Chinese Language

Top Reasons for Why Chinese Is Difficult for Foreigners

claire — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:56:08 +0000

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Learning a second foreign language is particularly a hard nut to crack for most people, especially learning those languages that are totally different from one’s own mother tongue. For most foreigners,learning Chinese is the most difficult thing to do. All aspects of Chinese language, not only the tones of Chinese but also Chinese characters, seem to be hot potato to them. But what makes Chinese language difficult to foreigners? Here are some top reasons for this as following.
1. The Difficulty in the Writing System of Chinese.
In foreigners’ eyes, the writing system seems to be sheer fantasy for them. It can’t be guaranteed that someone who can speak a fluent Chinese can write neat Chinese characters. There is no doubt that Chinese characters are famous for their beauty and charm. But it’s really hard to write Chinese characters well, even for Chinese people. There are a great number of Chinese natives who don’t write good Chinese characters. The reason why the writing system of Chinese is difficult for people is that the spelling of Chinese characters isn’t always regular. Besides, there are too many characters that we need to learn, thus people will get puzzled when they learn too much characters.
2. The difficulty in Ideographic Manner of Chinese Language
Unlike English, Chinese characters are arranged in the way of their radicals and Chinese has nothing that corresponds to an alphabet, thus it’s hard for Chinese learners to recognize the radicals if they haven’t systematacially studied Chinese language. And the components of Chinese characters are arrayed in two dimensions, unlike the only one dimension of alphabetic writing such as English.
3. The Difficulty in Learning Ancient Chinese
Modern Chinese is one part of the whole Chinese language system and the most difficult thing while learning Chinese lies in studying ancient Chinese. In ancient China, people had their own tradition of avoiding saying something that was disrespect for emperors. Thus, ancient Chinese language consists of several centuries of esoteric anecdotes which were written in a terse language, just like the codes. And these characteristics of Chinese add difficulty to learn Chinese well.
4. The Difficulty in the Tones of Chinese
It seems to Chinese learners that the tones of Chinese are bewildering. Though Chinese language only has four tones (the level tone, the rising tone, the falling-rising tone and the falling tone included), but tones of Chinese characters changes according to different kinds of word collocation. At the very beginning when one learns Chinese, he should try his best to memorize the vowels and consonants. But this is not the real problem in learning Chinese tones. The real challenge comes in when Chinese learners start to use the knowledge they have learned to express their thoughts. It seems that the tones and pronunciation habits of Chinese are innate and incredibly ingrained so that Chinese learners have no other choices but to strictly abide by these rules.
5. The Difficulty in Recognizing Culture Differences.
Another main reason that Chinese is so difficult for western people is that there are differences between the western culture and the eastern culture for the East and the West have been isolated for a long time. In ancient days, the inconvenience in transport links between the East and the West lead to gaps in the communication between these two hemispheres. Though in the past few decades, China has carried out series of extensive exchanges with the Western countries, including various kinds of cultural and academic exchanges, there is still a very long way to go. One needs to have an overall understanding of culture differences between Chinese culture and the western culture if he makes his mind to be a Chinese hand.
Though learning Chinese is hard for westerners, it doesn’t mean that they can’t learn it well. And Da Shan (Mark Rowswell, a Canadian who can speak Chinese quite fluently) sets a good example for us.

The Golden Eras of China Opera

angela — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:35:27 +0000

a. The operas in the Yuan Dynasty

The reasons why the Yuan Zaju became the prosperity of a generation were chances supported by those two apsects that the development of the arts and the social reality. From the artistic development view, the Chinese opera had went through a long-term gestation and had a thick accumulation reaching the its maturity not only in the internal structure but also in the external performance. Just at this moment, the traditional poems and verses were on the way to their decline after their glorious heyday in the Tang and Song Dynasties. In the talented artists’ eyes, the field of the traditional Chinese opera was a new land place which was been waiting for them to cultivate. From the social reality perspective, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty abolished the Chinese Imperial Examinations Institution, which not only cut off the possibility of intellectuals ascending official career, but also kicked them to a humble status, just higher than beggars and lower than the common people and the prostitutes. So these intellectuals, although were with a higher knowledge, ranked into the bottom of society. Confronting the reality of drifting apart the world of classics and histories, the intellectuals only went to the Gou Lan Wa She( the theatres in that time) to pass time or to earn their living. Hence, the rising Yuan Zaju accidently obtained groups of professional playwrights. They had a professional organization named

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“ Book Group” which the playwright who took part in were called the “ book group’s sir”. These abjection intellectuals both cooperated and completed in the group, worked together to create the golden eras of the Chinese opera. Compared to the poems which were patial to express the subjective state of mind and moods in the past time, the Yuan Zaju was different in treating the goal of widely reflecting the social reality as self responsibility. Obviously, that was due to the experience that the playwrights had ever lived in the alleys and rural villages and had the profound understanding and feeling of the social reality.

