As expected, I received the highest level: Superior. I know I should reach that level since I am a native Mandarin speaker, although the language I speak with my parents is not exact Mandarin. In my opinion, language learning has no limits. Everyone’s native language needs to be improved continuously as well as one’s foreign language, especially for literacy building. Thus, I will write something about how to prepare for the Mandarin OPI test from the position of an advanced Mandarin learner.

First, I would like to share what the questions were and how the tester asked them during the telephone interview. There seem to be mainly three approaches. One is that the tester will ask about your background, as in a self-introduction and your hobbies, and then she will delve into deeper and more complicated questions based on the contents and the language proficiency of your answers. The typical questions will require your opinion on something or your explanation of the reasons, or differences and similarities between A and B. I think that as test-takers you can practice your speaking by expressing your opinions or explaining something clearly and logically whenever you are speaking on any topic in Mandarin. Another approach is that the tester will ask you to describe or introduce something, like a piece of current news that you are interested in or one special experience. I hesitated for several seconds to come up with a piece of news I am familiar with. I think that I could have predicted the question and prepared the topic before the interview. The third type of question is that the tester will set up a specific situation and ask you to act in a certain role to speak. My question was to present the importance of environmental protection to Chinese college students within one minute. I was not allowed even a second to prepare and organize my presentation. It was more about your thoughts on the topic than the language proficiency itself. I just chose the safe format of speech, statement – two points to support – conclusion, even though only one point came out when I started the speech. Preparing some speech outlines to talk about an issue in advance will be very helpful.

Needless to say, proper pronunciation and grammar and fluent speaking are the basic skills. Another thing is, I think it would be better to avoid difficult expressions, which are easy to use incorrectly. I considered using some idioms or old sayings to make me sound more educated but I didn’t find a good time to apply them in the interactive conversation. To sum up, for all levels of Mandarin learners or even other language learners, effective speaking practice could be to describe things clearly and completely, always try to express your opinions and explanations logically, and improve your literacy of your target language. Good luck to all.

See some photos from my Chinese blog:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_649dc12801010wv7.html

I felt a pity for him, because at this time more and more Americans are learning Chinese(Mandarin). I think there are lots of factors that explain this phenomenon, such as parents and society’s attitude on kids speaking Chinese. Kids might feel unhappy or unnecessary to learn Chinese. The guy’s parents only speak Cantonese at home, and he has some friends speaking Cantonese. But he is used to speaking to English even people speak Cantonese to him. He said he feels more comfortable when he speak English. I guess it should be a struggle for him to speak Cantonese. Without knowing the reasons, he wants to speak Cantonese better now. I recommended he to watch some Hongkong TV or movies and to listen to Cantonese songs first. I still believe that high motivation is the best teacher. How to learn comes the second.

At the same time, I found that raising a bilingual or trilingual child is not easy, although I am going to try it in the near future. If you are a successful bilingual, share your experience with me.

It is reported that most of people in NY felt scared today. I guess it was like what I felt the first earthquake in Japan in my life, as I had never encountered it in China before. Here I just say something I felt today, especially comparing to the 3/11 earthquake in Japan.

The thing I was most confused is there was not an exact level to show how big NYC was hit by the 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Virginia, like the scale in Tokyo was 5 when the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake happened. I heard that the scale level showing the impact by the earthquake is only created and used by Japan, which I found was quite helpful. First, you will know better what you have to do at next moment based on the scale level. Secondly, the officials of each building(or the transportation, etc.) can judge the safety of the building and announce or guide people take the right action.

It is said that most of the buildings in NYC do not have the earthquake-proof structure. So does it mean the buildings are dangerous even for the scale 1? Sometimes it would be more dangerous when people try to rush down or out.

Regarding the ways to tell people the scale level of their locations, besides local announcement,TV, radios and internet, Japanese can get a very quick earthquake alert via cell phone. It is sent automatically the moment the earthquake happened anywhere, which means the alert possibly arrives several seconds earlier before the earthquake hit your place and you could even prepare for the earthquake mentally or physically.

I was in a reading room of a public library in Tokyo on 3/11. When the earthquake shook Tokyo strongly again and again, people around me appeared very calm and just kept sitting. The announcement of the building came soon that told us the building was safe for the scale level and asked us to stay inside.

