Learning Mandarin Journey and finding my roots

I write a story of a Chinese banana ( one who thinks as a white person although my skin is physically yellow) who is finding my roots through a Mandarin learning journey. My father named me 陈智华 meaning the wisdom of the Chinese. Sadly, for much of my life, I barely knew Mandarin so I had no such wisdom. From childhood, I struggled to learn Mandarin and the struggle proved too difficult so I gave up trying to learn Mandarin. I believe my story reflects the story of many banana Chinese.

Fast forward to 31st August - 10th September 2023: I went on China on the Silk Route journey 丝绸之路 with friends who were bilingual and extremely competent in both Mandarin and English. That journey with such gifted friends ignited my interest to re-learn Mandarin. What sparked my interest was for example the term 东南西北 dong nan xi bei refers to the 4 directions in Mandarin beginning from the East to South to West to North in a clockwise fashion which is very different from the western concept of north south east west.The Chinese concept of direction clockwise from the East is however typically Jewish and Biblical as in the Old Testament. During the days of Jews in the desert under Moses, they broke camp and set off beginning from the East in a cockwise direction.

My travel companions helped me understand for the first time ever, that the geographical areas in China were demarcated by the two great rivers – the Yellow river often referred to as He and the Yangtze Kiang often referred to as Kiang. So the province Hebei 河北means 'north of the river'; the Yellow River in the North China Plain. Our Silk Road journey started off from Urumqi in the north west, down to Dabancheng, Turpan and took us through the Hexi 河西 corridor west of the Yellow river, traveling through the towns of Dunhuang in western Gansu, Jiayuguan ( the western frontier of the Great Wall of China) , Zhangye in Ganzhou , Wuwei and Lanzhou in the South East.

Urumqi has pretty mountains views

Jiayuguan is named after Jiayu Pass, the largest and most intact pass and is the western frontier of the Great Wall of China.So my first encounter on the Great Wall of China was with this western frontier.

Henan 河南 refers to the area south of the Yellow River with cities like Luoyang and Kaifeng. I had visited Luoyang and Kaifeng years ago. Kaifeng 开封 literally means open and seal. Here a thriving Jewish community once lived. It is also where the famous judge with the crescent moon on his face 包公; Bāo Gōng; 'Lord Bao' resided and administered justice. Hedong, however refers to east of another river the Hai river and houses Tianjin.

While passing through Dabancheng 达坂城 , a a town with many wind turbines, Mr. Beh sang a melody which I recognized as a much loved Chinese song from my childhood days.However I sang the Cantonese version which meant “Elephants went to dance 大笨象会跳舞.” The play of words was that Elephants in Cantonese sounded like the town’s name DabanCheng. The cute song mentioned watermelons and indeed this area was famous for its large and sweet watermelons. We also passed by a town called Hami which meant honey dew melon, I suddenly realized watermelons were called west melon 西瓜 xi gua because it originated from the west ( outside China beyond the western borders) and pumpkin was called south melon 南瓜 nan gua.

We also visited Turpan (吐鲁番 the grape capital of the world. It has a very dry and hot weather which is wonderful to dry the grape clusters to become raisins. Turpan is also famous because of its Flaming Mountains 火焰山 which are barren,eroded red sandstones hills giving the mountains the appearance of being flaming. This town is a famous city in the Chinese story “ Journey to the West.” Turpan is the site of the story of the Monkey God who uses the magic fan and fans it 47 times and puts out the fire. The air temperature here was 48C while the rock temperature recorded was 54 C. It is interesting that multiples of the word for fire /flame huo 火 conveys meanings close to fire for example 2 fires炎 yán means inflamed while 3 fires焱 yàn means blazing flames

Post the Silk Route, I have started reading and typing Mandarin. I have enjoyed reading my grand daughter Emma's kindergarten readers and progressed beyond that to songs related to places i have visited such as Dabancheng and Xinjiang. I am beginning to journey towards the Mandarin roots of my namesake. This year in 2024, I have 6 trips to China. I have just returned home from my 3rd trip a few days ago. The subsequent blogposts will feature these trips. There is great joy in this amazing journey

Singapore at short notice on an affordable budget.

Fatt Fah teen ( FFT) is Cantonese for flowermania. When I saw beautiful pics of Tulipmania in Singapore posted by my dear friend Loo Kee, I decided I needed to make an impromptu trip to Singapore to see the tulips before the Tulipmania fest ended on 21st May 2023.So ... I soon found like-minded flower maniacs FFT friends Katherine and Elaine to go 2 days later. And Seok Li who was flying to S'pore joined us in Gardens by the Bay. Seok Li who was very familiar with Singapore gave us invaluable advice on immigration and how to move around by MRT.

We stayed in JB airbnb courtesy Sue Ann's arrangement and help.Sue Ann taught me how to book the Tebrau Shuttle from Johor Central. Its only RM5/- per trip. The train ride takes only 5 minutes from Johor Central to Woodlands in Singapore. Is taking the train shuttle better than then RM2/- bus? We had quick LLL ( life long learning) on cheap ways to travel to and around Singapore by MRT and buses. Do u know what is Tel, EW,NS and Circle lines? Do u know what is 903,911,912, or 913?

I had an EZ link card with SGD value 11.20 in it( given by Sue Ann) and I topped it by paying SGD 10. Elaine and Katherine paid SGD 29 for an unlimited 2 day trave pass and they both got back the SGD 10 deposit so they spent SGD 19/- each only + SGD 170x2.( SGD 22.40) I had SGD 8.00 left which meant I used SGD 13/- to travel the same distances. Yes, Singapore at short notice is surprisngly very doable on an affordable budget when you have the support of family and good friends. Tq! It was a delightful impromptu short holiday and we 4 have bonded much more via FFT.

