I'm not sure if I have the time to blog about my Shanghai, China trip this time but I have learnt a very good Chinese idiom that's very meaningful I wish to share with all my beloved family and friends that says "Zhi Zu Chang Le" (satisfied with what one has). Not only I have improved a lot of my 'Huan Gei Lao Shi'(return to teacher) Chinese learnings (I used to write Chinese essay and can read Chinese easily during my secondary school days) from this China trip, I also learned many good Chinese teachings that's legendary and powerful in life for the Chinese. No wonder they're so prosperous and successful nowadays that even the Japanese, Koreans and Americans wanted to be part of their alliance in business world, tourism, manufacturing etc. We still have a long way to go to be able to catch up with them the Chinese so buck up harder and stronger each day to be on the same par with them, or else Chinese RMB is gonna go higher and we would be left behind like the Rabbit vs. Tortoise story. Ganbatte! (My FB status)
Joan who's a contributor of one like for me on this status once blasted me with a pm on my Facebook asking me "Jacinta, you know Chinese? I didn't know you know Chinese" after she saw my Oct FB status stating "Before going to ZhangJiaJie is 'Xiang Si Ren' but after I'm back from there is 'Lei Si Ren'. Haha...I love to express my emotion and feelings by writing in Chinese, English or Malay that rhymes melodiously like this. In fact, the Chinese tour guide and Rambo would laugh out loud when I created my own Chinese poem that rhymes melodious just for the fun of it. Rambo loves when I speak Chinese Mandarin, but I don't wana speak Mandarin in Malaysia unless I was forced to communicate with those people who can't communicate in Cantonese or English. Joan was surprised because usually I speaks English and Cantonese with her, blogs in English so it's fair she doesn't know much about me until she clarified this matter with me.
I told her honestly, I was a lazy Dragon lady who knows Chinese but I've 'Huan Gei Lao Shi liao' (given back to teacher) so I always treat myself that I don't know Chinese because I have Rambo to translate it for me, my sister May to write Chinese pinyin for me and now, I have my 3 dear Charmers who can read and write Chinese for me too. Haha...I told them to teach me Chinese also. I was quite dependent on them in the past 20 years. Now when I sing Karaoke also, I tend to forget the song lyrics sometimes and I can only read the simple Chinese characters only. I got lost in track to sing it smoothly like before esp. now that my age is catching up, my memories need more warming up to be able to remember the song lyrics easily like before. When I concentrate and put back my full focus attention to 'can do spirit' of learning it again, I can remember the Chinese words all over again, although from the 10 words I may only read half 5 or more of it at this moment. It's all due to my laziness actually.
But no matter what the reason can be, the Chinese mandarin comprising many thousands of Chinese characters where you learn till you get old also, you won't be able to know it all. Sometimes a Chinese character that sounds the same but it's full of different meanings of it till you need to check on the dictionary what it really means. Rambo sometimes failed to 'ping yam' of the Chinese characters also asking me how to 'pinyin' it for him, because he didn't learn it from his school. I learned it from POL - People's Own Language, every Saturday from early am to pm class, few hours a week. From a merely passed student getting 42% from my 1st exam to a sudden shot of 86% - A student, that kinda pushed my teacher asking me, "You have improved so much, how did you do it?" I told my teacher I had a good teacher at home, my Uncle Chew who's the best of the best teacher in the world for me.
I always asked for his guidance to teach me how to write a good essay, he's very patient with me although I was lazy girl. He's one of the most intelligent person I have ever met, a graduate from Catholic High School who's conversant in both the English and Chinese commands. When my sister May managed to secure a place at Catholic High School, I told her to appreciate the opportunity to be able to study in this good, reputable school, study smart just like my uncle when I fetch her back from school. I gave full credits to my uncle because he taught me very well from the basic to the advance level. The only 'Wai Ham'(regrets) is I'm a lazy lady only. Haha...so I blame myself for having to forget most of the great teachings that I've learned and cultivated over the years, esp. with all the hardwork waking up so early in the morning and taking the public bus which was a burden for me with my uncle to accompany me to wait for the bus just to make sure I was safe from the dark.
In my diary of life, I was very fortunate to have a good uncle like him to love me like his own daughter. Not only he's a very loving man, he always uplifted me with good and positive encouragement in life besides telling everyone how good I was when he's meeting those aunties at the market. He loves me so much like a father to me, he clapped so pridefully for me seeing me receiving my No.1 award trophy from DAB School before I left to a new school in Seri Petaling. I never mean to study hard all my life, I only loves to read and so long I have completed my homework, I believe I have completed my duties already. I was lucky to strike it 1st place, the highest marks among the 3 classes of 4B, 4M and 4P in DAB 2 because I finished reading the whole Alam Dan Manusia textbook during my school holiday and score 99%. My science teacher said I lost that 1 point due to missing out one word from the complete answer. I was young back then so I just accept her explanation on it, and I didn't mind losing that 1 point at all.
