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yeepei
MMR Moderator
Scut Monkey
United Kingdom
730 Posts |
 Posted - 23/04/2009 : 15:23:11
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| I've no good contribution to make here... but uhm... I'm going to drink some chinese tea after reading k.h's posts. ;-) Hopefully I'll gain some "Jing" with it... That's one thing that's got to be helpful just before my exams right??? |
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maggiespk
Verbose member
Malaysia
1613 Posts |
Posted - 23/04/2009 : 19:52:53
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Chinese tea can make you stay awake.
What are your plans after your exams? |
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loonshin
Friendly member
Malaysia
249 Posts |
Posted - 25/04/2009 : 15:53:02
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Not having studied chinese well enough to read or write, is it a good idea to go the Beijing University to do a short course in mandarin and learn the chinese culture in depth as well? What do you think? I may have the time.
Loon Shin |
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yeepei
MMR Moderator
Scut Monkey
United Kingdom
730 Posts |
Posted - 25/04/2009 : 16:29:15
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quote:
Originally posted by maggiespk
Chinese tea can make you stay awake.
What are your plans after your exams?
You mean the massive massive party?? That will have nothing to do with chinese tea, alcohol maybe, tea.. no. ;-)
As for the more long term plan (that doesn't involve hangovers), I'll be staying here for a few years yet. |
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k.h.
Verbose member
Malaysia
1759 Posts |
Posted - 26/04/2009 : 10:03:32
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Loon Shin,
I think a better place will be Hangzhou. Live near the West Lake, where you could stroll, cycle, row and rest at your own pace. Yes, with a glass of Longjin, some dessert from Honeymoon Restaurant, against a background of beautiful ladies playing their flute or other instruments, or listen to the orios chirping among the weeping willows. And , if it rained, there are museums and temples nearby to visit. In the evening there are cultural shows ..... Or, take a nap among the tulips, if the season is right; listen to the running waters from the creek. And compose your own poems .... These are not dreams or fantacies; they are within our reach, only it's difficult to let go, until it's too late. So, let it be .... |
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k.h.
Verbose member
Malaysia
1759 Posts |
Posted - 26/04/2009 : 11:18:34
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A colleague commented that he could not find the word, "familo-crazy" in the dictionary. I would be surprised if he could. It was coined by me. Infact, in the Forum on gossiping, I have written something about it.
FAMILY (JIA)
Jia or Jia Ting refers to the family. Jia is written with a shelter on top; and shi (meaning, pig) on the bottom. A family is a place where the pig is sheltered! Well, it reflected the agarian chinese culture. It refers to a male pig, according to Hsiamen professor, Yi Jong Tian. The chinese family is male dominated, a patriah system.
Ting, refers to background of walls and gardens. So within this family, there are borders, where each person is permitted or non permitted to cross. To prevent this male pig from lust, there are also borders or restrictions set for him. That's way incest among chinese families are relatively less, for there are cultural taboos, and physical borders.
Jia is a basic unit of chinese society. In contrast, in the West, the individual hold high and free. So from Jia, the chinese have Jia Zhu (the family clan), then she zhu (the extended clan), the community, and ultimately to the nationalities and the nation (kuo Jia).
When a man is married, he is said "yu shi" (possess room); whereas a female ,"yu Jia" (literally has a home). So my friends has many rooms, whereas I have extra empty rooms, except one master bed room! and when a female is married Jia, by adding a female radicle adjacent to Jia. Similarly one referred to father as Jia Fu, or Yan (literally disciplinary father) Fu. The family discipline is termed as Jia Fa (literally the law of the family). And, if someone accused you of no Jia Jiao (Family teaching or unbringing), it's a real insult to the family. Your in-laws are refereed as Qin jia (endeared family), and if you should quarrel with them or your romatic partner, it becomes Yan Jia . An expert is termed as Zhuan Jia.
So my friend, is this "crazy" or not?
