Not Learning Cantonese in Hong Kong

Moved to posterous!

2011-02-09T15:08:00.001+08:00

I am now not learning cantonese at Posterous instead of Blogspot.

MC Jin's "Rap Now 2010" lyrics in English

2010-12-20T23:12:00.004+08:00

As the SubStandard reports, MC Jin went and did a pro-government rap video. Here's my half-assed non-hippy-hoppy non-idiomatic English translation of it. If you still want to watch it after reading the lyrics, well, you've been warned. This is the same Auyeung Jin who all us Asian American college kids worshipped when he came out with "Learn Chinese" back in 2003 ... seven years later, he's reduced to this.

In my role as a "post 80s" university graduate who translates the writings of ex-Red Guards for fun, at this point I'm supposed to insert some sociological boilerplate about how rap should be a weapon of resistance for the grassroots, rather than a tool for glorification of figurehead politicians ... oh well.

MC Jin X Bow Tie hip hop聖誕歌 "Rap Now 2010"
MC Jin：香港所有市民　起錨聖誕節又蒞臨　起錨大家準備好未　起錨香港特別行政區　陪你起錨	MC Jin: All the citizens of Hong Kong, Act Now! Christmas is almost here, Act Now! Are you all ready, Act Now! The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will Act Now! with you
0:44 (MC Jin)
Hip hop 希望你啱聽平時睇新聞實聽到你個名上網 chit chat 可以搵到曾蔭權我同特首估唔到咁有緣	I hope you like hip hop, When I watch the news, I always hear your name, If you go chat on line you can find Donald Tsang, I never would have guessed the chief executive and me are linked like this
玩 Hip hop 最緊要啱 feel Rap 得唔好聽　希望你唔會掟蕉今年聖誕包冇攪錯香港人一齊開開心心咁過	When you "play" hip hop, you gotta have the right feel, If I rap badly, I hope you won't throw bananas at me, This Christmas, I guarantee there won't be any screw-ups, Hong Kong people will celebrate happily!
聖誕老人你知我幾乖好想要一條特首嘅 bow tie 但係就算得唔到我個 wish list Either way I wish you a Merry Christmas	Santa Claus, you know I've been good So I want you to give me a Chief Executive bow tie, But if I can't get my wish list, Either way I wish you a merry Christmas
1:14
香港所有市民　起錨	All the citizens of Hong Kong, Act Now! etc. 2x
1:44 (random backup girls with nerdy nasal voices)
向全港送上聖誕祝福想多啲溝通可以上 facebook	We send Christmas wishes to all of Hong Kong, If you want to communicate more, you can go on Facebook
MC Jin：咦　乜特首都會玩 facebook 特首：冇錯年青人 take a look	MC Jin: What? The Chief Executive "plays" Facebook too? Tsang: That's right youngsters, take a look!
MC Jin：呀特首我唔係想扮代表但係呢兩年我都學得唔少我知而家開始左334 所有學生一定要俾心機	MC Jin: Chief Executive, I don't want to pretend to be representative, But these two years, I've learned a lot, I know that the 3-3-4 (educational system) has started, So all the students have to make an effort!
我哋實會為你打氣好高興可以認識到你 Happy New Year from MC Jin Hong Kong 我哋一定 Sure Win	We'll definitely cheer for you! I'm really happy I got to know you! Happy New Year from MC Jin Hong Kong, we'll definitely Sure Win!
2:14
香港所有市民　起錨	All the citizens of Hong Kong, Act Now! ad nauseum

Parking Lot Village: machine translation in Google Maps

2010-10-20T14:37:00.001+08:00

Google appears to be applying statistical machine translation to put "English" labels on their map of China. From the Google Open Source blog: Greetings from Santa Kurara, Kariforunia

In Chinese and Japanese, one big problem with machine translation is figuring out where the morpheme boundaries are --- place names and texts and everything else are just written as long strings without spaces, and it's up to the reader to figure out where the spaces should go. There's a well-known joke about this problem: a male job applicant calls up a company to inquire about a post as a "接待處女文員". This phrase could be parsed either as

接待處女文員
Reception-desk female clerk (i.e. "female receptionist"), or
接待處女文員
Receive female-virgins clerk (i.e. "clerk who receives female virgins")

The company of course intended the first reading, whereas the job applicant was of course interested in the second one.

On Google Maps we can find several obvious errors of this nature, ranging from humourous, like Parking Lot Zicun (Chechangzi Village), to inexplicable, like Tureen (Tumen). And then, the politically fraught: translating ethnic group names (like chaoxianzu) as country names .

Sanchakou North Korea Zuzhen (Sanchakou Korean Town)
Daquanyuan Manzu North Korea Zuxiang (Daquanyuan Manchu and Korean Village)
Yahe North Korea Zuxiang (Yahe Korean Village)
Pulebao North Korea Zuzhen (Pulebao Korean Village)
Harqin Zuoyi Mongolia (Harqin Left Mongol Banner)
Pingfang Manzu Mongolia Zuxiang (Pingfang Manchu/Mongol Town

The only place where they seem to translate it even remotely correctly is Jindou Korean Ethnic Minority Group Manzuxiang (better: Jindou Korean/Manzhu Village).

Due diligence on the risks of .ly domains

2010-10-11T00:14:00.002+08:00

In the aftermath of Libyan domain registrar NIC.ly's confiscation of the domain of "sex-positive" URL ~~obfuscator~~ shortener vb.ly, administrator Ben Metcalfe and his girlfriend Violet Blue have been showing up at various points on the Internet repeating utter nonsense about Libya in an effort to justify why they thought their Libyan vendor wouldn't have any problem with their little project (and even if they did, it's the Libyans' fault and not theirs). Some samples include: "Libyan law is sharia!" "There's no information about Libyan law in English!" "NIC.ly should have translated Libyan law into English for me!" All of these claims are demonstrably false.

First, you can easily find quite a bit of Anglophone scholarly writing in Google Books on the topic of Libyan law. I summarised some of what I learned in the newly-created Wikipedia article on the law of Libya. No doubt my layman's article contains errors and omissions; there's quite a bit I didn't include, because it was too complex for me to understand and summarise (e.g. the information about the principle of takhayyur, or selection between different schools of Islamic jurisprudence. But the basic gist is easy enough for a layman to understand: sharia is the inspiration for much of the law and is partially followed, with all sorts of exceptions, modifications, and whatnot, and there's actually a legislature which passes written laws—just like in most countries—to cover areas where sharia is silent.

Second, if you could be bothered to look up some legal term like "Criminal Code" in an online Arabic-to-English dictionary, you could paste it into the Google searchbox, restricting it to "site:ly". Then you'd see, at the top of your results, the website of the General People's Committee for Justice, a Libyan governmental body roughly equivalent to a Ministry/Department of Justice. The full text of many Libyan laws can be found online there. Naturally, the site is in Arabic, and lacks an English version (let alone English translations of the laws), but Google Translate does a passable job on it (unsurprising, when you think about it—machine translation systems are often trained on legal-type corpora, like United Nations resolutions which are conveniently put into all five official languages). It's not perfect, but it's enough for someone with even a mild interest in the subject to discover blatantly unsurprising facts, like the existence of a Libyan anti-pornography law. What's the exact scope of this law? Does it still apply after the 1977 Declaration of People's Power? Are there any newer laws which may have modified it? Well ...

You can see a common thread in the above two paragraphs: there are quite a few sources about Libyan law, but they are difficult for an untrained non-Arabic-speaker to fully comprehend and utilise. Furthermore, knowing the law is not equivalent to a day-to-day professional experience of how those laws are actually applied or ignored by Libyan courts (which are no doubt under quite a significant amount of pressure to preserve the ruling party's interests against those of anyone else who might file a suit), or how to apply the mechanisms—both formal (lawsuits) and informal (bribes)—by which you can protect your rights. So, where could you find an educated, bilingual person to explain Libyan law and society to you? Yep, Google to the rescue again. Note the business model here: the buyer of services in Libya hires a professional to perform due diligence on the seller and the seller's environment. It is not the seller's responsibility to hire such a professional and perform the due diligence for the buyer. Yet Metcalfe apparently expected precisely that, even going so far as to call on NIC.ly to translate all of Libyan law into English for him to read.

Metcalfe's whole act of pretending that he really wanted to do his due diligence about the risks of setting up a .ly domain, but was blocked by those inscrutable Libyan Muslims, is starting to wear extremely thin. More likely, he simply didn't think that there was any problem with what he was doing. This is a common business mistake: ignoring or overlooking potential risk factors. I could hardly point and laugh at Metcalfe for failing in this manner; I've done it several times myself (fortunately or not, it was "merely" my employer's business which suffered as a result, rather than my own). But I don't try to pretend that I thought of the risks but was blocked from investigating them by factors beyond my control. I'm a non-Arabic-speaking non-lawyer, and in about 48 hours (the time since I first heard of vb.ly), I managed to teach myself more about Libyan law than a guy who actually does business with Libyans ever bothered to learn.