Among the script system of the Yuan Zaju, most scripts were composed of four plots and one wedge. The four plots refered to the four plot paragraphs, which just liked a complete article being particular about the connecting link between the preceding and the following. And the wedge with a short length, always was put before the first plot, a little similar to the prologue in the later time. The Yuan Zaju centered on the singing combining with the speaking performance form. Every plot was composed of a set of tunes, which had a rhyme only and were sung by Zhengmo( the heroe) or Zhengdan( the heroine). These pattern could greatly give full scope to the singing art and model the major character’s image fully and delightfully. The spoken parts in the opera were affected by the traditions of Canjun Drama, so always did the comical actions and spoke the comical dialogues. Unifying the musical structure and the opera structure together to reach the complete state in the system, indicated the artistic maturity and perfection of the Yuan Zaju.

b. The opera in the Ming Dynasty

Because the legends, a kind of opera form, went down to the Qing Dynasty, so were called the Ming and Qing Dynasties’ Legends. It inherited the system of the system of the Nan Song Dynasty in form, moreover more complete. A script, mostly included about 30 scenes, which was divided into two parts, at the same time, the playwright especially focused on the well-knit of the structure and alternation of the comical actions and dialogues. The tunes of legends also took the modality of uniting and alternation of the tunes, but made a progress compared to the opera of the Nan Song Dynasty by limiting just a plot with one tune and how many tunes in a plot were decided by the needs of the story. Another progressive point was that all the roles on the stage could sing.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there began to rage the prevailing custom centering on the Zhezi Xi( highlights from the operas). It was relative independent fragment in a whole drama, but with the splendid scenes and wonderful singing. The popularity of the Zhezi Xi was the result of the powerful development of the performing art of opera, and the selection and obsolete of the time and audience. After the audience were familiar with the plots, then could appreciate the performing art of the Zhezi Xi with abandon. The plots such as You Yuan and Jing Meng in the Mu Dan Ting, the Ta Shan and Bai Yue in the Pai Yue Ting Ji, the Qin Tiao and Zui Zhou in the Yu Zan Ji, all these have become the high-quality plays beloved by the audiences.

c. The operas in the Qing Dynasty

The Chang Sheng Dian derived from the love story of the Emperor Tangming Huang and his imperial concubine Yanggui Fei. From the moment which they both fell in love with each other, the concubine Yang Yuhuan protected the stable relationship between them to be jealous, wrangling, try to do anything to gain the emperor’s favor; and the Tangming Huang was also addicted to the soft and beauty of the Yanggui Fei and forgot the affairs of state. The emperor’s decadence careerist, An Lushan’s insurgency and people’s resentment. Under the pressure of the sergeants’ mutiny, Tangming Huang had no alternative to kill the Yanggui Fei in the Mawei slope. However, the incident in the Mawei slope didn’t mean the end for the play. The playwright, Hong Sheng made the achievement of the love story in the ideal kingdom of heaven—— the hero and the heroine both flied up to heaven and the love finally came true and sublimated in the dreams. Chang Sheng Dian was not just a simple love play, but stated the notorious love story of the Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan under the wide social and political backgrounds. It was the eulogizing of the ideal love, at the same time, the social unrests and the suffering livelihood of the common people with a long and vivid describing and revealing in the play implied Hong Sheng’s feeling about the rising and falling of the nation and political criticism for the emperor’s decadence.

So, the image modeling of the Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan in Chang Sheng Dian, have both praise and criticism at the same time. The love create by the Hong Sheng in his playwrights, included the both opposite sides, the good and bad, it was also the insurmountable contraction for him and his playwrights.

Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion

angela — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 02:30:35 +0000

Acupuncture and moxibustion refers to the acupuncture therapy and moxibustion therapy. The acupuncture therapy is to use filiform needles to penetrate into the patients acupuncture points, the by entwisting and some needling techniques to cure the disease. And moxibustion therapy is to use lay the ignited hot moxa over certain points on the skin’s surface according to the acupuncture points to get the treatment effect by hot stimulus. Nowadays, it is used commonly in people’s daily life. The acupuncture and moxibustion is composed of by acupuncture and moxibusiton therapies, being one of important components in the traditional Chinese medicine. It includes the acupuncture and moxibustion theories, acupuncture points, techniques and relative implements. During the formation, applying and development process, it shows the distinct Han national culture and regional features, belonging to Chinese valuable heritages forming basing on the Han national culture and scientific tradition.

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As a Chinese unique treatment means of diseases, acupuncture and moxibustion really is kind of leechcraft which cures the internal diseases by external treatment. It applies the transimission function of main and collateral channels and acupuncture points, as well as certain operation means to cure diseases all over the body. By the clinical diagnosis in accordance with the traditional Chinese medicine methods, the Chinese physicians diagnose what diseases actually, then find out the key and distinguish the nature of them to identify the pathological changes belonging to which main and collateral channels, and viscera, meanwhile, the doctors will distinguish the disease which type they belong to. Then the doctor will proceed the cure using the relative prescriptions. The aim of acupuncture and moxibustion is to reach the treatment by flowing the channels, regulating vital energy in the blood and balancing the internal organ systems’ functions. The acupuncture-moxibustion therapy is one part of Chinese medical heritages, as well as represents a kind of Chinese proper medical. For thousands of years, it has made remarkable contribution to Chinese people’s health and national multiplication, until now, the role it has still play, so accepting the trusts from extensive people.