What is the best way to go by MRT from Woodlands to Changi? The first day, we followed 2 Singaporean Malay ladies who used a roundabout route -the brown TEL until Caldecott and then change to orange Circle line to Paya Lebar and then change to green EWL to Changi. In hindsight, it looked somewhat roundabout and long but because we were following them, we didn't raise any questions. Google however suggested we should take the red NSL until City Hall and then change to the green EWL to Changi. What do you think is the best route?

From Changi, we took the bus to Pasir Ris and then the train to Raffles where we explored the night scene.

The 2nd day, we wanted to go Gardens by the Bay. We took the brown TEL straight to Gardens by the Bay and found out we were at the wrong exit. Many other tourists made this mistake. The guard was very familiar with our problem - he said we woud have to walk 45 mins in the hot sun if we did not back track the same line until Marina Bay. So that brown TEL should be taken until Marina Bay and then change to the orange Circle Line and get off at Bay Front which is on the correct side of Gardens by the Bay.

I am confident I have recovered well from the stroke. We walked more than 16k steps daily. The last day, I drove the gals home to Cyberjaya via Seremban for a yummy crab lunch. We followed up with a 16.51 km bike ride from Cyberjaya to Putrajaya and across the bridge back to Cyberjaya.

A tale of two weddings and happenings sandwiched in between at autumn at Melbourne 2023

234! What's that when we first heard it? It was the date of Amanda and Ben's wedding in Melbourne on 23rd April 2023. So Sue Ann,Jason,me and Andrew and Lydia Seoh flew off to Melbourne for the autumn vineyard wedding cum holiday. And holiday we did!

22nd April 2024 Saturday.Margaret and Eric took us chestnuts picking since they were in season. We drove to their lovely home and thoroughly enjoyed their fruitful garden. Then off to Emerald in Dandenong Ranges while admiring the train track of Puffy Billy and for a very yummy brunch at Emerald Village Bakery and Cafe and photos around Emerald.

Chestnut picking at Chestnut Springs, Gembrook was one fun activity! We walked downhill to the lake and the chestnuts grove. We have to step (with proper shoes please) on the spiky fruits that had dropped on the ground ( only the dropped fruits are ripe enough) and then select the bigger of the 3 nuts enclosed within. We picked and audited the size of nuts and paid for 5 kgs. We climbed trees. We walked back uphill with 3 buckets of nuts. We saw oak trees grown for truffles and also colourful toxic mushrooms.

After that we went to Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden for a lovely walk.

Back to Margaret and Eric house for a sumptious dinner. Margaret is one superwoman who has cooked main dishes in advance. We help Margaret prepare 2 salads but I messed up big time by pouring the salad sauce into the wrong salad. Ooooops...Sorry.

Sunday 23423. We went to Planet Shakers Church service. We were very impressed by the young energetic ushers. Pastor's message started with a bad mistake he had made and asked us to remember our mistakes. I remembered pouring the salad sauce in the wrong salad and knew God wanted me to know there I had His forgiveness for my silly mistakes. South Melbourne market was just a few minutes walk from the church. Sue Ann lined up for a super long queue at Agathé Pâtisserie. We had oysters and seafood at Claypot Evening Star. We went home early to prepare for the evening wedding

The weather was unbelievable beautiful and sunny at 22 oC at the outdoor wedding in Hubert Estate in the Yarra Valley.The sky was so blue and sunset was glorious . The indoor dinner was fun with games,free flow and yummy food. Thanks so much to Chris and Serena Lum for the hospitality and congratulations Ben and Amanda!

The next day, we drove to PT. Leo Estate in Mornington for a fine dining 8-course lunch at Laura. It took 3.5 hours after we hurried them. We enjoyed the sculptures and drove to Coltwolds to enjoy dinner at Nelson and Susan's home and caught up with old times. Nelson's hobbies and expertise is being the DIY car mechanic for the many cars in his family and around his house. We enjoyed their lovely garden, saw Nel's DIY and plucked lavender.

25th April Tuesday. We went downtown for Chinese dimsum at Flower Drum and shopping.It was fun to ride the tram to Flinders and walked to Queen Victoria's Garden.We returned home to a yummy home cooked dinner by Chris. The highlight was Chris' Assam curry Tailors freshly fished from Tathra a few days ago. Amanda and Ben's house at North Clyde was our 5* airbnb with 7* meals by Chris and Serena, 7* butler service by Fong and butler with superb bartender service by Ben.

Wednesday 26th April - we dropped Lydia and Andrew at the airport for their Adelaide leg while we continued to Macedon, the hub for Bendigo gold rush in the 1850's. Autumn was in her full glory here both at Honor Avenue and Forest Glade Gardens.There were Korean drama pic and video poses. We completed our day with shopping and dinner at Chaddy's.

27th April Thursday. We went to Redhill in Mornington for wine tasting followed by fish and chips and wonderful ice cream in Sorrento. We attempted to find the Millionaire's Walk at PortSea - we were so very near and although we did view the Artists' Trail but we did not know we had to push past the door with label "Pick up dog poo". We went to Mount Martha with lovely sandy beaches and did silly giggly jumps from the colurful beach boxes. We ended the day with more shopping dinner and packing.

The Yeongs flew home on 28th April. The Seohs continued on till 1st May 2023. Thank you Chris and Serena, Amanda and Ben for the hospitality. Eric and Margaret's daughter Arielle and Adrian had the Dandenong outdoors garden wedding ceremony planned for 7th May 2023. Meanwhile, temperatures in Melbourne dipped to below 4 oC. We who had returned home prayed hard for them to have sunny weather. God was indeed gracious. The temperature was 11 and the sun came out at 2 pm just before the wedding ceremony at 2.45 pm. Hallelujah!