Highlands School China Connection: Eight More Days Until Takeoff!

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Eight More Days Until Takeoff!

I will leave for Beijing in eight days following a path from Birmingham to Detroit to Tokyo and finally to Beijing. The total amount of time of the trip is 25 hours! It is hard to imagine being en route for that long, but with the adrenaline, some good books and movies, and sleep, the trip will pass quickly, I predict. Highlands School is one of eight to have this opportunity this year. The others come from as close as Nashville, Tennessee and as far away as Maine. I look forward to getting to know the other heads of school as well as Paul Miller from NAIS.

I finished some tasks yesterday -- getting cash (I have heard the ATM machines sometimes work, and sometimes they don't), buying gifts (children's books with painted pictures of Alabama sites and books geared toward adults filled with beautiful pictures from Alabama; magnets of Elvis, hamburgers, and hot dogs), and the appropriate sized zip loc bags. I have one quart size bag for liquid toiletries and several two-gallon bags for clothes. I have packed some of my non-wrinkly clothes into these bags with dryer sheets. I have packed everything into a garment bag and will have a mostly empty carry-on bag with books, magazines, protein bars, a change of clothes (just in case my luggage gets lost) and toiletries. My purse will hold my laptop. I like to pack lightly, and I hope I have accomplished this!

Our two destinations will be Beijing and Shanghai. We will visit schools as well as cultural sites. I look forward to meeting people in Hanban as well as people who work in the educational system in China.

I plan on keeping this blog up to date as best I can over the next three weeks! I look forward to sharing pictures of China!

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Ten Reasons to Learn Chinese

Ten Reasons To Learn Chinese By Frank Middleton 1. Chinese, is one of the Sino-Tibetan languages, or more accurately it is a group of different dialects of which Mandarin (Putonghua) is one. Taken together there are more native speakers of Chinese than any other language. To put this in perspective there are approximately 915 million speakers of Mandarin (without including any of the other dialects such as Cantonese), compared to Spanish, the fourth most widely spoken language in the world with around 400 million speakers. 2. You don’t have to learn Chinese characters to learn to speak Chinese. Pinyin is a method of writing Chinese in the roman alphabet. Hanyu pinyin spells the sound, and includes tone marks to help give the correct pronunciation. 3. Chinese literature. The dialects are not mutually intelligible but the written language is shared between them all. Although you do not need to learn to read Chinese characters to speak the language, by doing so you open the door to an enormously diverse and rich literature. In fact, the earliest record of writing was in Chinese characters although very different in form from modern characters (of which there are many thousand). 3. The Chinese economy is the fastest growing economy in the world, and so in the work environment even speaking a little Chinese will give you a competitive edge, if your company invests in China or is considering doing so. 4. Language and culture are linked and learning something of the Chinese language will help give an appreciation of the cultural heritage of China. 5. China is accessible to the foreign visitor in a way that it has not been in the past and travel to and within China is becoming easier, but to make the most of this opportunity for travel, language at a basic level is important. Mandarin is spoken throughout China. 7. China is becoming increasingly important in the world and may be the dominant economic power in the not so distant future. 8. Food. You can eat in the tourist restaurants in hotels but if you want to see more of China it is more better to try the food and experience the culture in local restaurants. 9. In 2008 the Olympics are being held in Beijing. In 2008 many foreign visitors will descend on China to watch the Olympics. It is an ideal opportunity, if you are lucky enough to be going, to stand out from the crowd by being one of the few who has learnt at least a few words of Mandarin. 10. Like any other language, it is possible to learn a few words and phrases in Mandarin, enough to be polite without spending years in further education. ------------- Frank Middleton is a freelance author and writes occasional articles for http://www.linguata.com/ a site with a practical realistic and fast approach to learning words and phrases in a foreign language, using a combination of sophisticated testing and simple games.

Highlands School China Connection

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Eight More Days Until Takeoff!

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Ten Reasons to Learn Chinese