How do you describe the country ,"China"?

Tommi   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 07:24 GMT
maybe,you heard something related to china in NBC TV channel server months ago.or maybe you are working or studying in china now.or maybe you are tourist in china and maybe going back Zealand in good feeling.or maybe you are a politician who make plicies to antagonize china and so on.No matter who ever you are ,if you can get some things related to the country of China in your brain,please talk some about China and Chinese people.Thinks.
Damian   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 08:23 GMT
Hello Tommi:

China is a fascinating country with a fascinating history and a culture full of mystery for Westerners. I truly believe it is the country with a great future and I think it will become a leading world power judging by the way it is developing now. Its language may be a challenge to study, learn and master but without any meaningful knowledge of it I am not sure how easy or difficult it would be to learn it. It would be interesting if fellow Antimooners with a good working knowledge of the Chinese language and dialects came into this thread and discuss this topic.

As a Westerner I am totally baffled by the characters that make up written Chinese. Can Chinese have the equivalent of a Western language's extensive vocabulary, with all those seemingly strange characters being subtly changed to show a change of meaning? Maybe in the future Chinese will rival English as a leading world language. As China is such a large country it must have a wide range of regional dialects.

I see that China is all in one time zone which is amazing considering it's physical size. Sunrise and sunset times must be quite interesting in its western areas!

Tommi...what exactly do you mean about politicians antagonising China? Why would they wish to do that?
egg   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 09:21 GMT
I went to Honk Kong recently and I must say I was truly intrigued by such an amazing city. There is one major problem however, the heat. I cannot see how it can be possible to live in a place with practically no winter and 25+ temperatures everyday.
Adam   Wednesday, November 24, 2004, 13:35 GMT
Tommi,

I live in China, just across the water from Hong Kong. I would agree with Damian, that China has a huge potential to become a major world political and economic power. The middle class is constantly growing in China, and the rate of change is mind boggling. They certainly still have a long way to go in many respects, but they seem to be on the right track, for the most part.

Damian,

I am trying to learn Chinese right now, and I personally find it quite difficult. The difficulty for me is not so much the pronounciation, but the tones. They're is just nothing comparable in English. I am learning however. I would say, like any language, if you persevere at it, anyone can learn to speak it. Reading Chinese characters is another story, I am just concentrating on pinyin right now. I've been told that there are something like 29 000 characters, but I'm not sure what kind of range in moods and feelings can be conveyed with them compared to a western language. I would guess that it would be similar, though.

egg,

The weather here is definitely not what most Europeans and North Americans are used too. The heat and pollution can be unbearable, but you do get used to it eventually. The heat doesn't last all year either. There is somewhat of a winter here as well, temperatures can go down to 5 or 10 degrees sometimes. Some people would not want to live in a climate like the one I come from for the opposite reason you stated, so I guess it's just all a matter of perspective.
Tommi   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 03:22 GMT
hi,Damian
i guess 'Damian' is your chinese nick ,maybe not :)
i'm sure that what you said about china will come true one day.I'm living in China,a native chinese speaker,if you are learning chinese,maybe i can give you (and dear egg)some piece of advice about chinese-learning.Chinese will never be rival English as a leading world language because chinese will never be used as wide in the world as English be and chinese character can't be input into computer directly but English alphabetic word can.Nevertheless,chinese will be a mare an d more powerful world-used language in not far fulture. It's hard to say weather chinese is difficult or easy to learn.cos if you think it's hard to learn or speak,then you will tell yourself such as 'I must persevere it before i can speak like native chinese' or 'if i want light,i must conquer the darkness'.Ok,many facts can help you master the language.First,try to love china,love it's customs,it's history,it's people,if so you are totolly
intrigued to master chinese.second,try to make as many native friend as possible,especially local girlfriend or boyfriend here,:).third..fourth..
it's time for lunch now,i must off
remember,man,i'm willing to help you in my best.
Steve K   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 05:18 GMT
Tommi

