Beijing 2007

More than language

Our delegation of 218 Principals and teachers have come to Beijing to attend the second International Education Exchange Forum held this year at No.81 school. The Forum concluded its morning session with a signing ceremony between sister schools and a photo opportunity of all the Forum attendees, Chinese and Canadian, outside in the hot sun of the midday. The delegation was joined by 20 Chinese Principals who would travel with us and stay in the same hotel over the next five days. I had already met some of them at last year’s Forum. We all drove off together in six busses to the pre-arranged lunch location. The drive took us past Yuyuantan Park, the foreing auto sales district and the CCTV tower. We eventually arrived at a new commercial building and parked the busses and ascended the two floors to the dinning hall which turned out to be a karaoke hall. Tables large enough for ten to fourteen people filled the seating part of the hall opposite the stage and dance floor. The bar was at one end.

I sat down at a table that had space and after making introductions and some social chat we all began to relax. The humid heat was far too strong for the feeble air conditioning in the hall so I opened one of the large windows beside our table to get a cross breeze. Other windows opened for the same purpose. I shifted my focus to nearby table groups to see who was seated near us. The staff table was right beside us and next to them a group of twelve Chinese Principals. I spotted one of them with a bottle of beer in his hand returning to the table. I returned to my table to see if anyone else cared to join me in a cold one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t communicate the order to the server dressed in the colourful green outfit of the staff uniform. Feeling somewhat frustrated I retreated toward my table but passing the Chinese table I noticed that they all had beer glasses full to the top. I spotted May, the party secretary and one of the participants at last year’s Forum. I knew she was the translator for the group and I could ask her. I rushed toward her already feeling successful in my quest. I touched her shoulder to get her attention and pleaded ‘May, can you help me order beer for my table?’ Surprised, she turned back to her table and said something in putonghua then turned back to me and said ‘Yes, I can help. I’ll just be a moment’. Relieved, I returned to my group triumphant and asked ‘who needs beer?’ I am surprised that only four want that delicious hoppy flavoured elixir to combat the stifling sticky humidity and slake the dry palate before indulging in our anticipated feast. But here you have it, only four. I sit and wait. The server soon comes and I place our order. Jen and I will have one each and the two youngest men at the table, one traveling with his dad to China and the other with his wife. Neither of the young men are teachers so I assume that their travel partner is the connection to our teacher party. The beer arrives, two bottles first, and the server asks me something in Chinese I don’t understand. He has a bottle opener in his hand and I oblige by grabbing the base of both bottles to anchor them while he snaps off the cap. I hand them off to the two young men first and repeat the process with the next two when he returns. He asks something again but sees that I am in charge and obligingly pops off the caps. Food begins arriving shortly and the beer ceremony fades into the background as plate after plate arrives amid conversation of ‘what is that?’ ‘oh, that one’s good!’ consumes our attention and our overloaded sensory experience of a Chinese banquet begins. The soups and the watermelon course announce the end of our meal and I quaff back the last of my delicious beer. Table groups rustle and begin to stand as Nina makes her way among them announcing it is time to get back on the bus.

At 3:00 a.m. I am working over all that has happened this full and very busy day. I am rested, in bed, comfortable with the air conditioned hotel room providing a kind of mental space that allows me to turn thoughts over and around and look at them like jade pieces at a market, peering at the experience to see if it can yield a glimpse maybe a bit deeper into this different world we are now experiencing. The beer keeps coming up in my half conscious mind and I return to the events of the lunchtime meal in my mind.

It is the image of the Chinese Principals table with about a dozen all seated. I see beer glasses all filled. We had similar glasses at our table and I know they are not for water. You only drink water from a bottle in China, so they must be for beer. I see the karaoke setup in my mental sweep of the big room. For some reason Peter Hessler’s book, Rivertown, comes to my mind and my mental focus is now on the pages he writes about the banquet culture and particularly the practice of ‘ganbei’, repeated toasts until someone falls off a chair drunk.

My focus clears as I see my own outsider self-centered thirst blinding me the Chinese Principal’s group ceremony. The Chinese Principals had all been sitting silently, beer glasses full. Someone was talking. It was Director Li, the head of the Chinese delegation. I blundered into their opening to foreign educators at the second Sino-Candad Education Forum, or whatever that toast was going to be. I don’t think I’ll ever know but its more than just a language issue.

Learn Mandarin - Part one

I have been tinkering with learning Mandarin for a while, taking a conversational class one evening a week, starting at zero. Luckily Jennifer is doing the class with me at the same time and even though we don't really practice speaking outside the class, just having someone else doing it with you is a support. We do practice the previous week's lesson together and if one of us is away for a class the other one does fill in the gaps, but its not the same as a real lesson. The real lesson is the learning place where the brain gets engaged by the context of a classroom with a teacher who has a plan to move us forward. I like this part because it works. We start out with a review of what we learned the previous week(s) and because our conversation group is fairly well engaged in the class this part is usually fast and gets us up to speed. I can almost sense the brain straining to make the switch from expecting English sounds to expecting Chinese sounds, and they are different. This is one of the more challenging aspects to learning this language, the sounds of each character are really dependent on the way you say them, which is of course, the tonal aspect of the language. English has a tonal aspect to it as well but it is contextual to the speaker's desired meaning, for example, 'come on' (urging my daughter to move), 'come on' (a description of a ploy to dupe a fool). You can imagine more ways to give 'come on' different meanings by employing tonal qualities that you decide will convey your intention. Tones in Mandarin are not as personally determined. They are part of the meaning structure of the language and need to be learned along with the orthography. That brings up another interesting aspect to learning this language. The way it is represented on the page is generally either in the romanesque Pinyin or the Hanzi characters or traditional characters. These need to be memorized as the vocabulary is built up word by word.

I am continuing with my weekly conversation classes and have begun to explore more ways to learn this language. I have been a silent listener for about three weeks of something called ChinesePod, a daily podcast from Shanghai that presents itself as a new way to learn the language 'on your terms'. The ChinesePod website rolled out a new look (V.3) on the weekend and I decided to sign up for the free lessons. The lesson set begins with their Intro series which are ultra slow, careful, friendly and very doable. I will do these but I will dip into some of the other Newbie lessons randomly as I go. I think the free session is now two weeks instead of one week so I will have enough time to really get a sense of how effectively I can make use of this site. It also has some nice 'exercise' lessons and 'test yourself' areas to see how well you are doing. The general principle seems to be a mastery learning approach, memorize to a high degree of success and then move on. Nothing wrong with that, but its not conversation. You can subscribe to the conversation aspect as well (utilizing a daily ten minute Skype call) although that will cost a bit more. For now I will stay with the click and listen and repeat until my cat gets tired of me I suppose, or I learn enough Mandarin to risk actually speaking with a stranger.