The delightful technology enriched Mandarin Learning Journey of a super white banana.

Happy New Year 2025! In 2024, I visited China 5 times. Our April trip to Shanghai-Hangzhou-Suzhou had 2 main focus - see the peonies in bloom and see landscape that inspired landscape poetry 山水 in Yongjia,Wenzhou. This trip was delightful and memorable because for the first time ever Jason,me, Bryan and Joanne booked our own train tickets,Didi cars and hotel stays. During this trip, I realized although I knew only a little hangyipinyin HYPY, but what little I knew was significant! While both Jason and Joanne studied in Mandarin schools but they are not too familiar with HYPY. For once I knew something both of them didn't know! Try to imagine my silly but happy grin realizing that! So when we have to type in the locations for our Didi car-rides, I could input my HYPY from hearing the sound of the word. Of course,finally Jason or Joanne would select the relevant character to match the address we were going to. And we reached all our destinations! Haha! Definitely AI and technology played a large significant role in this new learning journey as compared to traditional rote memory method.The focus was NOT TO WRITE Chinese characters but to recognise Chinese characters and to TYPE them via AI keyboards

Discovering Yongjia 永嘉 in Wenzhou 温州 was a lovely delight. Yongjia is hard to google in English as it is fairly rural but is famous as the cradle of Chinese landscape poetry from as early as 300 AD. I loved climbing the mountains and waterfall hikes in Yongjia.We were afraid when we saw the hanging bridge high up in Yaxiaku but we made it above the bridge.

I organized a 7-day trip with 3 classmates - Oi Meng, Wai Ping, Mee Ping to Kunming and Guizhou in July. How so? Using only Mandarin in Wechat communications with my mainland China tour guide, Xiao Tarn who does not speak English. Of course AI features such as Google translate and Pleco app features helped greatly! We were really happy to be able to plan an itinerary tailor-made specifically for our interests, health issues and age. The price we paid was way cheaper than what was offered in Malaysian tour agencies. We took trains from Kunming to Guizhou and back on our own. We went to lovely places and climbed the legendary Fanjing Mountain in Tongren. Travellling on our own rather than in a large tour group opens up meaningful interactions with local Chinese. Doing all these self-planned travels was a delightful hands-on exercise of my Mandarin learning journey. The interactions made me realized many mainland Chinese want to learn English and foreign culture. I also see many foreigners extremely fluent in Mandarin,putting this banana to shame.There are several lao wai 老外 expatriate foreigners who speak and write fluent Mandarin. I often view Mandarin Blueprint which features 2 blue eyed guys Luke and Phil teaching Mandarin with a foreigner perspective "https://youtu.be/GOrss6K1mIs"

I also found Shaolan method of using radicals to know Mandarin extremely helpful. She is featured on Tedex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8pH1e5NQaU Shaolan likens learning Mandarin to climbing the great Wall of China - an insurmountable obstacle. But her radicals approach simplify matters and encourage me in my learning. And she makes me laugh on her Chineasy!

My Mandarin journey accelerated after I had a fall in Hemu Village,North Xinjiang. I visited 3 hospitals in Xinjiang and conversed with the doctors in my limited Mandarin. After surgery in Malaysia on 18th September 2024, I was housebound with plenty of time on hand as I was not allowed to drive not to cook and do chores. So I intensified my Mandarin learning journey. I watched Chinese drama movies. I preferred modern youthful/campus school based as the conversation was simple and easy enough for me to understand.One important element of selected movies is comedy - the speech/actions must make me laugh. I remember Reverend Mahesh Chavda mention that during his wife Bonnie's recovery from some illness - they watched hilarious movies and laughed and laughed.Laughter is a key component of healing. A movie is like animated book. Here I am, not competent enough to read a traditonal book ( apart from Emma's kindergarten level books) but an animated book with English subtitles -yes, I can follow that and laugh and learn at the same time! In particular, I enjoyed the curated witty scripted conversations in movies. I learn catchy songs from movie's OST. I would type the lyrics out in a powerpoint or word document. I coloured the words and put in the HYPY sounds and the English meaning.Soon my genre of youthful Chinese songs grew. Previously,I only knew Mandarn songs of my parents' era.I actually like the new generation Chinese songs. Many are bubbly and happy with beautiful music backing. These songs also helped me understand better the mindset of the younger generation. The songs introduced me to poetry and witty phrases - a very enjoyable and beautiful part of learning Mandarin.

