. You leave super early because there is no subway/light rail system to get you there efficiently from my suburb, so you have to drive—and since everyone drives, you get stuck in traffic. Depending on your route there, you either go along the Pacific Coast Highway and hit traffic lights or you go on the 101 and 405 (which happens to be “at capacity” a.k.a. congested for fifteen hours of the day). On top of that, with such high security at airports, it’s not uncommon to wait for an hour to get into the terminal.
It’s different at Hong Kong. First off, there are airport buses going everywhere in the territory. The one from my dorm takes about an hour and costs half of what the Airport Express does ($48 HKD vs. $100), and after you take a bus to get to Central, which is where you’d pick up the Airport Express from, you’ve already lost half an hour, which is followed by the much-advertised 24-minuted train ride to the airport that would take 24 minutes if you didn’t have to wait so long for it to depart. So thinking time was in a crunch, since I had four hours to get to the airport, go through immigration, customs, and security, I opted for the Airport Express. It took me about an hour total to get there, and forgetting how efficient Hong Kong International Airport is in comparison to Los Angeles International Airport, I got through security in five minutes and immigration in four, not to mention that I forgot that Hong Kong doesn’t have exit customs (because I remembered China does). Basically, I ended up rushing to the airport, and after everything was all said and done, I waited two and a half hours for the airplane to leave. But enough about that…
Honestly, when I came to Hong Kong I never thought I would visit Taiwan. I remember looking out the airplane window when we flew over a corner of the island, never thinking for a second that I’d get my way over there before the semester was out. Lo and behold I did.
Taiwan holds a funny place in my mind. Partially because of my upbringing, I’m of the One China mentality—that is that there is one China (which includes Taiwan), which is the standpoint for any state that hopes to have relations with the big China. Before I get in trouble with some of my separatist friends back home, just read this post out. So in off-the-record contexts, I would likely suggest that Taiwan is a part of China, though I realize that in practice it is not.
After landing in Taipei Taoyuan International Airport after a one-and-a-half hour flight, we stepped of the plane. Officially the Republic of China (with China being the People’s Republic of China), immigration put a nice ROC stamp on our passports. The entry card was carbon-copied to a departure card, the latter of which was stapled into our passports. One of my friends drew political swords when his passport was stapled right through his Chinese visa.
Walking through their capital’s international airport, it seemed dark and dingy, which, while not speaking to the vibrancy of their city, did not bode well for first impressions. It seemed like this airport, which was built in the 1960s, was thought of as a temporary venue until the Nationalist government could return to Beijing. This sense of temporary placement seemed to follow me through Taipei. Having been mostly developed in the 1960s, it seems like everything was a little too new and that things weren’t built to last. Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist when they were exiled, is not even interred; his body is in an above-ground casket, ready to be transported back to his proper burial space in Mainland China “when” the Nationalists capture back all of China.
Another thing that I reminded myself of was that more than a handful of my friends back home are on the Taiwan side of the cross-strait relations, which, while having warmed up lately, are still unstable at the core and in principle, which either party claiming the entirety of the other’s controlled territory. Many of my friends spend their summers there in Taipei and say that they are not (ethnically) Chinese but Taiwanese because they aren’t communist. Fine, but when I told them about Taiwanese aboriginals, they said that they weren’t that either. It seems they’ve lost the fact that Taipei looks very similar to Mainland China and that they speak the same “national” language, not to mention Taiwanese is mutually intelligible with the Fujian dialect of Chinese on the mainland.
That’s fine and all. We weren’t there anyways to talk politics.
Like my serial about Beijing, I have two more text posts about Taipei and two photograph posts. As for now, I need to call the United States consulate and see about getting refill pages in my passport.
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1
So I started realizing about a month ago that I haven't been writing that much about class. So here I'll start.
First up is Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Ideally, I've found that for learning languages, practice every day (or at least five days a week) works wonders for subconciously memorizing vast amounts of vocabulary and complex grammatical patterns. Unfortunately, my Cantonese class meets on Mondays and Thursdays for an hour each time. We cover a lot, but the fact that we don't repeat what we learn in class means that I have to study a lot more outside of class.
It's stuctured as we're given material and accomopanying homework than tested on it twice in the semester. So far we've covered the usual topics: acoomodation, self-introduction, money, time, and greetings. And for what we've learned (combined with what I learn myself) I've fared well. In going out of the country I use Cantonese at immigration (though by Hong Kong law I am entitled to use English if I so choose), I manage to hop of minibuses with ease, and ask for directions frequently when infrequently I get lost.
In addition, we have two presentations to deal with. The latter is a group project which we have not yet started. The former is a memorized self-introduction with a minimum of 100 character-syllabes delievered to the class. This self-introduction happened on Friday, right before I departed for Taipei, and by all regards it went well.