You will ask why Japanese can be so calm facing the huge earthquake. The answer might be quite simple: Japan islands were born with earthquake. In order to survive on the islands, Japanese attain the emergency drill from childhood. The whole society such as schools,the family,companies, NPOs,media, the government,etc. always makes great efforts to bring people’s attention to the earthquake and train them. Japanese people are used to living with it. They do not consider light earthquake as an emergency as some New Yorkers called 911 today.

Experts say the earthquake would hit New York only once a century. The probability is too low that New Yorkers never think there would actually be an earthquake, and it is hard to let the government use the limited budget to add the earthquake-proof for every building.

Anyway, quick and clear information and good training are essential to deal with the emergency like earthquake well for general people.The fact is, anywhere on the planet could have an earthquake or other natural disaster because of the way the planet is formed.

The abstract is bellow.

Since Chinese is written without any segmentation, i.e., white-spaces between words, novice learners of Chinese language often find difficulties in understanding sentence structure, or even in spotting words and phrases and looking them up in dictionaries. In this paper we propose a computer-aided Chinese reading comprehension support tool which makes the most of automatic language techniques, especially, segmentation of words and sentence structure analysis. The tool automatically shows large noun / verb chunks in sentences separately, and shows the internal word segmentation. The preliminary subjective tests show that the tool could fasten and enhance learners’ comprehension in Chinese.

The abstract is as bellow.

The current trend of the study of Daoism in ancient Japan can be divided into two aspects. One is to continue to indicate what elements of Daoism have been absorbed by ancient Japan. Researchers have consciously tried to provide more arguments on how these elements have entered and affected Japan, rather than related studies of last period. The other is to explain why Japanese envoys to Tang turned down the offer to send Daoist priests to Japan made by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang in 753. These two aspects seem self-contradictory as they show that Daoism was rejected by Japan officially but meanwhile, many elements of Daoism existed in ancient Japan. Shimode Sekiyo once figured out the kind of Daoism practiced in ancient Japan is Folk Daoism (Shimode, 1974:226). But in fact, his research could not interpret the elements of Daoism that could be found at the official level in ancient Japan. In this paper, I want to make the overall picture of Daoism in ancient Japan more clear. I focus on the understanding of Daoism by the Japanese Ritsuryō state 律令国家 and the founder of the Shingon Esoteric Buddhism真言密教, Kūkai空海(774-835), as the two subjects both have shown their understandings of Daoism as a religion. Japanese Ritsuryō state regarded Daoism as the religion representing Tang Dynasty and thought the content of Daoism was the methods of the Daoist master道士法. Kūkai considered Daoism as a technique toward immortality in his essay Sangō shiiki 三教指帰and chose Buddhism as his belief in the end. The common point of the two understandings of Daoism is there isn’t a core divinity concept of Dao but only the techniques of Daoism. Based on this, Daoism without Dao never really existed in Japan as its own separate, organized religion although it had an unmistakable influence on Japanese religion culture via its methods of various techniques.

昨天第一波强震东京时间下午14:46当时，我在东京的国会图书馆（相当于北京的国家图书馆）的二楼阅览室看书和敲字。阅览室坐满了人，以大叔居多。是左右方向摇，眼看越摇越厉害，大家都只是紧抓书桌边沿静观态势，没一个人喊也没人走动，有个大叔躲进桌子下面藏了会又出来。倒是我忍不住了，问旁边大叔，“就这么等没问题吧？”大叔一脸镇定：“对”。过了一两分钟，馆内广播也很镇定地播放说，“感知了地震，但本建筑安全，请不要往外跑”。听完我基本放心了，这里确实前不久才加建了抗震模块，而且这儿里里外外的石柱是我来日本看过最大最粗的，留在里面应该是很安全的了。不过网上一查，吓了一跳，震源附近是7级（后来修正为8.8级），东京也有5级多。之后，时强时弱的地震一波又一波接着袭来，天花板也发出咯吱咯吱响。本想着关了电脑收拾好行李做好一切防备，但周围的大叔们太淡定了，我也就开着电脑乖乖地坐着。幸好可以上网，twitter上的地震信息，来自气象厅、媒体的地震速报都可以马上看到。馆内广播也一直在报馆内安全，只是书架不稳定，呼吁工作人员不要靠近。这个图书馆读者是看不到书架的，也就是说书架都是藏在里面，确定要借什么书或杂志，在电脑上申请再由机器传送出来。所以也没看到一些网友发的书架上的书哗啦啦掉下来的情形。当时老公在离震源更远的一个城市参加学会，和他gmail聊天汇报完我没事之后，老公继续在学会发表他的高论，也没空一直跟进我的情况。我只好保持镇定的同时查询我还应该采取什么应急对策。此时手机不通了，只有公共电话似乎可以打出去。至于为什么不通，后来看电视防灾部长解释说，不是因为通信系统故障，是因为同一时段通话过于集中导致系统忙。怪不得网上有人呼吁不要随意打电话占线。手机不通，重灾区还停电停水，倒是网络服务器最强大生存下来。就算没有电脑，日本所有的手机都可以使用3G上网，于是人们用有限电量的手机发tweet和邮件与外界联系。可惜，很多高龄老人还不会用tweet。我也接不了电话，赶紧拜托新浪微博的朋友帮忙联系家人报了平安。

