Studying Chinese Language and learning the culture -- studying the culture to learn the language

Studying a foreign language is a gateway into a new culture. Thoughts and ideas are expressed, and phrases are structured to directly reflect the culture. Learning the language is the gateway to understanding the people.

Chinese, however, requires more than just the study of the language. Often times proverbs consisting of only 4 or 8 characters (words) entail a great deal of meaning. They are the profound morals of ancient tales. If you were just to hear or read the proverb without knowing the story, you'd be missing meaning. To understand the language and be fluent, you have to study the culture. Now the language is insufficient for communication and studying the culture becomes equally important.

For example if I were to translate one proverb I just studied: Towards oneself spear shield. 自相矛盾。 The meaning is that someone is being a hypocrite or is contradicting themselves. The story behind this phrase is that a salesman was boasting about his spears and shields. He said there's no shield in the world that his spears couldn't penetrate. Naturally his shields were also the strongest in the world and he boasted there were no spears able to penetrate them. When asked what would happen if one of his spears were used against one of his shields, the man had no answer. A foolish and blatant hypocrite, the moral and meaning of the story is summed up in those four character above, literally: self, towards, spear, shield.

This is a relatively simple example of the entanglement of culture and language. Often times only the first 4 characters of an 8 character proverb are written somewhere. If you know the proverb and the culture behind it, this is all you need to grasp the meaning. Take someone like me, however, who is proud to recognize these characters but can't decipher the meaning: People before earlier come. Well it ends up meaning, after you know the rest of the proverb and the culture behind it: "Greater than all who have come before him."

Now Chinese love to quote and reference these proverbs. They've been learning them for years and it's totally common for them to bring them up when talking about business. So if you truly want to master the Chinese language and communicate without hindrance... studying Chinese culture and history is a requirement. As if studying the language itself wasn't a daunting task, now we've all got more work to do. The good news is that the study is quite rewarding.

New Shaolin form

Today it has been 9 full weeks of learning Shaolin Kung Fu in the park. I've just now begun to learn a new form. My teacher says I'll learn it quickly: in three days. I spent over two months on the last form and now I'll begin learning a second one. This is fitting. I believe there will also be a performance on the 26th of this month. Look for a relevant update around that time.

Ghost Month in Taiwan: A silly superstition -- a sensible faith

Early last month I was surprised on a morning run. I had retreated, from running against traffic on the road, to the sidewalk. I expected a haven. I found a woman burning what I thought to be garbage outside of her front door and in the middle of the sidewalk. I was frightfully forced back to the road where I decided the oncoming traffic was less of a threat than random sidewalk fires. On later runs I noticed people setting up tents in the streets. They put tables out and filled them with food. I paid little attention to them, assuming that this must be a season of graduations and weddings and the tents were for hosting celebrations.

My coworker was later advised not to buy a new scooter as it was Ghost Month. Ghost Month is a time when the deceased ancestors of the past are released and run through the world of the living. It is a time for the living to pay respect to those who have come before and ease their suffering. The woman I saw outside burning had been burning ghost money on the street as an offering and I would later see many more people doing this. The tents were not for family celebrations: they were offerings to the ghosts. These offerings included a lot of Chinese foods, but also Coca Cola, Heineken and many other fairly common things we eat all the time.

If you are thinking the same thing I was when I learned about these offerings then you are no doubt wondering: “So what happens to the food?” I asked my friend exactly this. The ghosts don’t eat it… so how long is it left there? After a couple hours the living will then eat the food, but that’s not the point. The food serves as an offering for the ghosts and so later eating it yourself can bring good luck. My initial impression of Ghost Month: utterly superstitious. But this holiday is celebrated widely across Taiwan and China, so are all Chinese really superstitious?

Our first impressions need always be reconsidered from a different perspective. I imagined the life of a traditional Chinese raised here and then moved to the US to see the holidays I experienced growing up Catholic.

The first thing that came to mind was the weekly receiving of the sacrament. Imagine explaining how, after undergoing a service and prayer it is time to drink the blood and eat the body of your savior? Your savior died almost 2000 years ago. Of course even non-Christian Americans are familiar with the meaning behind the body and blood of Christ and its well know that it is a symbol. But taken out of context it seems as if we are cannibals that believe eating our savior will lead us to salvation: a glorious life after death. It would be foolish not to ask: “Are you some cult of want-to-be vampires?” (This is not meant as an insult to the Catholic faith; I’m demonstrating the profound meaning surrounding relativity)

Now contrast the existence of ghosts with the existence of an omnipotent god. Americans are primarily monotheistic. It is commonplace among Western faiths to think of only one god and anything else is old fashioned. In general this god’s beginning coincides with the beginning of time itself – his origin is unexplainable. Conversely the gods that are worshipped, or the ghosts here in Asia have a distinct origin. They are the spirits of our ancestors. They came before us and have an easily defined, dare I say, easier to believe origin.

My first impression was that these ghost-fearing Chinese are silly and superstitious. After a bit of thought I realized these superstitions are less surprising then those I’ve grown desensitized in the West. Ghost Month is not superstitious in the least, it is religious. I am not of this faith, yet it seems more logical than my own estranged faith.

---These are just the opinions of an Engineer working abroad as a foreign teacher. Don’t be offended but I invite you to offer me any criticism; be it constructive or otherwise.