On Not Speaking Chinese

Download or read book On Not Speaking Chinese written by Ien Ang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-08 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new book, leading cultural thinker Ien Ang engages with urgent questions of identity in an age of globalisation and diaspora. The starting point for Ang's discussion is the experience of visiting Taiwan. Ang, a person of Chinese descent, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, found herself "faced with an almost insurmountable difficulty" - surrounded by people who expected her to speak to them in Chinese. She writes: "It was the beginning of an almost decade-long engagement with the predicaments of `Chineseness' in diaspora. In Taiwan I was different because I couldn't speak Chinese; in the West I was different because I looked Chinese". From this autobiographical beginning, Ang goes on to reflect upon tensions between `Asia' and `the West' at a national and global level, and to consider the disparate meanings of `Chineseness' in the contemporary world. She offers a critique of the increasingly aggressive construction of a global Chineseness, and challenges Western tendencies to equate `Chinese' with `Asian' identity. Ang then turns to `the West', exploring the paradox of Australia's identity as a `Western' country in the Asian region, and tracing Australia's uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours, from the White Australia policy to contemporary multicultural society. Finally, Ang draws together her discussion of `Asia' and `the West' to consider the social and intellectual space of the `in-between', arguing for a theorising not of `difference' but of `togetherness' in contemporary societies.

Download or read book 校园汉语 written by Stella Chen and published by UBS Publishers' Distributors. This book was released on 2003 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Xiaoyuan Hanyu responds to the practical needs of college students with a text that presents natural and idiomatic Chinese along with concise English instruction. Originally developed at the University of Washington, it has been used successfully at Middlebury College and other institutions for over a decade. This first published edition incorporates enhanced typography, streamlined organization, new exercises, a complete glossary, and includes an audio CD of the Chinese texts. The authors are native speakers of both Chinese and English. Sixteen lessons introduce vocabulary for discussing topics of concern to college students, such as finding a place to live, registering for classes, resolving cultural misunderstandings, and visiting a professor’s house. Sections centered around clusters of new vocabulary items guide the student through reading and writing exercises while simultaneously reviewing previously introduced words and patterns. Oral exercises provide opportunities to use and practice the new material. Grammar and usage explanations and exercises further prepare the student for reading the lesson’s main text (kewen), an extended passage that uses the new vocabulary and grammar. Each lesson ends with a series of homework assignments. Among Xiaoyuan Hanyu’s features are: - Ease in following any of the leading beginning-Chinese textbooks - Thorough preparation of the student for both spoken and written advanced Chinese in the classroom and in travel in China - Emphasis on listening and speaking in class, centered on natural dialogues that use actual spoken forms, not "textbook language" - Accompanying audio CD - Simplified characters and pinyin romanization, with equivalent traditional (complex) characters provided in vocabulary lists - Clear explanations of grammar and usage - Extensive exercises for practicing vocabulary, listening, reading, and writing - Lesson content focusing on practical topics that college students want and need to discuss - Organization of lessons in the sequence that teachers teachers of Chinese at the University of Washington.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Diasporas written by Melvin Ember and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 1263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immigration is a topic that is as important among anthropologists as it is the general public. Almost every culture has experienced adaptation and assimilation when immigrating to a new country and culture; usually leaving for what is perceived as a "better life". Not only does this diaspora change the country of adoption, but also the country of origin. Many large nations in the world have absorbed, and continue to absorb, large numbers of immigrants. The foreseeable future will see a continuation of large-scale immigration, as many countries experience civil war and secessionist pressures. Currently, there is no reference work that describes the impact upon the immigrants and the immigrant societies relevant to the world's cultures and provides an overview of important topics in the world's diasporas. The encyclopedia consists of two volumes covering three main sections: Diaspora Overviews covers over 20 ethnic groups that have experienced voluntary or forced immigration. These essays discuss the history behind the social, economic, and political reasons for leaving the original countries, and the cultures in the new places; Topics discusses the impact and assimilation that the immigrant cultures experience in their adopted cultures, including the arts they bring, the struggles they face, and some of the cities that are in the forefront of receiving immigrant cultures; Diaspora Communities include over 60 portraits of specific diaspora communities. Each portrait follows a standard outline to facilitate comparisons. The Encyclopedia of Diasporas can be used both to gain a general understanding of immigration and immigrants, and to find out about particular cultures, topics and communities. It will prove of great value to researchers and students, curriculum developers, teachers, and government officials. It brings together the disciplines of anthropology, social studies, political studies, international studies, and immigrant and immigration studies.

Download or read book Speaking of Chinese written by Raymond Chang and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This pleasant, unpretentious account [is] a small stream leading to the ocean of the culture of China."--Scientific American

Download or read book Hacking Chinese written by Olle Linge and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.

Download or read book Multilingualism in the Chinese Diaspora Worldwide written by Li Wei and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Li Wei brings together contributions from well-known and emerging scholars in socio- and anthropological linguistics working on different linguistic and communicative aspects of the Chinese diaspora. The project examines the Chinese diasporic experience from a global, comparative perspective, with a particular focus on transnational links, and local social and multilingual realities. Contributors address the emergence of new forms of Chinese in multilingual contexts, family language policy and practice, language socialization and identity development, multilingual creativity, linguistic attitudes and ideologies, and heritage language maintenance, loss, learning and re-learning. The studies are based on empirical observations and investigations in Chinese communities across the globe, including well-researched (from a sociolinguistic perspective) areas such as North America, Western Europe and Australia, as well as under-explored and under-represented areas such as Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and the Middle East; the volume also includes detailed ethnographic accounts representing regions with a high concentration of Chinese migration such as Southeast Asia. This volume not only will allow sociolinguists to investigate the link between linguistic phenomena in specific communities and wider socio-cultural processes, but also invites an open dialogue with researchers from other disciplines who are working on migration, diaspora and identity, and those studying other language-based diasporic communities such as the Russian diaspora, the Spanish diaspora, the Portuguese diaspora, and the Arabic diaspora.

Download or read book Director in Action written by Stephen Teo and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Director in Action examines the career of Johnnie To, whose art-house action hits include A Hero Never Dies, The Longest Nite, Running out of Time, The Mission, PTU, Breaking News, Election, and Election 2. The author discusses the symbiotic relationship between director and genre, why To is regarded as an auteur, and the influence he has on the trajectory of the action genre in the Hong Kong cinema. The author's view is that To's idiosyncratic auteurist style transforms the generic conventions under which he is compelled to work, and that there is a discernible element of experimentalism in his most outstanding films. In addition, To modulates the film noir form to suit his local contexts, characters and locations, to create a highly personalized noir cinema in post-1997 Hong Kong.