The features of acupuncture and moxibustion therapy

That the patients just don’t need to take medicine in the treatment is the feature of acupuncture and moxibustion therapy. The Chinese physicians need to prod the needles into the acupuncture points to cause the effect stimulating nerves to react partly, or by the method using the fire tepidity to stimulate parts of skin surface, these two therapies are called by a joint name, acupuncture and moxibustion therapy. Actually, there are numeral characteristics for that therapy:It is suited to a wide range of diseases. It can be used as the treatment for internal or external medicine, gynaecology, paediatrics and various medicines.

a. The treatment effect would be more rapid and obvious, especially for that well kind of physical body functions.

b. The operation and methods are relative easy and convenient.

c. With the economical hospitalization costs.

d. Without or with less side effects, basically, it is a kind of safe and reliable treatment, meanwhile, could cooperate with other treatments as the comprehensive therapy.

As well as, these characteristics are the reasons why acupuncture and moxibustion therapy is popular by the extensive people.

The pain causing by the acupuncture and moxibustion

Whether the acupuncture and moxibustion will cause pain or not depends on the two factors, one is the acupuncturists, the other is the patients.

Generally speaking, when the needles being prodded into the acupuncture points, the patients will feel a sense of distension and numbness, these are the normal reaction and good phenomenons.

That the patients who are relaxed and could cooperate with the acupuncturist on the treatment process will certainly reduce the probability of feeling painful. But for the patients who feel greatly nervous, their painful feelings would happen frequently. Hence, we can think about the pain which is caused by acupuncture and moxibustion absolutely and narrowly, because the good pain could be beneficial to patients’ disease treatment, and for the bad pain, the reason could be that patients are too nervous or the acupuncturists’ techniques are so disappointed. If you can be devoted to relax during the acupuncture and moxibustion treatment process, in addition, a excellent acupuncturist take needling, in that way, you basically will not be beset by the pain.

The current situation of acupuncture and moxibustion

During the long-term medical practice process, the theory about main and collateral channels and the knowledge about the 361 acupuncture points have been formed, as well as the law that specific human body parts have the particular connection has been discovered. The creation of main and collateral channels theory produces a set of method system for disease treatment. Because of the distinctive preponderances, as early as the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese acupuncture and moxitusiton has spread to Japan, Korea, India, Arabic and other countries or regions, moreover, being learnt and inherited by those countries’ people, even, multiplying some acupuncture and moxibustion medicines with regional features. By now, it has spread to over 140 countries and regions to make huge contribution to guaranteeing the human health and life.

It can be understood like that Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion grew into a scientific knowledge under the specific nature and social environment in Chinese history, with the connotation of national spirit, thoughts and cultural essences, containing a quantity of practical observation, knowledge system, techniques and skills. As cohesion of the powerful Chinese national vitality and creation, acupuncture and moxibustion belongs to national sapiential crystallization.

As early as the 1970s, taking the opportunity of whichChinaannounced the research result of acupuncture anaesthesia towards the world, the international society raised a upsurge expecting to understand the science of acupuncture and moxibustion and applying to disease treatment, which was a cosmopolitan upsurge of acupuncture and moxibusiton. Due to the opportunity to learn acupuncture and moxibustion, the western medical field gradually eliminated the misunderstanding for this science, even some groups of foreigners started to know this science and pay more attention to it, so they became the major promotion power for application, research and promotion of acupuncture and moxibustion. During the process of acupuncture and moxibustion internationalization, the World Health Organization has played a important role in the promotion and guidance. Nowadays, around the world, there have been 140 countries and regions developing acupuncture and moxibustion medical treatment, according to the statistics, the number of persons being engaged in acupuncture and moxibustion field has reached 20-30 thousand.

In the new era of the 21 century, with cognizing that acupuncture and moxibustion has small side effects, hospitalization costs and other advantages by the people around the world, this science needs to confront with and solute some problems which must be solved, such as the legislation affirmance, improving the clinical level and challenging the difficult diseases. Due to the acknowledgement and promotion by numerous countries, they have established and completed the law management.

