The "社會" section

Tweet I've got three days left here in Taiwan before I head back to the states, and I'm up to my ears in 報告s and the general laundry list of crap one needs to do before they leave somewhere for months on end.

Rather than regale you all with the various ways I've thought about pulling my hair out, or smashing my head on the desk as I try and analyze Case Grammar structures, I'll just say that I've discovered a new love at my breakfast shop... the "society" section of the 自由日報 (Freedom Daily). Everyone talks about needing to understand 3000 characters or so to read a news paper, but what is the fascination with reading newspapers anyway? I would much rather know how to tell my friend that their fashion sense in that one photo from 4 years ago, which I only found cause I was Facebook stalking them, makes them look kinda like a serial killer. Seriously, that (to me) would be much more useful, and, let's face it, way more fun to teach.

That being said, the 社會 section of this newspaper is sort of a blend of both. You get the "street cred" of reading a newspaper (this is why we try in the first place right?) plus a Facebook feel. It's full of pictures, it covers a broad variety of topics, polarizing opinions, and most of all, language that I can use right away! Here are two articles I found particularly funny yesterday. I can't really remember what useful stuff I learned in the process, and I didn't look up things I didn't understand, but after reading them I had a smile on my face. I'm sure I'll be back for more, which more than I can say of the collected works of Laozi or some textbook about Cross Straight Relations... seriously who writes that crap?

Without further ado, enjoy! I'd tell you the parts that I thought were interesting, but they you might not read the articles yourselves.

辣媽, what is that like the Chinese version of MILF?

Three parts to this discussion about yelling at kids.

Why the heck are there Simplified characters in Taiwan?

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Taipei Main Station uses the Simplified (台) instead of (臺)

Pick Simplified or Traditional....that's the choice many of us face when we start studying Chinese. When I first began the language journey in 2006 those were my options, and they were clear cut. I was suppose to pick a text book and focus all my efforts on one or the other. But as someone who had their heart set on studying abroad during college, this also meant that I was making an even bigger choice: Mainland China or Taiwan, I decided to say screw the system, and choose both... but more on that another day.

This is the way that many of us look at the world of Chinese characters, especially as a student of Mandarin Chinese. Teachers don't generally talk about Hong Kong, or talk about what might be useful if you're living near a strong overseas Chinese community. The options we have, from the very beginning, feel political.

Anyone who pretends the argument isn't about politics is fooling themselves. Putting that aside however, language learners still tend to focus on studying one form or the other until the inevitable day arrives when you stumble upon a website, a Facebook message, a Tweet, or even a book that uses the other character system.

For those readers who have spent time in Mainland China, you'll know that you are bound to run into Traditional Chinese characters from time to time. Places like restaurants, temples and museums are notorious for having the Traditional versions of some characters, and while guessing the meaning (of a character you might already know in the Simplified form) can be somewhat of a challenge, you eventually get used to it. However, things are little different here in Taiwan, because everything is already in Traditional characters, or at least we like to think so. But then you start to notice some little inconsistencies on the streets, Simplified characters are here too if you look hard enough. The first time I noticed it was at Taipei Main Train Station, where the Simplified "台"(Tái) took the place of the Traditional "臺" in the Chinese for 台北(Táiběi).

As time went on I began to notice a few other similar instances of Simplified characters being used. Two of the most prominent examples are found on Taiwan Mobile's street signs, and on the cans and bottles of Taiwan Beer, where the Simplified "湾"(wān) is used instead of the Traditional "灣" (pictured below).

 

Showed using the Simplified （湾）instead of the Traditional （灣).

 Initially, a lot of people didn't really take notice of the change, but once they did, questions were raised about the meaning behind the switch. In one Yahoo News Article a Taiwanese citizen said: 「改繁體字會比較好，又不是大陸，我們是台灣人。」(Translation: Changing it (back) to the Traditional characters would be better. We're not Mainland China, we are Taiwanese). In the same article, a representative from the Taiwan Alcohol and Tobacco Company responded to the question of character simplification by stating:

「我們不視為它是簡體字，就像很多商標同樣一個字，它會畫龍點睛會彎繞，它的位置就是讓它跟一般的字有區別，讓它視覺效果好一點。」

"(rough translation)We don't consider it to be a Simplified character, its more like those other company trademarks (logos). It is meant to bring the bottle to life, it curls and winds. Its design is to make the character stand out from the others, and give it a more visual sense."

