Watching the ball drop

Growing up, my family never celebrated on New Year's Eve. We went to bed early because we had to wake up at 5 a.m. and drive back to Ohio from our Florida vacation. Bummer, right? If we ever happened to stayed up until midnight, my brothers and I would just stare at the clock to watch it change. Sometimes we would rebel if we were absolutely forbidden to stay up: someone would set the alarm on their watch for 11:58. Take that, Mom and Dad!

Of course, all my life I had heard about this mysterious “ball drop” on New Year’s Eve. It was what everyone talked about, as if it were the most magnificent and suspenseful activity of the year. Why else would everyone get excited about staying up until midnight? Obviously, I thought, a huge glass ball is dropped from 50 stories in the air, and the amazed crowd and television audience watch as it plummets to the ground and shatters into a million gazillion pieces. Woah.

So, at the age of 19, I finally stayed up for New Year’s Eve with some friends from college. Can you imagine my disappointment and bafflement when I saw the real ball drop? What the heck? So totally lame.

I don't think I'll ever get excited about the New Year again... 

Front page story

I'm featured on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch today - complete with a color photo (by Tom Dodge). The story is about people who don't own televisions, and I was interviewed not only because I fall in that category, but I also work for a TV station.

To me, not having a TV is so trivial. For the past year, I didn't watch any television shows. Now, I watch about two hours of shows per week online through Hulu.

In the article by Amy Saunders, I compared not owning a TV to not owning a dishwasher - and no one would think to interview me about how I get my dishes clean. Again, has anyone called you crazy for not having a stand mixer or ceiling fan or toaster? No way. I said that a television is just an appliance to me. There are so many other ways to get information and entertainment these days, and I don't think that it should be weird to not have a television. I think I'm ahead of the times.

I challenge you to put your TV in a closet for a week and see what happens. You might find that you like the result (and you can still watch all your favorite shows!).

A note on the photo: This was taken by the Dispatch photographer in the studio at my workplace, and you're seeing a video loop behind me on the monitor. Pretty cool!

Intercontinental driving directions

So I've been totally missing Lanzhou lately, surprise. I spent a few hours looking at Lanzhou and my other favorite Chinese cities on Google maps, and then I realized I could search directions from my apartment to Lanzhou, China.

Google only gave me one route option: I-90 W, 11,798 mi., 38 days 10 hours. There are 140 steps to the instructions, and it takes me to Seattle, where I then must "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean. Continue straight." I get to stop in Hawaii for a break before continuing to kayak to Japan. My entry point in China is Shanghai, and from there I drive through Nanjing and Xi'an to Lanzhou. Seriously, 38 days? And why must I kayak? 

Thank you, Google, for the diversion.

I just can't get past the fact that on Google maps I can see my favorite ginkgo tree outside the international student dorms at Lanzhou University. I love that tree.

My own rage comic

If you don't know what a rage comic is, you probably don't know what a meme is, either. Feel free to look these up, links provided, before continuing to read :)

I had an experience earlier this evening that I thought could only be expressed through creating my own rage comic. So I did. It's not a true meme because it's basically only related to myself and how I've been writing a lot this past year or so. What I've been writing is all about China and Asia. So with that in mind, enjoy:

So, obviously, the funny part of this story is my absolute shock at seeing the categories of Asian and non-Asian words. I realized nano-seconds later that since I have Asian characters enabled on my computer, Microsoft Word by default includes these categories. There are dozens of Asian words in my document, thank you very much, but they all have red squiggly lines under them. Hm....

And NO, I'm not going to tell you just yet what I'm writing about. Goodness gracious. Patience, please.

You just can't win

At a staff meeting, my boss relayed this conversation of him talking me up to our parent station in Cleveland:

My boss: And she speaks MANDARIN!
Cleveland: (5 seconds of silence) So...?

What more do you want, people? Hahaha ;)

Intro to Mandopop

If you haven’t listened to Mandopop, you should give it a try. What is it? Well, the word is a combination of Mandarin (Chinese language) and pop (popular music). Got it? The genre, however, is not limited to mainland China. In fact, most Mandopop artists are from Taiwan.

I love Mandopop because, not only does it help me learn Chinese, it encourages me to keep learning. Mandopop makes me realize how beautiful the Chinese language is, and how the language carries so much cultural depth with it. I want to understand it all. 

