A Counter-Intuitive Chinese Language Environment

It's generally considered that it's best to study Chinese in-country. I see the logic, but I've come to realise there are some other considerations, and that there may be another proposition which is better. It depends to some extent on the level you have going in, and where you want to get.

My trip to Hong Kong recently motivated me to learn more Chinese than all of my time in Beijing. This goes against the grain.

There are two reasons that I can discern.

Firstly it was the information environment. I could walk into a bookstore and find volumes critical of Mao, find various violent or erotic novels, find cutting-edge science books, I could find all manner of books I have difficulty finding in Beijing.

And, what the language students learns at a certain point (or what I feel, anyway), is that advanced language profiency doesn't come through lots of speaking. It comes through lots of reading.

When I speak, I have my tones corrected, my grammar corrected, and occasionally learn a new word or two. That's good and useful, but when you stop making grammar mistakes and stop making tone errors, you're only left with learning a new word or two.

Much better to spend an hour reading a book and come away with a list of 20 or 30 or however many words you've learned.

I'm reading two books in Chinese at the moment:
Brothers, by Yu Hua, and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

I did in fact buy these books in Beijing, but I saw many more books I'd rather be reading in Hong Kong.

Brothers was recommended to me by a good Chinese friend, and The Tipping Point is a book I should have read ages ago but have never gotten around to it. Of course I will want to test the usage of the words I learn from these books in a conversation. But to accumulate them in the first place, I'd say it'd be much faster to see them on a page rather than wait until the pop up in conversation.

Secondly, as we've established that you should converse to communicate, then if I wanted to communicate with my Hong Kong friends in Chinese, I'd better have a very good vocabulary to not come off like a moron. So in this counter-intuitive way it can be better being around people who speak good English- it should encourage you to get that good in Chinese.

If you only hang around mono-lingual friends, then I think the over-praise will get to your head, and you'll slow down.

The idea here is not to get good enough to have Chinese people praise you on your Chinese. The idea is to get good enough not to have them praise you.

Finding a New Blogspace?

I've been spending some of the university holidays here in Hong Kong, and it has been brilliant to get away from Beijing. The air quality here is so much better than Beijing- that's how bad the Beijing air is.

It's been a frustrating couple of months since I've been writing heaps but had no where to post it all. I might consider a new blog. We'll see.

But in any event, I've definitely come across lots of stuff which I hope to share at some stage in the near future.

More is More

I was, for some reason, expecting to find a lot of moderation being exercised in China. And I was, as it turns out, completely wrong. So far the underlying principle in many things seems to be more is more.


On my way to the subway the other day, and I see the campus gardener, or rose cultivator (is there a specialist name for this?), giving the roses a good drink. A bit different to how I was taught as a kid, though. This was the equivalent of giving the roses a beer-bong. I wonder how they will respond to this. Definitely a more is more approach to rose cultivation, in any event.



The underlying principle behind education is definitely more is more. More homework, more textbooks, more studying! A lot of the domestic students here study really long hours, from recitals before breakfast and then all afternoon after classes! Of course, the international students don't have this problem, generally. I personally prefer to study in shorter, more intense blocks, and then to take a nice break.



A more balanced approach, in other words. And Beijing provides nicely for that balance. Nightlife here is certainly a more is more approach....

Blogspot back in Beijing

Well, this is weird, but my blog and all others on Blogspot have just made themselves available here in Beijing. Perhaps this was decided at the 17th National Congress?

Whatever the case, it's cool.

And given that I'm stil having problems getting that other blog up and running here's a brief overview of life here.

It's good. The university is more 'Griffith' than 'UQ', but this means it's unpretentious. If anything the vibe is more like a highschool. The classes are quite intense. The difficulty is about that of what I was doing last semester in Brisbane, but instead of 5 hours a week it's 20 hours a week. Another difference is that the teachers can't resort to English to explain anything, because my class is almost entirely Korean and Japanese, and because the teachers can't really speak any English (our focused reading teacher does speak fluent French, though).

Theres some great friends, some whom I already knew from Australia, and we make a killer Mandarin speaking (and reading) crew when we hit the streets. It's great fun.

A photo would probably paint the rest of it much better than I could, such as the view from my room (have sinced moved rooms but its more or less the same). More to come on another day when the net here isn't snail-crawlingly slow.

Moving

Man, that trip was awesome. Going to be a struggle to describe it faithfully and justly.

Anyway, I did some experimenting there and Wordpress is, for now, unblocked in China. So I'll move this blog there, to coincide with my own move.

Off for 2 Weeks

I have that nervous energy that comes the night before a trip. I'll be away till the 13th for this Chinese competition, and blogging will be impossible in that time.

Brisbane-Sydney, Sydney-Beijing, Beijing-Changchun, and back again.

The competition will be broadcast on CCTV, apparently. The standard is supposed to be very high though, so my anxiety levels are likewise rather high.

The Australian - total n00b rag

I usually find The Australian to be pretty good, but this changes everything.

It's a n00b rag. This blog craps all over it. I posted about a similar subject recently, the biggest difference being I know exactly what I'm talking about, and The Australian has no idea.

Sometimes I'm just taken aback at the n00bness of some people. Natalie O'Brien clearly didn't bother to check any of what these moronic interviewers were telling her. And there is not a single mention of Counter-Strike (which is the most obvious target).

Reading 'Virtual Terrorists' (a total n00bfest of an article), I came across this:

Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments.

WTF!? Clearly this n00b hasn't even played WoW.

If you're a n00b like him, let me explain why.

Have a look at the list of weapons on WoW.

According to Zuccato, we should be worried about 'terrorists' turning up to wreak havoc with...a Ballast Maul of the Bear, identical to its real-world armament as you can see.


And the simulated environments...very worrying. It'll be far too easy to plot an attack in a place like this:


What terrorist traning is there to be had in WoW? Honestly, if you haven't seen it in action, try and tell me that Leroy's clan was plotting a real life attack. The only terror caused by WoW is a bit of healthy family wrecking, and Leroy Jenkins-ness.

However, the WoW kid does have a moment of profound insight. In case you missed the link.

"It's not the computer game that's seperating this family, it's what you're reacting to it!"

Well put, kid, well put.

UPDATE:

I am right and the Aus is wrong.

Read the other responses:

Here

Here

and Here.

This last one being particularly important, in showing the true story behind the 'terrorist' plot. Where did O'Brien get the idea that the bombs killed player characters? Virtual-coffins??
Players can't die in Second Life- end of story. O'Brien is writing her own fiction.