While the answer sounds like the perfect marketing response when put under pressure, I would like to posit that there is nothing wrong with using these Simplified characters in the first place, because they aren't political, they're just simplified. The character 湾 much like 台 has actually been in use since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and are part of a Simplified character group known as the 宋元以來俗字, a group of nonstandard characters, or a demotic writing system used by the common people of the time. A book entitled 《宋元以來俗字譜》，or "A Glossary of Popular Chinese Characters Since Song and Yuan Dynasties" actual researched and outlined 6,240 of these kinds of characters and published the results in 1930 (more info can be found here).

These characters are actually referred to as 簡化字 (jiǎnhuàzì) in Chinese, but are often translated into English just as Simplified characters, where as perhaps something like abbreviated characters might better capture the meaning. Some other such characters that are in common usage today in Mainland China include (but are not limited to):

实、宝、礼、声、 会、怜、怀、搀、罗、听、万、庄、梦、阳、虽、医、 凤、义、乱、皱、台、办、战、归、党、辞、断

While over 330 of these abbreviated characters have been worked into the system we know call "Simplified Chinese," which is used by the UN and the People's Republic of China, it is clear that their origin goes well beyond this past half-century. Furthermore, many people, even here in Taiwan, use many of these abbreviated characters when taking pen to paper. In that way then, what better choice is there than to use the "common mans" character on something as common and everyday as beer or a cellphone?

So, next time you come across a Simplified character here in Taiwan, I hope your first thought is historical, rather than political, cause many of these Characters have been around a lot longer than people who have been arguing about whether they should be studying Simplified or Traditional.

The massive input strategy

Tweet For many students (myself included), the study of Chinese is largely facilitated through textbooks, podcasts, and other learning materials. We work on one lesson until we grasp the material and then move onto the next.This is how I have spent nearly 5 years studying Chinese and I've learned a lot about the language in the process. However, when I was sitting in my Computer Assisted Chinese Language Learning class a few weeks ago, my teacher brought up a different strategy, which I'll call massive input.

What is the massive input strategy?

 

Massive input/output is essential opening the floodgates of a language and letting the information wash over you. It is not studying in the traditional sense-- no flashcards, textbooks or fancy iPhone Apps necessary. Massive input is about increasing exposure to a language during your daily routine and giving you a better feel for that language. It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything that you are hearing, the point is that your brain is still  subconsciously processing some of the information.

This means trying to expose yourself to more of the language in its natural form. Music is, I think, the most obvious way to use this strategy, but we should really be using the same tactics with other materials as well: books, poems, movies, TV shows, radio broadcasts and blogs are all great ways increase your exposure to the language. By understanding that you are not going to understand everything from the beginning, it makes it easier to just let the language flood over you. Don't understand a word, a sentence, a paragraph... who cares cause you're not going to look it up anyway (at least not yet). 

The reward doesn't come from "learning" new things, rather, massive input is about linking together everything  you already know to estimate, guess, and predict the meaning of what you are being exposed to. 

As my teacher metaphorically described, massive input is about building a skyscraper not a house. Massive input helps us build the "skyscraper" by stacking a ton of information higher and higher. Traditionally, studying and the material to study from is very controlled. Vocabulary and grammar patterns are presented systematically, which is good for building a foundation for a language (or a two story house), but there is nothing natural about it. However, it is also something that we should not, and cannot, ignore, it helps fills the gaps of information that are missing for our skyscraper... it is the cement in our metaphorical language building. 

My own experience with massive input

Ever since that lesson I've been trying to apply this strategy to my own life to better understand what my teacher was saying. On top of reading a an article from a Chinese newspaper every morning during breakfast, and watching the news or movies when I have some time, I'm also currently reading two books in Chinese:《安德的遊戲》,a translated copy of Ender's Game , and《大小雞婆》.  Since Ender's Game is a book I have read quite a few times in English I'm not looking anything up... ever. I'll probably go back through once I'm done to start and cement the gaps in the language, but right now I'm just reading for pleasure. It was frustrating at first, but after a while I started to get a feel for the text and the translation a way that looking up every other word cannot provide. 

With  《大小雞婆》, a book originally written in Chinese, I'm reading it chapter by chapter. Instead of stopping to look up words that I don't know I'm just highlighting them and making guesses about the meaning based on context. Once I'm done with the chapter I will go back and check the dictionary for every word that I highlighted. I've found that this process takes about an hour a day. 

