If the Eye is the Window to Our Soul, Culture is the Window to Our Mind

by Jeannie SalomonAll Posts, Culture & HeritagePosted on Comments are Disabled

If the eye is the window to our soul, culture is the window to our mind. I say that not without evidence. After teaching Chinese for almost ten years at this great organization and other institutions, I often get amused and enlightened by my students’ questions.     On a Saturday morning in a private Chinese class, I sat across from my student, who was a recent college graduate. He was reading a relatively advanced passage for someone who had only taken one year of Chinese. When he stumbled onto the word for “panda”, he asked me, “What does the word 熊 mean in  熊猫?” I said without hesitation to this straight question, “It has the sound of the word, 凶 which means ‘fierce’ in English. But the word,熊, which means panda, it’s probably a coined word taken from the sound of 凶. ”  And I gave him a few examples of how the word 凶 is used in Chinese nouns.   He asked again, “But what about the word, 猫?  What does it mean?” I said, “It means ‘cat’. You know that word. It’s one of the most frequently used vocabularies in Chinese lessons. You have learned it too.” I was puzzled as to why he asked me for the meaning of such a simple word. After all, he did have one year of Chinese under his belt and he should know that word. But what followed totally made me look at these two simple words more closely. He came to a very thought-provoking conclusion: “So, the word ‘panda’ is translated to ‘fierce cat’ in English?” I said, “Yes, that’s it if you go by the sound of it.  I think that’s how Chinese people coined the word, ‘panda’ because they think of panda as a ‘fierce cat’.  Pretty good!”  Is ‘panda’ a cat or a bear?  Then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I never thought of why.  Why do Chinese people put ‘panda’  in the cat category when in English, ‘panda’ is in the bear category? I thought for a moment: wait a minute. Is ‘panda’ a cat or a bear?  All of a sudden his inquiry revealed a new aspect of the Chinese language to me, my native language, which I took for granted.   Why do Chinese people think of pandas as cats and not bears?  As I did some research on Google, there was a debate in the scientific community for ‘panda’ that was dated back over two hundred years ago that panda was either a bear or a raccoon.  Back then, pandas only existed in Asia, mostly in China and the region around China. (I think it still is.  Pandas aren’t found in any other regions outside of captivity.) So, my thoughts were that the word, panda, 熊猫 was coined way before the debate in the scientific community and Chinese people from a long time ago determined that panda was in the category with the “cats”. Wow, what a revelation from just studying Chinese. Studying one’s language reveals a lot about one’s mind.  Another Example – Culture is the Window to our Mind Another piece of evidence for my assertion that culture is the window to our mind is from the American students who took Chinese from me.  There was a pattern in the way they think. One of the very first lessons I teach to all of my beginning students was numbers. Numbers in Chinese are very easy. If you know the first ten numbers, you will know how to count to 100 easily. It can become such a rhyme or “song” that most of my students want to master and are drawn to, because of the way they sound. The numbers are 1, 一 (Yī), 2, 二 (èr), 3, 三  (sān), 4,  四  (Sì), 5,  五 (wǔ), 6,  六 (liù), 7,  七(qī), 8,  八(bā), 9, 九 (jiǔ), 10, 十(shí). After ‘ten’, the number in Chinese would just repeat itself.   For example, number 11, would just be 十一，taking the number ‘ten’ and ‘one’ together to get eleven. The same applies to the numbers from ‘twelve’ (12) to ‘nineteen’ (19). Once it gets to ‘twenty’ (20), the pattern changes. Before I revealed how to get the number ‘twenty’, I often asked my students to guess how to say ‘twenty’. Almost 99% of the time, all of them say “十十”，putting two ‘ten’ (10) together. At the time, I just gave them the answer, which is ：“二十” and taught them how to say it and continued with my lesson.    However, this time I take a step back and wonder how they came up with “十十.” The fact that almost every student consistently made the same guess was very interesting. What happened if I didn’t reveal the answer to them? Would they have continued to guess “十十十” for ‘thirty’? I thought to myself that it’s a very inefficient way of using numbers.   That’s why the word for ‘thirty’ is “三十“ and not  “十十十”, which will become very cumbersome as we string higher numbers together for ‘forty’(40), ‘fifty’ (50), ‘sixty’ (60), ‘seventy’ (70), ‘eighty’ (80)….etc.  We would run out of space to put the “十”  there, that we might as well coin a different word for each of the 10’s, right?  So, are there different words for bigger numbers? Yes, there are! Simply put, Chinese people’s way of thinking and looking at things are different from westerners’ way of thinking.   For example: the number 10,000 is written as 一万 [Chinese people will use “万” as the new unit of measurement when it gets to 10,000 now.  Chinese people wouldn’t call this number, 10,000  “十千“  literal translation means “ten thousand” because once it has reached 10 in this unit, which is in ten thousand’s, there is a different measure word, it is called 万 (pronounced wan in the fourth tone).  That’s why it is called 一万 and no longer called 十千. [The correct translation for 10,000 is 一万 and not 十千. If you do translate it and …

