I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I’ve been taking Chinese lessons. So far, I’ve had five lessons. I’ve hired a tutor to teach me once per week for an hour. At first, I was wondering if an hour would be enough, but by the end of each lesson, my head feels like it’s going to explode because it’s filled with new words and phrases. Many of them, I forget before the next week, but it’s gradually getting easier to remember. My teacher is great. She’s very enthusiastic and happy and patient, which I think is a perfect combination for teaching language.

I’ve always really respected the ability of people to learn English and just plunge into Canada with it. I don’t know how successful I’d be if I had to do the same in China. I guess I’d learn, but it wouldn’t be easy. So far, Chinese grammar seems reasonably easy, but there are certain things that are different from English. For instance, some words that I would think of as adjectives can also be used as verbs. The word “very” is an example of this. Saying “I’m very cold” translates directly to “I very cold” in Chinese. Also, there are no verb tenses. You indicate when something is happening by adding a word like “today” or “tomorrow” to the sentence. It explains why a Chinese person speaking English might say something like, “I very cold yesterday.” It also explains why my Chinese teacher gave me a funny look when I said in Chinese, “I am very cold.” Yea.

The most challenging thing by far in Chinese is the tonal system. Each syllable can be said in any of four tones. There’s high tone, falling tone, dipping tone, and rising tone. If you get the wrong tone matched to the word, the word means something completely unrelated and different. Getting the tones right is the difference between being understood, and talking complete gibberish. I had this problem in China. People’s ears were extremely unforgiving to incorrect tones, and they didn’t even seem to be able to guess what I was saying based on the sound of the word, aside from the tone. It was frustrating while I was there, but I understand now that it has to be this way, since there are only around 400 possible syllables in Chinese, compared to 12,000 in English. The tones are the only way to distinguish one word from another, so Chinese ears are highly tuned to them. Here’s a video that gives you some examples of words and tones.

Good times.

Anyway, I’m enjoying my CSL experience. I’m looking forward to going back to China with my new knowledge too. Just give me a few more lessons first though…

Here’s something cool I found through Zura’s blog. It’s Wordle, which makes word art from text you paste in. In this case, it’s my Asian Wrap blog entry.

I love it when someone gets caught trying to scam the rest of us. It happened this week when China’s official news agency was forced to apologize for awarding a “photo of the year” award to a Photoshopped image of antelopes migrating peacefully beneath a high-speed rail line. At the awards ceremony, the photographer claimed that he had waited for eight days in a pit for the antelopes to run by at the same time as the train. When an anonymous photography buff noticed that there was a weird line that looked like Photoshop splicing in the image, and posted his discovery on a Chinese photography forum, it was open season on the antelope photo. Antelope experts chipped in on the strangeness of seeing pregnant antelopes in an image taken at that time of year, and also their calm formation, despite the noisy train roaring along ahead. Photography experts noticed the inconsistency of motion blur and other image flaws. It was an obvious propaganda play, and for the fraud to be discovered from within China makes it even more delicious. Score one for a free press!

Well, I finally got off the ground. My flight this morning made it to Montreal without any unexpected delays or cancellations. It was packed too. Every seat on the plane was filled, probably because of all the canceled flights yesterday.

There was a new issue of enRoute Magazine on the plane this morning. I look forward to the beginning of the month, because that’s when the new issue appears in the seat-back pocket ahead of me. enRoute is probably my favorite magazine right now, full of leisure-inspired stories and photos from around the world. I have to find a way to contribute photos to enRoute.

Anyway, I read this fascinating story about cities that have made an effort to focus on the happiness of their citizens. I think it’s a promising trend in urban design. As cities become bigger, and more of the world’s population moves to them, a move to making them better places to live is certainly welcome. When I was in Paris, I really got the feeling that the city was built on a very human level, to allow people to interact with it and move around it easily. With its many parks and public spaces, it made the city feel like a very welcoming place. It felt small-scale, even though it was not. Beijing was similar in many ways. Guangzhou was the extreme opposite. Setting foot on the street in Guangzhou meant you stood a very high chance of being run down by a speeding car or bus, as clouds of noxious fumes spewed everywhere. The entire city was made of concrete, and I don’t think a single living tree exists within Guangzhou’s city limits. I’m fortunate that I’ve had the chance to travel, to see how things are done differently in different places, which gives me a better vantage point from which to decide what I want from my community and my life.