More than anything I've found that my reading comprehension is increasing at a very rapid pace. I'm beginning to notice how certain nuances contained in grammar patterns, simply because I'm seeing them in a space that isn't controlled by a textbook. Since I don't worry (as much) about individual characters or phrases, I'm able to focus on the overall meaning of a text without too much effort. Hopefully this should pay off greatly when reading academic articles or taking any kind of standard test in Chinese. 

Do any of you use a similar strategy with your language learning process? If so please leave a comment below. 

Reaction: Benny's video two weeks into the challenge.

Tweet Last night Benny put his first video attempt in Mandarin on the web for the world to see... or to use a Chinese phrase I learned yesterday (在眾目睽睽下Benny開口了說出國語)

After speaking Chinese for just two weeks, it is clear that tones are a big focus for him. As well they should be. It will allow him to be understood while speaking to a native speaker who is not a Chinese teacher. I'll talk more about this in another post, but for now I'll just say I think we should all start learning Chinese this way. Don't wait a month or a year to learn tones. Learn them and use them from day one. 

This video has a very raw quality to it. For nearly 10 minutes we watch Benny struggle for every word, trying his best to get the tones right. As he states on his website the video is scripted, translated by his Chinese teacher. No doubt that during the process he also learned everything that we hear him say into the camera, so no need for monkey jokes. 

My big question, however, is how we as language learners (or teachers) should feel about how the video was made. There is no doubt that he is speaking Chinese, and I can understand just about everything he said, but he didn't write the script. In his words: 

"So with that in mind, a couple of days ago I asked my Chinese teacher (I’ve getting private lessons for now) to translate a script with everything I would say if I was giving a tour of my home in a language I speak fluently. I wanted to explain complex things, like that I replaced my laptop with a desktop, that I don’t really use my fridge etc., and she wrote it up for me in Chinese (which I used for the captions) and in pinyin, which I was studying to learn all the new vocabulary, and memorising the lines themselves since then."

For some this is blasphemy, "he is using a teacher, or  "he didn't write the script" they say, but negativity never seemed like a very good way to learn anything, so instead I want to discuss what we might learn from his video.

When we open a text book we are presented with new material. There is a dialogue or maybe even a short essay. After the essay we get a nice word bank (with further examples if we are lucky) and a section on grammar. Some of us memorize that material.  That is essential what Benny did, he memorized the textbook, only he also helped write the textbook... or script rather. While this video may not be his own words (or at least the Chinese) yet he now has a pretty good understanding of how to talk about: time, location, distance, direction etc. He can also tell people why he can or can't do something (因為....所以).

Okay, now for my point. Sometimes when learning a language we need to memorize things. We can't do it passively, cause that is a huge waste of time, but we should do it actively, taking sentences or phrases and committing them to memory. However, we can't stop there. Once we have the phrase (or sentence) we need to make it our own, by swapping out nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. to create new strings of communication, sort of like what I did at the start of this blog. The phrase 眾目睽睽 isn't my own, but through the active process of studying it, understanding it, and committing it to memory, I learned how to use it.

I'm sure that Benny will be a lot more comfortable "in the wild" now that he understands everything he said in the video. Even if he can't create sentences of his own using some of the grammatical phrases (yet), he will be able to understand them in reading and listening when they come up.

This  in Chinese is called 語言定式教學法, a sort of formulaic speech teaching method and I find it quite effective. I've wrote roughly about how it works in a classroom setting in a past entry called Stuff the Duck.

I would love to hear all your thoughts, so please post them below.

Why Benny's "Fluent Mandarin in 3 Months" challenge is good for the Chinese community.

Tweet It is true, I'm a little behind the game. Admittedly, I only heard about Benny the Irish Polyglot yesterday when Confused LaoWai wrote a post (more like an essay really) titled: On Learning Chinese in 3 Months. Basically, for those still in the dark, Benny has moved to Taipei, Taiwan and will be spending three months learning Mandarin Chinese, with the goal of reaching somewhere near a C1 oral proficiency during that time.

This mission has cause quite the stir in the Chinese language learning community. For a moment, I too wanted to join the masses. While I still take umbrage with the notion that conversational fluency is equal to C1 aptitude, I applaud Benny Lewis for his overall mission statement-- speaking from day one. For a better understanding of his own advice, check out this video from the recent TEDxSanAntonio below.

 

As with the countless other languages he has learned, he has made a goal (and made it public) and will work at that goal regardless of the outcome. No matter what level his Taiwanese Mandarin reaches, it will be far better than it was three months prior.

