Wednesday 28th April 2010 - Classical Chinese
I've got an exam in 古文 this week and like the rest of my class I'm not too excited about it. It's a pretty strange module in a way because I'm not entirely sure how practical and useful it is in the long run. Actually, that's not entirely fair.
A statue of Confucius in Nanjing
We started off the year studying the 214 radicals of the 康熙字典, which is a pretty useful tool to have when learning new characters and looking them up in the dictionary, something that will stay with us throughout our Chinese education.
Then came the Classical Chinese stories of term two. All of a sudden it wasn't so easy after all. We studied Confucius, Mencius, Han Feizi and so many of their sayings. My favourite of these tales is probably 守株待兔 or Waiting for a Hare at the Tree Stump.
A hare running across a field
This story of course involves a man from the state of Song (it seems like in a lot of the stories I've read it's a man from Song who is being ridiculed). After seeing a hare run into a tree stump, break its neck and die, the man watches the stump for hours expecting it to happen again. He is ridiculed and mocked by everyone around him for expecting such a ridiculous outcome to repeat itself.
This story and others reminded me of Kerry man jokes. Kerry is a county in the very south of Ireland and, although this doesn't reflect reality, Kerry men are often the butt of Irish jokes, similar to the people of Song in the Classical Chinese stories. I thought I'd share one of the jokes with you:
What do you do if a Kerry man throws a pin at you? Run like mad because he probably has a grenade between his teeth.
The Irish language has a great tradition of storytelling and folklore. Like classical Chinese, Old Irish is completely different to the modern language. One of Irish folklore's most famous stories is The Children of Lir.
In this Irish folk tale the children become swans
I would strongly recommend you to read it; the English version can be found online. It involves a king and his four children, the death of his wife, a little sorcery and a curse placed on the children to spend 900 years as swans. Then, right at the end St. Patrick appears, whose day of celebration we all enjoyed just a few weeks ago.
I'm back to 古文 for the next few days. Well, at least the stories will keep me entertained.
Question of the week
Did you study Classical Chinese stories at school? Which ones did you find most interesting? Had you heard about the Kerry man jokes before? What jokes are popular in China?
Email Emmet at 按键 chinaelt@bbc.co.uk
Your Replies
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I think learning 古文 is very good for you. Actually I dislike it when I studied in school it is have understanding and spoken a little weird. However, it is the anima of Chinese civilization and now I understand why it is so important for our society and nation, the word inside is truth and it alway give the guidance in my life and most of time I even do not feel it. I consider this is our Chinese own religion. This religion is just inside this sayings and classic record. If you just want to speak fluently mandarin, 古文 is useless. But if you want to learn more about China and Chinese people or you want to become a diplomat between Britain and China. It is definitely useful for you. So when you encounter this situation, you need think about the reason you choose Chinese as your major again.
An excerpt of an email from Yanfei, China
Dear Emmet
After reading your diary, I am so surprised that you study Classical Chinese. I learned some classical articles when I was in middle school and high school, I still remember how beautiful language it was.
The idiom you mentioned is famous in China. It reminds me of another idiom after 守株待兔 in the same module which I learned at elementary school. It was 买椟还珠 (MaiDuHuanZhu), which means purchased the casket but returned the pear. The reason I like it because it describes two ways of manipulating things in this one story. One is what the jeweler did, he decorated the casket which contains precious pear. As the result, the casket looks more beautiful than pure pear. Another is the buyer who bought the casket of pear, but he misunderstood the valuation of the pear, definitely returned it to the seller and disappeared with holding his precious casket in crowed.
And now, we also make those mistakes sometimes. So just let us remember this story and stop acting like them.
Qun Braunbeck
