Stepping Stones Across the River

Love this Chinese from Micky D’s recent Ronni MacSpicy campaign-

I’m not afraid of spice;
Spice does scare me;
Not hot and spicy, now that’s scary!

熱鬧, in Chinese, it translates as “lively.” To the standardly tuned Western ear it would translate as a riptide of cacophony, chaos and volume. But, in the middle kingdom it means joy and excitement. Especially around Western holidays that generate gifts and gatherings, singing and funny hats, shared meals and an excuse to enjoy the company of those who light your life. Christmas in China, is anything but a silent night.

While it does not turn the wheel of commerce with a feeling of held breath at the end of the year. It does show up here as carols blaring over tired speakers that compete with the rapid-fire barking of instructions by the green army coated attendants that help the Chinese to navigate their cars in a direction completely foreign to Chinese thought and habit; reverse. There are red elf hats on every waiter and waitress, red Christmas cups at Starbucks, and grinning Santa’s hung like a revolutionary Mao next to the Chinese symbols for abundance and renewal.

The old Catholic church at Wangfujing, a relic from before the “liberation” hosts throngs of those born after Deng Xiaoping’s “opening” of China, who know nothing other than increasing material wealth and Christmas as a western import that allows them to gather with friends, light sparklers, eat ice cream and be happy. The original message of a young rabbi who preached a liberation theology; spoke of an inward turning that allowed a glimpse of heaven, is as lost on them as it is on much of our western world with its blind adherence to an outward worship of dogma and faith.

Still, I suspect that young rabbi just might have resonated with the “re nao” light generated in the dark of the year. Connected with the noise and heat that is generated from the connection of humans engaging each other with joy and happiness. Perhaps it is that which brings the sun back from the cold and dark for another spin around the seasons. We all benefit from a season of renewal.

It no doubt slid down from Siberia, across the plains of Mongolian, ripped across the Great Wall and then screamed into Beijing on 40mph winds. Like a dry cold typhoon, winter arrived on the night of solstice, it whistled through leaky windows, evaporated the remaining withered willow leaves and left in its wake a shimmering cold. The kind that is brittle and beautiful.

It starts in October, the first pair of long underwear. Those of us that work indoors get away with a thin pair and a feather coat. Those who make their living on the street go for the thicker woollier variety. As winter sets its teeth even those of us with desk jobs don’t brave the cold without two layers under our otherwise business attire.

Although biting cold, and when accompanied by wind it is like walking against a thousand knives, this sharp winter Beijing cold while it cuts to the bone, lacks the tortuous grip of Taipei’s dampness. Still the wise person will heavy the external to repair the intrinsic!

Ever seen the casual use of Chinese in the USA on clothing, hats, tattoos, or simply thrown in to some art to look cool. It probably sounds a lot like this.

Those who study Chinese know there are…..tones

We fear them like an attitudinal drill Sergeant, we know we are in for trouble. Fortunately, most of us don’t know just what kind of trouble until we are well into acquisition of the language. At which point there is no retreat.

Sinosplice is a great blog for those who have an interest in learning Mandarin or glimpses into the nuances of Chinese life. Its author John Pasden, of Chinesepod fame, recently wrote this great entry concerning the learning and use of tones in Chinese. Perhaps it helps that he has a degree in applied linguistics, but I suspect it is his love of language and interest in Chinese that pushes him into territories from which he brings back gems like this.

Anyone who has studied Chinese for any length of time knows that trying to fit the Chinese that comes out of our mouths into the directional arrows that point the directions of tone is at best a static approximation of a more slippery and organic process. In truth, anyone who has studied Chinese for any length of time knows that trying to fit the Chinese that comes out of our mouths into the directional arrows that point the directions of tone is at best a static approximation of a more slippery and organic process. Like navigating a black diamond ski slope, there are key moments when the edges grab and carve, the rest of the time it is float and fly.

This model introduced at Sinosplice suggests another approach to engaging tones.

Should you be working on your Chinese, keep it mind as you both listen and talk. I’ve found it makes a difference.

This morning in the elevator, oddly enough, I got most of the chitter-chatter gossip. Stepping out onto the grit ground concrete stairs the soap opera of who cussed out whose wife falls into my ears with startling clarity.

I don’t understand the Beijing accent that well.

But, today it is suddenly different. Instead of syllables disappearing into tongue curled “rrrrr” thin air, I hear them being swallowed in the throat.

It is like a Cockney accent; except it is Chinese.

There really is no word for “went,” “ate,” “drove,” “wrote.”
It all happens now; go, eat, drive, write .
Just like unmodified verbs always express the action occurring in the moment of here and now.

It makes the grammar of Chinese terribly simple. No verbs to conjugate. No agreements to facilitate between a noun and its ver-being. In English, we conjugate, but in Chinese we make use of these constructs called “resultive verb endings.”
They are like verbs with footnotes.

吃不下- eat, not go down (I’m stuffed)
走不動- walk, not move (too tired to take another step)
想不出- think, not come out (it’s on the tip of my tongue
)
看不起- look, not go up (look down on someone)
看得出來- look, as it is (it seems that)
吃得慣- eat, being accustomed to (used to eating something)

Simple? Yes! But, it drives us westerners, with our perchance for making nouns and verbs agree with each other, a bit crazy from time to time.
But, perhaps not as crazy as the Chinese (with their ever present linguistic focus on the present) must feel when trying to run their thoughts through the grammatical constructs of the English language.

They often 想不起來 (can not think it through) so, we end up with:

“The spasm was as serious as contraction, causing the eyes and mouth deviated and salivation in sleep.”

Recently, her menstruation was postdated and with distending pain in abdomen.
Now her complexion was dark, nose obstructed with thick and sticky discharge which was repeatedly onset when exposed to cold or without obvious reasons.

Now his toothache better-and-worse made him unable to eat and unable to sleep.
…he felt obstructed in the ear, especially in raining days.

Three times of acupuncture made her pain stopped.

Chinese medicine is already a foreign language even when it is in English. As is so often the case, the square pegs of one language, have a rough go at morphing into the round pegs of another. It would not be such challenge if it were only words and grammar that needed to be filtered; there is also the trapdoor of underlying cultural assumptions.

That, however, is a story for another time.

Today is Sunday.
I’m having lunch in Korea.
It is the closest flight out of China. Early enough departure to miss the Beijing mid-morning traffic, and due to the magic of time zones, I’ll be home again in time for dinner.
Multi-entry visas are a godsend!

He can be found on the sidewalk in various parts of southern Beijing. Doubtful that more than six or seven turns around the sun have filled his life. Pretzel twisted limbs, he sits in/on a metal frame begging with a change filled kitchen bowl.

I’ve seen him on my way to “the office,” which is an overstuffed chair at the free wi-fi’ed Starbucks on Puhuang Yu Road. An americano buys a seat for the entire day, it is a comfortable place to work while my visa paperwork drifts through the Chinese guanxi system of relationship, regulation and back door winks. It is a system built on thousands of years of culture that on the surface appears modern and as up to date as a CBD skyscraper, but it is wired in a way I doubt my western mind will ever really comprehend. Not unlike running a page of foreign text through the Google translator. You get close enough to realize how far away you really are.

This morning I walk on two good legs to a engage in work that challenges and hones my mind. Work that soothes my spirit in that it adds to a community of knowledge. I can not even begin to imagine what life is like for this child who spends his days on Beijing’s bone chill winter streets. Perhaps his job is to remind the rest of us of the daily uncountable blessings we grumble about. Today he whispered something to me about gratitude.