Confucius Notations and the Slow Learning of Chinese

This extract I first discovered some time ago but rediscovered recently, it is taken from the Confucius text Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung- Yung (the Doctrine of the Mean) and has served me as a grounding, though motivating force in my fluctuating pursuit of mastering, to some degree or another, the Chinese language. I also find that it manifests nicely in the common Chinese phrase, 慢慢来 (man4 man4 lai2), which means slowly, slowly come; offering a usefully patient perspective to an otherwise achingly slow progression, whether in terms of Chinese language learning, or generally as a human being in life. (I found the extract again here on pages 73-74)

‘Study it [the way to be sincere] extensively, inquire into it accurately, think over it carefully, sift it clearly, and practice it earnestly. When there is anything not yet studied, or studied but not yet understood, do not give up. When there is any question not yet asked, or asked but its answer not yet known, do not give up. When there is anything not yet thought over, or thought over but not yet apprehended, do not give up. If another [person] succeeds by one effort, I will use a hundred efforts. If another [person] succeeds by ten efforts, I will use a thousand efforts. If one really follows this course, though stupid, he will surely become intelligent, and though weak, will surely become strong’. [XX: 19-21]

I once had a Sociology teacher that pointed out that about 90% of humans have about the same level of intelligence, but their social circumstance dictates to what degree they have utilised it. The final 10% are split into two groups, the ones who have finely honed mental capacities in one field of brain activity or another; and those that have identifiable learning difficulties.

Empirically, I do not know how accurate those statistics are, but from a general perspective of living in life and meeting a multitude of different people, it seems about right to me. Consequently, it appears a humbling and chastising fact to be aware of, a two fold issue, involving good and bad luck on the one hand and motivation and excuse on the other.

I am of course aware of the many factors that dictate to us our being, but it does seem positive to try to realize that we still can be what we make of ourselves. Sometimes, maybe, we just have to adapt the context from which we judge ourselves, not always that easy, but, as Kong3 Fu1 Zi3 (Confucius) may never have said, doable.

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Teaching Again And Talking About The Financial Crisis In Chinese

The week that was, was a week of settling back into a routine that required early starts and late nights. The early mornings involved being both woken by an alarm clock by my bedside and re-awoken a short time later by the young masses gathered before me in the classroom. Late nights, as learning Chinese often requires, although is not always given, a candle burnt at both ends.

I spent the early part of the week outlining to one Chinese teacher why the use of Chinese by foreigner teachers is actually constructive rather than destructive. Explaining that the use of Chinese in the classroom by a foreigner helps the students concentrate on the target language taught, is quickly understood and seemingly more piercing in its effect when giving instructions or getting attention, and finally, creates amusement. The frustrating aspect of this little discussion, is the light it actually shines on Chinese teachers' over attentiveness on teaching everything that is in the textbook or requesting, without proper thought, that foreign teachers only speak English in the classroom. When firstly, alot of the content in the books taught here is often not particularly useful, secondly, that the Chinese phrases often used in class are either so inconsequential the children already know them in English or don’t need to know them.

Thirdly, if more advanced English is used together with the focus language it can quickly become a case of new language overload. In this scenario, the children are distracted from the key words and phrases being taught, largely because they have difficulty distinguishing the new words introduced from the random. Ofcourse, as the students get older this is an important skill to develop but I would suggest that acquiring a good basis in a foreign language is initially of most importance, before being subjected to further confusion. Teaching is a balancing act that requires patience, reflection, creativity and the skills of adaptation, as well as, and maybe most importantly, quite an acute appreciation of the mood, not only of individual students but of the whole class. These are skills that are sometimes a little lacking amongst Chinese teachers, though this may well be said of many foreign teachers here too. Humour goes along way towards alleviating boredom, regaining attention and lightening the load, foreign teachers speaking Chinese can often be a very quick way of creating these results, as well as attaining the more formal benefits of understanding and discipline.

The week also required a re-engagement with regular Chinese classes and the attention to detail in the preparation that this entails. My Kou3 Yu3 (mouth language) confidence was significantly boosted by the chatting that went on in class this week, especially my 45-minute monologue on the so-called ‘credit-crunch’ (very useful radio broadcast explanation-click on ‘full episode’). I was, however, assisted by my teacher who fed me some of the topic specific vocabulary that I had yet to learn, such as bankruptcy, risk, credit and so on. This is actually a nice fluid process and makes for a confidence inducing exchange, discussing a reasonably advanced issue while being helped just enough to keep you flowing but little enough for it to still feel like an autonomous act. However, the reviewing system I have implemented in recent months had to take a back seat to the learning of new vocabulary and the identification of Chinese characters in the short articles being translated. Another week and another mild step forward, although not something this week that can be said about most of the world’s economies or simply the world’s economy, depending now on how we are supposed to look at it.
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Chinese New Year- If It Is Going To Go, It Might As Well Go Like That

Well, if the curtain has to be brought down on these celebrations then you might as well go down fighting for them. That is how it seems the Chinese greet the Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year and marks the end of these weeks of travel, celebration and the good old-fashioned eating of too much food. Although, when they went, they went down with a smile on their faces.

From about 6 in the afternoon, to past 10 at night, there were fireworks and crackers being let off everywhere, and I must emphasise everywhere. If they were not in the sky over ahead, they were in the sky just ahead of me, if I was caught between two buildings they were reflecting in both the apartment windows and in those of the cars below. This crescendo of celebration also brought with it a little too much of what could be described as a crashing din, with the bang of the banger (popular!) reaching around every corner and within every building. This is one aspect of the night that can actually begin to wipe the smile from your face.


As I cycled slowly towards Shi Da Lu and with my attention taken by the lights and patterns ahead, I did not at first notice where the shapes and sounds were coming from, as I got nearer I realized that someone was, every few minutes, just putting a box of fireworks in the middle of the road. With vehicles still passing-by, rockets gained heat and then whistled into the night sky, above the shiny, reflective bonnets of the cars beneath. The odd one, with a low trajectory, sent a thousand multi-coloured sparks dashing across these metallic frames. It looked amazing, the more so for the fact I would probably be locked up for doing the same thing back in Britain.

After some time, there is a point surely, where you reach firework overload, I retreated to Sculpting in Time Café for a bit of study. But I soon realized my appetite for fireworks was unsatiated as I found myself bending ever lower in my seat to catch another glimpse of these locally named "fire-flowers", still rising and fanning out over the buildings and trees outside the window.

On another note, a pleasant thing I acknowledged this week that was connected with my return to work, was that after just a couple of days of being around young kids again I was feeling fresher both physically and mentally. I have noted it in a wider sense before, never in such a specific instance, but there really is something quite splendid about being around Chinese children. They are just so full of life and simplicity and not the duplicity, which I am afraid, seems to have infected even some of the quite young in Britain.

If I had to do this everyday then maybe I would not feel quite the exuberance I do. However, the limited number of teaching hours a foreign teacher can quite happily live on here, means that a taste of this youthful inhibition and honesty is rather uplifting, leaving you free to use your Chinese studies as a source of disillusionment and despair. On that note, I will conclude with the observation that 2-3 weeks away from regular classes and subsequent chatting in Chinese, has left my carefully choreographed Kou3 Yu3 (oral language) confidence in tatters. But, that’s nothing new and will be dealt with in due course.
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