Language arbitrage: getting your money's worth from your friendly local bookstore

2010-09-07T11:34:00.004+08:00

In China, books are cheap, academic books especially so. The most egregious comparison I've seen so far:

Igor Nedjalkov's descriptive grammar of Evenki, written in English, costs US$325 on Amazon.com
D. O. Chaoke's Evenki Reference Grammar, written in Chinese, costs ￥39.20 on Amazon.cn, or roughly 1.8% of the price

Of course, Chaoke's editor at Central University for Nationalities^[1] Press apparently never heard of "Н. Н. Поппе", whoever he is, and changed all the citations to "H. H. Poppe", or in one case, "H. H. Hoppe" (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, presumably ... or is that supposed to be Russian for some guy called N. N. Norré?). But hey, whaddaya want for five bucks?

¹: I never liked the old name, but I really can't stand the new name. Translating 民族 as "nationality" is probably misleading to most Anglophones in 2010, but "translating" it as "Minzu" is plain old obscurantist. Maybe they should have just left it in the original Russian as "национальность" ...

Leaving Kuitun

2010-07-29T15:13:00.001+08:00

On the Xinjiang-focused blog The New Dominion, you can also read an English translation of another, more political piece from Green Flag: Blogger Sends Refreshingly Thoughtful Reflections and Suggestions to Secretary Zhang. I chose this one to translate instead ...

