yeti speak...

engrish speakers

While riding in a taxi cab today, Anna noticed two dogs running on the sidewalk beside us.  She said, "Oh, look.  I wonder if those dogs are strains."  Then she noticed a guy catching up with them and said.  "Nope, they're not strains.  There is someone taking care of them."

Meanwhile, Sarah still pronounces many words in her own unique way. 

For example, the two basic flavors of ice cream for Sarah are chocolate and granilla.

She recently was singing a song entitled "The Cat Came Back" in this way:

"The cat came back, thought he was an honor.  The cat came back the very next day."  I had to explain that the word was actually "goner" not honor and then I had to explain the meaning of the word goner.  It was quite an amusing exchange.

Then Sarah keeps us laughing with a steady stream of e-cause (instead of because) dis (instead of this) and kitty-up (instead of giddy up, as in 'giddy up horsey'...).  I'll have to keep track of some of the other interesting words and dialects I hear coming from the mouths of these little ones.  They say the darndest things.

a new script

This is a photo my friend, Jeremy, took of some Tibetan script.  Wonder what it says?

As Christa and I have been reflecting and discussing our future here in China, I have felt a "tug" to learn the Tibetan language.  The language itself is pretty daunting, not that Mandarin is a cake-walk or anything. 

Until recently I guess I have been reluctant to take on a new language (especially since my 2 years of studying Mandarin has left me very far from being "fluent") but the more I have thought about it and looked at my original goals for cross-cultural life and work, I realized that learning Tibetan WAS one of my original goals.  My initial interests were born in Nepal and have always had a Tibetan-spin on them, but with all the difficulties of culture we've faced in the last 3 years, I think I lost sight of that.

So my current thinking is, "Why not go for it?  I'm not getting any younger..."

I say this in a very nonchalant way, but in reality this "next step" type decision has been much less than straight-forward as you may have gathered.  There has been a lot of Divine input, too.  So, unless something else comes up, looks like I'll be back in the classroom in March 2009 with a new script and new sounds. 

But first we will go back home (just 52 days left) and let our linguistic muscles rest for a bit .

On the wife front, Christa is feeling the tug to continue to get greater fluency in Mandarin.  She really speaks clearly in Chinese (great tones!) and I think she will really make progress in the classroom and on the streets.  So we'll be a bi-lingual couple, maybe?  Or is it tri-lingual?  Let's see, a splash of German, a dash of French, some Chinese, and Tibetan.  And let's not forget English...

We're insane.  Thanks for not mentioning it...

progressive literacy

This is the beautiful landscape that can be seen out our back window of our apartment in Xining.  Breathtaking, eh?

On many evenings over the past two years, from the comfort of my couch, I have stared out at this gray brick building.  The other day as I stared at it it dawned on me that I could actually read the Chinese characters on top of the building.

When I first started learning Chinese, I could only make out the word "大" (da) which is a very common and simple character in Chinese.  It means "big", "large", or "most".

Over time I learned the word for world which is "世界" (shijie).  I think I learned this one during the World Cup last summer.

And only recently I picked up the word for carpet "地毯" (dita).

So I was pretty happy that I could make out all the characters on the sign: Big Carpet World.  This is what you call two years of progressive literacy.  Granted there is some English on the sign, and I've known that this building used to be a carpet factory, but that's beside the point.

I can read, people!  I can read.  Just don't hand me a Qinghai newspaper.

things that make me go hmmm

A few weeks ago I posted about Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point.  In that book, Gladwell was posing the argument that social epidemics (of all varieties) can usually be attributed to small, gradual changes or innovations in situations that are enacted within a specific context by a unique set of individuals / groups.

A week or two after posting this I learned this character in my spoken Chinese class:

流行 = liuxing (pronounced leo-shing)

What's interesting about this word is that it has two meanings.  The first meaning is popular, fashionable, trendy.  The second meaning is contagious as in an epidemic.

