Taiwan / Week 4: Celebrating the First Month
Let me start with Effie. Before I do, I did as badly as I thought I had on last week’s quiz: 34 out of 100. This Friday I was determined not necessarily to do better on the quiz but to be relaxed with the process of taking a quiz. Also, Jasper at the front desk helped me put the week’s lesson on my computer so I could listen to it repeatedly. That helped in placing it in my mind as well as recognizing the characters. Over and over I listened, sometimes reading the text, sometimes...
Read MoreTaiwan / Week 3: Learning in Kaohsiung
Attack! Fire! Fire! Hit! Dead. Almost… Yep, that’s what the quiz in Chinese characters felt like this morning. I’d studied for nearly three hours the night before with Jasper. I’d learned 26 Chinese characters. 26!! Meaning I could write and recognize them. 26!! So I felt happy and prepared. The quiz began and we were asked which beh, peh, meh, feh sounds were which characters — easy. Then I turn the page and we’re supposed to match sentences. I can never...
Read MoreTaiwan / Week 2: One to Another
The wave, shall I call it the onslaught, of material in Chinese to master is relentless. Our daily classes are galloping. Our march is forward, no stopping. I feel as if I’m in the army. If I slow down, I’ll be left behind. My friends in Taiwan keep advising me, “Don’t worry.” But how does a marching soldier relax? He has to move, to think, to remember what he has learned and to be ready for who knows which questions he will be asked that he has no information...
Read MoreTaiwan / Week 1: An Unlikely Story
“Chingwen ni, jiao shenme mingzi?” During the next six months, Diane will be in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where she is studying Mandarin Chinese as part of the research for her adaptation of Journey to the West (also known as the Monkey King Epic). From time to time, she will share stories of her adventures in learning and living in Taiwan, starting today. I am the slowest in my Chinese class at National Sun Yat–Sen University. The other nine students, all men, are twice as quick...
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