Hello again! WordPress has this cool thing that allows you to track your own viewers. My viewership has dropped .-. But it’s okay, that gets some expectations away and I can settle quickly to regular blogging as and when I please! Just a little update on my current state. I just removed one of my wisdom teeth yesterday and I feel completely enervated. It’s the first time I got a tooth plucked! Interesting experience, but not something I wish to go through again. An interesting tip for those that are visiting the dentist anytime soon: most dentists allow you to bring in your own earphones to listen to music. If going to the dentist makes you really anxious, plug in and listen to your favourite music; try to focus on enjoying your music rather than on the… drilling, poking and scraping. Hehe. Back to feeling weak; I hope to recover by tomorrow so I can get back to exercising and doing really fun stuff like chewing food on my right side too 😉
Today, I shall give few compelling reasons to master the Chinese language. This post was inspired by a conversation with the baby sister that I never had. I consider English to be my first language, and the language I’m most comfortable in. However, I do have a special passion for Chinese, and I’m fortunate to have a few good reasons to want to learn it well. Because, it is important. One of my most special reasons is not something I can encourage you with. And that is the fact that I do in fact have a Chinese language environment at home. My parent pines do believe in the important of Chinese as a form of identity and cultural transmission. And if you’ve ever been to my home, you’d notice distinct Chinese art hung on my walls. If you have an English speaking family environment, however, these are my following reasons.
1. You’re ethnically Chinese, aren’t you?
This first reason seems superficially unimportant. We grow up in a multicultural environment and most of us are exposed to English media. It’s hard to feel any kind of connection to our true Chinese roots in China. This, coupled with many unfavourable reports of unkind behaviour of the mainland Chinese make us wish to define our own identity. I’m all for defining ourselves as children of God, not as an American, Mongolian or Russian, or according to our ethnicities. However, we cannot deny that it’s a part of us. Most (and I emphasise most, not all) people tend to marry people who are ethnically similar. I once asked a Korean American missionary what kind of girl he looked out for. He said all the usual personal preferences, but he made it a point that this girl had to be Korean. FYI, he was a Korean American living in China. Not convinced? I once asked my Chinese American roommate the same question. Don’t be mistaken, he wasn’t a new migrant. He was a third generation Chinese American and he spoke Chinese funny (he was learning at that time). He also specified that this female had to be Chinese. No matter what, we are most comfortable with those who share a closer heritage with us. It might be for very simple cultural reasons (having Chinese-speaking parents, using chopsticks for meals, loving sweet and sour pork, accepting ang bao) but we can’t deny that it is a small part of who we are. Weak reasoning? Probably.
2. Don’t master English, a-b-c Chinese and Korean/Spanish/French. Master English AND Chinese
Imagine yourself applying for a job. A part of the application requires you to fill up the number of languages you are fluent in. What are you likely to write? English and Chinese would be the instinctive response of the people from our country. Wrong! Trust me when I say I think most young people can’t string a proper Chinese sentence, much less be “fluent” in Chinese or even “master” Chinese. First of all, many people from our country can’t even master English! When was the last time we did anything productive for English lessons? How many times have you asked your friend whether or not they have prepared for their coming English language paper only to hear this response: “aiya, English no need to study one lah..” The end result? Many have poor language. However, before they realise this, many go on to learn other more exotic languages like Korean or Japanese. However, have you realised how lucky we are? Chinese is commonly thought of as one of the hardest languages to learn. English is also the must-learn language for international or even domestic success in most countries in the world. Think about it: the internet has sooo many English language websites! It was invented in the US! Today, we can gain access to and understand so many websites because of the very simple fact that we know English! So, we have our administrative language as English, and we have compulsory mother tongue exams in Chinese. Add on to the fact that we talk to the old aunties and uncles in Mandarin and occasionally identify Chinese characters around the country. Don’t you realise what a goldmine this is? You are born in a country that effectively encourages the learning of the most sought after language and one of the most difficult languages in the world!! And you are still not doing your 习字!
Oh, and let me correct the misconception that Chinese is not a sought-after language. It is. Every year, thousands upon thousands of foreigners flock to Chinese universities to study Chinese! And trust me when I say it’s agonisingly hard to learn it from scratch. There are just some things you can’t explain to them. Let me list a few jokes from my American roommate.
这条路好长，走到永永远远 – This road is long, it is everlasting
我们家里的蚊子人口好多! – The mosquito (human) population is huge!
You realise that at this point, I haven’t actually gotten to why you should master it other than the fact that we have an awesome environment. Well, Chinese is really beautiful in a very special way. Every Chinese character can mean something different and piecing the right characters together gives you a vivid image of what authors try to portray. Try reading some old Chinese poems, and have someone tell you the meaning of each character, it’s beauty in a way no other language can describe! That is why I really love Chinese worship songs. Hmm let me try my hand at poem translation. Bear with me!
七步诗 is one of my favourite because it’s so simple, and the context and background adds so much flavour to it. It was an impromptu poem created by Cao Zhi in a period when his own brother, Cao Pi, was trying to implicate him. This occurred during the Three Kingdoms period. Bear with my translation!
煮豆 燃豆萁 (煮豆 means cooking beans, 燃豆萁 means to burn the beanstalk. As a whole: to cook beans, we burn…)，
豆在釜中泣。(The beans cry out – as in really cry – whilst in the pot)
本是同根生，(we were/I am born of the same roots)
相煎何太急？(相煎: means to fry one another – like a veggie – why are we so eager to torment each other?)
Now let’s piece it together: we’re like beans, and we are being cooked. But since we are all born from the same root, why are we so anxious to do harm to one another? *clapclap!* Bravo! To be able to speak a mouthful of fluent Chinese is just a fantastic skill set. To be able to understand poetry on such a level will be simply fantastic! (FYI, I can’t understand most ancient poetry at first sight. But it becomes very beautiful when there’s an explanation)
3. We need to help those that are weaker than ourselves
Like it or not, many Chinese speaking residents belong to lower socioeconomic classes. Once again, I’m not making stuff up. Refer to a paper titled Language and Social Class by Vaish and Teck. 51% of the people who speak Mandarin at home belong to lower socioeconomic classes. Since they don’t have an English speaking environment, many do not do as well as their peers in school. Now, we can decide. Either we continue to neglect this super beautiful and useful language and continue to speak to everyone in English, or, we can make some effort to speak Mandarin fluently so we can make people feel welcome and at home when we invite them for times of fellowship.
It is true that in our society, the English speaking people are often viewed as the elite. Many have used this self-imagined position of superiority to look down on people who can’t speak English well. This transition was the most painful when across the board, Chinese language schools were phased out and companies and government agencies turned to hire candidates who were fluent in English or had an English language education. There is nothing inherently good or bad about using either language. However, we need to be fluent in both to reach out to both people groups.
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I think I’m too tired to go on.. But trust me, do your best in both, find your interest, watch some martial arts flick and spark your desire to know this language. You’ll be surprised to find how awesome it is to be able to speak both English and Chinese when you travel! Truly! You will be one of the most useful people around!
Signing off,
Fatpine.
fatpine 