Chengdu

Of all the Chinese cities I have visited, Yangshuo was my favorite and I was sad to say goodbye. But the blog is called JJ Tripping, not JJ Hanging Out in his Hotel Room, so the time finally came to move on.

I am currently staying in Chengdu, the capitol of the Sichuan province in Southwest China, perhaps known for its spicy cuisine and giant pandas.


In the past, when I have thought of inland China, the first thing that came to mind was backwater farming villages. But Chengdu is far from it. The city is a bustling center of economic activity and development. With a population of over 11 million and with many companies (both local and international) wishing to establish their presence in Western China, the city attracts billions in investment every year.


That being said, the city is like a giant sauna this time of the year. The heat and humidity make going outside just about unbearable. I can understand why the giant pandas spend all day lying on their back and eating bamboo.

The Joys of Mandarin Chinese

I arrived in mainland China two months ago well aware of the fact that Mandarin Chinese is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world to master.

Studies have shown, that for a native English speaker, it takes 8 times as long to master Mandarin as it does a romance language such as Spanish. The US Department of State designated it as one of the five most difficult foreign languages to master among 63 major languages analyzed.

I was hoping to prove the experts wrong, but after two months of intensive study, I must concede that it's reputation is well deserved.

My usual approach to a new endeavor is one of brute force. I find that if I spend enough time approaching a task from many different angles, eventually I will latch on to something that works for me.

In my attempts to tackle Mandarin Chinese, I have been:

• Listening to Pimsleur audio lessons on my IPhone
• Listening to ChinesePod online audio lessons
• Systematically looking up and recording new words that I learn on the fly using my Pleco Chinese dictionary for IPhone
• Testing myself using various combinations of Chinese characters, pinyin, definitions, and audio using the Pleco electronic flashcard software for IPad
• Watching Chinese cartoons with English and Chinese character subtitles
• Spending as much time as possible hanging out with native Chinese speakers
• Studying both a beginners and intermediate textbook
• Taking five hours a day, five days a week of one-on-one language tutoring from a variety of language teachers

Not to mention moving halfway around the world, so that I could immerse myself among native Chinese speakers.

Sadly, I feel that my language skills are still about on par with that of an infant. Although I can speak in simple sentences and carry out some basic smalltalk, I am still pretty much lost when a native speaker starts speaking to me in normal speed. At this point, I am still unable to follow along with even children's cartoons.

It doesn't help that I look Chinese and that native speakers naturally approach me speaking a mile a minute.

Learning the characters is another matter entirely. Unlike the Roman alphabet, which has 26 characters, the Chinese use individual characters to represent ideas. Conservative estimates place the number of Chinese characters at over 50,000 (in fairness, most of these characters are not in regular use and you ONLY need to learn a few thousand of these words to reach adult level literacy). These characters are then combined with each other to form an untold number of words.

Despite the Sisyphean nature of my task, I remain cautiously optimistic.

I just picked up a copy of Remembering Simplified Hanzi by James Heisig and Timothy Richardson. Heisig is well known for his approach in studying both Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzi. He comes up with seemingly ridiculous, yet highly systematic and effective, mnemonic devices to associate characters with their meaning. Since starting the book, I have been picking up hanzi at a dramatically increased pace.

Hopefully, once I have the basics of the written language under my belt, I'll be better able to read and write on my own time. From there, I will be able to build a firmer grasp of sentence structure and grammar. It will also help me in picking up new words as well as consolidating my new vocabulary.

I'll likely be moving to a different locale next week and continuing my studies on my own time. My intermediate goal is to be able to watch children's cartoons by the end of summer.

The bottom line is this... there are 1.4 billion people that speak this language fluently. How difficult could it really be? :)

Rock Climbing in Yangshuo

My current city of Yangshuo, in addition to its natural splendor and laid back style of life, is also known as one of the rock climbing capitols of the world. Rock climbers from all over the world journey to Yangshuo for the opportunity to climb its scenic limestone karst formations.

Always looking to venture outside my comfort zone, I decided to give it a try last weekend.

The basic idea is to try to scale a vertical rock face using nothing but your toes and fingertips. Kind of like Spider-Man. You are protected by a cable strapped to your waist and run through a few tiny metal anchors attached to the rock face. It is actually quite safe, though it doesn't quite feel that way when you are hanging by your fingertips 40 meters from the ground.

I am told that many people become addicted to the sport of rock climbing from the very start and, after trying it for the first time, I can see why. There is a distinctive rush of adrenaline as your body instinctively tries to tell you "Get back on solid ground, stupid!". I've never been one to experiment with cocaine, but I imagine it's pretty much the same concept.

If nothing else, rock climbing is actually a great workout. In addition to using your forearms and calves to propel yourself up the rock face, you are also constantly tensing your core muscles for balance. I previously considered myself in decent shape, but the rock climbing dudes I went with looked like Men's Fitness cover models next to me. I will spare you the pictures of me with my shirt off.

On Learning Chinese...

I have been living in Yangshuo for six weeks now, taking intensive language classes and working toward one of my original goals of learning Chinese.

I am often asked the question "Why learn Chinese?"

After explaining to people that I am a half Japanese/half Korean fourth generation American that only speaks English, many people are puzzled that I would choose to move halfway around the world to learn Chinese.

Well first and foremost, I consider myself a pragmatist. If I am going to spend the time and energy to learn another language, it only seems logical to learn the most useful language possible.

And I think I can say unequivocally that the most useful language for me to learn right now is Mandarin Chinese.

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world and it’s not even close. Over 1 billion people speak it as their 1st or 2nd language. That's twice as many as English, which comes in second.

Beyond mainland China, Chinese is widely spoken in many locations that I would like to travel to or perhaps settle down in someday such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Just as importantly, the Chinese do business with people all over the world. I happen to be one of those people that believes that China will one day overtake the United States as the world’s economic superpower. Even conservative estimates project the Chinese economy to overtake the US in size within 20 years. Any way you slice it, the economic opportunities here are undeniable, and will only increase as China’s role in the global economy expands.

One of the primary inspirations for my travels are the writings of former hedge fund manager Jim Rogers. Rogers whimsically circumnavigated the globe on two separate occasions, once by motorcycle and once by Mercedes convertible, writing extensively about the cultures and economies of the countries he visited. He chronicled his adventures in his books Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker. His books were what originally sparked my interest in travel.

Drawing on his traveling experience, the most useful piece of advice he could think of to give young people today was to learn Mandarin Chinese. He deemed it so important that he moved to Singapore and hired a Chinese nanny to rear his infant daughter so that she would grow up learning Chinese.

For someone like me, with the broad goal in doing something interesting and important with my life, but with no specific plan or focus, I believe that learning Chinese is as worthy a goal as any.