Leaving Kuitun	走出奎屯
http://greenflag.blog.sohu.com/151706261.html	2010-05-17 12:29
On that afternoon, the four of us arrived at Kuitun together. Kuitun is one of Xinjiang's major regions for grains, cotton, and oil, producing as much as 150,000 tonnes of cotton a year.	那天下午，我们一行四人到达奎屯市。奎屯是新疆主要的粮棉油基地之一，棉花产量达250万担。
Anwar is from Kuitun. He met us at the appointed place. He is my son's classmate at China Petroleum University in Beijing, and will graduate in July this year. In 2002, at the age of 17, he left Kuitun and went to Hangzhou as part of a "Xinjiang inland high school class" to pursue his schooling.	安瓦尔是奎屯人，他在约定的地方迎候我们。他是我儿子的同学，在北京的中国石油大学读书，今年7月毕业。2002年，17岁的他离开奎屯，到杭州的“内地新疆高中班”接受教育。
Last year during Ramadan, my son called me and asked if a Uyghur classmate of his from Xinjiang could come to our home towards the end of the summer vacation. A few days later, Anwar came from Xinjiang to our home, carrying some souvenirs from the Turpan train station. He's 180cm tall, with handsome looks, an introverted character, and a bashful manner.	去年斋月，我儿子打电话问我，可否让一个新疆籍维吾尔族同学来我家，在暑假后期。不几天，安瓦尔从新疆来到我家，带着从吐鲁番火车站购买的新疆特产。他1米8以上的个头，长相英俊，性格内向，表情腼腆。
In the nineteen days he stayed with us, we fasted together and broke the fast together [at night], and at the appropriate hour went to the masjid not far from our house, going five times each day. Aside from this, he shut himself up in my son's room, quietly reading Chinese-language Islamic books. One evening, when we were coming out from the masjid, he saw a police car parked by the entrance. He smiled with surprise, seeming confused. He knew that the car's occupants were also Muslims, there at the masjid to pray.	在我家居住的十九天中，他与我们一起封斋一起开斋，并按时去距离我家不远的清真寺礼拜，每天去五次。除此，他把自己关在我小儿子的房间，安静地阅读汉语伊斯兰书籍。一天晚上，我们从寺里出来时，他看见停在门口的一辆警车。他有些吃惊地微笑，显得不可理喻。他知道“车主”也是到清真寺参加礼拜的穆斯林。
Before he went to university, he knew very little of Islam. You could call my son his first teacher; during their free time, they studied the religion together. Anwar was starting almost from zero. Three months later, he started to pray, using his weekends to study Arabic and recite the Quran. "I sleep heavily, and can never wake up for the morning prayers. Anwar lived in the dorm across from me, and always came to wake me up", my son recalled.	上大学前，他对伊斯兰知之甚少。我儿子算是他的启蒙老师，他们在闲暇时一起学习宗教知识。安瓦尔几乎从零起步。三个月后，他开始礼拜，利用周末学习阿拉伯语，学习诵读《古兰经》。“我的瞌睡重，晨礼时往往起不来。住在对面宿舍的安瓦尔总是来叫醒我。”我儿子回忆。
When the start of the semester neared, he got ready to go back to Beijing. He repeatedly expressed his apologies for the "trouble" he had caused during Ramadan, and, with his right hand on his chest, invited our family to come to Kuitun at our convenience, and take a trip around Xinjiang. One night after he left, my son suddenly told me, "If he hadn't come to our home, he would have had a difficult time fasting. His parents have a lot of hopes for him, and they worry if he fasted in Kuitun, it could influence his future prospects.	到开学时，他准备回北京。他对斋月期间给我们带来的“麻烦”一再表示歉意，并把右手放在胸前，邀请我们一家在方便的时候到奎屯旅游，到新疆旅游。他走后的一个傍晚，我儿子突然告诉我：“如果他不到我家来，就很难封斋。他的父母亲对他报以不小的希望，担心他在奎屯封斋会影响他以后的前途。”
Leaving out part of the story — we had to go to northern Xinjiang to see an old friend, a cleric who had gone blind in both eyes due to disease. Anwar suggested that he could accompany us. There happened to be one seat free, so we set off on the road together.	前话不表。我们要到新疆北边的阿勒泰，去看一位因病双目失明的阿訇朋友。安瓦尔提出陪我们走走。正好有个空座位，我们就一起上路了。
A night in a little village	夜宿小镇
A little after nine in the evening Beijing time, we decided to stay in Baixiantan, a little village near Karamay. Because Abdullah had been having back pains for the past few days, we didn't want to stay out late into the night. Relying on Abdullah's fluent Uyghur, we were able to find an authentic Uyghur restaurant. By "authentic", I mean first that they had no alcohol, and second that one could see its Uyghur characteristics.	北京时间晚上9点多，我们决定住在白碱滩，克拉玛依附近的一个小镇。因阿布杜拉前几天扭伤了腰，不宜开夜车。凭阿布杜拉流利的维吾尔语，我们找到一家真正的维吾尔族餐厅。所谓“真正”，一是无酒，二是维吾尔民族特色突出。
We ate dinner happily. The restaurant was decorated elegantly, with a cozy interio. The customers were all Uyghur, and the service was thorough. We each ordered what we wanted — noodles, 大拌筋, polo and some side dishes. The tea was free.	晚饭吃得很愉快。餐厅布置典雅，里面热乎乎，清一色的维吾尔人，服务周到。我们各取所好，选了拌面、大拌筋、抓饭和几个小菜。茶水免费。
While I was drinking my tea, I noticed a large dining table kitty-corner from us, with eleven Uyghur women seated around it, chatting happily in Uyghur. The retired soldier said, "They're all bankers, at a bank called Mutual Assistance Bank or something. This was new to me, and I went over to their table to learn more. This kind of style of mutual credit sounded something like the Bangladeshi [Muhammad] Yunus's Grameen Bank, an individualised form of "interest-free loans"; each person could lend a few hundred yuan, one thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand ... the whole group supported each individual, like loose hairs coming together to form a carpet. That night, ten women each lent 3,000 yuan, letting the other one take 30,000 yuan; she would use that amount of money to go to Hotan and do business. There was no strict deadline for paying back the money; it was entirely based on the borrower's economic realities and the lenders' capital management situation, primarily paid back in installments based on the borrower's income. Some children do the same thing; each one gathers a few hundred yuan of capital, and engage in small-scale retail or the like. Definitely, this is a kind of financial wisdom, an example of making more out of less. And we were also told, that this kind of borrowing had no renegers or bad debts.	喝茶的时候，我留意起斜对面的一个大餐桌，围着十一个维吾尔族妇女，她们用维吾尔语说说笑笑着。退役军官说，“她们都是银行家，银行好像叫互助银行。”我觉得新鲜，就走到她们桌边打探真实。这种互助借款形式有些像孟加拉人尤努斯的格莱珉银行，是个人形式的“无息借款”，每人可以出借几百元，一千元，一万元，五万元……众人扶一人，碎毛擀成毡。那晚，十个妇女每人出借三千元，使其中的一位筹得三万元，她用该款去和田那边做生意。还款没有严格的期限，完全根据借款人的经济实力和被借人的资金运作情况，主要由被借人按照自己的收入实际分期分批偿还。有的小孩也这样做，几个人凑几百元资金，也搞个小本买卖什么的。的确，这是某种金融智慧，是以少成多的范例。我们还得知，这种借款没有赖账或坏账。
Back at the guest house, the five of us sat on the carpet, and started to drink tea. The Hong Kong reporter who was with us, Mr. Mok, asked Anwar about his choice of career. Anwar fixed his doppa and started to say ...	回到宾馆后，我们五个人坐在地毯上，开始喝茶。同行的香港某新闻社的记者穆先生问起安瓦尔的择业情况。他整整维吾尔帽，说开了——
Anwar always went to the job fairs at China Petroleum University in Beijing, taking the cover letters he had written himself in Chinese and respectfully submitting them to the hiring units, especially ones in Xinjiang, eleven times, one after the other. He was never hired; even the petroleum units from Xinjiang didn't accept him. The primary reason he heard: the hiring units didn't have halal canteens. Even the ones in Xinjiang said the same thing.	北京，在中国石油大学的招聘会上，安瓦尔每次都去，都把用汉语亲笔填写的自荐书恭恭敬敬地递给招聘单位尤其是新疆的单位，先后送了11次。他没有被录用，从新疆来的石油单位也没有录用他。他听到的主要理由：招聘单位上没有清真食堂，新疆的用人单位也这样说。
One day, the U.S. set up a petroleum company in China and started hiring people. Anwar tried sending a cover letter in English. One week later, he received an interview notification. He was hired. However, his parents are old; his three elder sisters had already married out, and his father and mother didn't agree for their only son to go to Tianjin for work. Unable to refuse his parents, Anwar took five days' holiday, and came back from Beijing to Kuitun, to try his luck again in the oilfields in Karamay. Previously, the Karamay people in Beijing hadn't hired him, saying that local residents had priority. In the end, he again wasn't hired.	一天，美国在中国设立的一家石油公司来招人。安瓦尔试着投了英语自荐书。一周后，他接到面试通知。他被录用了。然而，他的父母已年迈，前面的三个姐姐已出嫁，父母亲不同意这个唯一的儿子去天津工作。父命难违。安瓦尔请了五天假，从北京回到奎屯，再去克拉玛依油田碰运气。之前，克拉玛依油田的人在北京没有录用他，说是本地户口优先。结果，他还是没有被录用。
"I should go to that U.S. company, and work for a few years, and then come back to Kuitun, take care of my parents, the come back and learn how to do business", he said, sheepishly balling up his hands into fists.	“我得去那家美国公司，先干几年，然后回到奎屯，照顾父母，再学着做些买卖。”他说，不好意思地抱住拳头。
There was a sudden silence in the room. "Prayer time is here", Abdullah reminded us. We began the final prayers of the day, and invited Anwar to lead us. He did not decline. His Arabic pronounciation was clear, his recitation energetic and sonorous, filling the little guesthouse room with a harmonious atmosphere of religion.	屋子里出现短暂的停顿。“礼拜时间到了。”阿布杜拉提醒。我们开始礼一天中的最后一次礼拜宵礼，请安瓦尔领拜。他没有太推辞。他的阿拉伯语发音清晰，诵经声饱满洪亮，宾馆的小房间里弥漫着祥和的宗教氛围。