To me, I never dream to be a top student in scoring As all the time. All I know is to enjoy my life with my beloved family+friends only all the time. Haha...staying happy and glory attending church with my friends for sunday school where all of us will attend the bible study, then we shared it out with the others group by group, performing for the church in dancing and even winning singing competition there. It's only when the church started to ask my mom permission for my baptism ceremony to take its place, my mom stopped me going to the church totally after that. In school also, my classmate P.Ling encouraged me to join the Buddhist Club with her and Jamie, my Rumah Hijau friend kept inviting me to join her Christian Fellowship Club. In the end when the time has come, I went and joined the Buddhist Club at last. I started to read many Buddhist Books and Sutra on my own, practise and learning it from other experts as well.
Life is so ironic you know. I have many Christian friends, many of them are very close to me where not only they treated me as their family members because we can clicked in so many ways but we remained as good friends till today. They may have family members, bro or sisters alive in their lives, but when they're facing with financial problem they looked for me and I was there for them most of the time like this. And when they broke down in mental depression, sickness and failure in career, marriage or love, I used Buddhism values to help them at very down times like this. Not only they can accept it with an open heart, they're willing to learn and listen to it because it makes sense to them. Sometimes, they confided to me that their prayers to God seemed to fail after so many nights praying, still didn't work out but I always advised them that prayers need time to work its magic. And they need to be purely sincere and honest with God to whatever they're wishing for, not just praying for it blindly only.
Back to the Chinese learnings when Joan knows that I actually love and admired Chinese culture very much besides doing my best to learn it back slowly, she also encouraged me to continue my love for everything about Chinese things. Haha...Jamie, my bestie Dragon also very surprised a western modern lady like me can be so 'Ngoi Mou' admiring China so much that I would plan my best to travel to China almost every year. Sam always communicate in English with me, during a conversation Jamie who speaks Hokkien and Chinese only asked me, "Terrible and horrible are not the same?" "Actually, both meanings are meant to describe bad situation meanings but horrible means 'Kung Bu' like in the ghost movie. In China, we have loads of fun moments all the time because the Chinese speaks Mandarin and the Malaysians prefer the Chinese to speak Cantonese with us when some of them got lost in translation because they couldn't speak Mandarin at all.
The Chinese in China mentioned that we the Malaysians love to speak rojak language with occasionally adding the Hokkien lah, Malay, Hakka etc. in our communication at the same time, that kinda pinching them into feeling full of question marks+doubts. They listened until '8 Jek Yi' (8 ears which means don't understand), totally lost they said. Haha...And they also quoted to us a few jokes about the Chinese in China are very afraid when the Chinese in HongKong who usually speaks Cantonese starts to speak mandarin because the way they translated it directly have totally gone out of their meanings that made them wana scream out loud looking for real answer/meaning of it. We really had a good laugh about it inside the coach all along the journey of our China trip. We're all Chinese who came from many different parts of the world, but we may not understand each other very well or able to share our thoughts with each other smoothly due to language barrier like this. That's why we need to learn from the experts, never shy to ask and teaching each other in a fun way while learning the Chinese together in our lives. That's life!
I told her honestly, I was a lazy Dragon lady who knows Chinese but I've 'Huan Gei Lao Shi liao' (given back to teacher) so I always treat myself that I don't know Chinese because I have Rambo to translate it for me, my sister May to write Chinese pinyin for me and now, I have my 3 dear Charmers who can read and write Chinese for me too. Haha...I told them to teach me Chinese also. I was quite dependent on them in the past 20 years. Now when I sing Karaoke also, I tend to forget the song lyrics sometimes and I can only read the simple Chinese characters only. I got lost in track to sing it smoothly like before esp. now that my age is catching up, my memories need more warming up to be able to remember the song lyrics easily like before. When I concentrate and put back my full focus attention to 'can do spirit' of learning it again, I can remember the Chinese words all over again, although from the 10 words I may only read half 5 or more of it at this moment. It's all due to my laziness actually.