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Why Cultural Awareness is the Cornerstone of Our Teaching?

by Jeannie SalomonAll Posts, Culture & Heritage, LearningPosted on Comments are Disabled

Knowing each vocabulary word doesn’t mean you always know what each Chinese expression means. Perhaps this expression goes back to the feudalistic foundation of Chinese culture that big families are the common characteristic, so “big family” is equivalent to calling everybody. We can make a further inference from this expression.

A Chinese Poem To Share Alongside Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”

by Jeannie SalomonAll Posts, Culture & HeritagePosted on Comments are Disabled

Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb” brought me back to my childhood’s favorite poem of a Chinese poet,He Zhizhang from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.)  Coincidentally, a lot of poetry written in the Tang Dynasty was about the state of affairs at the time.  This one particularly brought me nostalgia, especially when I went to visit my birthplace of Hong Kong, which I left when I was a little girl.  Perhaps I could identify with the poet’s sentimentality; how he was greeted and thought of as a guest by the little children he encountered.  I like to share this poem on this blog for you to read.  English translation is on the top.   The first line of the Chinese is in the traditional characters, the second line is the simplified characters and the third line is the pinyin of the characters, which helps English speakers to pronounce the characters (words) so they could read it.  Because Chinese is a tonal language and is composed of characters, not of alphabets.  The Pinyin, which resembles the English alphabet will help English speakers to pronounce the words (characters) easier, but it has marks on top.  The marks on top of the alphabets (pinyin) indicate the tone that you say it in.  Remember Chinese is a tonal language.  If you say the same sound in different tones, they will mean different things.  It is very important to say it in the proper tone; otherwise, your meaning will be mistaken.   A lot of jokes or puns have come out from people saying it in the wrong tone of the word.    Hopefully, this will pique your interest to learn this interesting language.   I also post Amanda Gorman’s poem on the bottom for those of you who want to see the transcript of it.  Perhaps you can understand why her poem reminds me of my favorite poem from my childhood.  Enjoy the poems! Home Coming 回鄉偶書      By He Zhizhang 賀 知 章 Leaving home young, I now return old,  少小離家老大回 少小离家老大回 Shǎo* xiǎo lí jiā lǎodà huí   My accent has not changed, but my temple hair has grayed. 鄉音無改鬢毛衰  乡音无改鬓毛衰 Xiāngyīn wú gǎi bìn máo shuāi   Little village children greet me without recognizing me,  兒童相見不相識 儿童相见不相识 Értóng xiāng jiàn bù xiāngshí   And smiling, ask “where are you from, guest?”   笑問客從何處來 笑问客从何处来 Xiào wèn kè Cóng hé chù lái   *When two third-tone together, we change the first third-tone to the second-tone when speaking.  But in writing out the tone, we still write it as a third tone.  The third tone is very difficult for Westerners to say because it takes a long time for the tone to dip down and then go back up again.  For more about tones, please ask your Chinese teacher.  And for more on translation and interpretation of Chinese Ancient poems, you can check out this website.   Amanda Gorman’s Poem on 2021’s Inauguration Day  Amanda’s poem was well-positioned between Lady Gaga’s National Anthem and Jennifer Lopez’s “This Land is Your Land”, here’s the poem that has been talked about so much.  The Hill We Climb     By Amanda Gorman When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade We’ve braved the belly of the beast We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace And the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always just-ice And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it Somehow we do it Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished We the successors of a country and a time Where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one And yes we are far from polished far from pristine but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect We are striving to forge a union with purpose To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another We seek harm to none and harmony for all Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew That even as we hurt, we hoped That even as we tired, we tried That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious Not because we will never again know defeat but because we will never again sow division Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree And no one shall make them afraid If we’re to live up to our own time Then victory won’t lie in the blade But in all the bridges we’ve made That is the promised glade The hill we climb If only we dare It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy And this effort very nearly succeeded But while democracy can be periodically delayed it can never be permanently defeated In this truth in this faith we trust For while we have our eyes on the future history has its eyes on us This is the era of just redemption We feared at its inception We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power to author a new chapter To offer hope and laughter to ourselves So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? …

