I rolled myself out of bed early to prepare for the midterm beginning at 8:00. Today’s test was guadai hanyu, also known as ancient Chinese. The test, dear readers, spanned the 8 texts that we have analyzed thus far – granted the texts are not terribly lengthy. However, given that this is my first semester to studying the nuances of ancient Chinese, it was quite difficult for me to remember the different meanings of the many characters used in ancient Chinese.
While taking classes at UM, we once read a text that talked about the difficulty of speaking Chinese in ancient China, as the Chinese language, at this point, was much more suited to the written word and not the spoken word. I accepted what the author said on faith (along with the fact that if I didn’t, my unbelief would be reflected by my grade in the class), but now I know firsthand that ancient Chinese is quite difficult. The main difficulty in learning is the multiple meanings of characters, depending on their context. Modern Chinese is already a context-driven language, and the context in which a word is spoken, along with pitch, rate, and pauses, can vastly change the meaning of a word and also the meaning of a sentence. Ancient Chinese is even more plagued by these ambiguities, and a single character can have 4 (or more) meanings depending on the linguistic context. Our test primarily consisted of taking a number of these particularly ambiguous characters and defining them, in Chinese, based on their context and usage. Needless to say, I did not do very well.
We then proceed to the next portion of the day: speaking presentations. We were divided into groups of 4, where we gave our presentations to an audience of 2 teachers. I gave a presentation on a piece of news that I have been following for the past week, and one that I know has held the entire world in rapture. If I may be allowed to quote from Chinese Business News and The China Daily:
The French retailer Carrefour SA resells products bought from its suppliers to intermediate distributors at a discount in China to inflate sales figures, according to a report on the news portal NetEase.com on Friday… These activities account for between 5 and 15 percent of sales at Carrefour stores in Shanghai, the report said, citing a former store manager… The people quoted in the report were not available for comment on Friday… Carrefour earned 36.6 billion Yuan ($5.6 billion) in sales in 2009, according to a report last year by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association. “Every year, a sales growth target is assigned to each Carrefour store in China. The target increases every year, and to meet it, stores resort to this practice. If the target is not met, store managers will not get a bonus,” according to a store manager in Shanghai who was quoted in the report. “The headquarters in Shanghai turns a blind eye to this kind of practice, which inflates the sales figures.”
When I read this, I misread the meaning of reselling, and the Chinese articles that supplemented this article did no better to assist me. Reselling – (v) the act of charging more than the price marked on a good in order to boost sales, whist the customer is unaware.
I thought the news rather interesting because I both love Carrefour and multinational firms operating in China. Carrefour’sactions in China depict some of the difficulties that companies operating in China face, and also the moral hazard that occurs when a company operates in another country. Carrefour assuredly upholds that the economic oversight in China is excessive, and their complaint is in some ways justified. However, if the company were operating in their home country, or even in Europe, they would never dream using reselling to boost profits.
I then had another speaking presentation to give at one, and I daresay that I did passably. After that, I came back to the dorm. I walked down the hall around 2:30 to get our test from the cabinet at the end of the hall, and when I got there, I was met by the Ayis (the cleaning ladies) sitting at in the hall and chatting. This was a great opportunity: procrastinating studying and practicing conversational Chinese with them. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by in good conscience, and I didn’t. They are a lot of fun, and we talked about everything, from good places to eat in the neighborhood, to student-front desk romances, to plans for the weekend, to the crazy nature of the Chinese language.
I ran over to Bally to run, returned to the dorm, and had enough time to run over some songs for this evening. This is what is going on: Jesse wants me to play guitar at their fellowship tonight, and I’m pretty excited… I’ve never played with any Chinese songs with anyone in China, especially worship songs. This has given me the opportunity to learn some Chinese worship songs, and it has been very interesting to see how the songs are written, both lyrically and rhythmically.
I walked to the WeiGongCun station to meet with Jesse, and we took the subway over to the church. We talked about how the musical section of the fellowship would progress, and that assailed some of my nervousness about the evening. We got there around 5:00, and we were the first people at the church for the service. We ran over some of the songs with people that showed up, but the majority of the band members didn’t get there until around 5:30 or after. We ran over the 4 songs for the evening, and I spent most of my time talking to the piano player about how to play the songs and such. The piano player is really good, and it was really fun to play with him.
The service started, and we played through the songs without any major hitches, not counting the incident where my guitar’s mike stopped working and we had to switch it with one of the singer’s mikes. The rest of the fellowship was good, and after it was over, Jesse, Jim, and I all ate at a BBQ restaurant in the neighborhood.
The arrangement worked well for me, as I didn’t really want to study anymore for the test on the morrow! We ate grilled chicken wings, shish kabobs, and tomato and egg soup. This restaurant is one that I will have to visit in the weeks to come…
Jesse and I took the subway back to the WeiGongCun stop, and I walked back to the dorm to fleetingly look over my notes for the test tomorrow.
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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