I had my speech memorized to the point where I left the script at my dorm that most would use for last-minute review and preparation. I thought I would miss a fair number of tones, but I knew I had all of the phonetic sounds down. The only thing I was lacking was confidence, because while I have little trouble speaking in front of large groups of people, strange as they may be, I've never done so in a foreign language (except in other foreign language classes), and in such a foreign foreign language.
But it went well. With speech not in hand, I delievered it smoothly and confidently. Part of it (bless them for their effort though in learning Cantonese), many of the other students were so poor. Many focused more on the tones than the sounds of the words. Entire consonants were missing as vowels were made to sound overly contrived and highly awkward.
And here's where I get into the nitty gritty of this class. To start things off, when I was learning bits and pieces of Cantonese (never enough to be fluent) from my mother when I was younger, I had already gone through two non-consecutive years of Chinese (Mandarin) school. I was always told that I sounded better in Mandarin than in Cantonese, and in a way that inhibited me from going too much farther.
But in a way, I have something of a natural ability to kind of pick up languages—and whereas everyone honestly does or did, I never seem to have truly lost mine. When speaking Spanish or French, I can go sentences at a time without people thinking i'm a non-native speaker. One woman in France asked me what district of Paris I was from, need I reiterate.
So now in taking Cantonese class here, hearing a native Cantonese speaker speak twice weekly, I find myself sounding more and more native, less and less stilted every day—which is good albeit expected, since the same thing happened to me when I took that year of Mandarin in my last year of high school.
I don't know how nitty gritty I can get into this here for sake of losing eyes, but I'll go so far as to say that we use the Jyutping system in class. Most of the vowels used don't correspond to English, though the consonants do, so go look it up in a book or online. But for the tones, we use six in the class (though some scholars have counted up to a dozen). Basically the first (1) is high-level, the second (2) is high rising, the third (3) is mid-level, the fourth (4) is mid-low falling, fifth (5) is low falling then rising, and sixth (6) is low-level.
So if you speak Cantonese, the sentence "Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1" means I am a Hong Kong University student."
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
First up is Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Ideally, I've found that for learning languages, practice every day (or at least five days a week) works wonders for subconciously memorizing vast amounts of vocabulary and complex grammatical patterns. Unfortunately, my Cantonese class meets on Mondays and Thursdays for an hour each time. We cover a lot, but the fact that we don't repeat what we learn in class means that I have to study a lot more outside of class.
It's stuctured as we're given material and accomopanying homework than tested on it twice in the semester. So far we've covered the usual topics: acoomodation, self-introduction, money, time, and greetings. And for what we've learned (combined with what I learn myself) I've fared well. In going out of the country I use Cantonese at immigration (though by Hong Kong law I am entitled to use English if I so choose), I manage to hop of minibuses with ease, and ask for directions frequently when infrequently I get lost.
In addition, we have two presentations to deal with. The latter is a group project which we have not yet started. The former is a memorized self-introduction with a minimum of 100 character-syllabes delievered to the class. This self-introduction happened on Friday, right before I departed for Taipei, and by all regards it went well.
I had my speech memorized to the point where I left the script at my dorm that most would use for last-minute review and preparation. I thought I would miss a fair number of tones, but I knew I had all of the phonetic sounds down. The only thing I was lacking was confidence, because while I have little trouble speaking in front of large groups of people, strange as they may be, I've never done so in a foreign language (except in other foreign language classes), and in such a foreign foreign language.
But it went well. With speech not in hand, I delievered it smoothly and confidently. Part of it (bless them for their effort though in learning Cantonese), many of the other students were so poor. Many focused more on the tones than the sounds of the words. Entire consonants were missing as vowels were made to sound overly contrived and highly awkward.
And here's where I get into the nitty gritty of this class. To start things off, when I was learning bits and pieces of Cantonese (never enough to be fluent) from my mother when I was younger, I had already gone through two non-consecutive years of Chinese (Mandarin) school. I was always told that I sounded better in Mandarin than in Cantonese, and in a way that inhibited me from going too much farther.
But in a way, I have something of a natural ability to kind of pick up languages—and whereas everyone honestly does or did, I never seem to have truly lost mine. When speaking Spanish or French, I can go sentences at a time without people thinking i'm a non-native speaker. One woman in France asked me what district of Paris I was from, need I reiterate.
So now in taking Cantonese class here, hearing a native Cantonese speaker speak twice weekly, I find myself sounding more and more native, less and less stilted every day—which is good albeit expected, since the same thing happened to me when I took that year of Mandarin in my last year of high school.
I don't know how nitty gritty I can get into this here for sake of losing eyes, but I'll go so far as to say that we use the Jyutping system in class. Most of the vowels used don't correspond to English, though the consonants do, so go look it up in a book or online. But for the tones, we use six in the class (though some scholars have counted up to a dozen). Basically the first (1) is high-level, the second (2) is high rising, the third (3) is mid-level, the fourth (4) is mid-low falling, fifth (5) is low falling then rising, and sixth (6) is low-level.
So if you speak Cantonese, the sentence "Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1" means I am a Hong Kong University student."
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