The Learning Experience of a Singapore Doctor

claire — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:16:51 +0000

With the rapid development of Chinese economy and the elevation of Chinese international status, Chinese language is becoming more and more important and popular all over the world. And the amazing charm of Chinese language has attracted a great number of foreigners to learn Chinese urgently. As a result, speaking Chinese has become a hot topic again recently. And many foreigners are increasingly aware of the importance of learning Chinese.
Wei Juntao, a Singapore doctor, is fond of learning English and would like to share his learning experience with us.
Wei Juntao said that speaking Chinese is an indispensable factor of being a good doctor in Singapore. In Singapore, most of local Chinese prefer to speak Chinese, especially those senior citizens or those Singaporeans who have ever received Chinese education. “Of course,” Wei also added, “Chinese language may be fairly new to those younger Singaporeans.” To be a doctor, one must be able to communicate with patients in a proper and effective way. And for those Singapore doctors, they should speak Chinese fluently because most of their patients prefer to speak Chinese. If the doctor couldn’t speak Chinese, he needs an interpreter to translate for him. But there is a problem in the process of interpreting. Due to some linguistic differences and other reasons, some important information may be ignored during this process. And such case can be harmful to the treatment. Besides, some patients even want to have a talk with doctors privately because they want to get a full understand about their conditions directly from doctors. And it is true that a direct talk between doctors and patients is more effective. Wei also added that “According to my observation, except from those local Chinese, a lot of patients who come from outside cities, such as Malaysian Chinese and Chinese Indonesians, also would rather to speak Chinese.” But the fact is that plenty of students at high school level and medical students are not aware of the importance of Chinese yet.
Wei told us about his personal experiences: I was born in Hong Kong and I speak Cantonese since I was a kid. And since I went to school, the teachers always taught us in Cantonese. So many Hong Kong people, including me, thought that Cantonese is meant to be Chinese language. I came to Singapore for junior college when I was seventeen years old. From that time on, I began to learn to speak Mandarin. Reading Chinese newspapers or writing in Chinese language seemed Ok to me. When it comes to listening and speaking, I was almost on the brink of desperation. Each time when my Chinese teacher asked me to read the books in Chinese, the whole class would burst into laughter. What’s worse, I usually got a low mark in my oral Chinese tests when I was in the first and second grade of junior college. But when I entered Medical Science Academy, I came to realize the significance of learning Chinese and made up my mind to learn to speak Chinese fluently.
As to me, I have three ways to learn Chinese.
Firstly, I watch the Chinese news program on TV and listen to the Chinese news broadcast everyday. The newscasters can speak fluently and standard Mandarin so that I can follow their pronunciation. Besides, the local Chinese programs enjoy a high standard which are really worth learning from.
Secondly, my wife was born in Singapore and she can speak Chinese very well. So I asked her to be my personal tutor and I can communicate with her frequently to improve my Chinese.
Thirdly, I keep on practicing everyday and my patients are my study partners. Even though I can’t speak Chinese very good but I won’t afraid of talking with my patients in Mandarin and that enables me to make great progress.
Till now, I’m still not able to speak Mandarin in a fluent way and I always make mistakes. For instance, I may pronounce “眼睛”（“Yan Jing ” with “Jing” reading level tone in Chinese, “Eyes”in English）as “眼镜”（ “Yan Jing” with “Jing” reading falling tone in Chinese,“Glasses” in English）, or pronounce “肚子”（“Du Zi”in Chinese, “Tummy” in English）as “桃子”（ “Tao Zi” in Chinese , “Peach” in English） or pronounce “排斥”（“Pai Chi” with “Pai” reading rising tone and “Chi” reading falling tone in Chinese, “Exclusion” in English） as “白痴”（“Bai Chi”with “Bai” reading rising tone and “Chi” reading level tone in Chinese, “Idiot” in English）. Anyway, I feel lucky that my patients never grumble about my poor Chinese and they are usually willing to teach me and correct my pronunciation. Later, I feel cheerful that most of the patients who come from mainland china or Taiwan Island can understand what I am talking about. Thus, as I see it, it doesn’t matter that you can’t speak standard Chinese. And as long as you use the correct words and conform to usage as well as to the rules of grammar, it will be OK though you speak with a local accent because even those Chinese coming from Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Malacca also speak with their own local accents.
In my personal opinion, speaking Chinese is just like doing exercise. One needs to continuously take exercise so that he can make great progress. Besides, regarding a doctor in Singapore, whether his medical skill is good or not is definitely vital but whether he can speak Chinese is equally important.
All in all, from the experience of Wei Juntao, we can learn that it is not so difficult to learn Chinese well if you keep on practice all the time. And if you don’t have enough time to study Chinese in class, you can learn Chinese online on www.learnchinese1on1.com and arrange you hours however you like. I’m sure you will be able to speak Chinese fluently.

How to Write a Chinese Article?

claire — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 08:33:48 +0000

For those Chinese learners, writing is a hard work for them because they have to think in Chinese manner and pay much attention to the grammatical rule of Chinese language. The grammar of Chinese language contains a wealth of contents that Chinese learners may make mistakes. As a result, writing is a big problem to them. As to writing, here are some tips from those Chinese learners.
1. Writing has nothing to do with examinations. Chinese beginner should not treat writing as a kind of text project and write only when teachers require or when you take an examination. Remember that NO frequent and effective practice, then No good articles. If a Chinese learner wants to write a great article, then he must start from scratch. He can begin from writing a short diary which records all the happenings in his daily life. At the very start, writing down all the things in an order of time is probably much easier for him. He can write that “我今天很早就起床了，吃完早饭后我和好朋友去看电影了，直到晚上九点了才回家••••••”（I got up early this morning and went to see a movie with my best friend. And I didn’t come home until nine o’clock in the evening……） After continued practice, he will get some idea of how to write and have a strong feeling that I should add more details into my article. Then he can begin to write like this:“我今天看了一篇关于中国古代朝代更替的文章，它详细地介绍了中国历史上的各个朝代。”（I read a article on the changes of dynasties in ancient China, and it gave an detailed introduction to all the dynasties in Chinese history.）At the beginning, he might be able to write an article of 100 words. Later he might be able to write an article of more than 500 words or more than 1000 words. And if he persists in practicing, then there is no doubt that he will make a great progress soon.
2. Try to observe the colorful world around you and write down what you have seen. Things get blown up everyday and what you need to do is keep an eye on the world and find something that you are interested in as your objects of observation. Then you should try to grasp every detail such as the color and the size of a pen and then write down on a note. A note is an indispensable thing while you are observing something because your memory can’t be completely dependent on. Besides, while you take notes, please make attempt to describe what you see in Chinese words. Maybe you can only write down few words in the beginning, but I absolutely believe that you will find more words to describe after keeping doing so. And what you have written down can be your abundant resources in the future. Moreover, making observing as your habit and keeping observing wherever you are.
3. Keep a good mood while you are writing the articles. What you write is a bridge linking you and readers from all over the world. Try to step into the shoes of your readers and Do not write when you are angry because it will also make your readers unhappy. Also always keep in your mind that your article is a good way for promoting the development of social civilization and expanding friendly exchanges, then you will try to write something good.
4. A large vocabulary is a sure warrant of a good article. Chinese learners find it difficult to write a Chinese article due to a lack of vocabulary. This is the problem not only facing foreigners but also facing Chinese students. When they are writing, they may come across this kind of situation that they can’t find a suitable word to express their ideas even though they scratch through their minds.
In order to enrich your Chinese words and enable you to write a good article, you can read more Chinese articles which contain a great amount of beautiful words and sentences and try to learn them by heart and put them into practice. And having a dictionary may be very useful. In Chinese dictionary, there are always synonyms and antonym listing on dictionary, you will be able to use them with ease if you keep using them in your articles repeatedly.
5. Try to write something unusual. Illustrating can make your articles more specific and visual. But adding some clichéd example also makes your articles dip into the ordinary. Never using the resources which come to your mind at the very beginning because others will think of those things as you do.
6. Be suspicious of What has happened. A good writer should act like a scientist who doubts everything in the world. Know more about the outside world and never believe everything at the first sight. Then you should think in your own way and select those useful infos out afterwards.
If you want to learn more about how to study Chinese, please go to www.learnchinese1on1.com. I’m sure you will get more information and find it easy to learn Chinese on this page.

