Author: Ryan

The Chinese media – including my family’s social network – was buzzing with news of China’s military parade in Beijing recently. The parade marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in China, and it gave the entire world a chance to see how far China has come in the last seventy years. Having lived through the turmoil of 1950s–1980s, many of my family members and friends watched the parade with pride.

Perhaps most of you know that the Chinese New Year is the biggest traditional holiday in China, but can you name the second biggest traditional holiday? If you are having trouble identifying it, you are not alone – it is not very well known in the West.

For those of you who are familiar with Chinese cuisines, you are perhaps aware of the diversity of flavors and dishes listed on a Chinese menu. Such variety testifies to the creativity of the Chinese people, and their relentless, audacious pursuit of new things – an audacity that leads many of them to eat exotic items like lotus roots, snakes, cow stomach, and basically anything they can lay hands on. Unfortunately, this ingenuity and audacity also created a nation of picky eaters.

 “What is your favorite Chinese dish?”

This is perhaps the most culturally awkward question I have ever encountered, and I am only exaggerating a little bit. To begin with, it assumes that all Chinese dishes are given an English name. Secondly, it suggests that Chinese cuisines can be compared across the board, and among all the variations and flavors, it may be possible to have a favorite.

Sixteen years ago, my parents and I left China on an Air Canada flight for our new home in the United States. That trip was the beginning of my family’s long immigration journey to America. A lot has changed in China and in our family in sixteen years. Although my parents and I have returned to visit separately, we had never returned together. We finally got a chance to do so this past May, on the morning after my graduation from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. We reversed our steps from sixteen years ago, flying out of Boston into Hong Kong, and again on Air Canada. A few days into our trip to visit family and friends, my uncle asked me, “Do you feel your life in America is greatly affected by the rise of China?” I was not prepared for his question and gave a clumsy answer. But as I answered this question, it occurred to me that no matter what my answer, it could not douse the flicker of national pride behind his question.

Have you ever wondered why some languages sound more musical than others? Or why Chinese people learning to speak English seem to all make the same “mistakes”? Learning about tones will help this start to make sense. Sometimes the rise and fall in pitch occurs naturally as one pronounces each word; sometimes the changes in pitch are due to changes in the speaker’s emotions; and sometimes pitch changes are built into the languages themselves. Tones represent the rise and fall of pitch in a sentence. Tones are not very common in English sentences, except when we ask a question, in which case the sentence ends with a rise in pitch. But in Chinese, different tones are woven throughout a sentence and add a layer of lyrical beauty to Chinese languages. In my previous post on Chinese puns, I explored the overlap in pronunciation among Chinese characters, which leads to Chinese people’s penchant for puns. For example, the pronunciation “ma” could mean mother, numb, horse, and scold. How can we distinguish which is which? Context plays a very important role in Chinese sentences, but another way to distinguish characters of the same pronunciation is by tones.

Many of you may have heard the puzzling report some months ago of the Chinese government’s attempt to control puns. Many American late-night comedians and news network broadcasters, armed with a few witty puns, used this occasion to poke fun at this policy. How can someone control pun use? What is the harm of having a few puns? We will have to leave it to others to tackle the first question, but I will try to shed some light on the latter, and through this process, I hope to also shed some light on an important component of the Chinese language, 成语 (chéng yǔ). It has never occurred to me that my penchant for English puns might have any connection to my penchant for Chinese puns, because the ways that we pun in these two languages are quite different. Most English puns play off words with the same spelling but different meanings. For example, I could say, “I used to be a banker, but I lost interest.” The pun is a spin on the various definitions of the word interest. The word could mean “a sense of curiosity.” But in this context, it could also be an allusion to dividends or shares in a financial investment. The person who made this pun is certainly aware of these two definitions; therefore, when an English speaker makes a pun, it demonstrates his or her knowledge of the language. It does not distort the English language, but it is rather a witty play on a word’s different definitions.

Our local classical music radio station invited its listeners to submit music requests over Valentine’s Day weekend. I wonder if they have the piece of music posted above in their repertoire.

One of the most popular and familiar pieces of Chinese music is The Butterfly Lovers Concerto. It was composed in 1959 and was arranged for solo violin performance, accompanied by an orchestra. Although many people may not have heard the entire piece, there are very few people in China who could not hum the opening melody. Not only is the opening melody memorable and beautiful, but the popularity of this music is intricately tied to one of the most famous and celebrated love stories of the Chinese culture.