Finally understand 黄 昏 huanghun dusk /twilight has the yellow light when I caught the yellow glow during my evening walk.

I usually watched selected movies on Iqiyi or Wetv on at least 1.5x the original speed with English captions but Mandarin speech. Watching on higher speed is a useful habit picked from my online courses. It has been my desire to one day be able to slowly read Mandarin subtitles and I am just thrilled that day is coming closer! Lately I transcribed conversations word for word, using a multi-window format -1 window for the movie while another window on Microsoft word allows me to type using my Chinese keyboard. I prefer transcribing on Youtube reels as both English and Chinese captions are clearly seen simultaneously. I then sent the translations to my Mandarin educated friends for correction. Cynthia Pong,Joanne,Kelly and many of my retired HM friends in particular; Mr Wong Kum Ming,Angie Beh and her hubby Mr Beh,Mr Nio Swee Keng etc have very sharp eyes. They effortlessly pick up my mistakes and kindly make me aware of it. Then I would type in the corrections. Having a systematic folder helps me organize and locate all my learning. I try to play the movie video section and hear the reading of my typed highlighted scripts so I can improve my spoken Mandarin.My audio learning is currently my weakest learning area. Facebook has detected I like to read Mandarin so often my facebook pops up with Mandarin jokes, pictorial vocabulary,various Mandarin teachers input etc. I think I can read about 50% of simple captions on movies and that is already such a joy to this hardcore banana! In 2025,I hope to read maybe 75% of the Mandarin captions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey because it opens a journey into understanding Chinese culture and my Chinese heritage. Learn Mandarin the modern way, using technology as much as you can.

Romancing my soul - God remembers what I have forgotten

The first time I saw the aquamarine azure blue seawaters of Pulau Redang was in August 1990 at my first TCF camp.I took leave from work to look after our then newborn son Ken Jon. That trip was to give myself a break before I offically returned to work. The beautiful blend of the various hues of blue in the seawater took my breath away! I was acutely aware that the mesmerising blend of seawaters colours could only be captured by watercolour painting or photography. I inwardly vowed that one day I would learn water colour painting so I could paint the seawaters. Fast forward to the year 2020. I attended Prof Rebecca 's course on "Walk Me Home Safely" where 1 unit - Romancing my Soul -caught my heart. And in romancing my soul, I had listed things I wanted to do for myself - painting,learning Mandarin,dancing ... etc. The Covid pandemic of 2020 gave me space and time to begin water colour painting. And I simply found the painting very theraputic and deeply healing. I painted many pictures then. Post pandemic travel and activities saw me too busy to paint until I had a fall and surgery on my wrist in September 2024. Post surgery,I was not allowed to cook, clean, cut,drive etc which left me housebound with a lot of time. So I took out my painting stuff and started painting. I also began teaching our 2 granddaughters watercolour painting.

Emma painted her 2nd beach scene. She painted the skies, sea waters, beach all by herself but told meclearly I had to paint the waves for her. I am very pleased she can accurately assess her painting abilities. She is aware she can paint horizontal strokes well but she is also aware she can't do the wave strokes. Emma is indeed an intuitive 7 going to be 8-years old little girl! As I painted the waves on Emma's beach scene, my heart remembered that first beach scene of Pulau Redang and my forgotten vow. But God remembers what I have forgotten and He fulfils my vow and desire. Well, it seems to taken almost forever. 2024 is 34 years away from that 'vow'in 1990 when Ken Jon was 11 months old. The combined Emma and Popo's painting is a reminder that God does not forget and He has fulfilled a long forgotten dream. My heart is happy and contented.

Credits of photo to Helen Suk

I also tried Chinese art painting. I was happy with my peony painting because it both was an physiotherapy exercise and assessments of my healing wrist's progress.The peony reminded me of our April 2024 trip to Shanghai Hangzou Suzhou primarily to see the peonies. We also went to Wenzhou to see the Chinese landscape 山水 art form. There is a long journey ahead of me in Chinese art painting which I shall couple together with my Mandarin learning journey.

I enjoy my 2nd painting journey- both the process and the products.Water colour painting is indeed theraputic and healing.

Have you romanced your soul lately?

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.