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It’s 2021!

by Jeannie SalomonAll Posts, Health & WellnessPosted on No Comments

It is very easy for our nervous system to be disrupted because we have gone through a lot in 2020 with the pandemic. I’ve heard of increased cases of anxiety, depression and other mental disorders. This is where I can put my training as a yoga teacher and yoga therapist student into good use.

TRAPPED WITHIN THIS FRAME

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By Suzanne Treichler I spend my days sitting in my chair trapped within this frame.I have deep thoughts and feelings, but they don’t come out.I can’t seem to find the words to express them – so I hold them in and they fleet away. I know the activity that goes on around me – yet I’m not a part of it.I just sit here trapped within this frame.My loved ones try to help me be a part of the activities, yet they become frustrated and don’t know what to do to best help me – and I don’t know what to tell them.  Many times I sit among them and listen to them tell each other what I’m like. It wasn’t always like this – my frame that is…..it was a wonderful frame that housed me and served me. I remember the many years of hard work at several different vocations and the many places that this ole body took me – the joy of being someone so well loved and respected wherever I went.  Sometimes I think about and long for those days again. I wonder sometimes why this ole frame had to fail me in these recent years – why I have to suffer in this way.  Then I remember some words that are hidden in my heart.  Words that are from my Heavenly Father….they come back to me and reassure me. “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.” And then I have comfort – oh, I still wish this ole frame worked a little better than it does – but I’m not trapped within this frame – I’m just resting in it until I enter my mansion – put on my new frame and truly live in freedom.   Rest peacefully Dad Treichler,                                                    I love you Suzanne About the Author: Suzanne Treichler is a deeply spiritual person with many Godly talents. She is very much inspired by being with God.  This poem was an inspiration from God.

Of Two Veterans and the Value of a Legal Education

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By Colleen Murphy in Honor of Veteran’s Day, November 10, 2020 “You should go to law school. With a legal education, you can go on and do whatever you want.” These words were frequently said to friends and even strangers by my late father, James W. Murphy, a veteran and a law professor. As an Army infantry officer in WWII, my father led a rifle platoon along the French/German border. After the cessation of hostilities, he was assigned for two more years in Europe to serve as a war crimes liaison officer, investigator, and prosecutor (likely because he had earned an undergraduate law degree before the war.) He was involved in the many U.S. trials of war criminals at the Dachau concentration camp. Upon return to the United States, he eventually became a law professor and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Reserves. My father often said to me, “Everything I am, I owe to the Army.” He was also the biggest believer in the value of a legal education that I have ever met. For my father, it wasn’t enough that I was a young lawyer and my brother was in law school. He wanted my mother to go to law school too. My mother, who really wished she could have gone to seminary, replied, “No, I’m not going to law school. Someone has to pray for all the lawyers in this family.” Many years later, it was time for my father to go home from the hospital to die. An ambulance was arranged to transport him. My mother sat beside the driver, thinking about the sadness that was ahead. But then she heard a sprightly voice from the back saying to the medical attendant, “You should go to law school. With a legal education, you can go on and do whatever you want.” After my father died, my mother met and then married another veteran, Steve Golnik. My stepfather completed 30 years of active duty in the Army. He would often say to my mother, “Jim would have liked me,” and my mother, in a running joke, would reply, “Yes he would, but only if you went to law school.” On October 16, 2020, my stepfather, having been very impressed with how a journalist had questioned a presidential candidate the night before, sent me her Wikipedia entry that mentioned that she had earned a law degree. My stepfather texted me that the journalist “is a classic example of what your Dad always said about everyone going to law school. It makes her a better interviewer.” Those were his last words to me; he died unexpectedly that night. These two veterans, I am certain, would applaud you for pursuing a legal education—especially in these very hard times. As another veteran, the author C.S. Lewis, said during a time of war, “The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable.” I admire you for continuing your law school education when the conditions are less than favorable, and I wish you all the best as you finish your degree and then go on and do whatever you want. About the Author: Colleen Murphy is a Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Stack of various Chinese tea jars with character inscriptions for chinese culture quiz

Chinese Cultural quiz

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Here’s a fun and short quiz to gauge your aptitude in Chinese Culture! See how well you score. Don’t worry if you don’t get 100% correct. We offer Chinese Culture courses online to sharpen your cultural knowledge.

