I pass a market stall selling fruit and vegetables and note that two Chinese girls are approaching the stall from another angle. I don't need anything there so move on, but as I do so I hear the stall holder shouting out 新年快乐，你好,好朋友！ enthusiastically.
Nothing too strange except that this is Bath in England and the stall holder is a young English lad of typical market stall down to earth joviality. I have talked to him before as the stall is a good place to buy fruit and veg. but never heard him speaking Chinese before. Granted it sounds a little rough but is fully confident and not lacking any enthusiasm. When I have more time I would will try to find out how much he knows.
Bath has quite a sizeable young Chinese population and the stall holder has at least one impetus to learn Chinese, that is to boost his selling. There may be many other reasons including an interest in Chinese girls (but lets not jump to hasty conclusions).
This made my day, I think it is going to happen more often as cultures meet. For every street seller in a foreign country who has self-learned enough English to sell to tourists; I would wish to see another Englishman who is reversing the trend and returning the favor. One in the eye for those who over intellectualize the study of Asian languages.
No matter how functional his Chinese is there is bound to be one who would stand and say "his pronunciation is off and he has little concept of the finer grammar points". If I was there I would happily punch that "one" in the face......
Strange the things that can lift your spirits when the days are dark.
2 comments:
Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!
If you want to see LOVE in Chinese, check this out:
http://www.pyngo.com/viewPhoto.php?fileID=29
I found it useful.
In Huangshan (黄山) southern Anhui province in Eastern China, Fu Shou-Bing
logs on to the computer in the public library near his village. Since
discovering ECpod.com (http://www.ECpod.com), the retired High School
Chemistry teacher has been logging on almost every day to the
English-Chinese teaching website. Sometimes he cycles the 25 miles home,
cooks himself a simple lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables with salted
fish, often returning once again to the library and his new hobby in the
evening.
ECpod.com boasts an educational website that teaches members
conversational English or Chinese (no “this is an apple” stuff here) via
video clips contributed by other members. After a vetting and often
transcribing process by language tutors commissioned by the site, the
clips are available free of charge in YouTube fashion. The twist? Members
film each other in everyday activities, hoping other members will learn
not just their native tongue, but also cultural innuendos lost in
textbooks and more conventional means of language learning.
“One member filmed himself cooking in his kitchen. We got a few emails
asking what condiments he used,” says a bemused Warwick Hau, one of the
site’s more public faces. One emailer even wanted to know if she could
achieve the same Chinese stir-fry using ingredients from her regular CR
Vanguard (华润超级) supermarket. “We often forget our every day activities may
not be as mundane to people on the other side of the world,” Hau adds.
Another such clip is “loaches” - a Chinese mother of 3 filmed her children
and their friends playing with a bucket of loaches - slippery eel-like
fish the children were picking up and gently squeezing between their
fingers.
Lately the members have also begun to make cross-border friends and
contacts. The ECpal function works much the same way sites like
Facebook.com and MySpace.com work - members can invite each other to view
their clips and make friends. And it has its fair share of juvenile humor
as well. “Farting Competition” features two teenagers and graphic sound
effects. Within several days, the clip was one of the most popular videos
that week, likely due to mass-forwarding by the participants’ schoolmates.
For other members keen to learn more than the fact juvenile humor is
similar everywhere, there are many home videos featuring unlikely little
nuggets of wisdom. “The last thing I learned from the site is why you
never find green caps for sale in China”, says Adam Schiedler one of the
English language contributors to the site. Green caps signify cuckolded
husbands, particularly shameful in China as they are a huge loss of face.
Adam vows not to buy any green headgear for his newfound friends.
The subject matter of the videos often speaks volumes about its
contributors. Members choose their own content and film the clip wherever
they please, some of their efforts drawing attention to rural surroundings
and the quaint insides of little homes otherwise not seen unless you
backpack your way thru the tiny dirt roads and villages along the Chinese
countryside.
Idyllic countrysides and cooking lessons aside however, ECpod marries the
latest video sharing technology with the old school way of teaching a
language - from the native speakers on the street. It’s a modern, more
convenient alternative to spending 6 months in China. And why not let the
Chinese teach you?
Visit us at http://www.ECPod.com
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