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maggiespk
Verbose member
Malaysia
1613 Posts |
Posted - 26/04/2009 : 17:57:08
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quote:
Originally posted by loonshin
Not having studied chinese well enough to read or write, is it a good idea to go the Beijing University to do a short course in mandarin and learn the chinese culture in depth as well? What do you think? I may have the time.
Loon Shin
If the gwailo can, why can't we? |
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k.h.
Verbose member
Malaysia
1759 Posts |
Posted - 27/04/2009 : 09:44:40
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Maggie,
The "foreign devils" have white magic, that's why they can do better. You would be surprised that they spoke Chinese so well. I learn my chinese mostly on my own, starting from bi-lingual text. Now we have DVD, so much easier.
Many admired us that we learned three languages here in schools, but they were not aware that most were masters of none. We have three Rs here, but they stand for race, race and again race! One for racial arithmetic, the other two are writing and reading of the same on the wall. Lee kuan Yew remarked that we could only be good in one, and not as good in the other, relatively speaking.We don't have that many neurons to accomodate them. So learning mother tongue when young (pre'kinder) will be essential. If parents are non chinese educated, there are now bi-lingual text (with DVD), with Han Yu Pin Yin. There's no need to go to China just to learn mandarin, unless you are going for holidays etc. Beijing's weather is not conducive for prolonged stay. There are a lot of parks there. You probably can start a language class there - exchange programme. |
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loonshin
Friendly member
Malaysia
249 Posts |
Posted - 27/04/2009 : 14:13:14
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quote:
Originally posted by k.h.
... You probably can start a language class there - exchange programme.
There is a Rotary Club of Beijing there, worth exploring an exchange programme. Thanks k.h. |
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yeepei
MMR Moderator
Scut Monkey
United Kingdom
730 Posts |
Posted - 27/04/2009 : 21:49:15
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My English is OK (I think), and I can read, write and speak enough chinese to survive (struggled through years of learning chinese in school). As for my BM, it is pretty much non-existent because I didn't go to school in Malaysia. I did try to pick up BM at one point in time, but after a while, discovered I was wasting my time. I can get as far as to asking for the price of something or a random chit chat with the taxi driver.
I agree with k.h that there's no need to go to China just to learn mandarin. However, when learning a language, I believe it's important to use it in one's daily life as well. Using the language for an hour in class each day is not a very effective way of picking up a language, much less become fluent in it. |
Edited by - yeepei on 27/04/2009 21:53:29 |
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k.h.
Verbose member
Malaysia
1759 Posts |
Posted - 28/04/2009 : 13:20:52
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WEN (SCRIPT, LITERATURE) I
To the Chinese all phenomena in the world are in patterns, signs and symbols. Hence, with the development of the mind, WEN comes into being. Thus patterned words are the mind of the universe.The script was the patterns of the Tao. Originally the legendary Fu Xi observed the footprints of animals left in the mud; or the mark made on the wood or stones which mother nature signified. The Chinese script is the only one of the three ancient language (pictographic without alphabets; often called ideograms) that survive until the modern era, showing the wisdom of the chinese in historical development. To survive, there's need and urgency to change .....
From the very beginning the Chinese script has been basically morphogenic (i.e. every graph represents a single morphene), and since every Chinese word is also monosyllabic, thus every word, at the phonoligical level, reprsents a single syllable. Words with the same homophone, may have different meanings. To prevent the confusion, the Chinese language have four pitches of tone: high, low, rising, falling:
http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/
for instance, ma (mother), ma (numb), ma (horse), ma (scold), in the order of first to fourth tone.