网上又有人说可能会停电停水，应该蓄好生活用水、饮用水和食物。紧张了一下，口也渴了，便去图书馆六层的商店买了一升柠檬水和一点饼干，发觉已经有不少人在购置了。据后来网友反映，一些拥挤区域的便利店很快被抢购一空，而且因为交通一时瘫痪，重新进货也需要时间，所以多买点水和食物存着没坏处。此时据说三得利、可口可乐的自动贩卖机都免费开放，一些电器商铺也免费让人充电、进去取暖。twitter在不停地转发各种如避难所地图、震后注意事项的有益信息，也有很多外国朋友表示问候和支援，大家都在努力互助，共度难关。

眼看到了傍晚六、七点的下班时间，图书馆也到了闭馆时间，东京的地铁没有恢复迹象，公共汽车较快复苏，出租车也继续跑，可是需要乘车的人远远超过可运行的交通工具数量。于是，越来越多人不得不步行回家。此时，大家深刻感受到了东京的轨道：地铁、路面电车等每天的承载量。我本来也打算一横心加入步行队伍的了，图书馆广播说因为考虑到交通工具尚未恢复，延长闭馆时间至晚上八点半，想想回去也一个人后怕就先赖着了。接着，老公学会开完，网上指示说看到电视播放东京的新宿、涩谷几个繁华地段人山人海，晚上步行回去危险，叫我当晚就近避难。想想我也不确定自己能否不迷路走回去，最重要是余震不断，一个人呆在家也不知能否正确判断该留屋里还是该往外跑，就打算在图书馆赖到底了。

八点半后，地铁还是没开通。图书馆来广播要所有馆内人员集合了。有组织依靠了，放心放心。结论就是，图书馆的新馆部分当晚提供给我们不能或不想回家的，同时也备有紧急灾难用的一定数量的毛毯和饼干等。这么大个图书馆，当然应该备有紧急物资，那个饼干，果真是紧急用的，索然无味。这时我比较大意的是，和大叔们盯着电视看了一会最新情况，便继续上网了。没想到这时应该去占个沙发好睡得舒服点，后来只好在铺着地毯的地板上睡。倒也踏实，不会担心掉下来。就这样在亮堂亮堂的图书馆阅览室里面睡了一晚，中途迷迷糊糊地还有摇，也没理会太多了。直到早上6点多被手机的“紧急地震速报”震醒，震源又跑到日本中间的长野去了，唉。后来有日本老师发信问候我是否平安，我跟他说在图书馆睡了一晚很安全。他的回复是，住在图书馆是他小时候的梦想，很羡慕我。。。

起来看看电视磨蹭了会，老公来私信说顺利坐上新干线，我也就收拾东西准备回家了。地铁已经没有到站和出站时间显示，开得也慢，不过总算回到家的车站，与坐新干线回来的老公顺利会合。坐在地铁上突然觉得东京平时那令人窒息的有序、谦让、安静的公共秩序在此时是多么的宝贵。也许在其他国家的人眼中，在如此大难面前能保持如此冷静和平和很难得，但对于日本人来说，或许只是其与生俱来的严谨、互助、习惯顾及他人的性格使然。