Do You Need to Hit Your Reset Button?

by Jeannie SalomonAll Posts, Health & WellnessPosted on Comments are Disabled

The pandemic has been here longer than anyone has expected.  You might think by now we are used to being isolated in our home, wearing masks, setting a routine with whatever we have adjusted our lives to.  Right? Not really.  In a way, we will never get used to this new “normal” because part of us is still longing for the old to come back.  Another part of us is never going to settle for this kind of life.  Why should we?  The answer to this question can go in many different directions.   For this blog and our Health and Wellness audience, let me take the answer in the direction of self-care and wellness.   Hitting the reset button during the pandemic requires special discipline and determination because we can’t just pack our bags and book a flight to fly off to an exotic place for a weekend, or take a short trip out of town to stay at a  rented cottage until we restore our inspiration.   Anything that requires getting out of your house requires second thoughts and lots of caution during the pandemic, especially when the weather is getting cooler again and when staying indoors is becoming more suitable.   So, “resetting our button” takes creativity and it is probably better to be done at home, where it is safest without a lot of sanitizing and cleaning and being cautious. Hitting the reset button can be learning a new skill to practice at home. For example: learning how to meditate is a skill that takes consciousness on our part.  You have to spend some time concentrating before you can get to meditate.  Often, when we just sit down and quiet our mind to get ready for meditation, we are not quite there yet.  Very often, that’s when we notice certain aches, pain, or discomfort in our body when we are sitting down quietly.  Perhaps you find it uncomfortable in a certain sitting position or can’t even get to a comfortable sitting position.  That’s when it breaks your concentration.  Take heart!  I have a few tips for you. Personal tips on how to settle into a meditation position: Prepare a nook in your house where you could put a chair, a sitting mat, or a yoga mat for sitting. It will be ideal if you can easily find a nook that is free from noises (whether from the rest of your family or from your neighborhood if you live in a city).  But if that is not accessible, make do with your internal focus and “block out” the noises as they come. Close your eyes and turn your focus internally.  Perhaps start with your breath.  Notice how you breathe.  Put one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly.  Notice the rise and fall of your belly and chest as you inhale and exhale. This is how you “block out” the noises that come to you:  If you hear a noise, let it pass you.  Just come back to your breath and notice once again on the rise and fall of your belly and chest with each inhalation and exhalation. Don’t fight the noise.  Accept it and notice how often you have to consciously turn your attention back to your breath as each sound of the noise comes to you.   Let it go and let it pass.  Use your breath to guide you back to your internal focus. You will develop a rhythm if repeated noises keep happening. Rise above the noise and develop an internal focus using your breath. After you settle into a comfortable position.  Focus on the present moment. Let your thoughts go and accept what your mind wanders to without dwelling on one thought or thing in your thoughts.  At first, it may take some discipline to control yourself from acting out your thoughts if you are a Type A or an action-prone individual.   Let your thoughts go.  Let them pass.   Keep coming back to your breath no matter how many times. Playing Music in the Background helps to Create an Ambient Noise with your Environment  It may be helpful if you can use music in the background to create an ambient for your meditation. The kind of music to play in the background depends on your preference and varies from individual to individual.  For me, I like classical music or meditation music, or just the sound of waterfall to create the ambient.  I also set a timer to give myself a start time and an end time.  But I give myself an allowance of 5 to 7 more minutes to settle into my comfortable sitting position.  If I wanted to meditate for 10 minutes, I would set my timer for 15 or 17 minutes.  I suggest that you start with a shorter time duration when you first start to meditate. It will be more encouraging for you to see your progress over time.  Even as a yoga teacher, meditation doesn’t come easily for me. It is something that I have to learn and consciously to practice.  In the beginning, I started with moving meditations, and only gradually after I have learned from a teacher could I come to sitting meditation.  As the weather is getting cooler in the fall now, I know winter will be here soon. I have mentally to prepare for the cold and snowy days ahead.  My mind easily comes to a quote I used in my term paper during my school days.  It’s the famous quote from Albert Camus.   In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.~Albert Camus~  It’s from my heart to yours.  Happy Meditating!  Namaste!  About the Author: Jeannie is the Founding Director of Cultural Society. You can find meditation courses on CS Website here.

