language

The coolest Chinese word so far..黑客

Jacob Redding — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:28:52 +0000

Last night I had an IM conversation with a new friend of mine whose English name is Patrick. During the conversation he told me that he turned down an offer to do some hacker programming against paypal. Now I know the Chinese word for hacker.

黑客

The word is a transliteration. Transliterations are several Chinese characters that form the sound of the word but by themselves mean nothing. Broken down this is

黑 : hēi (pronounced like hey): This is the character for the color black (黑色）
客：kè :By itself it means visitor, quest but it can also be used to mean helping/serving (of food).

If you take the sounds of the character and leave behind the meaning of the characters you get "Hey Ke" which sounds like "Hacker".

I'm off to the chat rooms to see if I can learn any other nefarious terms.

Ordering dumplings in Chinese

Jacob Redding — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:34:09 +0000

Well my spirits are back and if you watch this video you'll know why. This afternoon I went to a dumpling restaurant for lunch but not only could I read the sign of the restaurant's name but I could also read about 20% of the menu (maybe 30%). That was, apparently enough for me to go into the restaurant alone and order off a menu that contained no numbers, no pictures and no English. When it gets down to it if you don't read Chinese you're not ordering from this restaurant.

OK before you start thinking that I can actually speak and read this language let me attempt to translate my conversation with the waitress. The misspelling and bad grammar is intentional.

Me: Hairo
Her: Hello, its blah, blah, blah, cold, blah, blah
Me: yus tis feld today
Me: I cen sut dar? (pointing)
Her: yes, you can sit blah, blah, blah, blah OK?
Me: OK (thinking to myself.. what did she say after sit)
Her: What would you like?
Me: I would like day tea
her: Hot tea?
Me: (fixing pronunciation) OH, yes, yes Hot tea
Her: Would you blah, blah, pot blah, blah tea blah, blah, blah cup
Me: cop, cop, plis
some various conversation exchange and now we get to the ordering
Me: I wood lick one odor da exploded dumplings
The word for fried and exploded is the same except for tone, one is 2nd tone the other is 4th. I'm pretty sure I said it in 4th tone.
Her: Sorry we don't have those. We have blah, blah, chicken blah, blah, blah, pork, blah, blah, blah, some vegetable thing, blah, blah, blah, blah. you blah blah want?
Me: I wood like some old sour flower dumplings
Her: Huh?
Me: (pointing to menu)
Her: OH, Dumplings with aged vinegar andd peanuts! Sorry, we don't have those.
Her: we have....
Me: Boiled lamb dumplings please

OK now for the disclaimer. Boiled lamb dumplings is what Diana and I ordered the first time we went to this restaurant and it was my fall back. I asked for four different items and they were out of all of them. These four items, with several variations, were about the only items that I could read on the menu... so I was stuck.

Back to the studying!

Frustration, Sadness, Depression and Moving On

Jacob Redding — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:35:27 +0000

It was bound to happen. All of the books, magazines, websites and blogs I've have read said it would happen. I just didn't think it would come this early. I really didn't.

Four days is about how long it took to boil to the surface.

On the first day I became frustrated with my progress. It was only a little frustration. I've been studying this language for quite some time and I can read basic sentences and recognize a few hundred characters. I, however, can't understand a person when they speak nor can I speak even if I KNOW what to say. My brain is just not working fast enough. By the time they finish their tenth word I've only figured out their first. They wait for me to respond but my brain is only through a 1/4 of what was spoken.

In short I'm a 486 processor without dx and they are all quad cores!

The second day my brain decided to mix in a little sadness with the frustration. I'm sure it was just trying to get a wonderfully exciting flavor but the effects were disastrous for me. I'm essentially mute in this country because I *want* to speak soo badly in THEIR language. I understand that a lot of people can speak English and I'm not exactly mute but I'm mute by my standards. So the sadness kicked in.

Day 3. The ratio of sadness to frustration flipped to the majority and started me down the path of depression. To be honest this wasn't my first bout with mild depression on this trip. I left a lot behind n the U.S. I'm a geek, its web 2.0 fever and I left that behind. Its depressing to think of what "could have been" sometimes. The people, the projects, the opportunity but especially the people. The people I've left behind. Those people are awesome. I miss them all (you know who you are).

What was I thinking?
Was I thinking?

Fourth day. Deep depression. Why did I leave? I can't learn this language. What am I doing here in a tiny studio apartment in the middle of Beijing? Traveling, learning. pwwftt whatever. I could be "living it up" in the U.S with some really great friends and those "people".

By the afternoon my depression turned into anger which quickly plummeted into rage. The questions poured, actually they gushed out of me.

What am I doing here?
Why am I learning this language?
Why didn't I put this much effort into Spanish?
If I put this much into Spanish I'd definitely be fluent.
Why don't I go home, get a "real" job, buy a house and settle down?
Why don't I move to France?
I can fit in, in France and they have great cheese.
Spain. After a few months I can fit in, sorta, and they have great meats.
England, Music.
Italy. Wine, pasta
Germany. Beer
Copenhagen. Biking
back to New York, they have everything.
What...am...I...Doing? I could go anywhere.. why here?

over and over again I asked myself the question. I was downright angry with myself and the entire situation. This was stupid

Then my angry turned straight into deep hardcore depression. I was sad, really sad. I'm 8,000 miles away from my family, friends and everything that I know. On top of that I'm months, well really years away from a good discussion on the world, people, current events, technology and that p word that I dare not say. I love these things and I'm so far away from them that they aren't even a blip on my radar. But they could be. I could be back in the U.S hanging out with friends around a table of good dark beer talking about a number of topics including the upcoming '08 p word.

On top of that I was alone that day. Diana was out shopping. Almost naturally my anger infused depression turned its ugly head onto the only subject it could have; her. The decision to come here and to learn the language was mine and mine alone. I've always wanted to learn a second language and in the past those languages have been Spanish, French, Japanese. After meeting Diana I decided that Mandarin Chinese would be a fine language to learn and I started down the path on my own free will and desire.

Rationality, however, has no place in the depressed mind. She got the brunt of everything pushed against her. My mind projected all of the negatives onto her and all of the positives away from her. When she came home...well it really hit the fan.

I didn't want it to be that way. I didn't plan for it to happen but it happened.

Fortunately Diana is a pro. She sat me down, talked with me, let me vent my anger and frustration and pulled me out of my depressive state. Then she talked about how to get over it. How to help me learn to speak and to listen to people. How to train my ears so that I can hear the tones and organize the sentences. The most important thing, however, is that we talked.

I'm not leaving. I'm not giving up and despite what my thoughts were those four days I never really wanted to give up. It just seemed the easy route and the "logical" solution.

I, however, want to communicate with someone in their native tongue. I want to hear those expressions and thoughts that just can't be communicated in a second language. I want to hear what they are thinking. I've always wanted this. It has always been a lifelong goal of mine. I will achieve this goal.

Now its been a few days. On Friday we went out to the "Global Village" private school and enrolled. We putting structure into my/our studies and it really helped. To date all of the studies in this language has been personal from books, cds, mp3s, online studies, friends, etc. Its time to put some real teachers into the mix. On Monday we begin full-time studies.

I'm back in school and loving it. This is where I belong. We're not going anywhere (sorry Mom and Dad)