"Look at us and our interethnic unity!" said the retired soldier travelling with us, laughing. That's right, he's Salar, Anwar's Uyghur, Abdullah is Dongxiang, Mr. Mok is a Han convert, and I'm Hui.	“我们这是民族大团结啊！”同行的退伍军官笑哈哈地说。是啊，他是撒拉族，安瓦尔是维吾尔族，阿布杜拉是东乡族，穆记者是新皈依的汉族穆斯林，我是回族。
In the morning, the little town of Baixiantan on the Gobi remained quiet. After the morning prayers, the sky turned light, and we shook hands with Anwar to bid him farewell, and our four-person group continued on towards Aksu.	清晨，戈壁上的小镇白碱滩依然安静。晨礼后，天亮了，我们也与安瓦尔握手道别，四个人的团队继续向阿勒泰行进。
As the car started, I looked back through the rear window at Anwar, who was standing by the side of the road. He stood there, like he was sending us off with his eyes. He didn't wave. Soon, I lost sight of him ...	车子起步时，透过后窗，我回首看着立在路边的安瓦尔。他站在那里，像是目送我们。他没有挥手。很快，看不见他了……
The International Bazaar	国际大巴扎
A little after six in the morning on February 20th, we arrived in Urumqi from Burqin. Before we left Burqin, Anwar had insisted on the phone that he would come to the bus station to pick us up, but I couldn't agree for him to come all the way from Kuitun just for us. With my big bag on my back, I wandered around the bus station for nearly an hour, and, with prayer time approaching, took a taxi to the Hezhou masjid in Tianshan district. This is a mosque established by migrants from Gansu's Linxia area, and is open all day long. The baths are in an underground room, where it's very warm. After completing the first prayer of the day with everyone, I leaned on the radiator, pondering ...	2月20日清晨六时多，我从布尔津到达乌鲁木齐。离开布尔津前，安瓦尔在电话中坚持要到长途汽车站来接我。我不会同意他专程从奎屯来接我。我背着大包，在车站转悠了近一个小时，快到礼拜时间时，搭出租车前往位于天山区的河州清真寺。这是从甘肃临夏地区来的移民开设的清真寺，可以全天开放。洗浴室在地下室，很温暖。与大伙一起做完一天中的第一次礼拜晨礼后，我倚着暖气片，思前想后……
At 9:30, I left the masjid, and went to the International Bazaar. I could feel the bazaar's construction style's special ethnic and regional character, especially the famous towers, with singing, dancing minorities carved into their base. Because my train was at 3 PM, I hurriedly went through several shops. I discovered that the interior was not very lively, and as I passed by each stall, the owner would ask me enthusiastically what I was looking for. Afterwards, I did a little "experiment": I took off my white hat, and rearranged my hair, then went into the bazaar again, going through at least thirty stalls. The result: I felt that the stallkeepers' reactions were the same. Because, without my hat, my appearance is no different than a Han.	九点半，我离开清真寺，来到国际大巴扎。首先感到大巴扎的建筑风格颇具民族或地域特色，尤其是那个标志性的高塔，底部雕刻着能歌善舞的新疆少数民族。因是下午三点的火车，我匆匆转了多家商铺。发现里面不是很红火，经过摊位时摊主们热情询问要什么。随后，我做了一个小“实验”：取下头上的小白帽，再把锋头梳理一番，然后到巴扎里面，又转了至少30个摊位。结果，我觉得摊主们的态度是一样的。因为，我不戴小白帽，外貌上就与汉族没有差异。
During that time, I spent a few minutes chatting in shops. One was opened by Uyghurs, and the boss happened to be there — a woman, dressed from head to toe in Muslim clothing, looking like a movie star; the shop assistant was also a Uyghur girl, with a brightly-coloured long dress, white headscarf, and light makeup. Maybe because there weren't so many customers, she had a thick Uyghur-language book in her hand.	其间，我在两个商铺聊过几分钟。一个是维吾尔族人开的，正好女老板也在，一身的穆斯林女性装饰，人长得像电影明星，店员也是个维吾尔族少女，鲜艳的长袍，洁白的头巾，恰好的淡妆。也许是顾客不多，那姑娘手里拿着一本厚厚的维吾尔语书。
"Your boss doesn't fine you if you read at work?", I asked.	“上班时间看书，老板不扣工资？”我问。
"Kids these days, the ones who read are good people, it doesn't matter", the boss said, smiling.	“现在的年轻人，看书的都是亚卡西的人，没关系。”老板微笑着说。
When I asked her how business was, her eyes met mine, and she said quietly, "Once the weather's warmer, it'll get better. Money ... you earn more and you spend more, you earn less and you spend less".	当问及生意如何时，其目光与我对视，平静地说：“天气暖和以后，会好起来。钱嘛，赚得多就多用一些，赚得少就少用一些。”
Afterwards, I went to the shop across the street, carrying my backpack, and stood by the shop of a Han man. He let me put my bag down on the floor, passed me a plastic stool, and said "sit down and have a rest for a bit".	随后，我到对面的另一栋商楼，背着旅行包，站在一个汉族男子的摊位旁。他让我把包放在地上，递过一个塑料凳子，“坐下休息会儿。”
I asked some of the same questions. He replied, comparatively satisfied: their family had come from Sichuan to Xinjiang in the 1960s, to Fukang and then Miquan, came to Urumqi ten years ago, bought a flat, and settled down. He had a number of minority friends, and his relations with them were okay. He hoped to keep working hard and help the International Bazaar regain its liveliness and prosperity of days past.	我问了一些相似的问题。他给我比较满意的答复：他们一家上个世纪60年代末从四川来到新疆，先后在阜康、米泉等地住过，十年前来到乌鲁木齐，买了楼房，定居下来。他有不少民族朋友，关系不错。他希望各方面努力，让大巴扎恢复往日的热闹与繁荣。
I forgot to mention: in the Uyghur shop, I didn't wear my white hat, while in the Han shop, I did.	补一句：我在维吾尔族的商铺没有戴小白帽，在汉族的商铺戴着小白帽。
Soon, it was twelve noon. I went to the shop of a friend, who had previously studied Arabic and religious knowledge in my hometown. He admitted, business in the bazaar wasn't as good as before, mainly because tourists from other places "didn't dare come" or "didn't want to come". But in our chat, we both agreed on one fact: the bazaar was not as "unsafe" as the outside world claimed.	快到中午12点时，我来到一个朋友的商铺，他曾经在我的家乡学习过阿拉伯语和宗教知识。他承认，大巴扎的生意不如以前了，主要原因是有些外地游客“不敢来”或“不想来”。但在谈话间，我们都尊重一个现实，大巴扎并不像外界议论的那样“不安全”。
After coming out from there, I went to have a look at the masjid next door, a Uyghur mosque. Because it wasn't yet prayer time, the guard didn't let me in, but said I had to ask the leaders from the masjid's management committee. I went to the office to ask permission to look around. I said I just wanted to have a look and take some pictures. At the same time, I volunteered my ID and photo. The three leaders agreed to let me enter and look around. This was the first masjid I'd ever been inside in Urumqi.	从那里出来后，我去参观旁边的清真寺，维吾尔人的清真寺。由于没到礼拜时间，门卫没让我进去，说要请示寺管会的领导。我到办公室请求参观。他们问我看什么。我说只是随便看看，照几张相。同时我主动出示身份证和名片。三位领导同意我进去参观。这是我在乌鲁木齐进到里面的第一座清真寺。
According to Hui friends, many more Uyghurs than before come to the masjid for prayer.	据回族朋友说，在礼拜时间，去清真寺礼拜的维吾尔人比以前多了。
Polo and naan	抓饭与馕饼
That day, before getting on the train, my friend Abdullah insisted on bringing me and another friend to eat polo.	那天上火车前，朋友阿布杜拉硬把我和另一个朋友拉去吃抓饭。
"The place is opened by one of my friends, it's really good", he said. After about ten minutes, we arrived at a Hui restaurant at Jing'er Road. The owner was Hui, the chef Uyghur. The restaurant was small, but decorated uniquely, with coffee-coloured wooden tables and wooden stools, and several oil paintings of Xinjiang hanging on the walls. The special thing about this restaurant's Xinjiang polo, was that it was made fresh in small pans, and the Uyghur chef worked ceaselessly, not even looking up.	“那是我的一个朋友开的，很好吃。”他说。十来分钟后，我们到了位于经二路的那家回民饭馆。馆主是个回民，厨师是个维吾尔人。饭馆地方不大，但装修别致，全用咖啡色的木桌木凳，墙上布置了几幅新疆代表风光的油画。这家饭馆做新疆抓饭的特点，是用小锅现做现卖，维吾尔厨师忙个不停，连头都少抬。
Just as we came in, there was a free table. I noticed that the people dining there were almost all Han, with a few cops eating snacks. As we sat, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Uyghur and Hui polo. The owner said forthrightly: "Uyghur polo is the most genuine. But ..." he looked around, and lowered his voice, "Now most Han don't go there". He told us a story: around last October, a Han youth bought several pieces of naan from a Uyghur vendor, and was seen by an old Han lady. She asked him: "If you don't eat their naan, will you starve to death?" The youth took the naan and left quietly, but the old lady kept following him, until the youth angrily threw the bread in the rubbish bin at the roadside. We listened, stunned, finished our polo, and got ready to go to the train station.	我们进去时，正好有一张空桌。我发现，吃饭的人几乎都是汉族人，还有几个警察带家小来。席间，我们谈及维吾尔抓饭与回民抓饭的长短。馆主直言不讳：“抓饭嘛，还是维吾尔人的地道。但是……”他看看周围，放低音量，“现在很多汉民不去那里了。”他还讲了一个故事：大概是去年十月，一个汉族青年买了几个维吾尔人的馕饼，被一位汉族老太太看见了。她质问：“不吃他们的馕，你会饿死吗？”年轻人提着馕饼默默前行，可老太太穷追不舍，直到年轻人把馕饼狠狠地扔进路边的垃圾桶里。我们听着有些愕然，吃完抓饭，准备去火车站。
As we left the restaurant, I went over to the room of the Uyghur chef, and said "Salaam" to him. He finally lifted up his head and returned my "Salaam". Salaam is an abbreviation of the Arabic "As-Salāmu 'Alaykum" means "Allah grant you peace", or just "Hello". It is a blessing Muslims use when they meet or part, and also one of the most common phrases used in daily life, especially its core part "Salaam", meaning "peace".	离开饭馆时，我走到维吾尔族厨师旁，向他道赛俩目，他终于抬头，回答我的赛俩目。赛俩目，是阿拉伯语“安赛俩目阿莱库目”的简称，意思是“真主赐你平安”或是“你好”，是穆斯林见面和道别时的祝语，也是生活中使用频度最高的一句话，其核心词语是“赛俩目”，即“和平”。
On the road to the train station, my head was still filled with Xinjiang. The streets were full of people walking hurriedly.	去火车站的路上，脑子里仍是新疆。街道上，路人行色匆匆。