My Chinese classes and textbooks focused on practical, everyday language. When I would speak to close friends in Chinese, however, I was lacking in very important words and concepts: those dealing with feelings. Sure, I could say happy, worried, hungry, tired, excited, etc. But listening to Mandopop has taught me how to express more specific emotions and feelings in Chinese.

On the other hand, Mandopop is heavily criticized for copying Western styles. Mandopop can be really uncreative and, frankly, horrible-sounding. But there has been a type of come-back recently, and it’s worth wading through the crap to find some unique stuff. I will say, though, that you have to have a really open mind when you’re listening to the songs. Don’t think too hard about strangeness of it all. Remember that you’re listening to music from a different culture which has different ideals, values, and even gender roles than we do in America and the West.

Where to start? I have some links below, but in general, check out Wang Leehom (王力宏) first. I think he’s the best out there. The other “greats” in my book are David Tao (陶喆), J. J. Lin (林俊傑), S.H.E., and Jolin Cai (蔡依林). Just search for them on Youtube.

So here’s an example of a really tender, modern love song with a music video that you can understand without knowing what the singer is saying. It’s called “She Says” and it’s by J. J. Lin. (I've also seen the title translated as "That's what she said," which makes me laugh.)

And here is a REALLY CRAZY song by Wang Leehom that combines Beijing opera, Chinese minority music, Chinese stringed instruments, and gazillions of other Chinese cultural aspects with Western-style rap. Remember, I warned you. Notice the posters he’s looking at, the tattoo of the opera mask on the girl’s shoulder, and the three women singing around the microphone. I'm not even going to get into the intricacy of the lyrics. It's seriously genius. Try to appreciate it without judging it on Western standards. The song is called "Heroes of the Earth." There's a part in the middle where the lyrics are in English, and it gives you an idea of what the song is about: celebrating China's long history in a modern world. Did I already say it's genius?

What is literary Chinese?

If you had asked me that last week, I would have given you a textbook-summary answer; something like this: It’s an older form of written Chinese that, from ancient times and into the 20^th century, was studied by the educated class. Specifically, they studied a body of work written by early philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and others, called the Four Books and the Five Classics. Literary Chinese went out of style during the revolutionary periods in the early 20^th century. This was largely because it was seen as elitist; only the rich could afford tutors and had the time to memorize these works and learn the literary style.

But that says nothing about what literary Chinese actually is, or about how it’s different from everyday, conversational Chinese. And why is it so intimidating?

I had previously assumed that the grammar of literary Chinese was some rigid and complicated form, that the characters used were crazy ones I’d never seen and are not used today, and that the concepts were too foreign for my American mind.

False, false, false.

It’s still freaking difficult, but now I know that I was completely wrong about why literary Chinese is so dang hard.

Literary Chinese is difficult because there is no set grammatical structure. It’s usually fairly obvious, but it does get really tricky with indirect objects! (Who did what to whom?) You also sometimes have to guess the actual meaning of the characters. I’m not kidding. A lot of the characters have conflicting, if not opposite, meanings. And don’t even get me started on prepositions! One particular preposition can mean both “to” and “from.” Great.

In some sense, I'm starting to think of literary Chinese as a non-language. Think about what constitutes a language. What are the elements that it needs? Language: The method of human communication (spoken or written) that consists of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

It would be an oversimplification to say that literary Chinese lacks structure and conventions. But it’s pretty close, considering the reader often has to guess the author’s intent.

Anyway, the characters used in literary Chinese are mostly ones I have seen before. Granted, I didn’t use “wise sage” every day when I lived in China, but I had seen the characters used in other forms. On the other hand, I am learning traditional characters in conjunction with literary Chinese. (Goodness gracious, why is Chinese so complicated to explain?!? Simplified characters are what are used in mainland China. They designate more basic strokes for certain radicals/stroke groups in the traditional characters, blah blah blah. It's just a slightly different way of writing the characters.) So in the sense that I’m on the lookout for the differences between the familiar simplified and not-so-familiar traditional characters, the characters in literary Chinese are a bit of a challenge. But nothing crazy.

Lastly, I thought that the concepts conveyed in literary Chinese might be “too Chinese” for me to understand. It’s funny, though, how universal human emotion and experience can be. I’ll just leave you with this bit of ancient Chinese wisdom:

One who understands fate does not resent the heavens; one who understands himself does not resent others. (知命者不怨天，知己者不怨人。)