China Opera

angela — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 07:53:26 +0000

China opera is mainly composed of folk dances and songs, rap and the farce, these three different kinds of art forms. It originated in the original dances and songs, and is a kind of synthetical stage craft with a long history. After the developing during the Han, Tang, Song and Jin Dynasties, the China opera just formed a relatively complete traditional Chinese opera. It is synthetically composed of the literature, music, dance, art, martial arts, acrobatics and performing arts, being divided into almost 360 types. Its characteristic is that aggregating multitudinous kinds of artistic forms by a standard, then all these would incarnate their own characters with the common quality. The more famous types of the Chinese opera are Beijing opera, Kunqu opera, Shaoxing opera, Henan opera, Cantonese opera, Sichuan opera, Shanxi opera, Huangmei opera, Hunan Huagu opera and so on.

The Chinese opera, the Greek tragedy and comedy and the Indian Sanskrit-play are equally called the three world’s ancient drama cultures.

The opera is a comprehensive art, the integration of the time art and spatial art. Every country’s opera culture shares this characteristic of integration all over the world, however, for the Chinese opera, the comprehensive character would be especially outstanding.

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The Chinese opera is a kind of opera form which centers on the comprehensive performance of Singing, recitation, acting and acrobatics, with abundant methods of artistic expression, and the close integration between it and the performing art endows the Chinese opera the special charms. The Chinese opera absorbs the beauty of the lyrics, music, art and the acting and binds them perfectly into one, controlling them in a play by the rhythm to reach the harmonious unify, sufficiently expressing the infectivity of all kinds of artistic methods, which forms the China’s distinctive performing art with distinct rhythm.

One most important feature of the Chinese opera is its virtual quality. The stage craft does not just imitate the life simply, but will make options of real life, refine, exaggerate and beautify to draw the audience directly into the artistic world. Another feature of it is the modality quality, such as scene, closing the door, mounting a horse or aboard the boat, all they have a set of fixed modality. The modality would be both normative and flexible, so you would hear that the Chinese opera is also appropriately called the regular free-action.

Comprehensiveness, virtual and modality qualities, are the artistic features of the Chinese opera. They cohere of the aesthetic ideology marrows of the Chinese traditional culture, and constitute a particular opera value, making the Chinese opera showing its unique brightness in the world opera stage.

The development period

a. The sprout period

In the primitive society, the villages where the clans lived in together created the original dance and sing, gradually the original dance and sing also progressed and advanced with the clans’ development. For example, in most ancient rural villages, there are still keeping the dance tradition with a long history, the same to some new song and dance which produced for being suit to the people’s spiritual need. Just the performance of these dance and song, brought up many batches of folk artisans with the adept skills, and going ahead towards the direction of Chinese opera step by step.

b. The prosperity

During the period from the middle 12 century to the early 13 century, there gradually produced the professional art, commercial performing groups and the Yuan Zaju( a Chinese opera in the Yuan Dynasty) and Jin Yuanben, such as the Dou E Yuan written by Guan Hanqin, Han Gong Qiu by Ma Ziyuan and Zhao Si Gu Er Da Fu Chou and so on. So this period was the prosperity of the Chinese opera.

c. The development

In the middle period of 16 century, Kun Qiang was popular in Jiangnan, with appearing such a quiet plays, such as the Shi Wu Guan, Zan Hua Kui and so on. During this period, the plays which were welcomed by the peasants were the Ge Yang Qiang producing in Anhui, Jiangxi, and the Kunqiang was popular by the upper-level people in feudal society.