Korean to English translation: how to get your kid into an international school

2010-07-28T12:23:00.004+08:00

Mostly-finished translation of an old Korean article in response to a thread at the Hyphen Magazine blog about birth tourism. Somewhat related: earlier posts on how to get rich by learning foreign languages and South Asians in Hong Kong's educational system.

Kangnam kids now 'nationality laundering' ... "get South American, African permanent residency and go to an international school"	지금 강남아이들은 '국적세탁중'…"남미·아프리카 영주권으로 외국인학교 가자"
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2008/09/12/2008091200199.html
Published: 2008 September 12, 08:41 Amended: 2008 September 12, 09:07	입력 : 2008.09.12 08:41 수정 : 2008.09.12 09:07
In order to send children to international schools, "nationality laundering", focused primarily on Ecuador, Mali, and other South American and African countries where permanent residency is comparatively easy to obtain, is rapidly expanding in Seoul's Kangnam district, the Hankook Ilbo reported on the 12th.	자녀를 외국인 학교에 보내기 위해 영주권을 비교적 손쉽게 취득할 수 있는 에콰도르, 아프리카의 말리 등 남미나 아프리카 국가가 주요 대상으로 한 ‘국적 세탁’이 서울 강남을 중심으로 급속히 확산되고 있다고 한국일보가 12일 보도했다.
According to the news, Mrs. Park X (46 y.o. businessperson) of Kangnam, Seoul obtained Ecuadorian residency for her 5th-grade son three months ago through a study-abroad office in Kangnam. She went to Ecuador for roughly one week with her son, and with the assistance of a local broker there was able to obtain permanent residency.	신문에 따르면 서울 강남구 대치동의 박모(46·사업)씨는 3개월 전 강남의 한 유학원을 통해 초등학교 5학년 아들을 에콰도르 영주권자로 만들었다. 그는 1주일 정도 아들과 함께 에콰도르를 방문한 뒤 현지 브로커 등의 도움을 받아 영주권을 받을 수 있었다.
Mrs. Park, who spent about W30 million in the process, stated in the report, "the fees are a lot cheaper than studying abroad, so I preferred [sending my child to] an international school teaching in English, and I heard that it was quite easy to get Ecuadorian permanent residency".	이 과정에서 든 돈은 약 3000만원 정도로 박씨는 “유학 보내는 것보다 비용도 훨씬 싸고 영어로 수업하는 외국인학교를 선호하고 있던 차에 에콰도르 영주권을 쉽게 취득할 수 있다는 얘기를 들었다”고 귀띔했다고 이 신문은 전했다.
In an interview, a person connected to the study-abroad institute in Kangnam said "the competition for the entrance exams for domestic special-purpose high schools or foreign-language academies is so fierce, middle-class parents think they might as well try for an international school" and "Obtaining permanent residency in South America or Africa is easily done, so there's now a trend of going through a study-abroad institute or broker to get such permanent residency".	강남의 한 유학원 관계자는 한국일보와 인터뷰에서 “국내 특목고나 국제중 등의 입시 경쟁이 치열해 중산층부모라면 모두 외국인학교를 한 번쯤 생각한다”며 “남미나 아프리카 영주권 취득이 쉬워 유학원이나 브로커 등을 통한 영주권 취득 바람이 불고 있다”고 말했다.
According to industry insiders, there are roughly 10 institutes, including travel companies, acting as agents to help people get permanent residency, employing a total of roughly 30 or 40 brokers. The Hankook Ilbo reported that Ecuadorian permanent residency can be obtained directly after a visit of just one week, while Malian permanent residency can be obtained easily through their embassy in Japan, in each case costing about W30 million.	업계 관계자들에 따르면 여행사를 끼고 영주권 취득을 알선하는 유학원이 10여 곳, 브로커도 어림잡아 30∼40명. 에콰도르 영주권은 1주일 정도만 방문하면 곧바로 취득할 수 있고, 말리 영주권은 일본에 있는 대사관을 통해 쉽게 발급 받을 수 있는 것으로 알려졌으며, 가격은 각각 3000만원 선이라고 한국일보는 보도했다.
According to the Ministry of Education, out of the 9,500 students enrolled in any of the country's 41 international schools, about 1,200 (13%) were South Korean citizens, but because Koreans with foreign permanent residency or dual citizenship are recorded as foreigners, it's widely accepted that the true proportion of Koreans is higher than that.	교육부에 따르면 지난해 기준으로 국내 41개 외국인학교 총 재학생 9500명 중 1200여명(약13%)이 한국인이지만 영주권자 등 이중 국적자는 외국인으로 보기 때문에 내국인의 비중은 더욱 높다는 것이 정설이다.
The news report claimed, it's commonly said among study-abroad institutes and parents that "80% of the students in international schools are ethnically Korean, and among them a large number are South Korean citizens who used money to purchase foreign citizenships". It's reached the point where actual foreigners are being pushed aside and squeezed out; Geoffrey Jones, honorary board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, in March tried to enroll his five- and seven-year-old sons in an international school in Seoul, but was informed that "no seats are available, please wait".	유학원과 부모들 사이에는 “외국인학교 재학생 중 80% 이상이 한국계고 이중 상당수가 외국 국적을 돈을 주고 산 내국인”이라는 말이 나돌고 있다고 이 신문은 전했다. 제프리 존스 주한 미국상공회의소 명예회장이 올 3월 5세, 7세의 두 아들을 서울의 외국인학교에 보내려고 했으나 “자리가 없으니 기다려라”는 통보를 받았을 정도로 정작 외국인 자녀들은 뒷전으로 밀려나는 처지다.
The reason why international schools ended up with such a high proportion of Koreans is that, South Korean citizens needed to have lived overseas for a period of five years or longer, but there is a loophole in the rules, in that people with permanent residency of foreign countries can receive immediate qualification to enter such schools.	외국인학교를 정작 한국계가 점령해 버린 것은 내국인일 경우 5년 이상의 해외 체류기간이 필요하지만, 외국 영주권자는 곧 바로 입학 자격이 부여되는 입학 규정의 허점 때문.
A source in the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology stated "because international schools are empowered with the right of autonomy [from national educational regulations], right now we don't have any way that we can block off these loopholes in the schools' conditions of enrollment.	교육과학기술부 관계자는 “외국인학교는 자율성이 부여되기 때문에 입학조건 등에서 편법을 막을 수 있는 방법이 현재로서는 없다”고 말했다고 이 신문은 전했다.

As I commented:

In China (and South Korea), one of the big motivations to get a foreign passport for your kids is so they can opt OUT of the hypercompetitive local school system and attend an international school — by law, local citizens with no connection to a foreign country can't enroll their kids in those schools otherwise ... Then they follow it up with boarding school and college in the U.S., and drop back into Shanghai, Beijing, or Hong Kong on their golden parachute ...

These silver-spoon babies find themselves the target of (IMO, well-deserved) resentment by locally-educated kids whose high schools required them to work harder and learn more, but who get passed over for the best jobs — because their knowledge:

doesn't have a foreign brand-name diploma attached to it, and

isn't expressed in accentless English complete with American sports and pop-culture references to put foreign managers and investors at ease

(God forbid the American expats in Asia actually have to deal with someone who's really representative of the local culture!)

So I agree with you that birth tourism probably doesn't have much effect on the U.S. ... but I'm quite uncomfortable seeing the U.S. passport (and the English language) used as yet another mechanism for the social elites of foreign countries to maintain their entrenched privilege and pass it on to the next generation.

Not learning Mongolian

2010-05-11T16:24:00.010+08:00

Continuing my four-year old tradition of learning foreign languages by mistranslating cheesy pop songs, here's Hair Medruulsen Harts by Nominjin, a Mongolian singer (who also speaks Malayalam). Watch it on YouTube.

Lots of fun here, but not so much that it overwhelms someone whose entire knowledge of Mongolian morphology comes from the suffixes list at the back of Gaunt and Bayarmandakh's textbook (an amazingly helpful tl;dr for those of us too lazy to read the book itself). First, there's the postpositional genitive form of pronouns, like минь/чинь. Obviously, the prepositional ones (миний/чиний) were just too boring, thus they gave us минь/чинь to ensure that hilarity would ensue with all the overlapping dependencies. One good example of this below: the lovely dual-transitive sentence "Намайг сэтгэлдээ боддогийг чинь мэдсэн", where the second -(и)йг marks the whole first clause as an object of whatever verb comes after чинь, and the -нь modifies not just бодох, but the whole clause preceding it too. (And if you're paying attention, you'll note that the object marker is applied directly to the verb, with not so much as a こと to let you know that you're dealing with a noun phrase and not a verb phrase. And the нь really means the чи is the subject of the subclause. I think. But all us Japanese speakers are used to dealing with genitive/subjective confusion, every time they make us sing 君が代, right?).

Хайр мэдрүүлсэн харц	Look of love
Love feel-cause-past see-nominalizer	A look that made you feel love

1	1
Би чамтай анх учирсан тэр өдөр	The first day I met you
I you-with first meet-past that day
Намайг анхааралдаа авсныг чинь мэдэрсэн	I knew that I got your attention
I-obj attention-refl. take-past-obj of-you feel-past
Би чамтай анх ярилцсан тэр мөчид	The first time I talked with you
I you-with first speak-past that time
Намайг сэтгэлдээ боддогийг чинь мэдсэн	I knew that you were thinking of me in your heart
I-obj heart-at-refl. think-habit.-obj of-you know-past
Чи намайг анх хөтөлсөн тэр өдөр	The first day you хөтлөх'ed me
You I-obj first lead-past that day
Сэтгэл минь хөдөлж, зүрхээ би чангалсан	I got excited, I started to like you
Heart of-mine start-conj., soul I tauten-past
Чи намайг анх тэвэрсэн тэр мөчид	The first time you hugged me
You I-obj first hug-past that time
Итгэл болоод баясгаланг мэдэрсэн
Faith болоод happiness-obj feel-past

Дахилт	Chorus
Би чамайг над руу харахад	When I look at you¹
I (you-obj me-towards look-time)
Хайр мэдэрсэн, хайр мэдэрдэг	I felt love, I keep feeling love
Love feel-past, love feel-habit.
Би чамайгаа үргэлж бодсоор явнаа	I'm saying with my body, night and day
I you-obj-emph. constantly body-instr. say-cont.
Хайрт минь, тиймээ	My love, yeah
Lover of-mine, yes-emph.
Би чамайгаа үргэлж бодсоор явнаа	I'm saying with my body, night and day
I you-obj-emph. constantly body-instr. say-cont.
Хайрт минь, тиймээ	My love, yeah
Lover of-mine, yes-emph.

2	2
Миний чамд өгсөн хайр бол их онцгой	If the love I gave you их онцгой
I-gen. you-dative give-past love if их онцгой
Чамайг хэзээ ч өөрийнхөө өмч болгохгүй
You-obj when -ever my self make-not
Ганцаара элээдэггүй энэ амьдралд	In this life alone that's not wearing me down
Alone grind-habit.-not this life-loc.
Намайг гэсэн сэтгэл чинь гомдохгүй	You (?) won't complain about losing my heart
I-obj lose-past heart of-you complain-not

Repeat first verse & chorus

Би чамайг хүлээнэ	I will wait for you
I you-obj wait-present

¹: When you look at me? When I see you towards me? When I look at myself and you do something unspecified? When you write sentences where the same agent tries to play two different semantic roles at once?