As for the Chinese language learning community, his challenge has us talking about learning and studying the Chinese language. While most will (still) admit that Chinese is a relatively hard language to learn, Benny's own mission is to find ways to make studying languages easier... for everyone. This is what sites like Chinesehacks and Hacking Chinese (confusing I know!) do as well, provide ways to make learning Chinese easier and hopefully more fun.

Based on Benny's first week blog I noticed a few things that certainly deserve some praise.

1. He is relying a lot of context. This is a crucial part to understanding any language. Making assumptions about what the other might be saying will help you figure out appropriate ways to respond to the situation and clue you in on some vocabulary that you can pick up for later use. It is also a great way to fill in the gaps on information you don't know. This works great for both listening and reading (something I covered in some depth over on the Skritter blog).   
2. He is cultural minded. Handing over money to a cashier with two hands is certainly a good way to make a great impression here in Asia, and these kinds of cultural practices can open doors for further conversation, or at least a little more patience on the part of the locals. I've certainly gotten a lot of conversation out of learning how to drink with Chinese hosts, but lets save that for another post.
3. He is getting out there. Rather that sit at home and watch TV (which can be a great way to learn some Chinese) he has joined a gym. Basically, he is trying to live his life as he sees fit. Not letting a language barrier get in the way of doing what you would like to do is an important part of language learning and self discovery. I had a similar experience in China when I decided to go to the park and learn how to play the Hulusi (albeit poorly). Sometimes we need to go out and learn by doing (again, something I've covered before.)

So what about the goal: fluency in 3 months? Fluency is a very relative term, and it is his own goal, not ours. However, making goals like this (or maybe something a bit more modest perhaps) are what keep us going on the language learning journey.

I for one will be pushing myself a little bit harder when I'm out living in Taiwan. Speaking more, and trying to be a bit more ambitious. While I personally think that setting a goal that one cannot possibly achieve can be as bad as doing nothing at all, setting goals that strive for us to work harder are how we see positive results.

It reminds me of a great story that Dr. Michael Everson  told my fellow classmates and I this summer. When asked the question of how much effort was needed to learn Chinese (or any language for that matter) he turned to some of the college level athletes and asked them how often the practice their respective sport. The general response was three to four hours a day (seven days a week). The message is quite clear, language, like anything else takes effort, and time. It isn't something that is going to come overnight.


Regardless of the outcome, I hope that Benny's journey will help inspire others to stop making excuses as to why they can't do something, and at least try.

Practicing writing on the go.

Tweet Skirtter is making some big waves with the the soon-to-be-release of their iPhone app. It is one of the main reasons I'll be saying 再見 to trusty iPhone 3G. Just take a look at their new teaser view, it looks spectacular!

I'll be sure to have a review out as soon as I get my hands on the app. But for now, just enjoy!

Enjoy the journey

Tweet Sometimes starting the journey of second language acquisition can be the hardest part. In those first few months of studying Chinese, many find characters and tones incredibly complex. A quick Google search reveals that you need to learn around 4000 individual characters to read (and understand) a newspaper cover to cover. At that point the route to fluency seems almost impossible. Even a basic conversation with someone who has a slightly different accent than you are used to can be frustrating.

Part of this might be that we set our goals too high. A while back a blog popped up with the goal of "being fluent in a year." After a few months of daily posts, and the occasional rant on the impossibility of the goal, the blog was gone. The user gave up. The bar was set to high. While it is important to set long-term goals, I think the short-term goals are what is ultimately going to keep us going.

What if the aforementioned blog had a goal of learning 1000 characters, getting through a textbook, or even finishing a novel?  Those are things that are measurable, and certainly achievable. By reaching short-term goals, we still get that warm and fuzzy feeling of success. We should be proud of learning a new grammar pattern, a new set of characters, or understanding what a waiter said to their boss at our favorite Chinese restaurants, not discouraged that we didn't learn more.

Take pride in the little things, and meeting the short term goals. Those are the things that are going to keep us coming back for more. As cliché as it might be, learning a language really should be about the journey and not the destination.

Self-study with online materials

Tweet It's no surprise that digital technology has revolutionized our access to information. In the area of language acquisition this means that we have more ways to study than ever. Researchers in the field of educational technology (Beatty 2004, Blin 2004, et al.) find technology as a great way for students to find information that fits their own individual learning styles and abilities. Unlike even the best student centered classroom activities, digital technology (for education) creates "student-initiated, self-managed interactive learning by students at their own pace" (Kubler 2011).

