Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Year's Day, kicking off the year of the Ox. While out running errands today, I poked my head into Chinatown. The big celebration in London won't be until this weekend, and I've learned to avoid it because the crowds are just too big. But this afternoon it wasn't very crowded so when I heard the drumming coming my way, I actually got to see the lions (dragons? I can never tell) dancing through Chinatown. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but I was delighted because they were letting other people take over and dance. So someone with lion legs would step out and walk alongside, or go help the drummers, while the lions would keep dancing, but with the front legs those of a businessman.

Ego-boosters

Chinese class started again on Tuesday evening. Among the sample sentences in the "Speech Patterns" section of the new chapter, we have some real ego-boosters:

我连一半也没做对。 I didn't do even half of it correctly.

这事连小孩都知道。 Even small children know this.

At least, I think I've translated these correctly...

Get on the horse!

This is one of my favourite new Chinese vocabulary words:

马上 = mǎ shàng = at once; right away; immediately

马 = mǎ = horse; horse chess piece; Surname
上 = shàng = on; up; on top; upon; first (of two parts); previous or last (week, etc.); upper; higher; above; previous; to climb; to go into; above; to go up

So 马上 could be literally translated as, "Get on the horse!"

比茶壶还热 -- hotter than a teapot!

昨天晚上上中文课，一段话里，妈妈说：比茶壶还热！所以我们的老师教我们：茶壶里煮饺子倒不出。意思是：知道很多东西但是不会表达的人。 昨天晚上学生只是我和马克。一老师说了这个，我们就说：数学家！

In one of the dialogues we studied in class last night, the mother used the expression 比茶壶还热 (bǐ chá hú hái rè) -- hotter than a teapot! So our teacher taught us another phrase:

茶壶里煮饺子倒不出
chá hú lǐ zhǔ jiǎo zi dào bù chū

Literal translation of words:
茶壶 -- teapot
里 -- inside
煮 -- cook, boil
饺子 -- dumplings
倒 -- pour
不 -- not
出 -- go out

So the phrase literally means "dumplings cooking in the teapot, they don't pour out". The phrase is used to describe someone who has a lot of knowledge inside, but can't express it well. Last night a lot of people weren't there; it was just me and 马克 (mǎ kè) -- Mark, a computer science professor. When we heard this, we immediately exclaimed, "数学家！" (shù xué jiā!) -- "Mathematicians!"

加油！

在中文课，我们刚结束了第二本书。 一结束那本书了，就开始了第三本书。上课，我们学了"加油"。那课，我们的老师对我们告诉星期四晚上在国王学校我们可以看中国电影"大红灯笼高高挂"。所以昨天晚上我看了这个电影。以前我没看过这个电影。这个电影又好又很漂亮，可是房间太冷了。

前天我对我的围棋老师说：我正在写汉字呢。她说：我帮你学汉语。今天她给我发邮件。她写：这么好的天气, 不出去走走吗? 她住在 Amsterdam。 我写：在伦敦今天天气一点儿冷。我应该写：在伦敦今天天气有点儿冷。

In Chinese class, we just finished the second book. As soon as we finished that book, we started the third book. (With this transition we move from "beginner" to "lower intermediate" -- learning Chinese is a slow process.) Last class, we learned "加油". (This is pronounced jiā yóu. It's a Chinese chant to cheer on your team, so where we might yell "Go! Go!" or "Come on!" they would yell "加油！加油！" The first character 加 means "add" and the second character 油 means "oil" so the phrase, translated literally, means "add oil"; perhaps a better translation is "Give it the gas!") That class, our teacher told us that on Thursday at King's College, we could watch the Chinese film "Raise the Red Lantern". So last night I watched this film. I had never seen this film before. This film was good, and beautiful, but the room was too cold.

The day before yesterday, I told my Weiqi teacher, "I'm writing Chinese characters right now." She said she would help me learn Chinese. Today she sent me an email. She wrote, "The weather is so nice, are you not going out?" She lives in Amsterdam. I wrote, "In London, the weather today is a bit cold." I should have written, "In London, the weather today is somewhat cold." (She corrected me.)

ping-pong

乒乓
pīng pāng

我生病

因为我生病所以今天我在家。我头疼，感冒。通常我工作，但是今天我休息。 我看书， 看电影。 我喝又水又茶。 我吃药。在七月，我也生病。当时，我病了三个星期。我想比以前好快了。我有很多工作。

在十二月，我坐飞机去德国。在德国，我接数学家。他们和我工作一样。然后，我坐飞机去美国圣诞节。我在了三个星期美国。 前天我买了机票去美国。

Today I'm at home because I'm sick. My head hurts and I have a cold. Usually I work, but today I rest. I'm reading books and watching movies. I am drinking water and tea. I'm taking medicine. In July, I was also sick. Then, I was sick for three weeks. I hope I get better faster compared to then. I have lots of work to do.

