which I'll upload if I have access to a PC. The sunrise was beautiful
and festive, with people crowding into every square inch of the peak
for a view of the sun breaking over the horizon, and cheering as it did.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Sunrise at Celestial Capital Peak
which I'll upload if I have access to a PC. The sunrise was beautiful
and festive, with people crowding into every square inch of the peak
for a view of the sun breaking over the horizon, and cheering as it did.
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It sounds like you're on quite an adventure. I wish I had not thrown out my old Mandarin Textbooks from high school. All I remember is that tonality is a pain and my teacher's uncanny ability to tell if I applied the strokes of my characters in the incorrect order.
ReplyDeleteDo they even speak Mandarin where you are? I thought they spoke a different dialect in southern China. I look forward to seeing your pictures from up stream.
Be on the lookout for 白鱀豚, they are probably extinct but you never know. It would be cool to glimpse one of the last river dolphins.
I didn't know (or remember) that you had studied Mandarin, Jon. That's killer. Wish I could have the brain implant.
ReplyDeleteI had my hostel roommates in stitches a couple of nights ago drawing Chinese characters for them. (Mine tend to be the equivalent of a yard sale: spread out and nonsensical.) Gives me great appreciation for the effort required to master the script.
The loop I've planned should let me use Mandarin for the whole thing: Chongqing and Chengdu (adjacent and in the Sichuan province) are the furthest south I'll get. There are some provincial dialects I could use there if I knew them, but Mandarin should be fine. Then I turn north to Xi'an and Beijing, the home of Mandarin.
After my experience so far, I'd recommend China to anyone, regardless of your language skill. My $50, six-week community ed class surely helped, but I think anyone could do it armed with a good phrase book, patience and a sense of humor. Yeah, the main challenge is definitely the tonality. I've found that I do much better to try to mimic the way I have heard words said by native speakers, rather than consciously thinking "okay, that's a first tone, followed by a third tone." I also learned the trick from an ex-pat of speaking quickly: native speakers seem to have an easier time without tonal information (in quick utterances) than with tones that are elongated and (most likely) incorrect.
Which is pretty impressive. The closest analogy in English might be our vowels. Imagine stepping into a cab and saying "I want go m_ll" (replicating my rather, um, bare-bones Chinese speech). Now, I'm guessing 9 times out of 10 the driver would take you to the mall. (And hopefully, you didn't want to go to the mill.)