d. The great prosperity

In the period between the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the plays were mostly about the heroes in common peoples’ hearts, such as Mu Guiying, Tao Sanchun, Zhao Kuangying and so on. At that time, the local operas mainly refered to the Bangzi in the north and the Pihuang in the south. The Beijing opera was produced on the base of the great prosperity of the local operas in the Qing Dynasty. During the rein of the Tong Zi and Guang Xu emperors, ranking in the list of Tong Guang Shi San Jue, the first performing opera artist in Beijing opera and the masters belonging to different opera divisions appeared, marking the maturity and great prosperity of the Beijing opera art. Soon, the Beijing opera developed towards all over China, especially in Shanghai and Tianjin. It had become a opera type with a wide and deep influence, promoting the Chinese opera to make a higher development.

e. The golden period

The opera in the Yuan Dynasty is called the Yuan Za Ju. It is not only a senior mature drama form, but also regarded as a mainstream of literature because of its character abound the times features, and its highly artistic originality. It primarily centered on the Dadu(Beijing ), being popular in the north. After the Nansong Dynasty replaced by the Yuan Dynasty, it developed into a national opera type. In the stage of opera in Yuan Dynasty, there appeared many excellent and bright opera artists and many masterpieces.

Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi

angela — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:22:40 +0000

Bo Ya Met His Bosom Friend While Playing the Peptachord

Bo Ya, was a musician in the Spring and Autumn warring state period, who once served as a diplomat in Jin state.

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Bo Ya had ardently loved music from his childhood. His teacher, Cheng Lian took with him to the Penglai mountain in theEast China Sea, enjoying the magnificence and miracles of nature, making him discover the true essence of music. When he played the peptachord, the tweedle was pleasant to the ears just like the high mountains and flowing water. Although many people praised his musical and peptachord ability, he thought that he hadn’t met the persons who could really understand his music. So he had been looking for his own bosom friend.

One year, Bo Ya was sent on a diplomatic mission to theChustate. On the August 15th, when reaching the estuary of theYangtze River, he met the wind and waves, so parked in a small mountain. In the evening, after the wind waves gradually died down, the clouds disappearing and the moon showing, the scenery was greatly attractive. Looking at the bright moon in the air, Bo Ya instantly was inspired to take our the heptachord carrying with to play absorbedly, so he played our the songs one by one just like nothing could affect him. When he was intoxicated by the graceful tweedle, suddenly saw a man standing still on the shore. It surprised Bo Ya, giving a strength to the string, then one string was pizzed to break with a sound “pa”. Bo Ya was wondering what reason this man on the shore came for? Instantly, Bo Ya heard the man say loudly to him: “ Sir, you don’t need to suspect. I am just a woodcutter, going home late. While coming here, I heard your tweedle, and it is wonderful and excellent, so can’t help stopping here to listen to.”

Bo Ya seriously took a look at that man relying on the moonlight—— there was a bunch of dry wood next to him, sure enough, he was a woodcutter. Bo Ya thought that how could he understand my tweedle as a woodcutter? So Bo Ya asked: “ Now that you understand my tweedle, then say it, which tune did I play?Hearing the question, the woodcutter responded with smile: “ Sir, the song you played just now is the music score of that Confucius praised his disciple, Yan Hui. Except that when you just play to the forth sentence, the string is broken.”

The woodcutter’s answer was completely right, so Bo Ya could help being with exultation, hurrying to invite that woodcutter to his boat to talk in detail. When that man saw Bo Ya’s peptachord, saying: “ This is a peptachord, according to legend it was made by Fu X.” Then he said out the origin of the peptachord. While listening to that woodcutter’s statement, Bo Ya could help admiring at heart. In succession, Bo Ya played a few other tunes for the woodcutter, requesting him to recognize the meaning of them. When Bo Ya played the resounding song, the woodcutter said it expressed the magnificent momentum of the mountains; and when the song became fresh and fluent, the woodcutter said this expressed the endless flowing water.

Bo Ya could help being pleasantly surprised, in the past no one could understand when I used the tweedle to express my mind, but now this woodcutter in front, unexpectedly knew it correctly. Never thought it would happen in this wild mountains to meet my bosom friend who I had seek for a long time. So he asked the woodcutter’s name, Zhong Ziqi, then they drank the wine. They found they were congenial and regretted they didn’t meet sooner, so became sworn brothers and promised to meet here again in the next Mid-autumn.

After bid each other farewell with tears in their eyes, a year passed, and Bo Ya came to theYangtze Riveraccording to appointment, but didn’t see Zhong Ziqi’s coming. So he played the peptachord summoned his bosom friend, but it also pass a long time and no one appeared. The next day, Bo Ya inquired about Ziqi from a old man, the old man told him that Zhong Ziqi had unfortunately died of a disease and left the last words that building his tomb on the waterfront in order to listen to Bo Ya’s tweedle in the Mid-autumn’s meet.

Hearing the old man’s words, Bo Ya was extremely sorrowfully. He came to the front of Ziqi’s tomb and wretchedly played the ancient music, High Mountian and Running Water. When he completed the song, he plucked the strings to breake, sighed deeply, and his beloved peptachord was smashed into a thousand pieces on the bluestone by him. He said sadly: “My unique bosom friend has gone, who do I play for?”