Not Learning Cantonese in Hong Kong (And Not Teaching Cantonese, Either)

2006-12-11T21:38:00.002+08:00

Basic principle: bilingual societies are run for the benefit of their bilingual elite, not for the benefit of monolinguals of either stripe ... and the goal of the bilingual elite inevitably becomes the restriction of its numbers, in order to increase their rent-extraction capabilities. Hence, inadequate Chinese-language instruction provided to ethnic minority students, overlooked on the grounds that since they and their parents speak some English, and Hong Kong is a bilingual society, everything's a-ok. (Just to make it really funny, when the ethnic minority kids apply for jobs, discriminate against them on the grounds that they have poor Chinese skills, even if they attended Chinese-medium schools). Like California, just with different languages. It's part of a wider attitude towards linguistic integration, an attitude which pretends variously to be humble ("Why should we make anyone learn Cantonese? It's just a local language"), internationalist ("We can all use English to communicate, and improve everyone's English standards!"), and multiculturalist ("Teaching them in Cantonese and making them learn English as well might affect the maintenance of their heritage language skills"), but in reality is just plain exclusionary.

I'd expect the religious organisations to be doing something about this, since many of the affected students are Muslims. Not really. Their solution for community integration is to give khutba on a weekly rotating basis in either Cantonese or Urdu at the Kowloon masjid ...

(Oddly enough, that's meant that not only Indian Muslims but even a few non-Indians, e.g. Malay Muslims, but virtually no HK Chinese Muslims, have come to speak Urdu as an expression of their community identity. And here I was thinking that inside the masjid, everyone's common language was supposed to be Arabic ...)

(Ming Pao, July 24)	(明報) 07月 24日星期一 05:05AM
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/060723/12/1qdo5.html
(Ming Pao) Parents don't necessarily know how to help their children do homework, or understand the notices sent home from school. Many South Asian parents, because they aren't well-versed in Chinese, can't help their children with their homework even though they want to, and even don't show up to parent association meetings due to the language problem. One social worker who specialises in assisting South Asians described, some minorities even found that, when they ran into language problems at school, the school took an attitude of 「你死你賤」, and called on the government to provide adequate support for this vulnerable societal group.	【明報專訊】父母懂得教導子女做功課、明白學校的家長通告內容絕非必然。一班南亞裔的家長由於不諳中文，平日檢查子女做功課有心無力，更因語言問題缺席學校的家長會。有專門協助南亞裔人的社工形容，部分少數族裔在學校遇到語言問題時，學校的態度卻是「你死你賤」，促請政府提供足夠支援予這班弱勢社群。
To Mrs. Chulani, who came to Hong Kong from Sri Lanka, Chinese is like an "alien language". She said, whenever her daughter, who is in her fifth year of primary school, asks her to sign some notification from the school, she just signs it without asking, because the school notifications are only given in Chinese, her daughter, who luckily knows Chinese, needs to translate it to her for her to understand it at all. She also said, she attended a parents' association meeting one time, but because it was all in Cantonese, afterwards, she didn't go.	來港定居的斯里蘭卡籍Mrs. Chulani，中文對於她來說是「外星文」。她說，升讀小五的女兒每次要求她在學校的通告上簽署時，她都二話不說，「從不過問」地簽下，皆因學校每份通告都僅得中文版，幸好中文了得的女兒替她翻譯，才獲知一二。她又說，出席過一次學校的家長會，但聽入耳的全都是「廣東話」，她以後便因而缺席家長會。
Mr. Kumar, an Indian who also doesn't understand Cantonese, said, his daughter, who's seven years old, sometimes cries because neither he nor his wife can help her with homework. His wife Mrs. Kumar said, when her daughter runs into a difficult problem on her homework, sometimes she can only ask the neighbours for help, or go for extra tutoring at school.	同樣不懂中文的印度籍Mr. Kumar說，7歲女兒有時會因為他和太太均未能教她做功課而「哭起來」。太太Mrs. Kumar說，女兒若遇有功課難題時，有時唯有向鄰居請教和參加學校的功課輔導班。
Provide translation service, and teach parents Chinese	促提供翻譯教導家長中文
In April this year, Hong Kong Christian Service Centre interviewed more than 50 South Asian parents. The survey discovered, more than 80% could not read Chinese, and almost 60% couldn't speak it either. Registered Social Worker Ms. Yuen Kei, who works at the Centre, said, South Asian students are distributed across many different schools, but some schools do not understand at all the language problems they run into, 「你死你賤」; because of this, she suggested the government and schools should provide translation, or give them instruction in learning Chinese.	香港基督教服務處於本年4月，訪問了50多名南亞裔家長。調查發現，逾八成家長不懂閱讀中文，近六成則不懂說中文。該處的註冊社工曾婉姬說，因南亞裔學生分佈在不同學校，但部分學校毫不理會他們遇到的語言問題，「你死你賤」，故建議政府和學校均適時提供翻譯或教導他們認識中文。
The Education Department pointed out in reply, when schools issue notifications, they should look after the needs of non-Chinese language students and parents, and provide bilingual notifications, or give a name/contact method in order that parents can ask for more information when they need. The Department went on to say, even if the parents' association primarily uses Cantonese, schools should provide some explanation in English, or arrange for school staff to provide assistance.	教育統籌局回應指，學校在發通告時，應照顧非華語學生及家長的需要，例如擬備雙語版本，或說明聯絡人及其聯絡辦法，以便有關家長在有需要時，可作進一步查詢。局方續稱，即使家長會以粵語為主，學校亦可提供英語簡介或安排教職員提供協助等。

Incidentally, the EMB issued a response to these kinds of criticisms just last week, which included the following admission: there's no actual curriculum for teaching Chinese as a Second Language right now in Hong Kong. Mainland China, with 100 million ethnic minorities, has a wealth of experience in developing CSL curricula for children (see this post on The Opposite End of China for discussion on that can of worms), while Asia's World City has roughly none:

Will EMB develop a curriculum on Chinese as a second language?

There are views that EMB should develop an alternative curriculum and examination on Chinese as a second language. In fact, the measures that we are adopting are also addressing the needs of the NCS students:

We appreciate that schools may need to adapt the teaching pedagogy, progress and materials in teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students. In this regard, we are providing assistance to the schools concerned to develop school-based curricula by adapting the central Chinese curriculum framework. During the process, we will draw reference from the curriculum design in individual international schools. The ultimate objective is to develop a set of curriculum design and resources for reference and deployment by local schools. Indeed, we note that the development of school-based Chinese curriculum for NCS students is also the approach adopted by many international schools.

Necessary arrangements are being made to introduce the GCSE (Chinese) examination in Hong Kong starting from 2007 for NCS students in public-sector schools. This examination is suitable for students learning Chinese as a second language. In the long run, we will continue to examine if there is a need to introduce other Chinese Language examinations and qualifications for NCS students. The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority will also consider developing a separate Chinese Language examination for NCS students to provide yet another examination choice.

Regarding medium of instruction, the EMB said:

MOI and teaching of Chinese are two different issues. Our MOI policy is premised on sound education philosophy and it takes into account the practical circumstances of Hong Kong. Our public-sector schools will not adopt ethnic minority languages as the MOI, for this would not be conducive to the learning of Chinese and English by ethnic minority students. Nor would it help their integration into the school and the wider community. That said, we put emphasis on teaching Chinese to ethnic minority children (irrespective of whether the school adopts Chinese or English as the MOI), and we have strengthened our support for schools/students in this regard (see section above).

Which is an understandable position to take, but basically means no heritage language maintenance for South Asian students. That puts their parents in the unenviable position of asking themselves the same question that Tamil parents in Malaysia are already familiar with, the question of the economic viability of the language: Tami cooru poodumaa? — 'Will Tamil put rice (on the table)?'

A while ago, there was a post and some comments on the same issue on inmediahk.net as well ...

Sog'indim

2006-12-09T13:42:00.000+08:00

This translation was a failure; most of this post consists of question marks.

The element day is a real pain to translate or even grasp. The only way I really understand how it works is in simple words like bu vs. bunday (n inserted by some phonetic process I memorized but never really remember). It's roughly like Japanese この vs. こんな, or Korean 이 vs. 이런/이러한 , which are usually clumsily translated into English as "this" vs. "these kinds". Incidentally, this is yet another example of how Korean morphology can feel ever so slightly closer to that of the Turkic languages than Japanese; こ cannot act as an unbound morpheme, unlike 이 or bu. More on this in a separate post comparing my experiences studying Japanese, Korean, and Uyghur ...

