regarding my chinese roots
i am struggling to unearth them, or to keep them from vanishing into linguistic quicksand.
while visiting a friend's blog 2 minutes ago, this ad appeared on my screen. imagine the panic when i encountered chinese paid ADVERTISEMENTS on a webpage! said ad affirms my country's [taiwan, currently] eligibility in some lucky draw for some green card, enabling emigration to the US. this whole IP thing is quite freaky, really. now even an unknown server knows where i am!
the thing about being in taiwan, is, that i am being forced to equate the chinese characters i see with some kind of meaning. and even if, for the life of me, i can't quite decipher about 65% of the words, it is important to skim through until the recognition of a few characters begins to allow my mind to form a connection between the visual and mental. this happens v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. yeah, total immersion in a partly foreign culture does that to you.
plus, when polite conversation requires even the most basic knowledge of the language, i find myself hardpressed to fish appropriate words from my [very] limited vocabulary. what a tedious yet effective way to learn a language!
but i'm throughly loving the buy-cheap-stuff culture, and fast embracing the instant gratification i get via long business hours and a great number of shops offering an equally great variety of goods. choice. that's what i have. back in melbs, the flatmate and i would feel slightly conscious of the fact that, past 9pm, most of the shoppers at QV's Safeway are asian.
perhaps we prefer the 'outside' of the city to the 'inside' of our homes. perhaps we've grown up in relatively small abodes, and yearn for the entertainment that the 'outside' provides. perhaps we don't know how to deal with too much time spent on our own at home, or with the family or friends. whatever the rationale behind this odd phenomenon, i am strangely proud to claim that asians in cities don't sleep much.
while visiting a friend's blog 2 minutes ago, this ad appeared on my screen. imagine the panic when i encountered chinese paid ADVERTISEMENTS on a webpage! said ad affirms my country's [taiwan, currently] eligibility in some lucky draw for some green card, enabling emigration to the US. this whole IP thing is quite freaky, really. now even an unknown server knows where i am!
the thing about being in taiwan, is, that i am being forced to equate the chinese characters i see with some kind of meaning. and even if, for the life of me, i can't quite decipher about 65% of the words, it is important to skim through until the recognition of a few characters begins to allow my mind to form a connection between the visual and mental. this happens v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. yeah, total immersion in a partly foreign culture does that to you.
plus, when polite conversation requires even the most basic knowledge of the language, i find myself hardpressed to fish appropriate words from my [very] limited vocabulary. what a tedious yet effective way to learn a language!
but i'm throughly loving the buy-cheap-stuff culture, and fast embracing the instant gratification i get via long business hours and a great number of shops offering an equally great variety of goods. choice. that's what i have. back in melbs, the flatmate and i would feel slightly conscious of the fact that, past 9pm, most of the shoppers at QV's Safeway are asian.
perhaps we prefer the 'outside' of the city to the 'inside' of our homes. perhaps we've grown up in relatively small abodes, and yearn for the entertainment that the 'outside' provides. perhaps we don't know how to deal with too much time spent on our own at home, or with the family or friends. whatever the rationale behind this odd phenomenon, i am strangely proud to claim that asians in cities don't sleep much.
posted by limegreenspyda at 5:09:00 am
2 Comments:
Oi? I thought your Chinese quite okay one? Not great maybe but can-carry-out-a-conversation okay? Or maybe mine is so bad everyone else's seems okay... :(
lonelylolacherrycola: wow! i can't sing for nuts - i'm shy to do it publicly, at least. i learnt most of my 繁體 characters from reading manga!
maoie: that depends greatly on the kind of conversation carried out. i think i run out of chinese equivalents to english words much too quickly. :)
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