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?