【專訪】別讓孩子有「中文不好」的遺憾，美國移民爸爸 Oliver：我把台灣帶進家裡！
I was featured in one of the articles from 天下雜誌‘s 換日線 (Crossings) for blogging and promoting bilingual parenting in Chinese and English for the past ~ 7 years or so!
https://crossing.cw.com.tw/article/14059
兒時記趣 (Childhood story) is a famous piece of writing by an author (沈復) of the Ching Dynasty and is often taught in the Chinese Language Art textbook in junior high school. It is an example of classical Chinese. I had never heard of it before, as I left Taiwan after fifth grade. Nevertheless, since it is on the 7th grade first semester CLA textbook we received as a hand-me-down from a relative in Taiwan, I thought it would be good for DD#2 to study a couple of short passages such as this.
「兒時記趣」
作者：沈復 (1763-1825)
余憶童稚時，能張目對日，明察秋毫。見藐小微物，必細察其紋理，故時有物外之趣。
夏蚊成雷，私擬作群鶴舞空，心之所向，則或千或百，果然鶴也；昂首觀之，項為之強。又留蚊於素帳中，徐噴以煙，使之沖煙飛鳴，作青雲白鶴觀；果如鶴唳雲端，為之怡然稱快。
又常於土牆凹凸處、花臺小草叢雜處，蹲其身，使與臺齊；定神細視，以叢草為林，蟲蟻為獸；以土礫凸者為丘，凹者為壑，神遊其中，怡然自得。
一日，見二蟲鬥草間，觀之，興正濃，忽有龐然大物，拔山倒樹而來，蓋一癩蝦蟆也。舌一吐而二蟲盡為所吞。余年幼，方出神，不覺呀然驚恐。神定，捉蝦蟆，鞭數十，驅之別院。
Here is DD’s read-aloud:
Here is an educational video on it:
Supposedly the following last paragraph is omitted and not taught since it is not rated G, more like PG, 🤣.
年長思之，二蟲之鬥，蓋圖奸不從也，古語云：「奸近殺。」 蟲亦然耶？貪此生涯，卵為蚯蚓所哈，腫不能便，捉鴨開口哈之，婢嫗偶釋手，鴨顛其頸作吞噬狀，驚而大哭，傳為語柄。此皆幼時閑情也。
It has been a while since I used Mandarinspot.com, a clever site someone coded a few years back. Mandarinspot.com provides an easy to use tool to annotate online Chinese text with 注音 or 拼音 and English definition. Pop-up annotation tooltips open when you move mouse over the word.
For example, my DDs are working on a Chinese debate on the topic of mandatory vaccination. There is a Chinese Wikipedia page on vaccine hesitancy. So, I copy and paste the link under “Web site annotation” as below.
Enlarged:
After clicking “Annotate”, it leads me to a Mandarin Spot version of this webpage. If I don’t know the pronunciation or meaning of certain Chinese characters or words, hovering the mouse over the word will bring up a box with the Chinese pronunciation (注音 in this case) and English meaning. Pretty nifty, no?
You can do the same with pinyin. Just change the phonetic system above to pinyin.