回到家里，只是一些很轻的碗筷、调味料、啫喱水、杂物之类的掉下来，也没那么混乱。重新启动自动关掉的煤气，洗了个热水澡，继续和老公来东京都立图书馆学习。东北灾区还很多人联系不上，海啸都不知吞没多少人了，又是停电停水的，祈祷。网上在不断呼吁我们能做的事，如避开用电高峰期用电、帮忙联系人、散布有益信息等。据说可能余震还要持续一周，我接下来还是天天来图书馆好了，呼呼。

この本は日本人向けだからそういった内容を書いたと思いますが、私からすると、すべて初級日本語の授業で出てきたもので、新しいことも驚くこともありません。タイトルどおり、一般の日本人ならともかく、国語教師や日本語を研究している日本人でも、いきなり外国人向けに日本語を上手に教えるのは難しいなと改めて思いました。外国人への教授経験がある専門家の日本人教師を除いては、むしろ日本語をゼロから学習し、たくさん試行錯誤し、最終的にマスターし、日本語を常に外からの目で眺め、考えている外国人の日本語熟達者のほうが、外国人にうまく日本語を教えられるのではないかという私の持論の確信を深めました。
（注：ここで言う日本語、日本人は一つの例に過ぎず、ほかの言語とそのネイティブに言い換えても同じことが言えるでしょう。また、ここで強調しているのは、単に文を直したりするのではなく、「上手に教える」レベルの話です。）

理由は下記のように考えています。

1、日本語の学習経験がない。
外国人はなぜこういう疑問があるか、こういうミスを犯しがちなのか、日本語の学習経験者より日本人ネイティブのほうが首を傾げることが多いと思われます。外国人が日本語を使う発想を理解するには、日本語の特徴と学習者それぞれの母語や文化背景を比較分析できる最低限の知識がなくてはなりません。例えば、韓国人が中国人よりテニヲハを正確に使えるのも同じく膠着語の韓国語を母語としているから、とかです。うん、少なくとも一つの外国語をゼロから身につけるまでの経験があれば、より学習者の気持ちがわかると思います。

2、日本語を外から見る目はなかなか持てない。
日本人は、通常、当たり前のように日本語を正しく使っているから、問題意識がほぼ生じないし、中のメカニズムもわからないようです。例えば、「わからない」と「洗わない」の「ない」のアクセントはどうして違うのか。「授業が終わる、授業を終わる、授業を終える」のそれぞれの違いは？と聞かれたら、「へー。そういえばそうだね。初めて知った」と反応をする日本人は多いでしょう。まあ、日本人の日本語再発見につながりますが、残念ながら、質問の答えになっていません。

3、日本文化に囚われた身でうまく伝えられない日本語事情がある。
この点は、『日本人の日本語知らず』を読んで、新たに思ったことです。本の130頁に、「先生はとても上手に教えました」、「先生もほしいですか。」という日本語では許されない外国人の間違った言い回しに対して、先生自身が当事者のケースが多いので、なかなかいいタイミングで注意することができないと書かれています。

「ちょっと。こういう言語の文法を超えた社会文化事情は、先生が教えないと、だれが教えるのでしょう」と一日本語学習経験者の不満が思わず湧いてきます。先生はやはり日本人ですね。日本人の先生が外国人の学生に教えられない日本語事情があるのですね。日本や日本語に詳しい外国人だったら、日本人の上下関係や、日本人ならこう言われたら気が障るよ、とごく自然に教えると思います。ここでお願いですが、もし「お仕事がうまくいっているね」と外国人の後輩に言われたら、かげで「なにこいつ！えらそうに！」と怒りたい気持ちを抑えて、丁寧に日本の文化を教えてあげたらいかがでしょうか。

ということで、私は完璧な日本語を使うようにするとともに、外国人に日本語を更に上手に教えられるように、努力し続けます。

鎌倉は禅宗文化の発祥地で、自然も歴史文化も満喫でき、心が洗われるすがすがしい風景を有する聖地。今回は回ったのが、北条時頼が創建した官寺の建長寺と北条氏の私寺である円覚寺。建長寺の山奥から覚園寺までのハイキングコースもブーツで制覇した。ただ、覚園寺の境内に入る案内ツアーは15時までというのを知らなかったので、逃してしまってやや残念。

