Double standards: 06 (The Chinese written script)

 

Chinese is a language that is known for being difficult to learn, let alone master.

    The written element is the most difficult for students, in my experience of teaching over the decades.  It bears no resemblance to other languages, except for written Japanese which uses Chinese characters to a certain extent, but even then, not all Japanese kanji [Chinese characters] are written the same way.  Native speakers of lots of European languages have the alphabet already taken care of when they learn another European language.  (There are also lots of similarities in the vocabulary.)

    To make it even harder for the learner of Chinese, post-1949 China reformed the written script, from traditional to simplified, so now there are two versions.

    As the label suggests, the simplification of the written character is supposed to help reduce the illiteracy problem, but it also means that a lot of mainland Chinese people cannot read material published in Hong Kong and Taiwan.  At most, they can only guess at the gist — an equivalent I can think of is perhaps a Portuguese person reading a Spanish text or an Italian text, but a lower percentage of comprehension for a mainland Chinese person when it comes to traditional script.

    I was brought up on the traditional script at primary and secondary school in Singapore.  (Singapore officially adopted the simplified script in 1976.)  Personally, I prefer the traditional script:  it is more graphic, with a lot of the characters immediately giving a visual clue to what it represents.

    Some examples:

• 龍 lóng for “dragon” looks like the animal as it is represented in paintings, but the simplified version 龙 is a poor cousin really, in my opinion.
• Ditto 車 chē for “vehicle”.  The original meaning of 車 is a horse cart:  the two horizontal lines are the wheels (as seen from above / the air); the vertical line is the axle connecting the two wheels; the square box in the middle is the body of the cart; the line in the middle of the square box is the man sitting on the body of the cart.  The simplified version 车 just doesn’t do the trick, somehow.

    Having said the above, however, I must confess to applying double standards when it comes to my personally having to handwrite the Chinese script.  It takes ages to compose a page, even if one were to go for the cursive version (called 草書 / 草书 / cǎo shū / the “grass script” in Chinese, 草 cǎo meaning “grass” but also “rough draft”, sort of a running style).

    Luckily these days, one has technology to do all the hard work — but only if one has all the right tools (the computer / mobile phone, the software, etc.).

You don’t know who else might be applying (London)

 

(This is based on the situation then.  Details of deadlines might have changed since.)

Sebastian joined the Grade 1 (beginners) class late — in November when term had already started in late September or early October.

    Applications for scholarships to Taiwan, on offer by this particular establishment, came out soon after:  one month’s language study or a whole year’s.

    Seb was keen to go for it, but worried that:

(a) he was only beginner level (why should they give him a scholarship to learn from that low level?); 

(b) there must be other people who are of higher level, and therefore more competitive, more "worthy".

    My arguments to him, in the style of Paul Thompson’s mode of advice, were:

(i) What have you got to lose?  At the most is: you get rejected, which is the same as not applying at all.

(ii) You don’t know who else might be applying for the scholarship.  Maybe all the ones you think are more eligible than you are can’t get away during that time window.

(iii) Strategically, go for the one-year scholarship, as that would cut down the number of competitors, as not everyone can get away for that long a stretch.

    A bit later, I found myself unable to resist phoning him at home, rather than wait until I saw him in class the following week:  “Are you sitting comfortably?  I have news for you.”

    Olivia:  this blog is for you.

(London)

For Dr. Paul Mulligan Thompson’s mode of advice, read:  

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-guardian-angels-in-ones-life-03-ex.html 

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-guardian-angels-in-ones-life-04.html

These foreigners don’t understand the language anyway: 03 (England; USA)

British student Alex’s father, Bill, had done military service in India in the 1950s, and picked up some Urdu.  Back in England upon retirement, he was in a mini-cab in the midlands or the north of England, trying to get somewhere, when he heard the driver asking his bookings office, in Urdu on the car radio, how to get to the destination address.  Bill quietly said in English to the driver, “You don’t know the way, do you?”  The driver almost crashed the car.  (England)

Bill’s job had also sent him to Taiwan for a couple of decades (as well as Singapore and Sri Lanka).  Alex’s sister, Beatrice, went to the American School there, and could speak fluent Mandarin.  She then attended university in LA.  One day, in the ladies’ loo, she found two Chinese girls complaining freely, in Chinese in the presence of Beatrice, a white girl, about life in the West:  these Westerners and their awful food, their culture, everything under the sun.  After enduring five minutes of this, Beatrice said to them, in fluent Chinese: “If you dislike the West so much, why don’t you just go back to your country then?”  The girls’ faces were a right picture.  (Los Angeles)

Also read: These foreigners don’t understand the language anyway: 01; These foreigners don’t understand the language anyway: 02