In the early years, the pictograph bears some resemblance to the picture of what was to be represented. Then over the years, each dynasty modified them for ease of writing and words then become progressively simplified and standardised. Hence words began to lose their original pictorial quality. Besides, the Chinese script has no 'grammar" (in the western sense), for it's harder to represent them in pictorial form. The temporal implication are obviously overcome in other ways. Also, using the Rebus Principle, the script adopt a pictograh or other non phonological representations for its phonic values alone, or borrow the graph for a homophone or near homophone.Sumarising it, the Chinese script could be understood at three levels:
1. pictograph;
2. phonograph;
3. sementics i.e. from yi (meaning, intention) to Yi (principle or
implication, or perceived meaning)
http://english.eflye.com/Chinese_Culture_look.asp?Cultureid=158
To continue ....
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maggiespk
Verbose member
Malaysia
1613 Posts |
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k.h.
Verbose member
Malaysia
1759 Posts |
Posted - 30/04/2009 : 12:58:57
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Maggie,
If you read carefully, the research was on "Black Tea". These are fermented tea, and we are uncertain whether there are add-on to these tea. Normally in preparing tea, the water must be hot and boiled. Tea drinkers normally poured hot boiled water over their set as way of cleaning and also to keep the cups and pot warm. The chinese do not drink the first serving; the hot water will rid of impurities and bacteria etc in the tea leaves. The second serving is often poured into a container ( if excess, so no seeping), or small cups. We seep, not drink. Guess how hot it could be? Whereas in Longjin, it is also recommended to serve in a clean glass, water settled to 80 degree after boiled. In the past, they talked of numerous boil, by hearing the sound of water in the kettle.
Are there evidences of increased cancer in China, Japan and other Asian countries due to tea drinking?
So these "angmo" have to investigate what went wrong in their tea and tea drinking!
CHINESE CUSINE I
The Chinese do not have the so-called Michelin Stars. Taste is a very personal thing. Every region in China has their own peculiar taste and ways of preparing food, largely due to availability of local produce and weather etc; and there are also different ethnicities and religions.To impose Stars would be an act of Food Imperialism! France is probably as big as one province in China.
I love French food, but it lacked the varities as you would see in China. In China there are the EIGHT MAJOR PROVINCIAL CUSINE, but this does not take into account the Beijing cusine and the others, incl the Islamic dishes. I could identity about forty different ways of cooking Chinese food (Could you, Maggie?)
I noticed lunch is approaching. I shall just show a web page on Beijing Roast Duck, which is outside this Major Eight.
http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/2008-01/30/content_29514.htm
Wait for the downloading to watch the pictures.
Well the long week end is coming. I shall be in Penang for the week.
Happy holiday to all.
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LSTan
Chatty member
Malaysia
902 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 20:10:04
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Seems to me we Oversea Chinese are as worried as the Mainland Chinese about loss of Chinese culture in us, as a major race in the world.
Perhaps this sounds racist to some, but see how proud many of us were of the Olympics at Peking last year.
I met some mainland Chinese scholars in a bus tour around UK recently, and they said back in China they are trying to revive Confucianism to regain some of the Chinese virtues lost after the cultural revolution. These folks set up Confucius schools in various big cities in China to do exactly what KH is trying to instill in us, his occasional visitor of M.O.L thread.
Below is a definition of Confusianism from a catholic website. Confucius was born a few hundred years before Jesus Christ.