曹洞宗の黙照禅に対して、臨済宗は公案禅を主張すると、あるツアーガイドが説明していた。境内に貼ってある坐禅会のお知らせをみて、参加しようと思ったが、紅葉観賞がメインな目的と「注意」されて、あきらめた。が、坐禅のことを思い出した。一時期、寺院めぐりみたいなツアーのコーディネーター役として、中国の大学生とともに、多くの禅宗寺院を訪ねて、そこで、有名な禅師に教わり、坐禅を日課のように体験していた。半跏趺坐しかできないが、坐禅の醍醐味を味わえてよかった。

「無眼耳鼻舌身意」というのはたとえば、日本でもお馴染みなはずの『般若心経』で唱えられている。苦や悩みはすべてこの「眼耳鼻舌身意」の六根から入ってくると昔々お釈迦様が教えてくださった。六根を清浄するのは苦から解放するための基本修行である。坐禅もその修行法の一つ。個人の理解で、坐禅の目標は、意（念）をとめようとする意を止めようとする意を止めようとする。。。究極的に「意」を無くすことだが、「意」で「意」を無くすのは論理的に無理だし、「意」で「眼耳鼻舌身」を無くそうとし、「息」に専念し、身・息・心の統一調和をはかろうとすることであろう。

この坐禅は、表面的に瞑想と混同されやすい。昔、ヨガを練習していたごろ、最後に必ず先生に美しい草原や山の自然世界へ導かれて瞑想するシメがある。何を想うことにせよ、想う念頭を発しようとする時点で、禅と正反対の方向にいっている。よって、坐禅もMeditationに訳せないし、そのままDhyānaか、禅Zen、禅定などかな。無論、静かに座るだけでも、苛立ちを和らげられるから、ポイントは自分の心を見つめようとするかのことだと思う。

坐禅については、目を開けるべきかどうかもよく議論される点の一つ。日本の坐禅ルールを詳しく調べていなくてなんともいえないが、自分の理解としては、目を八分閉じて、鼻の先を見つめ、更に心を見つめることは「明心見性」の真意ではないかと思う。今度仏像の目を注目してみたら。

建長寺の奥に半僧坊権現様を祭る神社もあることを今回初めて気づいた。さすがに神仏習合だな。半僧坊権現様も坐禅していたでしょうかね。

What motivated me to write this world-wide issue in English is many Japanese staff tried to speak English during the trip. It strongly showed Ishikawa want to communicate with the world. And Ms.Taniguchi, our group leader, always interpreted between Japanese and English so quickly, which surprised me a lot. I believe Japan will be known to the world more.

What is Satoyama and Satoumi
I think the key concept of biodiversity activity in Ishikawa Prefecture is Satoyama and Satoumi. Satoyama is a secondary natural environment formed as a result of human activities such as agriculture and forestry over many years. And Satoumi is a coastal environment where humans and nature co-exist.

How to start project like Satoyama and Satoumi

Here is the symbol of Satoyama”春蘭の里” we visited, named spring orchid, 春蘭Syunran in Japanese.

I asked Mr. Nakamoto, Chairman　of　the 春蘭の里 executive committee, that how they gathered people to build this project. He told me that make an attractive story or a special image of the area is important, like spring orchid and mushroom s in 春蘭の里. The thing I concerned is though there is also beautiful nature in　rural area of my hometown, rural people are willing to move to the town or big city where can make their lives richer. The result is more and more mountains and villages are abandoned. On the other hand, my country China has built over 300 National Natural Reserve for protecting nature and research mainly. I think they are well protected and you can see a wide variety of plant and animal samples in the museum but without humanbeing living there. I just wonder whether it is the best way to let human know how to coexist with nature or not. Anyway, I will show you around to Guangdong Chebaling National Natural Reserve nearest from my home if you visit my hometown.

How to balance between industrialization and environmental preservation is an important issue to the world, especially to developing country like China. There are a large number of rural people suffering a poor quality of life. And too many peasants rushing into the city has become a big problem. If there is a reasonable way to improve their lives while keep them living in the rural area, it will be helpful to human and nature both. I am always thinking agriculture civilization could have been more advanced and made the world more harmonious than industrial civilization doing.

To sum up, I learned that protecting nature doesn’t mean keep human activity away from nature. There is still a way to enrich nature by human intervention.

PS.
Traditional Culture I like

鬼楽太鼓

石川県にしかないキリコ