In December, I will fly to Germany. In Germany, I will meet mathematicians. We are working on the same things. After that, I will fly to the U.S. for Christmas. I will stay in the U.S. for three weeks. I bought plane tickets for the U.S. the day before yesterday.

Mnemosyne

When adding Chinese vocabulary to my Mnemosyne cards, I use definitions from an online dictionary. Many Chinese characters have multiple meanings and so, while I often learn only one particular meaning from my book, I find other meanings in the dictionary. An interesting one I recently ran across is 疼, which is pronounced téng. We learned it, in the chapter of our book on going to the doctor, as "hurt" or "pain". For example, 头疼, pronounced tóu téng, means "headache" (头 means "head"). My dictionary listed some other synonyms (ache, sore) but also gave the meaning "love fondly".

Another interesting feature of Chinese words is the tendency to double up characters that have the same or similar meanings. I imagine this happened partially for emphasis or expressiveness, but also to distinguish a particular meaning of a character (recall that an individual character can often have more than one meaning). For example, take the word 休息, pronounced xiū xi and meaning "to rest". The first character, 休, also means "to rest", but the second character, 息, has several different interpretations: "news; interest; breath; rest".

The character 休 is also cool because it's one of the pictograph characters. The left side is the radical for man, while the right side is the character 木 (pronounced mù) which means "tree". So the character 休, meaning "to rest", is a person leaning against a tree.

I recently joined the Charing Cross library, which is the one closest to Chinatown and which has a large supply of Chinese books. I take out kids' books and try to read what I can. I ran into an interesting character in one of them, which is 佛, pronounced fó and meaning Buddha or Buddhism. I found this character interesting because it's the first sound I've run across that doesn't have any other characters associated to it, not even with other tones. Now, that might be due to limitations in my dictionaries, which are probably not the most extensive Chinese dictionaries in existence, but every other sound I've looked up has had some other characters, and some sounds have tons of characters. For example, look up "yan" with the "Pinyin" option in the online dictionary. Not all sounds have that many entries (try "xiong"). But then try "fo".

成语

Today Guo Juan had a question and answer session for her Audio Lessons. (It seems I am the only one who asks questions, which is great for me. Maybe eventually more people will find out about it and it will no longer be free personal lessons for me.) After answering my questions in the session, she ended up taking suggestions for new lectures and reading off her already long to do lecture list.

We were chatting afterwards and I mentioned that she has so much on her to do list. "We're already on the tiger," she replied. Oooh... it must be a 成语 (chéng yǔ). I asked her if it was, and got this:

骑虎难下 (qí hǔ nán xià)

Breakdown:
骑     qí        to ride (an animal or bike); to sit astride
虎     hǔ       tiger
难     nán     difficult (to...); problem; difficulty; difficult; not good
下     xià      under; second (of two parts); next (week, etc.); lower; below; underneath; down(wards); to decline; to go down; latter

What a great expression, eh? I like it even more than I otherwise would because I already knew all of the words. (Although I must admit that I would not have recognized the characters 虎 and 难.) Also, I realized that I now actually know (from other contexts) both of the characters 成 and 语, so now that makes sense.

成     chéng   finish; complete; accomplish; become; turn into; win; succeed; one tenth
语     yǔ        dialect; language; speech

False Positive

I woke this morning to a chat from Aftab, wondering whether I had yet seen this. A brief racing of the heart: Could it be? After all this time? After attending so many talks that started with "We tried to prove such and such" and ended with "We found that it's equivalent to the Riemann Hypothesis"? But I know where to check, so the excitement was short lived.

Meanwhile, on my way in to the office today, I recognized for the first time a tattooed Chinese (or Japanese) character. Now that I'm learning Chinese, I always look to see if I know the characters people have tattooed on themselves, but until now I hadn't seen any that I actually know. This isn't so surprising, as the Chinese we learn tends to be practical, and people are unlikely to tattoo "fried rice" or "taxicab" on themselves.