Applying for the CSC Chinese Government Scholarship

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By Keri Schnabel   Have an interest in learning Chinese? The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself as much as possible. Imagine an opportunity to study at almost any university in China, on a full scholarship, with housing provided and a stipend to cover most other living expenses! It’s all possible with the CSC Chinese Government Scholarship. When I first heard about this opportunity, I thought it was too good to be true. After going through the application process, I was able to study Chinese at Yunnan University in beautiful Kunming for a year. It was an amazing opportunity. Though I had to return to the USA early due to COVID-19, I had an incredible time learning Chinese while also immersed in the culture. I encourage anyone interested in living abroad and studying Chinese to consider this opportunity. The process for each University varies slightly, so research which universities you would like to apply to first. I applied through the Chinese embassy in the USA, so I used the CSC scholarship website to apply, and I had to list my top 3 choices. I was accepted at my first choice which was Yunnan University in Kunming. Determine what program you want to go for and what requirements are needed.  You can apply for the following programs:  -PhD -Master’s  -Bachelor’s -Studying Mandarin for one year (General Scholar) I will be focusing on the process for studying Chinese for one year, however the other programs ARE available if that is something you are interested in!  I knew going in that I only wanted to study Mandarin. I received my bachelor’s degree already, and though I considered applying to receive my master’s, I actually found out about the scholarship a little late in the process to decide on a course of study. I decided to take the year studying Mandarin, as becoming more fluent in the language is one of my principal goals.  Gather documents Gathering documents to move abroad always feels like a daunting task. It really isn’t too bad for this scholarship. You will have to get a few documents notarized and do a health examination as part of the application. Take a look at this step-by-step guide here that lists documents you will be required to submit. For me, the health examination was the most difficult part of the application. You will have to find a doctor to fill out this form It can sometimes be hard to find a doctor who will do this specific exam. After trying some Urgent Care locations, I ended up going to my primary care doctor. I recommend starting there first, if you have a PCP. The health exam itself is not too bad, however be aware that if you do receive the scholarship, you will have to do this exam again when you arrive. Determine your top 3 choices for Universities Think about where you really want to be. Beijing is probably the best city to study Mandarin, as Beijing Mandarin is what is generally taught when studying Chinese. I really wanted to be in a smaller city with good weather, so I chose Kunming as my first choice. Location is definitely an important point to consider, so take your time to do as much research as possible before choosing your top 3 schools.  Wait… This is DEFINITELY the absolute hardest part of the whole process. I submitted my application in March 2019, and then had a few months of waiting…I’m not going to lie, it’s a little hard because you have to plan as if you are moving to a new country, even though you aren’t 100% sure if you will receive the scholarship. I’m someone who always feels most comfortable when I have a backup plan, so I recommend this for anyone who feels a bit stressed out by the uncertainty. I believe the odds are relatively high when applying as a General Scholar to study Chinese, though the program can be a lot more competitive if you are applying to study for your master’s or PhD. Toward the end of July/ beginning of August, expect results! I found out that I received the scholarship mid-July, though I didn’t get any information from my University until the very beginning of August, in which I was told I had to be there for registration around August 25th. Don’t wait to make all of your preparations until you find out, start early if you can! There’s a good possibility you won’t get too much advanced notice about your departure date. Fly to China! Congratulations! If you received the scholarship, get ready for the journey of a lifetime. Be prepared for lots of studying, hard work, and adventure ahead.  Helpful Links: Check out this forum to chat with and hear from other people currently applying for the CSC scholarship- I found this really helpful at the beginning to get some tips on the process, as well as afterwards as I was waiting for the results CUCAS has lots of information about schools and was really helpful when I was doing research on which schools to choose as my top 3 choices.