>By Confucianism is meant the complex system of moral, social, political, and religious teaching built up by Confucius on the ancient Chinese traditions, and perpetuated as the State religion down to the present day. Confucianism aims at making not simply the man of virtue, but the man of learning and of good manners. The perfect man must combine the qualities of saint, scholar, and gentleman. Confucianism is a religion without positive revelation, with a minimum of dogmatic teaching, whose popular worship is centered in offerings to the dead, in which the notion of duty is extended beyond the sphere of morals proper so as to embrace almost every detail of daily life.>
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LSTan
Chatty member
Malaysia
902 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 20:23:29
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Who is Confucius?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04223b.htm
The teacher, Confucius
The chief exponent of this remarkable religion was K'ung-tze, or K'ung-fu-tze, latinized by the early Jesuit missionaries into Confucius. Confucius was born in 551 B.C., in what was then the feudal state of Lu, now included in the modern province of Shan-tung. His parents, while not wealthy, belonged to the superior class. His father was a warrior, distinguished no less for his deeds of valour than for his noble ancestry. Confucius was a mere boy when his father died. From childhood he showed a great aptitude for study, and though, in order to support himself and his mother, he had to labour in his early years as a hired servant in a noble family, he managed to find time to pursue his favourite studies. He made such progress that at the age of twenty-two years he opened a school to which many were attracted by the fame of his learning. His ability and faithful service merited for him promotion to the office of minister of justice. Under his wise administration the State attained to a degree of prosperity andmoral order that it had never seen before. But through the intrigues of rival states the Marquis of Lu was led to prefer ignoble pleasures to the preservation of good government. Confucius tried by sound advice to bring his liege lord back to the path of duty, but in vain. He thereupon resigned his high position at the cost of personal ease and comfort, and left the state. For thirteen years, accompanied byfaithful disciples , he went about from one state to another, seeking a ruler who would give heed to his counsels. Many were the privations he suffered. More than once he ran imminent risk of being waylaid andkilled by his enemies, but his courage and confidence in the providential character of his mission never deserted him. At last he returned to Lu, where he spent the last five years of his long life encouraging others to the study and practice of virtue, and edifying all by his noble example. He died in the year 478 B.C., in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His lifetime almost exactly coincided with that of Buddha, who died two years earlier at the age of eighty.
That Confucius possessed a noble, commanding personality, there can be little doubt. It is shown by his recorded traits of character, by his lofty moral teachings, by the high-minded men that he trained to continue his life-work. In their enthusiastic love and admiration, they declared him the greatest of men, the sage without flaw, the perfect man. That he himself did not make any pretension to possess virtue and wisdom in their fullness is shown by his own recorded sayings. He was conscious of his shortcomings, and this consciousness he made no attempt to keep concealed. But of his love of virtue and wisdom there can be no question. He is described in "Analects", VII, 18, as one "who in the eager pursuit of knowledge, forgot his food, and in the joy of attaining to it forgot his sorrow". Whatever in the traditional records of the past, whether history, lyric poems, or rites and ceremonies, was edifying and conducive to virtue, he sought out with untiring zeal and made known to his disciples. He was a man of affectionate nature, sympathetic, and most considerate towards others. He loved his worthy disciples dearly, and won in turn their undying devotion. He was modest and unaffected in his bearing, inclined to gravity, yet possessing a natural cheerfulness that rarely deserted him. Schooled to adversity from childhood, he learned to find contentment and serenity of mind even where ordinary comforts were lacking. He was very fond of vocal and instrumental music, and often sang, accompanying his voice with the lute. His sense of humour isrevealed in a criticism he once made of some boisterous singing "Why use an ox-knife", he said, "to kill a fowl?"
Confucius is often held up as the type of the virtuous man without religion. His teachings, it is alleged, were chiefly ethical, in which one looks in vain for retribution in the next life as a sanction of right conduct. Now an acquaintance with the ancient religion of China and with Confucian texts reveals the emptiness of the assertion that Confucius was devoid of religious thought and feeling. He was religious after the manner of religious men of his age and land. In not appealing to rewards and punishments in the life to come, he was simply following the example of his illustrious Chinese predecessors, whose religious belief did not include this element of future retribution. The Chinese classics that were ancient even in the time of Confucius have nothing to say of hell, but have much to say of the rewards and punishments meted out in the present life by the all-seeing Heaven. There are numbers of texts that show plainly that he did not depart from the traditional belief in the supreme Heaven-god and subordinate spirits, in Divine providence and retribution, and in the conscious existence of souls after death. These religious convictions on his part found expression in many recorded acts of piety and worship. |
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Learning Chinese Culture Together: Lay To Lay