The tattoo in question was on a girl's arm and the character was 生. I'm told that in Japanese this has 8 billion pronunciations and meanings. In Chinese, I know it as "shēng", meaning "to be born; to give birth; life; to grow". It's possible that it was preceded by another character or other characters, covered by her sleeve, giving a more particular meaning (possibly something one is more likely to tattoo upon oneself). The only thing I could think of offhand was 出生，"chū shēng", "to be born", but that seems unlikely. Searching by pinyin, my dictionary also just turned up 畜生, "chù sheng", "domestic animal", which seems even less likely. We learn 生 early on, as part of 生日, "shēng rì", which means "birthday" (日 is "day" or "sun").

歌剧

昨天晚上，春燕，刘建和我一起去看歌剧。歌剧很好听。我们去看 "Ariadne Auf Naxos"。 因为我想一个歌唱家唱得很好听，所以我想去看这个歌剧。可是昨天晚上他只唱了一点儿。

唱 "Ariadne" 的女人是美国人。她很有名。她叫 "Deborah Voigt"。几年以前，她应该在 Royal Opera House 唱歌，可是他们对她说 "你太胖了。这个服装太小。" 所以当时她没唱。她比以前瘦了。 她唱歌唱得很好听。

我很喜欢 Naiad, Dryad 和 Echo。我也很喜欢音乐：小提琴，等等。

看歌剧以前，我去春燕的家吃晚饭。刘建做中国饭。 晚饭很好吃。我想回中国。

昨天最长日。夏天快乐！

Last night, Chunyan, Liu Jian and I went to see an opera. The opera was very good. We went to see "Ariadne Auf Naxos". I wanted to see this opera because I think one of the singers is very good. But last night he only sang a little bit.

The woman who sang "Ariadne" is American. She is very famous. Her name is Deborah Voigt. A few years ago, she was supposed to sing at the Royal Opera House, but they told her, "You are too fat. This dress is too small." So at that time, she didn't sing. She is thinner now. She sang very beautifully.

I really liked Naiad, Dryad and the Echo. I also really liked the music: the violins, etc.

Before the opera, I went to Chunyan's house for dinner. Liu Jian cooked Chinese food. Dinner was delicious. I want to go back to China.

Yesterday was the longest day. Happy summer!

中文

最近，我用中文没写了。我很忙。用中文写花很多时间。

学期结束以前，我们只有两个中文课。最后上课以后，我们一起去中国饭馆儿吃晚饭。一个学生得给饭馆儿打电话。 没有学生说了“我给他们打电话”。

上周田老师讲了几个笑话会说汉语的外国人。两个中国人走路。前面一个外国人很胖。中国人说“你想他吃什么了？” 外国人说“我吃饭！” 中国人不好意思。

我常常忘了东西。我们开始新课的时候，我忘了课以前的汉子。所以我开始用 Mnemosyne。每天我用 Mnemosyne 干汉字牌。 Mnemosyne 问我汉字刚忘的时候以前。我想 Mnemosyne 很有用。

Recently, I have not written in Chinese. Writing in Chinese takes a lot of time.

Before the term finishes, we only have two Chinese classes. After the last class, we will all go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. One of the students has to call the restaurant. None of the students has said, "I will call them."

Last week Teacher Tian told us a few jokes about foreigners who can speak Chinese. Two Chinese people are walking down the road. In front of them is a foreigner who is very fat. The Chinese people say, "What do you think she ate?" The foreigner said, "I eat food!" The Chinese people were very embarrassed.

I often forget things. When we start a new lesson, I forget the characters from the lesson before. So I started using Mnemosyne. Every day, I use Mneomosyne to do Chinese cards. Mnemosyne asks me the characters just before I forget them. I think Mnemosyne is very useful.

四川的地震

上星期一，中国有地震很大。在四川地震最不好。二万人死了，而且他们还找二万人。五百万人没有房子了。电话和手机坏。路坏。有的我的朋友和他们的家感觉一点点，但是他们都没事。我高兴他们好，可是我很不高兴因为很多人出事了。他们需要帮助。如果你可以，请给他们钱。

Sichuan's Earthquake

On Monday, there was a big earthquake in China. In Sichuan, it was the worst. 20,000 people died and they are still looking for 20,000 people. Five million people are now homeless. Telephones and cell phones are broken. Roads are broken. Some of my friends and their families felt it a little bit, but they are all ok. I'm happy that they are all ok, but I'm very unhappy because so many people are not ok. They need help. If you can, please donate.

BBC China

Lately I've been listening to these audio stories on BBC China, trying to understand whatever I can. They speak too quickly, and I definitely don't know all the words and I don't pay close attention, but usually I can at least get a basic idea of what they're talking about and pick out some phrases and words that I understand. It's good listening comprehension practice.

