Why is Chinese So Hard?

Here's a good article by an American professor about why Chinese is so incredibly difficult. It's quite long, but funny and very, very accurate.

http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

If I could pull out a couple of bits...

"A Spanish person learning Portuguese is comparable to a violinist taking up the viola, whereas an American learning Chinese is more like a rock guitarist trying to learn to play an elaborate 30-stop three-manual pipe organ."

"In fairness, it should be said that [classical] Chinese gets easier the more you attempt it. But then so does hitting a hole in one, or swimming the English channel in a straitjacket." (My brackets).

"Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility."

My new name is Carlos Martinez

Why is this my new name? Because I've been getting very fed up with speaking English with Chinese people. Whenever you meet someone, they always ask 'where are you from' (in Chinese), which is fair enough. I tell them 'England', and they break into English. I cannot stand it. So recently I told a couple of people in passing that I was Portuguese, but today it backfired.

I was in one of the many small restaurants near my flat eating dinner, when 3 women invite me to join them at their table. Really nice and friendly, speaking Chinese, then comes the killer question. I said 'I'm Portuguese'. Then came the should-have-expected barrage of questions about Portugal. First a man at another table mentioned Macau [former Portuguese colony near Hong Kong]. I apologised, which went down well. Then they started naming Portuguese footballers. This was the first difficult question. Thirdly came 'What is the capital of your country?' I don't know how to say it in Chinese, so said it a (supposedly) Portuguese accent.

Further questions included :- your name? - Carlos Martinez. How many other languages can you speak? - Spanish, French (I got greedy), a little English. What foods do you eat in Portugal - fried breakfasts, potatoes, fish and chips. Can Portguese people speak English? - most of them, but me only a little. Is it easy for you to speak Spanish? - yes, very. What is your major at university? - international business. What is your country's population? - smaller than China's. Do Portguese people all have stubble? - yes, except for most of the women.

They worked for a cosmetics company called Anway, and they asked me if they have this in Portugal. I said no, they said definitely Portgual does, so I said, OK, maybe we do. Losing my grip on things, the final question came. Can you say a sentence in your Portuguese? Ooh shit. Shit shit shit. After lots of umming and erring, I decided I couldn't blag this one, saying I couldn't think of any appropriate sentence. I had finished eating, soI left, sweating and almost running out of the restuarant.

Because there's not so many foreigners around here, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this up. Some of the restaurant people already know I'm English. Maybe I should cut my hair, learn some Portuguese, don a sombrero (because everyone wears sombreros in Portugal), and throw myself into the role of Carlos Martinez!

Also today, my flatmates found a dog on the street and bought it home. They're currently feeding it rice.

Day 55

Even after some time in China, you still come across slightly random and/or interesting things. I was taking a stroll alongside the city wall's today when I saw about 300 Americans playing orchestral high school music, all wearing red shirts and being gawped at by Chinese (and me). They looked just like the people out of American Pie 2, even had a big black dude on the symbols at the back.

Yesterday's reading text was also rather strange, yet disturbing. If I may (badly) translate the text for a moment. "The teacher called me to the front of the class, took my head in both her hands and gently placed a kiss upon my forehead. She said 'You are loveliest person in the class'. I cried joyfully". I've been assured by my teacher that this is not standard practice in Chinese schools.

Also yesterday came the realisation that the city is surrounded by mountains. The pollution is normally so thick you can never notice, but yesterday it lifted and the mountains south of my apartment can't be more than 20km away, yet I had never noticed them before.

Another thing I need someone to explain to me is how Chinese double decker buses don't topple over. The one that goes from the University to the centre of Xi'an is usually a double-decker and usually absolutely jam packed, people literally being pressed against the windows. Today I braved it for the first time. Top and bottom afford no head room to the standing passenger, let alone the standing foreigner passenger, so I spent most of the 20 minute journey in a C shape. And with all the swerving and avoiding every man and his rickshaw criss-crossing the roads, I think it's actually skillful driving to stay on 6 wheels.

Whatever else China is, there's always something new everyday to interest the senses.

Greetings from Xi'an

I've finally managed to get this set up. If only I had discovered the 'change language' function earlier... I hope to be making fairly regular entries on here. Obviously now I've set it up I've forgotten all the things I was going to say. Genius.