Digital technology is the ever "patient" provider of content. No matter how many times we replay a Youtube video, or hit next on a flashcard program, we will always be the first to call it quits at the end of the day. Now, more than ever, we can access information that is relevant to our needs, and (hopefully) increase our language output. While this instant access to information may be a wonderful thing, it is important that we find out ways to effectively use the digital technology (in this case online materials) as a study tool.

So how do we go about self-study with online materials? To begin to answer this question I've adapted some information from Cornelius Kubler's article titled "Promises and Perils of Educational Technology in Foreign Language Curriculum and Materials Development" with a typical ChinesePod lesson (covering dialogue, vocabulary, expansion, and exercise).

Step 1: Get in the zone.
Regardless of what kind of online material or digital technology you are using, it is important to dedicate focus and concentration on the task at hand. As recently mentioned on Lingomi's blog multitasking isn't the way to go about studying (especially listening skills). While the Internet is rampant with Podcasts and mobile learning apps, there is a lot of research out there to suggest that multitasking while trying to study is a serious impairment on our ability to learn. Therefore, even before you are ready to study the latest lesson, get yourself mentally prepared. Turn off Facebook, step away from Twitter, and find a quite place to focus on whatever it is you are trying to learn.

Step 2: Listen to (or read) the new material (more than once).
Listen to the dialogue for a ChinesePod lesson two or three times. Don't be concerned if there are things you don't understand. The goal of this step is to familiarize ourselves to the general context and new linguistic material. Don't look-up new words, or pause the dialogue if you are getting lost. Instead find out what information you can gather from the dialogue.
(For a typical ChinesePod lesson this step should take about 5 minutes).

Step 3: Drill the lesson.
Now it is time to read the dialogue (closely). Check the words that you didn't understand during step two, but be sure to check them in context. Read the sentences over and over, repeating them out loud until until you can repeat them back in a fast manner. The more you practice saying sentences or vocabulary words, the more natural they will come out when you are actually trying to use them in a real situation. Listening (or saying) a word or sentence once simply isn't enough.
(This could take about 20 minutes... even more if you are focusing on how to write the Characters, but you need to take the time if you actually want to learn, and be able to use the materials)

Step 4: Study the notes (or listen to the entire lesson).
Now that the vocabulary and sentence patterns are familiar, it is time to actually listen to the entire ChinesePod lesson. If you have done step two and three, you should find that the words in Chinese are no longer foreign to you, and you will be able to benefit from the English explanation of a particular word or grammar pattern and its usage. Think of this as the lecture portion of a class. You don't get much out of a lecture if you haven't done the homework beforehand.
(For a typical ChinesePod lesson this section will take 15 minutes)

Step 5: Expand on the material.
Now that you have heard the new material multiple times it is time to check out any expansion material that has been provided. In the case of ChinesePod this means looking at the key grammar patterns or vocabulary words from the lesson. Read through each of the expansion sentences (out loud), thinking about the meaning. Try and make your own sentences (which you can post in the discussion section) to see if you real understand the material. Ideally, you should memorize any vocabulary or grammar pattern that you find necessary. As Kubler states: memorization "is a very important step," which "firmly establishes in your brain the sounds and structures of the language for you to drawn on later in your own speech."
(Expansion materials and working on new sentences could take around 15 minutes)

Step 6: Test you mastery.
In the case of ChinesePod this means doing the exercises. Now that you have the vocabulary memorized, you've listened to the dialogue, and you understand the grammar patterns, this should be a breeze, after you have crushed the test, mark the lesson as studied... and really mean it!
(A set of exercise drills should take 5 minutes)

What I am suggesting in this post, is taking the time to turn online materials into your own sort of virtual classroom. If you follow all six steps, you'll have spent an hour fully learning the materials that you set out to study. This might not be something that you can do everyday, and you certainly can't do it on the bus or while you're working, but if you are conscious and active in your learning approach you will ultimately get more out of it. 

Confucius, in The Analects, is quoted as saying "工欲善其事，必先利其器 (Gōng yù shàn qí shì, bì xiān lì qí qì 'If a craftsman wants to do a good job, he must fist sharpen his tools.' It is important to have the right tools and to "sharpen" them, but we also need to know that these tools only help us do a job, we are still the ones who need to go out and do it.

Making time for language.

Tweet There are very few people in this world (if any) who can wake up one morning and decide they're going to run a marathon the next day, the next week, heck... even the next month. We aren't able to pick up the guitar and shred like Jimi Hendrix after just a few lessons. Things we do in life require practice, patience, and most importantly dedication. Learning a second language, especially for those of us who can hardly even remember what hitting puberty was like anymore, takes time and energy. 