I think the correlation between these two meanings (for the same word) would be of some interest to Mr. Gladwell.  It shows how there is some relationship (even at the linguistic level) for the things that gain interest in the public eye and highly-infectious epidemics.  It made me stop and say, "Hmmmm."

But I still don't know what the Chinese word for "tipping point" is.  Maybe that's in next week's lesson.  (Ha.)

the second and greatest "R"

You've heard of the three r's, right? 

reading, 

'riting,

and 'rithmatic. 

I've spent most of my life focused on the first two of the three.  The third "r" I use when necessary, but I can't say that I love it like I do the other two. I think I am foremost a reader, but maybe because I grew up as an avid reader I have also aspired to be a writer. 

One of my goals this month was to write something.  I, purposefully, left my calendar open because I wanted to devote a good amount of time to writing.  At first I was saying I wanted to write a novel, but now I've back-pedaled a little.  I think I've wanted to make my goals more attainable. Maybe now it's just a novella I'm writing or more likely a collection of essays.

Whatever this writing process produces, I must say it feels good to be writing every day.  To daily present myself to the laptop in order to "create" something from nothing has always been a very difficult discipline for me to maintain.  There are always emails to check, blogs to read/post, "work" to be done, DVDs to watch, and a whole arsenal of excuses that prevent me from actually putting ideas into Word docs.

The worst hindrance to writing is the nasty old editor-Nazi that sits inside my own head.  He smokes big cigars, rifles through my papers with fat fingers, scoffs at my sentences, and tells me minute-by-minute that this story has already been told...by more competent tellers.  Herr Critic's voice is high-pitched and annoying.  Sometimes his whine is debilitating.  I often turn away from the page because I can't be bothered to deal with his tactics of discouragement. You can't escape from your own mind too easily I've found.

The last few weeks though (ha-ha-ha) I've been craftily dealing with Herr Critic and his pesky running commentary.  I've been writing for pleasure, telling a story that is close to my heart, enjoying myself in the creative process, and most importantly pacing myself.  I've been going really slow.  Each day a page or two gets written.  I don't think what I'm writing is Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tolkien, or Lewis.  The masters are in a league of their own.  But maybe what is coming out is Todd through and through.  I can be happy with that; if I am being true to myself and my own experience.

T.S. Eliot once said, "Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."

I think if I can come at writing with the same awareness, and stop pretending that every time I put my fingers on the keys there is a Pulitzer Prize at stake, I might actually enjoy it more and as a result actually see stories come into being.  The writers that I admire most were also failed writers, but the good ones, the really great failed writers seemed to find amazing success as they persevered to tell the stories that delighted them. 

You can always tell when a truly gifted writer has found such delight in his/her story.  Did you know that Tolkien wrote LOTR over a 13 year span in the evenings (probably after the kids were in bed and he had graded his university student's papers!)  He sent installments to his son who was fighting in WWII.  That shows true love for the story...and determined perseverance. It took 13 years (even longer when you take into account all the linguistic and background history he wrote for Middle Earth) for him to tell his tale! 

Tolkien must have found a good way to lock Herr Critic in a broom closet somewhere. Maybe I will find a way, too.

All this to say that I have actually been writing this month.  If I've seemed like a recluse this is a large part of it.  Something is rattling around in the cobwebs up top...and I'm trying to run with it.

And a big thanks to those of you who have been encouraging me this month (and even before now).  You have encouraged me with your compliments and by reading what I'm writing here. It has made a big difference and helped me put a better stranglehold on the rascal, Herr Critic.  You know who you are...and I hope you know that you are appreciated.  Thanks for reading and cheering me on from the grandstands...

I'm off to write!
Yeti

p.s. I realize that's Lewis' picture above, but I liked it better than the one's I could find online of Tolkien.

tones, characters, and aspirins

Our friends gave us a very humorous article from the Guardian about what it's like to learn Chinese.  I found it online and wanted to share it with you, dear readers.  It's called Empire of Signs.

I have to agree with Ed Lanifranco's sentiments in the article when he says, "If I were emperor of China, my first act would be to abolish the second tone."  That would be a good start...