Learning Lens

Dear blog space, I'll admit it now. School is pretty awesome. I truly enjoy learning in my classes. I find myself not asking the question, "when will I ever use this in life?" Who cares? Learning for the sake of learning is almost as awesome as learning for a purpose. So my beautiful thing that I would like to share today is the beauty of the Mandarin Chinese. To explain this random topic I would like to note that I am currently enrolled in a Chinese 101 class here at my excellent university and have the class every day of the week (so it's kind of on my mind a lot).

I don't know how exactly to describe it except there is something magical about creating a neat character on a page. Some weird aesthetic experience occurs as you trace again and again the lines in exact stroke order to form a character. If I allow myself study time, I can become insanely focused on the task of practicing characters; so focused in fact that I get hand cramps but still continue writing because I simply MUST master the character before me. Look at these, for instance, and try to tell me that is not art:

我 , 愛 , 說 (I, love, and say respectively) I find the calligraphy to be especially wonderful. It is so graceful and flowing, so stylistic.

Another aspect of Mandarin that I find can be beautiful is the oral part of the language. No, I do not believe that every accent of Chinese is the most harmonious, but neither is every accent of English (like really, compare British English to American English. One obviously sounds better and it isn't American English). So as I was saying, the spoken language can be very awe-inspiring to listen to. I'll be the first to admit I can't imitate it very well, but when a fluent speaker starts pouring out the tones, and rhythm, and pronunciation of each word, it is musical. Now before you start saying "ok Meredith, when was the last time you honestly listened to a consistent flow of Chinese for a length of time?" I should add that I spent a month in Taiwan last summer and attended church meetings there. So I was able to listen to entire blocks of church in this lovely language, plus whatever I could sneak listening to as I was out and about. Thus, I can honestly say it is musical to me.

Not only is the language beautiful but some of their music is pretty fun to listen to/sing as well. I highly recommend you look up some Chinese music some time and have your mind blown.

I won't ramble any longer, but I hope I've piqued your interest in Mandarin Chinese. 再見!

-M