Go out and ask someone who does something really well how they achieved success.  99.99% of the time it's because they put in a lot of time. They got up every day and worked toward their goal until it became a reality. So what does that mean for us, the language learner? It means we need to stop thinking that things are going to come without effort, or over night. Those kind of thoughts lead to disappointment and failure.

Maybe it's time we take a different approach. Learning a language isn't riding a bike. If you don't keep peddling (and peddling often) you are going to forget how to do it (or rather speak it in this case). So today, I propose that we re-think about how we go about learning a language. Let's start making the time, every single day, so that we can obtain our goal. Of course, the more time we spend, the better the results... but first and foremost lets find our rhythm. 
 
With the rise of the Internet, possibilities are endless. Everywhere you turn there is information ripe for the taking. We have music, movies, blogs, news, textbooks, podcasts etc. all just a single mouse click away. However, just like learning to shred like Jimi, or pushing yourself harder and harder to reach that end goal of 26 miles (and 385 meters) in a marathon, we need to be active and engaged. We need a healthy balance of output and input (especially to speak a language) and we need to practice... a lot. 
 
I don't know about you, but my goals are set high, and I'm going to take the first step toward reaching those goals... I'm going to make the time.

Choose your own adventure.

Tweet With the growing rise of technology, information is growing easier to come by. You don't need much more than an iPod and a Wi-Fi connection to learn about the best tourist destinations and the easiest ways to get there. I would bet that there is a strong correlation between the ease of information access, and the amount of tourists who are venturing out into unknown lands. They arm themselves with nothing but a few survival phrases and their favorite travel guide (in PDF form of course).  And while this is great, especially for the businesses that reap the benefits of guide book recommendations, I think that it is taking some of the fun and excitement out of figuring things out on your own.

I recently had such an experience, which prompted this post. As I was traveling around Kunming, in lovely Yunnan, China. A friend I had met in the hostel and I decided to check out Qiongzhu Temple, a site highly recommended by the guide books. It was easy to get to, we thought, and would make for a perfect first day trip in Kunming. After stuffing ourselves on some of the local treats we headed out in search of a cab. The guide book assured us that a cab ride would be about 30 minutes and roughly 45 kuai (about 7 USD).

When we finally managed to hail down a cab, I asked the driver if he could take us out to the temple. And although he was willing to get us to the right spot, he wanted 150 kuai... one-way. I'm not generally stingy, but when we are talking about paying three times more than the guide book says, I know when to politely get back out of the cab.

Rather than get ourselves down, we decided to make a change of plans. We picked up a map of the city and got ourselves oriented to our current location. We did it old school, not by using GPS and Google Maps, but by getting our bearings with street signs and local landmarks. We decided to fly by the seat of our pants and ask the locals what was worth checking out. They recommended we check out the East and West Pagodas, built in the Tang Dynasty. From there it was off to Jinma Biji Square, which to our surprise was only a short hike away.

Checking another spot off the list as we toured Kunming by foot. 

From Jinma Biji Square we found a local bus and headed to southern Kunming to check out the Yunnan Ethnic villages. While it was a little touristy, okay it was super touristy, our 1 kuai bus ride was the perfect way to get a taste for the entire city. After heading back to city square we were off on foot again, wandering back alleys in search of Cuihu Lake, a park located in the city center. Along the way, our impromptu foot tour brought us upon some cultural propaganda, in the form of wall paintings, about creating a more civilized Kunming. Without the Government's help I would have never known that walking across the street while reading a book is dangerous.

Getting from place to place wasn't as easy as checking out the guide book or calling a cab, but the sense of accomplishment we got at every stop is hard to beat. If we got lost, we stopped and asked for directions, putting our Chinese listening and speaking skills to test. Most importantly I got the feeling that I was exploring areas of Kunming that few foreigners usually venture to. As cliché as it sounds, it really became more about the journey, rather than the destination. 

A random wall painting we found during our walking tour.

For anyone who is actually interested in learning a language, and the culture that surrounds and shapes it, taking the time to figure things for ourselves is a lesson that we too often ignore. It is important to remember that it is okay to make mistakes while speaking a foreign language, we can use these experiences as an important learning tools. Also, we aren't going to understand everything that is going on around us... that's okay. Learning to pay attention to body language and context allows you to figure things out on your own, rather than turing to the dictionary for every unknown word.

Sometimes, it is best to put the guide book and dictionary away and see where the wind blows you; sometimes we simply have to choose our own adventure.