Tyler Sings in Chinese

Tyler has learned her first Chinese nursery rhyme!

It took me awhile to figure out the lyrics, because Chinese is difficult enough for me without having to also understand through the mispronunciations of a toddler and the heavy accent of her teacher, our Ayi (helper). I finally had to enlist the help of our friend Crystal, who is fluent in both Chinese and English. But it's a cute little song, sung to the tune of Frere Jacques.

First, the English translation, since that's probably the only version that means anything to the blog readers.

TWO TIGERS

Two tigers, two tigers

Running fast, running fast

One has no eyes, one has no ears

Very strange, very strange.

Next, the Chinese version. I've written the tone-less pinyin (our alphabet) under the hanzi (characters).

两只老虎

LIANG ZHI LAOHU

两只老虎，两只老虎

Liang zhi laohu, liang zhi laohu

跑得快，跑得快

Pao de kuai, pao de kuai

一只没有眼睛， 一只没有耳朵

Yi zhi meiyou yanjing, yi zhi meiyou erduo

真奇怪，真奇怪

Zhen qiguai, zhen qiguai.

And now, Tyler’s music video debut – enjoy!

May Mei

Today we welcomed our newest member of the family, baby Avery Mei. It seems fitting that she should be born on International Labor Day, since Val was doing plenty of laboring. The other holiday – May Day – is fitting too, since that’s how her middle name is pronounced.

But the name really has more to do with her birthplace (Shanghai, China) than her birthday.

In Chinese, the word we would write as mei has many different meanings, depending on what tone you say it with or what character you write. 

We had several in mind when naming Avery, including:

妹妹 (mèimei) means “little sister”, which is what Tyler was calling her from the time she was still in my belly.

美 (měi) is the basic single character for “beautiful”, and is often used in combination with other characters to become another positive adjective (like “wonderful”, “splendid”, “glorious”, etc).

It also just so happens that it’s the character for the United States, as in

美国 (měiguó) where guo means “country”, and if you add the character for “person” to the end, you get

美国人 (měiguórén) or “American”.

So all of those are pretty fitting I’d say. She’s a little sister, certainly beautiful and wonderful, and also American.

But if I was going to pick one hanzi (Chinese character) for Avery’s name, I’d probably pick this one:

梅 (méi)  which literally translates as “plum (blossom)”, but is a common second character in Chinese girls’ names. For example, Pat’s friend’s name is DongMei (“winter plum”), and our obstetrician who helped bring Avery into this world is HongMei (“red plum”).

Plus, I like that it’s just a radical (first part of character) away from the character

海 (hăi), as in 上海 or SHANGHAI!

So there you have it. Short name, long meaning. And hopefully a unique story she can carry with her for the rest of her life about her rather eventful start to life in this crazy place we currently call home.

The China Cough

The air quality here has been so poor recently that it’s headline news around the world.  Beijing’s pollution over the weekend was literally off the scales.  Shanghai has been suffering from some nasty air too; I woke up on Saturday morning barely able to see the skyscrapers just a few blocks away from us through the hazy smog.  When we went out, even inside a grocery store deep within a mall, I could feel my nose burning.  Needless to say, our apartment’s air filters have been cranked to full capacity 24 hours a day for the past week.  I shudder to think about our electric bill, but it seems like the least serious of the potential consequences.

This morning I awoke to a very dry nose and scratchy throat.  A friend on the phone asked if I had a cold, because I sounded congested and gravelly.  My Chinese tutor also apparently noticed my symptoms during our lesson.  At the end, he told me he was going to teach me a buzzword.  He wrote out:

中国咳

Pronounced “zhongguo ke”, these characters translate as “China cough”.  The phrase started as the “Beijing cough”, and was used almost exclusively regarding foreigners who developed sore throats while living there.  But now, as pollution is rampant throughout the country and even born-and-raised urban Chinese are developing uncomfortable symptoms, the phrase has become ubiquitous.  

Today I won't get into the politics of censorship, and how the government has always tightly controlled air quality monitoring.  How they issued stern warnings to the United States, whose local consulates began their own testing and publishing of air quality metrics last year.  How I've noticed some recent signs of admittance of a problem, including the local government issuing notices to schools to halt outdoor exercises during heavy pollution periods.  How I'm hopeful that we will witness a shift in policy during our time as residents of China.  How I believe the conversion from coverup to cleanup is inevitable, if not imminent.

No, for today, I'll just enjoy another afternoon indoors…

Character Study: Cry

So far my (very amateur and sparse) study of Mandarin has focused on functional words and phrases, just the simple pronunciations for me to navigate taxis, markets, and instructions for our ayi (literally “auntie”, the woman who helps me with cooking and cleaning).  I’ve been intrigued by the written characters, but have found them to be less pictographic than I originally imagined, and thus have a hard time learning any.

Well, I recently found a character that conveys its meaning perfectly.  I present you with the Chinese character for “to cry” (in Mandarin, pronounced kū).  It might be my new favorite!

simple font

calligraphy version