Uzbek/English	Gloss
Yonadı tunları samoda yulduzlar, Hayolım sozları mısolı sadolar. Qalbım orzuları yolg'onga aylanlar Sevmasam senı... These nights, the stars in the heavens Are words in my imagination, like voices. The dreams in my heart turn into lies, ???	Yon: near + ida: (locative) Tun: night + lar (plural) + i (subject) Samo: sky, heavans + da (locative) Yulduz: star + lar (plural) Hayol: imagination + im (1p poss) Soz: words + lar (plural) + i (subject) Mısolı: as, like Sado: voice + lar (plural) Qalb: heart + im (1p poss) Orzu: dream + lar (plural) + i (subject) Yolg'on: falsehood + ga (from) Aylan: to turn into + lar (plural) Sevmoq: to love + moq/masam (???)
Bekingan bahtımnı koroldım kozingda, Jonımda borımnı atadım ozingga. Kozlaring tavonı ellandı yonımga sog'ındım senı... ??? ??? ??? I longed for you	Bekinmoq: hide, shut + moq/gan: continuous connective bahtimni: ??? Korol: + dim (1p past) Kozing: + da (locative) Jon: soul + im (1p poss) + da (locative) borimni: ??? ata: to call + dim (1p past) o'zi: self + ng (2p poss) + ga (from) Ko'z: eye + lar (plural) + ing (2p poss) Tavoni: ??? Ellandi: ??? Yon: side + im (1p poss) + ga (from) Sog'in: to long for + dim (1p past)
O'zga sayyoralarda bolsang ham, barıbır senı izlab topaman ??? ???	O'zga: rather Sayyor: travel, journey + lar (plural) + da (locative) Bo'lsa: without + ng (2p poss); roughly "if you had not" Ham: too, as well Baribir: the same Izla: to search for + b: ??? Top: + a: ??? + man: (1p pres)
Otmasa kunları tilagimdagiday, So'nadi yuragım tollarning bargıday Sen mening keragım sahroga yomg'ırday, bebaho yorım ??? ??? ??? ???	Ot: word. Or maybe horse + masa: ??? Kun: day + lar (plural) + i (subject) Tilak: wish + im (1p poss) + dagi (???) + day (???) So'nadi: ??? Yurak: heart + im (1p poss) Tol: + lar (plural) + ning (poss) Barg: Leaf + iday (???) Kerak: need + im: (1p poss) Sahro: Desert + ga: (from) Yomg'ir: Rain + day (???) Bebaho: priceless Yor: lover, friend, soulmate + im (1p poss)
O'zga sayyoralarda bolsang ham, barıbır senı izlab topaman Garduniy manzıllarda bolsang ham, barıbır men ortingdan boraman English goes here	O'zga: rather Sayyor: travel, journey + lar (plural) + da (locative) Bo'lsa: without + ng (2p poss); roughly "if you had not" Ham: too, as well Baribir: the same Izla: to search for + b: ??? Top: + a: ??? + man: (1p pres) Gardun: fate, heavens + iy: ??? Manzil: destination, stopping place + lar (plural) + da: (locative) Ort: end, behind + ing (poss) + dan (colocative) Bor: to have + man (1p pres)

Mobile phone IMEs for Indian languages

2006-10-23T14:19:00.000+08:00

Another bad consequence of excessive reliance on English in the educational system: the assumption that everyone who "matters" already speaks English, so there's no need to localize your product.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1826055,0015002500010002.htm

Hindi option eludes sms senders
HT Live Correspondent
October 21

COUNT YOURSELF lucky if you have a keypad on your mobile phone handset with Hindi alphabets.

Sending SMS in Hindi continued to pose a problem with mobile phone users this festive season. Most handsets have the ‘Hindi Language Option’, but no alphabets on the keypad or the software to convert English alphabets into Hindi for typing the words with ease to write and send Diwali greetings immediately.

Most of the greetings sent in Hindi by cellular operators are being saved and forwarded to friends and relatives by the users as only the latest series of handsets have Hindi alphabets on the keypad.

Majority of the mobile handset users depend on greetings sent in Hindi by a friend or relative to be forwarded to the next recipient. Some of the cellular operators are offering voice-based SMS services which greet the recipient when the message is opened for viewing. This is the only service where the cellular operators have gone completely vernacular with messages available in other Indian languages such as Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.

And, how about voice mailboxes? A surprising fact remains that few mobile subscribers even know how to open a voice mail box and listen to a message leave aside sending a voice mail greeting to friends and relatives during festive seasons.

There are a host of mobile services subscribers using old handsets who prefer to call up friends and relatives to greet since language barrier stops them from sending long SMS greetings using the keypad which in most cases is English. So, if you want to write Diwali Ki Shubhkamna or Shubh Dipawali, or Eid Mubarak, there are no options available.

Expelled for a kiss

2006-10-16T23:57:00.000+08:00

Being an educational snob, I only noticed this story because it ran in the HK Metro Daily (the paper that's worth every last cent I paid for it) under the headline "北大生當眾接吻遭退學" ("Peking University Students Kiss Publicly; Expelled"). I of course parsed it as "Peking University student" (i.e. a student of Peking University, one of the top universities in China), but as it turned out, they were just talking about a "Peking university student" (i.e. a university student in Beijing); in fact, the guy goes to Beijing Vocational Technology School, or maybe Beijing Vocational Technology Academy (even within the article, the school seems to change names). The hometown papers (e.g. Beijing News) did not run it under the "北大生當眾接吻遭退學" headline, so basically, the confusion above is the fault of some Hong Kong editor. ...

In other words, this is equivalent to an American paper a story about students from Ruskin College's Oxford campus under, say, the headline "Oxford University Students Screw Publicly; Onlookers Suspended".

One thing I can't figure out how to put into normal English: 军事化管理 ... literally "militarised management". Basically a figure of speech to describe how strict and disciplinarian the school are.

As for the case itself, I might have been sympathetic to the guy, since the rules at his school, not just about public displays of affection, but also cutting class and the like, are even stricter than my middle school (let alone university, where the only punishment I ever got for skipping class was by one professor who lowered my grade from an A to a B despite my having a 95% average on exams and homeworks; I was only taking the class so I could get my diploma, and attending it would have been a complete waste of time, or, to put it in economic terms, "have too high an opportunity cost" since the material was so easy). But his father comes off sounding self-centered and utterly clueless.