杏林子
在許多人眼裡，我看來多麼像是一個囚犯，一個被病禁錮○1在床的犯人。
是的，自從小學六年級時，我被一種叫做「類風溼關節炎」的怪病纏身之後，就逐漸失去活動的自由。年復一年，我全身的關節都受到病魔的「轄制○2」，有如戴上一道道無形的鐐銬○3。
腿不能行，肩不能舉，手不能彎，頭也不能自由轉動。甚至，我連吃一口心愛的牛肉乾的權利也被剝奪了，因為咬不動。
二十多年來，生活的天地僅限於六席○4大的斗室○5之中，屋外春去秋來，花開花謝，似乎都與我無干○6了。就像一個被判無期徒刑的犯人，不知何年何月才能重見「天日」。
想像中，這樣的「犯人」一定是蒼白憔悴○7、鬱鬱寡歡○8的吧！剛剛相反，因為我了解真正能夠囚住我的，不是身體上的疾病，而是心理上失望、悲觀、頹喪○9、憤怒、憂慮，築成了一面看不見的網，隨時準備將我陷在中間。一個人只要能突破心靈的枷鎖○10，這個世界就再也沒有什麼能困住他的了。如今，我活得無憂無慮，也自由自在。而世上多的是身體健康，卻心理不健全的人；多的是表面歡樂，卻心中痛苦的人；多的是行動自如，卻找不到一條正確人生方向的人。
有些人看似生活得繁華熱鬧，卻往往是天底下最寂寞的人，因為他們把自己的心封閉了。
還有那些沉溺○11在罪惡中無法自拔，迷戀在情慾中無法脫身，以及為名利權勢所左右○12迷失了自己的人，他們看似自由，卻心陷囹圄○13。
比起我，到底誰更像是囚犯呢？
注釋
○1禁錮：囚禁。錮，音ㄍㄨˋ，封閉、監禁。
○2轄制：管轄限制。轄，音ㄒㄧㄚˊ，管制。
○3鐐銬：音ㄌㄧㄠˊ ㄎㄠˋ，刑具。鐐，鎖住腳的刑具。銬，鎖住手的刑具。
○4席：通「蓆」，三尺寬、六尺長為一蓆。
○5斗室：狹小的房間。
○6無干：沒有關係。干，關聯。
○7憔悴：音ㄑㄧㄠˊ ㄘㄨㄟˋ，面色黃瘦，沒有精神的樣子。
○8鬱鬱寡歡：悶悶不樂。寡，少。
○9頹喪：情緒消沉低落。頹，音ㄊㄨㄟˊ。
○10枷鎖：原指刑具，引申為束縛。枷，套在脖子上的刑具。鎖，拴在犯人身上的鎖鏈。
○11沉溺：指陷於不好的嗜好或境地中。溺，音ㄋㄧˋ。
○12左右：影響、控制。
○13囹圄：音ㄌㄧㄥˊ ㄩˇ，牢獄。
I stumbled on a 2011 paper on maintaining Korean heritage Language from the perspective of Korean parents. There is little here that I don’t know already, but I see that both ethnic Korean and Chinese parents share the same struggle.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ986889.pdf
“Perhaps more importantly, none of the students felt that Korean HL schools had made a difference in their HL maintenance. Based on what both the parents and students stated, it is fair to say that parents could not do the job of policing HL with their children, since the children were increasingly resistant to speaking and learning Korean.
Korean HL schools were therefore an easy alternative that the parents could count on in spite of the fact that their children hated those schools. While the parents might have agreed that the Korean HL schools were not effective, to stop sending their children would have been an admission of failure in HL maintenance. For these parents, the HL schools were a solution to the dilemma they faced, and the burden of teaching and monitoring Korean was turned over to those institutions…….
This remark strongly suggests that the parents themselves gradually reduced the use of HL and switched to English, perhaps because they felt that they were in fact capable of speaking in English. This might be the key reason why the student participants’ younger siblings’ seldom spoke Korean. The interviews revealed that in the cases of Derek, Gene, and Nina’s younger siblings, the use of Korean ranged from dismal to none.
It can be argued that the student participants in this study maintained HL not because of their parents’ determination or choice, but because of a lack of English proficiency at the beginning of their immigrated life. Of interest in Nina’s statement above is that there was not a time when Korean was used 100% of the time at home. This may be the reason why HL parents chose to send their children to Sunday HL schools, since they might well have felt that they could not maintain the HL at home, definitely feeling that they needed outside help. For these reasons Korean HL schools remain as one of the most popular choices for HL parents. “
Did you know that the pronunciation of 普通話, Putonghua or the modern standard Mandarin Chinese, dates back only about 400 years?
From 中国华文教育馆 (PRC’s Oversea Chinese Language and Cultural Education Online), the Manchurian people, after establishing the Ching Dynasty and succeeding the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century, had to learn one of the northern Han dialects for ease of communication. However, they couldn’t learn it well and eventually developed a “Manchudized” version, which eventually turn into the pronunciation we know today.
