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I love the BBC World Service The Documentary series “English in the East”! I’m hoping there are more than two episodes in this series but here is a recap of the one I just heard. Episode 1: Tale of two neighbouring countries [my title] In Malaysia, recent policies encourage turning away from reliance on [...] I really wanted to finish Christine Yano’s Airborne Dreams, reflect and assimilate new knowledge with plenty of time to spare before the September 25 premiere of Pan Am but… life got in the way and my Kindle Reader says I am only 38% or 1,122/2,927 of the way through. Mind you, the book is [...] On June 10, BBC launched it’s Power of Asia “season” which is one solid month of coverage on current economy, business, politics, society, and environment issues in Asia. The breakdown is better described in a TV Tonight article and even if you missed something, you can always catch up at BBC’s Power of Asia [...] My Google Alert on “Asian American Literature” brought me Dali Zheng’s blog article, “Outmarriage Is Cultural Failure”. Even before I read it, I already had an idea of what I think the title might be leading to. And more than likely, it will not be what Zheng is writing about because it’s just a [...] On April 14, I tried to access my Google Calendar at 1:35 PST and got this error screen (link may not always work). All this text showing up instead of your calendar grid is an instant cue your calendar did not load but you can also search out your most natural language [...] One of the few recommendations that I take from my mum regarding television shows (sorry, mum!) is this half-hour weekly magazine format Cantonese-language Toronto lifestyle show called Trendy Zone. I both love and loathe the idea of a Vancouver version of the show. There’s a good chance I’d know some of the co-hosts and [...] Some people in Vancouver would never, ever, ever visit Halifax and it makes me pause for a moment. I suppose it is equally true that I will never, ever, ever make it to Pangnirtung or even a less exotic location… like Lloydminster, however open to those cities I might be. Hmmm. Sometimes I get [...] I saw these infographics at Information is Beautiful by Yang Liu Design a while back. They are just some simple yet eloquent contrasting graphics illustrating the differences in culture and perception from German. Yang Liu was born in China but lived in Germany since she was 14, thus has the basis for understanding the two [...] Originally posted at my other blog, but highly relevant here, on December 19, 2009. ******** Have I told you yet about that funny, funny episode when I endeavoured to formally learn Mandarin a few years ago? Vancouver, being the special city it is, commonly offers two flavours of introductory Mandarin classes. The first is that class where on day one, you learn basics like sounding out “bo po mo fo” and how to count; students start knowing nothing about the Chinese language. The second type of course is named something like “Introduction to Mandarin for Cantonese Speakers” where it is assumed you have a firm grasp of the Chinese because you are a “heritage student”, as UBC puts it.1 Of course I was somewhat snooty about being able to take the latter course. After all, my mother made a lot of effort to teach me Chinese speaking, reading and writing with handmade flash cards and then she purchased volumes and volumes of bedtime stories and readers when we summered in Hong Kong. One of those summers, I even had a Beijing-trained Mandarin tutor for private lessons–and while I was a straight-A student back in Halifax, I was a shameful delinquent when it came to summer classes!2  In the blogosphere, there’s bf and boyf. I’ve seen “The Boy” become “The Husband”. There’s “Hubby”. I liked best TGILW (the guy I live with) except that doesn’t apply to me. So I came up with NPY the acronym for 男朋友, meaning “boyfriend” in Chinese. As a Cantonese speaker, I know it as “nam [...] |
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