The relationship of these two friends moved the later generations, so people built a Heptachord Terrace (Guqin Tai) in the place they met each other.

How to Learn Chinese?

claire — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 07:20:50 +0000

Knowledge advances by steps not by leaps. As to a foreign who is familiar with alphabetic script, learning Chinese is a hard work for him. In order to help foreigners to learn Chinese, here are some tips as follows:
1. Learning Chinese by reading some related historical stories and cultures.
“Chinese language and Chinese culture are not antagonistic, in other words, both of them are auxiliary to each other. If we want to learn Chinese well we need to understand the Chinese tradition and culture. However, we can not understand Chinese culture without mastering the basic knowledge of Chinese language”, Huang Wei said that.
As the saying goes,” The interest is the best teacher” .And this also apply for learning Chinese. At the beginning of learning, the first thing we should do is to develop the interest of foreigners in learning Chinese. So it is a good way to help foreigners become more interested in Chinese by finding some funny historical stories or allusions. Besides, while learning, we also search on the Internet for more useful information about Chinese ancient coins or ceramics.
2. Learning Chinese by singing.
As to the Chinese who want to learn English, learning to sing English songs is a effective and funny way. And it’s the same to foreigners who want to learn Chinese. At the beginning, there is one thing which we need to pay attention to and that is we do not need to choose some difficult songs. Chinese-beginners can learn to sing some nursery rhyme at the outset. Later, after they have mastered some basic knowledge of pronunciation, they also can choose the songs which are with clear articulation.
3. Learning Chinese by appreciating the movies, videos and books.
When learning a foreign language, it seems like an armchair strategy if you do not listen to it and try to say it out. Try to find more classical Chinese movies and videos as possible as you can. In those movies and videos, there are a great number of classical expressions deserving learning. In this case, Chinese-beginners can learn that by heart and ask Chinese friends how to use them and then put in into practice. Moreover Chinese-learners can find many Chinese learning programs online. For example, there is a teaching program on CCTV which teaches foreigner to learn how to use daily expression. In addition, finding a suitable book is also important. In order to help foreigners study Chinese language, Beijing World Publishing Corporation, as a leader of foreign Chinese publishing industry, has introduced “Home with Kids” — a new and vivid multi-skill Chinese language learning material. Chinese learners can easily learn the most common expressions in the most interesting way by using this material.
4. Learning Chinese by joining the Chinese corner.
The purpose of learning Chinese is to put it into practice. If Chinese learners don’t try to say it out then learning Chinese is useless. Also learning alone is not an effective way because you can not find out your mistakes. So try to find some Chinese learners around you and set up a Chinese corner and then practice as often as possible.

Three Methods of Teaching Chinese

claire — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 06:57:51 +0000

The practical experience of classroom teaching tells us that the first step of oral Chinese teaching is to encourage students to speak Chinese and then we can check whether the oral Chinese that students use is proper and in compliance with the norms of Chinese grammar. On the other side, from the perspective of Chinese learner, the first move of spoken Chinese is to know what to say, and then they can learn how to say in Chinese. Only when Chinese learners know what to talk about can they have the desire of speaking out naturally. And a strong desire of speaking out help Chinese learners develop their interests in learning Chinese well and impel them to study Chinese actively. By doing these things, Chinese teachers can create a relaxed and active classroom environment for those Chinese learners who have an urge to learn Chinese .
In order to help Chinese learners improve their Chinese, Chinese teachers should adopt a variety of method to encourage their students to speak out. Here are some tips for Chinese teachers.
Skill of Repeat
Repeat is the most common method that Chinese teachers use in spoken Chinese training. Teachers should do their utmost to encourage students to repeat the texts after finishing teaching grammar and texts. There are two methods that can be adopted in encouraging students to repeat. One is that after finishing teaching new words and grammar, teachers can ask students to close their text book and read the texts or play the tape for them. And then teachers should move on to ask questions based on the new words and grammar appeared on the texts and ask students to repeat according to the knowledge learned before. Another one is that during the class, teachers should write some important words and phrases which are very helpful to repeat the texts on blackboard in a certain order. Afterwards, teachers also can require students to retell the texts according to the knowledge on blackboard. With the retelling ability of students continues to improve, teachers can rub some less important words off the blackboard and ask students to try again until there are only a small amount of function words and keywords left on the blackboard.
Skill of Making Use of Materials
Before the class, Chinese teachers should prepare two different kinds of text materials according to the Chinese level of Chinese learners in advance. For example, teachers can find some traditional Chinese funny stories or idiom stories with total characters less than 500 words. During class, a pair of deskmates could choose different stories. For instance, one can choose the story of “Waiting for Windfalls” while another one choose the allegorical story of “Plugging One’s Ears While Stealing a Bell” (which means self-deception). Students are allowed to read the story in just 5 minutes and then required to retell the story to their partners. And then their partners should tell the story to all their classmates. In the meanwhile, the other students should correct them or add something that they forget. In this way can teachers make the classes lively and arouse the interests of Chinese learners in studying Chinese. This kind of teaching method brings many benefits and interests to Chinese learners. First of all, these text materials are endowed with strong cultural backgrounds and these stories can draw immediate attention from students so that they will be willing to learn with initiative. Secondly, different materials are conductive to urge students to communicate with their partners. Thirdly, this method could train students’ abilities of listening, speaking and reading. Because students have to read and retell in a limited time, they can learn to think in Chinese manner and reorganize the stories in their own way. In addition, they have to pay more attention to what their partners is saying because they will retell the stories to all the classmates. During this period, Chinese learners can not only improve their listening skills but also improve their abilities of thinking in Chinese manner.
Training Method of Thinking in Chinese Manner
When Chinese learners master the basic knowledge of Chinese language, what teachers should do next is to teach them how to use the grammar and words they have learned before to describe what they experience in daily life. For example, several students can form a group and get together to discuss on certain topics. For instance, they can describe a city that they have ever been to. When one describes the city, he may not describe it in details. At this time, the other can ask him something that they are interested in. Each of them should at least ask three questions. An example goes like this, when one says that he went to a bar when he was studying in Qingdao University, the other partners could ask the following questions: ”Who were you going with?” ”where is the bar?” ”What were you doing when you stayed in bar?” After answering these questions, he should repeat what he said again. And this kind of way will result in a more lively and specific description. Another useful method is to encourage students to illustrate when they describe something. More specific examples make one’s mind more clearly. For example, a Chinese learner told her teacher that she learned a lot of Chinese traditional culture by learning Chinese language. And her teacher asked her to talk more about that and give an example to support her idea. So she talked about her own experiences. Once her mother was ill and she followed her friend’s opinion and took her mother to have a course of acupuncture treatment. Thanks to the acupuncture treatment, her mother was cured soon. And she also told her teacher more details about the difference between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. By trying to add more details in her conversation, she has more chances to practice her spoken Chinese. Therefore, trying to say more about your experiences is a good way to practice your oral Chinese.