But no matter what the reason can be, the Chinese mandarin comprising many thousands of Chinese characters where you learn till you get old also, you won't be able to know it all. Sometimes a Chinese character that sounds the same but it's full of different meanings of it till you need to check on the dictionary what it really means. Rambo sometimes failed to 'ping yam' of the Chinese characters also asking me how to 'pinyin' it for him, because he didn't learn it from his school. I learned it from POL - People's Own Language, every Saturday from early am to pm class, few hours a week. From a merely passed student getting 42% from my 1st exam to a sudden shot of 86% - A student, that kinda pushed my teacher asking me, "You have improved so much, how did you do it?" I told my teacher I had a good teacher at home, my Uncle Chew who's the best of the best teacher in the world for me.
I always asked for his guidance to teach me how to write a good essay, he's very patient with me although I was lazy girl. He's one of the most intelligent person I have ever met, a graduate from Catholic High School who's conversant in both the English and Chinese commands. When my sister May managed to secure a place at Catholic High School, I told her to appreciate the opportunity to be able to study in this good, reputable school, study smart just like my uncle when I fetch her back from school. I gave full credits to my uncle because he taught me very well from the basic to the advance level. The only 'Wai Ham'(regrets) is I'm a lazy lady only. Haha...so I blame myself for having to forget most of the great teachings that I've learned and cultivated over the years, esp. with all the hardwork waking up so early in the morning and taking the public bus which was a burden for me with my uncle to accompany me to wait for the bus just to make sure I was safe from the dark.
In my diary of life, I was very fortunate to have a good uncle like him to love me like his own daughter. Not only he's a very loving man, he always uplifted me with good and positive encouragement in life besides telling everyone how good I was when he's meeting those aunties at the market. He loves me so much like a father to me, he clapped so pridefully for me seeing me receiving my No.1 award trophy from DAB School before I left to a new school in Seri Petaling. I never mean to study hard all my life, I only loves to read and so long I have completed my homework, I believe I have completed my duties already. I was lucky to strike it 1st place, the highest marks among the 3 classes of 4B, 4M and 4P in DAB 2 because I finished reading the whole Alam Dan Manusia textbook during my school holiday and score 99%. My science teacher said I lost that 1 point due to missing out one word from the complete answer. I was young back then so I just accept her explanation on it, and I didn't mind losing that 1 point at all.
Life is so ironic you know. I have many Christian friends, many of them are very close to me where not only they treated me as their family members because we can clicked in so many ways but we remained as good friends till today. They may have family members, bro or sisters alive in their lives, but when they're facing with financial problem they looked for me and I was there for them most of the time like this. And when they broke down in mental depression, sickness and failure in career, marriage or love, I used Buddhism values to help them at very down times like this. Not only they can accept it with an open heart, they're willing to learn and listen to it because it makes sense to them. Sometimes, they confided to me that their prayers to God seemed to fail after so many nights praying, still didn't work out but I always advised them that prayers need time to work its magic. And they need to be purely sincere and honest with God to whatever they're wishing for, not just praying for it blindly only.
Back to the Chinese learnings when Joan knows that I actually love and admired Chinese culture very much besides doing my best to learn it back slowly, she also encouraged me to continue my love for everything about Chinese things. Haha...Jamie, my bestie Dragon also very surprised a western modern lady like me can be so 'Ngoi Mou' admiring China so much that I would plan my best to travel to China almost every year. Sam always communicate in English with me, during a conversation Jamie who speaks Hokkien and Chinese only asked me, "Terrible and horrible are not the same?" "Actually, both meanings are meant to describe bad situation meanings but horrible means 'Kung Bu' like in the ghost movie. In China, we have loads of fun moments all the time because the Chinese speaks Mandarin and the Malaysians prefer the Chinese to speak Cantonese with us when some of them got lost in translation because they couldn't speak Mandarin at all.
The Chinese in China mentioned that we the Malaysians love to speak rojak language with occasionally adding the Hokkien lah, Malay, Hakka etc. in our communication at the same time, that kinda pinching them into feeling full of question marks+doubts. They listened until '8 Jek Yi' (8 ears which means don't understand), totally lost they said. Haha...And they also quoted to us a few jokes about the Chinese in China are very afraid when the Chinese in HongKong who usually speaks Cantonese starts to speak mandarin because the way they translated it directly have totally gone out of their meanings that made them wana scream out loud looking for real answer/meaning of it. We really had a good laugh about it inside the coach all along the journey of our China trip. We're all Chinese who came from many different parts of the world, but we may not understand each other very well or able to share our thoughts with each other smoothly due to language barrier like this. That's why we need to learn from the experts, never shy to ask and teaching each other in a fun way while learning the Chinese together in our lives. That's life!
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