My impressions of China are many, some good and some bad. For the bad read Huaye's post in the thread on pleasant sounding languages. In general China is a magnificent country with a great history and culture. The society today has many dark sides to it. That is true everywhere I guess.
Tommi   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 06:00 GMT
Adam,
welcome to china
it seems that you have been living in china for months.you are just necessary to imitate mandarin,cos mandarin could be used all around china except some minority districts,most of nativer can talk to you.
i don't commend you to learn dialects cos there are thousands of thousands dialects in china and you don't have enough energy to learn unless you have some purpose,eg a foreign friend of mine who could speak splendid ShangHai dialect in order to deal his business with Shanghai businessman and often makes Shanghai people agape and amazing.
Usually it's hard for westerners to write chinese characters.But it is the very difficulty which brings fun.Do you agree?Do not let difficulty frustrate you and do not feel dispoint.in fact ,even we most local chinese people can only write a few chinese characters,but this never be in our way to express our meanings with writing. Don't give up,try,try one more time.Just think about that one day you would have been the first chinese character calligrapher foreigner. Then you have a great reputation and billions of people all know you,of course you will be a
millionaire cos you are a wonderful advertising star :)
Tommi   Thursday, November 25, 2004, 06:10 GMT
Steve K
you are utterly correct.china today has a lot of bad sides to develop,especially democracy.I wish china will be better and better.
Boy   Saturday, November 27, 2004, 14:10 GMT
Tommi,
China is the only country I dearly love after mine. You are our neighbor. Chinese people are cool people though it is difficult to make a difference among who is Tommi, Monni and Fonni... all look to me the same :)
Steve K   Saturday, November 27, 2004, 16:10 GMT
Tommi

It is a little much to expect others to "love" your country. "Aiguo" (love country)is the Chinese for patriotism and one can only really be patrotic towards one's own country. On the other hand one can like another country and appreciate many qualities of the country, its culture and its people and that is motivating when studying another language.That is how I felt when studying Chinese, and Japanese, and French and Spanish etc. Without a feeling of interest and sympathy towards some aspect of the culture it is hard to learn a language.

I like and appreciate the natural dynamism and creativity of the Chinese. Despite the oppression of the Cultural Revolution, given a new opening all kinds of oustanding restaurants, new companies, new products, new artists etc. have sprouted in no time. China's culture has more of the creative flair of the Latins, rather than the thouroughness of the Germans or the Japanese, or the practical organizational sense of the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians.

The Chinese are very nationalistic in a sort of tribal way. "We the Chinese are the most intelligent people, with the oldest history, and we are one quarter of the world so we should be held in high respect in the world". But do the Chinese respect themselves or others? A high percentage of the elite who attend the most famous universities want to leave the country. Why? It is not because of the government or a the lack of freedom. It is because of the society, the corruption, favouritism, lack of respect, lack of honesty, lack of trust and lack of transparency that pervades the society. So do the Chinese really love their society?

Yet when they emigrate, the first thing most of them do is to recreate their society.
Boy   Saturday, November 27, 2004, 21:55 GMT
Tommi

Here are some folks on the forum are famous as "jack-of-all-trades". Their job is to pin point the weaknesses of other countries and they should better take of their country first. They also have so many internal problems to deal with. No country is perfect on this planet, period!
Joe   Sunday, November 28, 2004, 21:31 GMT
Boy, lighten up.

I can point out many problems the United States has. Likewise I can point out many problems other nations have. There's nothing wrong with that. As you even said, no country is perfect.

That definitely does not mean that you can't really love and appreciate a country. In fact, I would think if you took the time to think of a nation's problems and what it could do to improve, that would be an example of you caring for it even more.

There's no need to be sarcastic and nasty because Steve K. mentioned some of China's weak points. I bet you he could tell you plenty of problems about Canada. He as one person can't solve Canada's problems, just as I can't solve America's problems by myself and you can't solve Pakistan's by yourself. But when large groups recognize common problems, that's when you can change things.

There is always room for improvement, after all. And China clearly has much room for improvement, which Tommi even said, and Tommi lives there. If people felt there wasn't room for improvement in their country, then there would be a problem.
Reggie   Sunday, November 28, 2004, 22:01 GMT
A sleeping giant that is awakening.
Tommi   Monday, November 29, 2004, 02:35 GMT
and the giant will bring peace and prosperity to this planet more and more.
Ailian   Monday, November 29, 2004, 02:48 GMT
Actually, I find Steve K's post to be rather refresing and quite true, especially, "But do the Chinese respect themselves or others?" Sometimes I feel that there is no respect or consideration towards anyone but oneself in the PRC.