“与南京官话保留了中原古音不同，王照提倡的北京官话受北方游牧民族特别是满族的影响很大。满洲入关以后，满语完全不能适应新的生活需要，不得不学习和借鉴汉语。但是，满族人不能区分尖团音，也不会发入声，因此，满洲贵族所说的北京官话是满族化了的汉语，也被戏称为“五音不全”的汉话。”
From 百度：
“南北朝时期开始，中原雅音南移，作为中国官方语言的官雅言逐渐分为南北两支。六朝即南京话为汉语标准语，明朝永乐年间建都北京时从南京北调40万人口，超过北平原有人口。清入主中国，旧北平话逐渐演变形成了北京话。清雍正六年设“正音书馆”，以北京官话为标准语，在全国推行，以后北京官话逐渐取代南京官话成为中国官场主流的标准语，有人也称之为北方官话，和被称为南方官话的南京官话相对应。清末进行国语编审，民国初年拟定国音，“京国之争”以后实行以北京官话为基础的新国音，自此以北方官话为蓝本的国语（普通话）成为中国官方标准语言。随著现代教育、传媒的普及发达，当代的北京官话 – 普通话，在华语圈有向各种方言渗透的趋势。”
Therefore, the venerated Tang poems dating back to the 7-10th century and classics before Ching Dynasty were not written with such pronunciation in mind.
Below are a couple of interesting video clips:
As part of the girls’ Chinese learning, they continue to perform for our family Chinese pop band, “Tu and Only” or 「杜ㄧ無二」. Since DD#2, “Georgia” is now officially 13, “Tu & Only” is probably the only teenage band of its kind in southeast US or maybe the whole US (?!). We took a three month break after our four February performances for the Chinese New Year celebration. Below is our most recent two-song performance for Mother’s Day celebration with over 200 folks in attendance. By the way, I haven’t played the violin in about thirty years and just bought a violin from Amazon to play for the band. So, I am a bit rusty!
Here is the crowd after some have left and others line up for snacks.
This is the biggest performance of our family band so far, playing mostly Mandarin pop songs. It is the fruition of the decision and hard work every one of us put in over the past 15 years! I am so proud of my girls!
We have so much more to learn and grow as a band!
2014
A couple of weeks ago, a major (though seemingly contrived) controversy broke out in India over the increased use of the Hindi language on social media. Language is a contentious issue in India, and has been since Article 343 of the Indian Constitution declared “Hindi in the Devanagari script” the official language of India in 1949. English, which was official during the British Raj, has remained co-official with Hindi, despite efforts to phase it out.
English remains entrenched in India and is widely used by India’s elite, bureaucracy, and companies. It is particularly important in its written form, as the official versions of most documents use English. Most pan-Indian written communication as well as many major media outlets use English. However, at the spoken level, English is much less prevalent and Indian languages are more widely used, with Hindi serving as a lingua franca for most of the country except the its northeast and the deep south. It should be noted that English is spoken or understood by about 150 million Indians, or about 10 percent of the population. This means that around 90 percent of Indians do not understand or speak English.
English’s association with the elite and corridors of power and its status as the language of documents and serious literature has led to a craze for English-medium schools across India. Proponents of the English language in India argue that English will serve as the vehicle of India’s economic growth and lead to the empowerment of hundreds of millions of individuals. Nothing, however, could be more incorrect. India’s obsession with English holds back both its economic development and the quality of its education.
(Click link above for the rest of the article)
My take:
1. ) There is not an iota of doubt that English is the global language when it comes to the professional world. So proficiency in English gives an edge when it comes to career.
2. ) The only language that binds India is English. Especially, it has been very successful in bridging the great South and the North India divide. So today a north Indian can communicate effectively with a south Indian without knowing any south Indian language and vice-versa. And in today’s fast developing India, our kids are not restricted to her or his own state. I have been living and working very comfortably in southern India for 9 years now without knowing any south Indian language.
3. ) Some may disagree but we still have hangover from the British rule. Many parents still think that knowledge of English makes their kids look smarter and more presentable to others.
Recently, a situation arose that my dd#2 is able to attend a simplified Chinese weekend school near my house. So, we sent her there last Saturday. I figure it is time she learns simplified Chinese and start doing more writing. I also want to outsource parts of the Chinese instruction now. She got bumped up a grade to 7th grade after cold reading 7th grade textbook for the teacher. After the first class, the teacher said that dd#2 was the best student in class. So, that’s good to hear. The following are some pics of the textbooks that the class uses.
Since dd#2 had spent much more time reading than writing before, she is working on being able to write out the entire story as I read along the text. I print out character worksheets of every unique characters with stroke sequence for her to practice. It is coming along and she should get basic writing up to speed fairly quickly after a couple of chapters.
Otherwise, she is reading Chinese comic books every day and now seems to have little problem reading the first book of Harry Potter in Chinese.
Raising bilingual and biliterate children in Chinese and English 