Today I was listening and heard a clip of a young male voice saying (in English, before it faded into a translation) something about having two injured guys on the plane back with him and then I heard "Taliban", so I knew it was something about Afghanistan. Then I kept hearing 王 ("wáng"), which is a Chinese surname, but also means king. I eventually realized that it was always being paired with 子 ("zǐ"), i.e., 王子 ("wáng zǐ"), which means prince and then it immediately dawned on me that this was always preceded by "hā lǐ" (哈里) — they were talking about Prince Harry! Of course!

哈 = hā = laughter; yawn
里 = lǐ = inside; internal; interior
里 = lǐ = lining of clothing; within; inside
里 = lǐ = li, a Chinese unit of length = one-half kilometer; neighborhood; hometown

春燕和她先生在亚非学院

昨天春燕和她的先生和我想去大英博物馆。我们下午两点半左右去，可是大英博物馆的外面有太多人。我们没进里面。昨天天气很好，所以我们走路去 Warren Street， 可是墨西哥饭馆儿下午三点关门。 所以我们走路回 Holborn。我们去日本饭馆儿。春燕先生说：《多吃点！多吃点！》然后他买午饭。这么中国人！

在中国，中国人回家过春节。春燕和她先生没回家过春节，所以他们昨天给家里打电话。春燕问我《你今天给你家打电话马？》她想我也是中国人。

Yesterday, Chunyan and her husband and I wanted to go to the British Museum for Chinese New Year. We went around 2:30, but there were too many people outside. We didn't go in. The weather was very nice yesterday, so we walked to Warren Street, but the Mexican restaurant closed at 3. So we walked back to Holborn. We went to a Japanese restaurant. Chunyan's husband said, "Eat more! Eat more!". Then he paid for lunch. So Chinese!

In China, people go home to see their families for Chinese New Year. Chunyan and her husband did not go to China for Chinese New Year, so yesterday they called their families. Chunyan asked me, "Did you call your family today?" She thought I was also Chinese.

看电影

昨天晚上我和春燕一起去电影院看电影。以后我们去他家吃晚饭。她做晚饭了。 晚饭很好吃。她做得很好。

她住在 Finchley Road 地铁站附近。她住在国王学校学生房子。一个我的学生也住在那里。他认识我，可是我不认识他。

我昨天晚上十一点半回家了。每天早上我差一刻六点左右起床。所以今天我很累。

Last night, Chunyan and I went to the movie theatre to see a film. Afterwards, we went to her house for dinner. She made dinner. It was delicious. She is a good cook.

She lives near Finchley Road tube station. She lives in a King's College residence hall. One of my students also lives there. He recognized me, but I didn't recognize him.

Last night I got home at 11:30. Every morning I get up around 5:45. So today I am very tired.

Terracotta Army

On Thursday, I went to see the Terracotta Army exhibit at the British Museum. It was stunning. Breathtaking. Incredible.


The exhibit is situated in the reading room, a circular sanctuary in the middle of the museum roofed by an airy dome descending effortlessly into shelves of beautiful old books and haunted by the whispers of the famous literary figures (both real and fictional) who frequented the library. With the exhibit in place, the books are hidden from view, but you can still gaze up into the dome above.

The exhibit is constructed well; it's educational and beautiful but not overwhelming. You wind through the history, learning how the First Emperor conquered the various "warring states", uniting a vast area under the rule of his Qin (pronounced Chin, and from which we get the name "China") dynasty. He learned tricks of trade and warfare from the various people he conquered, using his new-found knowledge to further expand his empire and to effectively rule it once established. He standardized everything: the size and construction of crossbows, to easily replace arrows and triggers; the spacing of wheels on chariots, to match the ruts in the extensive system of roads he had built across the country; weights and measures; "small seal script", doing away with regional differences in the written language; laws and punishments; and coins, declaring his circular coin with a square hole in the middle the only valid currency, doing away with older and often larger coins, some of which were in the shape of knives and arrowheads (quite logically, as knives and arrowheads were objects of value). He organized a huge labor force to extend and connect the various walls built by previous rulers into the initial incarnation of the Great Wall.

And he feared death. He wanted to live and rule forever. With a typical Chinese mix of superstition and practicality, he sought out means of extending his life while simultaneously preparing for his death. The preparations for his death were massive. The construction of over 8,000 of these terracotta warriors, horses, court officials and entertainers required an incredible organization of labor. They were mass produced, but modified by hand so that each was unique. They're so beautiful. If the prospect of spending his afterlife guarded by these exquisite works of art could not soothe his reservations about death, then nothing could.