Seeing the Glyphs and Knowing the Meaning

angela — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:00:33 +0000

The form of a Chinese character stores the character meaning frequently. So, if knowing the laws between the characters’ glyphs and the meanings, then the foreign students could guess what the meaning or sectiion meaning according to the glyph structure is , which is the feature of the Chinese language different from other languages. Understanding the meaning in terms of the glyph is easiest to Chinese students, the same to the students belonging to the Chinese character circle. The most typical example is a phenomenon like that when the Chinese go to Japan, maybe they can not speak Japanese, but can understand a lot signs written in Chinese characters on the streets, because at this moment, the ability of understanding the meaning according to the glyph has put into great play, although they don’t know the pronunciation, the reading is not affected. For the students of non-Chinese-character circle, It needs a process of accumulation to get the ability being able to understand the meaning by the glyph consciously. First of all, the students should learn some characteristics of it, then remember some meaning of useful character glyph being highly idegraphic, for example, the character “禾”( grain), its ancient glyph just likes an appearance of sagging ears, standing for the crops; “酉”(the tenth of the twelve earthly branches), likes an image of a wine jar, so the characters with the “酉” are related to the fermentation and making wine, such as “酒（wine）, 醋(vinegar), 酸(sour)” and so on.

Learn Chinese

Affected by the thinking ways of Chinese nation and methods of Chinese coinage, Chinese characters present the square shape. The ancient Chinese characters reflected the thought to create characters referring to one’s own body nearby and the objects far away, so many useful characters concerned with human body, natural plants, animals, the daily necessaries, would mainly focus the pictograph, understanding and so on, such as these concerned to human beings” 人、大、口、尸、身、子、女、母、手、目、耳”, or that concerned to the natural plants , such as “木、禾、竹、不、来、米” , the animals” 牛、羊、马、鹿、它、能、隹、犬、豕”, about daily life” 衣、酉、冒、车、鱼”, all these are the pictographic characters. The ancient Chinese people used many methods of echoism and loan character to create a great quantity of phonograms. Because the modern Chinese characters have symbolized, so compared with the ancient Chinese characters, it is difficult to identify the characters of the ideographic quality directly, pulsing the using of the simplified charcacters, the laws being hidden more deeper. But if you learn the Chinese characters, you should learn the laws of them, because it is helpful to shape the ability of understanding the meaning through the glyphs. And that, knowing the laws of the characters could help the students to find the component features, for example, when learning these Chinese characters ”木”, “目”, “相”, if we don’t know the component laws, just treating them as the three complicated marks with the line, strokes, then it is hard for our to remember and the interest of learning certainly has been reduced. When we learn the character, “木”, we should know that it shows the simple image of a tree, so, in Chinese, the characters referring to the tree would have this side of a character. The Chinese characters with the side of a character ”目”, almost refers to the eyes or the actions about the eyes.

The integrated characters mostly can be divided into two parts, the left-right structure and the up-and-down structure are in the majority. For the part first being syncopated out, what the role does it play? Because the phonograms occupy the most of the Chinese characters, so we always make a judgment according to the part of the Chinese characters whether show the meaning or the sound. With the development of the history, the sound and meaning which the Chinese characters record having changed, especially the change of the sound, naturally, add the difficulties to make a judgment for the character part whether it show the meaning or the sound. So, with these development, we can figure out the complete meaning according to the glyphs, but just to the features to the greatest extent, and then get the probable meaning.

Learn Chinese characters, if mastering the glyphs of the characters, the students would be more easier to understand the meanings of the Chinese characters, and necessary later for the more words learning.