There's so much more to say, so much more to this incredible story. The layout of the pits (protected by mountains and water, with the army facing the only direction unprotected by natural barriers) and the Emporer's own mausoleum (which remains untouched). The fact that this massive clay army was forgotten by the world for so long, until chance unearthed a warrior in a farmer's well. Every piece inscribed with the names of the laborers and overseers who worked on them, for quality control purposes. The elegant and life-like bronze sculptures of birds (herons and swans) in the musicians' pit. The musicians. The acrobats. The bronze replicas of chariots and drivers. The stone replicas of interlocking leather armor. The mystery and beauty of the whole thing, and of every tiny little detail.

Geeks and Hackers

In Chinese class the other night, the word 电脑 (diǎn nǎo = electric brain = computer) came up in a reading again. One of the students in our class is a professor in the computer science department, and he asked our teacher how to say "geek" in Chinese (strenuously denying that this term might be applied to him). She didn't understand at first, so we had to describe the concept of geek to her. When she realized what we meant, she said there was a word for it. In Chinese, as in English, they have the phrase "book worm" (书虫 = shū chóng), so a geek is a 网虫 (wǎng chóng), or "internet worm"—or maybe "web worm" is a better way to say it. Then she gave us the term 黑客, pronounced hēi kè, which is simply a phonetic approximation of "hacker"; it literally means "black guest".

这个水果没有水

我的朋友春燕是中国人。 她十月去中国看父母。 上个星期她来伦敦。 她给我中国东西：两个写汉字的书 (下面)， 中国茶， 水果 （可是这个水果没有水), 等等。

Translation: My friend Chunyan is Chinese. In October, she went to China to see her parents. Last week she came to London. She gave me Chinese stuff: two books for writing characters (below), Chinese tea, fruit (but this fruit has no water), etc.



I say "etc." because she also gave me this hanging decoration thing, but I don't know what to call it. Also, I know how to say "etc." in Chinese. As for the fruit, she gave me these dried fruit and vegetable chips, hence the parenthetical comment about the fruit having no water. (I don't know how to say that it's dried.) The comment is more fun in Chinese because the word for fruit is 水果 (pronounced shuǐ guǒ), the first character of which is the word for water.

I love these books. They're for kids to practice writing characters. They give a character and the stroke order and a little illustration from which I can sometimes discern the meaning of the word. (Some of them are rather enigmatic. For the character 今, pronounced jīn, which means today or now, there's a picture of an elf next to a calendar marked 12.25.) Then there are a bunch of boxes for you to practice writing the character. Some of them even have the characters written in for you to trace over.

I know many of the words, but certainly not all of them. I don't know if I'll ever be able to learn all the words for different family members. I have a large family, so I thought I could match the words up with my own family members to remember them, but it's not so easy. In my immediate family, I have an older brother (哥哥), a younger brother (弟弟), and younger sisters (妹妹), but no older sisters (姐姐). And those are the easy ones that I already know. My extended family is large too, but as my dad is the youngest of four brothers, I have no one I can call 婶 (my father's younger brother's wife).

星期四晚上我们有中文上课。 春燕是我们的中文老师。 这个星期, 我去上课， 可是其他的学生不去上课。 所以春燕和我一起看我的成语书。 （她看书，我听她。）

Translation: On Thursday evenings, we have Chinese class. Chunyan is our Chinese teacher. This week, I went to class, but the other students didn't go to class. So Chunyan and I read my Chengyu book together. (She read the book, I listened to her.)

五, 六 岁

昨天晚上我去中文上课. Séverine 不去, 因为她哥哥来伦敦. 我的老师给我一本成语孩子的书! 这本书很好. 这本书有一张光盘.

(Last night I went to Chinese class. Séverine didn't go, because her brother came to London. My teacher gave me a Cheng Yu (Chinese proverb) kids' book! This book is great. It has a CD.)

She said it's probably for seven or eight year olds. I can read bits, but definitely not all of it. So maybe I'm about five or six in Chinese. Not too bad, right?


It has a little cartoon with each proverb, and I opened the book to one and was excited to understand it, even though I couldn't quite read all the characters. It has a couple of little green cabbages sitting around, talking about how no one is buying white cabbages this winter. In the next panel, someone comes along and buys one of the little green cabbages. Then you see the other green cabbage rolling along and in the final panel, he's hiding among the big white cabbages, saying, "We're all white cabbages here! I'm just shorter than you."


Well, there's a lot that I don't understand. Maybe I'm only four or five years old. This one is easy though. In both of the left hand panels, it says, "Teacher is coming!"