http://news.thebeijingnews.com/0558/2006/10- 15/014@214947.htm

University sophomore expelled for "excessive intimacy" with girlfriend, www.thebeijingnews.com 2006-10-15 0:27:31 Source: The Beijing News Reporter: Zuo Lin	与女友“交往过密”大二男生被劝退 www.thebeijingnews.com 2006-10-15 0:27:31 来源：新京报（记者左林）
Beijing Vocational Technology School lists six reasons for expulsion, but the parents feel these are all just little mistakes and not worthy of expulsion	北京科技职业学校列出6条劝退理由，家长认为均是小错不够退学标准
Chen Ping (pseudonym), a sophomore at Beijing Vocational Technology School's aviation academy, was expelled by his school for "excessive intimacy between male and female students" and six other "charges". The school said, the school adopted 军事化管理, and Chen Ping already met the criteria for expulsion. Chen's father said that it was hard to accept being expelled over these kinds of "little things", and if his child were really expelled, he might sue the school.	北京科技职业学校航空学院大二学生陈平（化名）日前因“男女生交往过密”等6条“罪状”被校方劝退。院方称，本学院采用军事化管理，陈平已符合退学条件。陈父表示因类似“小事”被退学难以接受，如果孩子真被退学，他将有可能起诉学校。
Parent: six "offences" all just little mistakes	家长：6条“罪名”均小错
"What student hasn't eaten during class?" Yesterday, Chen Ping's father was still indignant when he brought up Chen Ping's expulsion from school. He said, the reasons his son was expelled from school included "excessive intimacy, eating during class, listening to mp3s (probably meaning listening to an mp3 player during class), cutting class" and similar offences; he believes that the so-called "excessive intimacy between male and female students" was nothing more than Chen Ping and his girlfriend embracing and the like in a public place.	“哪个学生上课时没吃过东西？”昨日，陈父提起陈平被退学一事仍很气愤。他称，孩子被退学的理由是“男女生交往过密、上课吃东西、听MP3、旷课”等6条，他认为，所谓的“ 男女生交往过密”，不过是陈平与女朋友在公众场合有拥抱等亲密行为。
Chen Ping said, school rules specify that a student had to accumulate twenty absences from class before being expelled; even though he'd cut class a lot, he definitely hadn't hit that target. As for the charge of "excessive intimacy", he believes "this reason is really stupid, besides, we weren't even doing anything much."	陈平称，学校规定累计旷课20次才能退学，自己虽然旷课多次，但绝对没“达标”。对于“男女生交往过密”，他认为，“这个理由很无聊，况且我们又没干什么。”
Chen's father said, the final straw which caused his son's expulsion from school was his leaving school early for the National Day holiday. On the evening of September 26th, Chen Ping took a train back to his hometown of Wuhan, but his school didn't officially go on break for another two days.	陈父称，儿子被退学的导火索是十一长假提前离校。9月26日晚，陈平坐火车回到武汉家中，而此时距学校正式放假还有两天。
Class rector: kissing publically is really excessive	班主任：当众接吻实在太过分
According to Chen's class rector Ms. Jin, on the evening of the 26th, after she learned from a phone call from Chen Ping's mother that he had gone back home ahead of time, she ordered him to immediately return to school, otherwise she would render a punishment of expulsion, but Chen Ping and his father didn't report to the school until October 9th.	据陈平的班主任靳老师称，26日晚，她接到陈平母亲的电话得知学生已提前离校返家后，当即令其即刻回校，否则将给予退学处分，但是陈平和父亲10月9日才赶到学校报到。
"You really can't buy train tickets during these long vacations", Chen's father explained to reporters, while at the same time pulling out two standing-room-only tickets for October 9th. He said, the soonest day he could buy the tickets for was the 9th; it wasn't a deliberate lateness.	“实在是长假期间买不到火车票。”陈父一面向记者解释，一面掏出两张10月9日的无座火车票。他表示，自己买到最近的一班火车票就是9日的，并非故意迟到。
"The notice of expulsion was signed on September 28th", Ms. Jin said, Chen Ping's unauthorized early departure from school was the spark for his expulsion. According to the school's attendance records, Chen Ping's record of cutting class, tardiness, and early departure had already reached the school's standard for expulsion. Several classmates of his also said, Chen Ping "wasn't really going anywhere", and his performance at school was usually pretty bad.	“退学通知9月28日就签好了，”靳老师称，陈平十一长假擅自离校只是引发退学的导火索。根据学校的考勤记录，陈平旷课、迟到、早退记录早就达到退学标准。数名同班同学也称，陈平“不太上进”，平时表现较差。
Ms. Jin said, excessive intimacy between male and female students was strictly prohibited by the aviation school, and they implemented a "one-strike" policy against it. "And Chen Ping and his girlfriend were kissing publicly in a classroom, it's really going too far."	靳老师称，男女生交往过密是航空学院严格禁止的，实行一票否决制。“而陈平和他女友在教室里当众接吻，这也太过分了。”
School: 军事化管理 isn't right for him	学校：军事化管理不适合他
The aviation school's Vice-Principal Niu Zhenhai stated, the school had an investigative committee formed by teachers; Chen Ping's record of infractions was supplied by that committee.	航空学院主管学务的常务副院长钮振海表示，学校有个由老师组成的纪律检查委员会，陈平的所有违规记录都是由委员会提供。
He stated, the notification of Chen Ping's expulsion from school had already been signed by the leaders of the school, and absolutely could not be altered. But at the time of expulsion, the academy refunded a portion of his tuition, as per the rules. " (Chen's) character is pretty stubborn, and he often offended the teachers; 军事化管理 isn't really appropriate for this boy's development"	他表示，陈平的退学通知已经院领导签字，绝对不可更改。但退学时，学院会按规定返还他一部分学费。“孩子的性格比较倔强，经常冲撞老师，军事化管理不适合这个孩子的成长。”
Yesterday afternoon, Chen's father's was still emotionally distressed. "If my son's really expelled from school, I might file a suit against the school for depriving him of his right to education."	昨日下午，陈父表情愁苦，“如果孩子真被退学，我可能会起诉学校剥夺孩子受教育的权利。”
Beijing Vocational Technology School is a private (i.e. non-state-supported) school.	据了解，北京科技职业学院为一所民办学校。
Academic Council: students may appeal if they cannot accept a ruling	教委：学生不服决定可申诉
Beijing Municipal Educational Regulatory Research and Legal Work Office director He Jingsong stated, in the "Higher Educational Student Management Regulations" laid out by the Education Division, it was stipulated that in situations where students faced expulsion, it was legitimate for various schools to apply the rules flexibly under conditions which did not violate basic regulations. If Chen Ping did not accept the ruling of expulsion, he could appeal to the school within five days of receiving notice to demand re-investigation; if he was dissatisfied with the results of the reinvestigation, he could go to the Beijing Municipal Educational Regulatory Research and Legal Work Office within 15 days to appeal further.	北京市教委政策研究与法制工作处处长何劲松表示，在教育部颁布的《高校学生管理规定》中，规定了学生应当退学的情况，各高校在不违背原则的情况下作出的变通都属合法。如果陈平对退学决定不服，可以在接到决定5 日内向学校申诉要求复查，对复查结果不满，可以在15日内到北京市教委政策研究与法制工作处申诉。

Zhang Chengzhi in Salamanca

2006-10-03T23:45:00.001+08:00

Well, this is all I can get done in one night, but it's interesting enough that I'll come back to it again soon ... really ...

良知 is pretty hard to translate idiomatically in English. Fitrah would probably be the best way to put it ...

Lonely statues	雕像孤单
Statue 1	（1）
What kind of a place is Salamanca? Aside from the Salamanca University, which is as big as the city itself, I don't think there's really anything else there. Of course, there's also a river I don't dare to belittle, because of an interesting book, Lazarillo de Tormes — the ancestor of the picaresque novel; so this shallow river, spanned by a Roman stone bridge, has also become a literary holy ground.	萨拉曼卡是怎么一个地方？除了一所与城一样大的萨拉曼卡大学，我想它剩不下什么别的东西。当然，还有一条不敢小看的河；因为一部有趣的异色的书，它的题目是《托尔美斯河上的拉撒路》（Lazarillo de Tormes）——乃是世界流浪汉小说的鼻祖；所以这条跨着一座石头罗马桥的浅浅的河，也就成了一处文学圣地。
So, no matter what, I felt that I should go to the river and pay my respects. It's just that, up until that moment when I walked along the side of the river, I still had never read that novel.	所以，我怎么也得去河边瞻仰一番。只是，直到走到河边的那一刻为止，我还没有读过这部小说。
I arrived in Salamanca on the day after the February 15th anti-war marches. Anxiously reading the reports of the previous day's march, I went at once to see the river. Underneath the setting sun, the crystalline riverwater glistened, like a thread of shattered glass. War was coming. The people pushed with all their might, but they were unable to hold it back. I looked and the flow of the river and thought, the democracy, which takes so long to build, was like class, thin and fragile; when the glass was violently smashed, neither did the world stand up for democracy.	我是在二月十五日反战大游行的次日，到达萨拉曼卡的。急急看了前一天游行的报道，就赶快跑去看河。夕阳下，那河水粼粼闪烁，如一条碎裂的玻璃。战争就要来了。人们拼尽了力气，但没能阻止住它。费了漫长时光建立起来的民主，望着河流我想，原来就象这玻璃一样，又薄又脆。当玻璃被粗暴地打碎的时候，世界并没有捍卫民主。
On the way to the Roman bridge, you have to pass by a small church. You'd expect that (walking by), the Tormes River, reminiscing about the vagrants of Lazarillo would be a pleasurable thing； but the calamities in Iraq have made people's hearts more somber. Along the walls which wrap a semicircle around the river, we nosed about, walking until we were tired.	走向罗马桥必须路过一所教堂。本来，去托尔美斯河回味凭吊有趣的流浪儿拉撒路该是一件快事；但伊拉克的灾难使人心里沉重。沿河岸绕着半圆的城墙，我们打听着，走得很累。
As soon as we got there, we saw the plaza and the statues in front of the building.	一路上到处看见广场和建筑前的雕像。
I walked and casually looked around; for the most part, I didn't know who they were.	我一边走，一边随意浏览，大多都不知道是属于谁的。
Walking to the bridgehead, I also saw a group of bronze statues, a pair of vagrants. A child, holding the hand of an old blind man, moving forwards. The lines of the statue were very coarse, the curves rounded, the eyes and posture very lacking in detail; they seemed a bit like an imitation of Rodin. I sat down at the base, pulled out the novel which I had brought, and began to read.	走到桥头也看见一组铜像，是一对流浪汉。一个小孩，牵着一个盲人老头的手，朝着前途行走。塑像笔法粗旷，棱线滑圆，眼神和姿态都很笼统，有点模仿罗丹。我在台基上坐下，掏出带来的小说读起来。
The book was very easy to read; I was unwittingly drawn in.	书极易读，我不知不觉读了进去。
Indeed, however harsh you are, you have to consider it a masterpiece. Not only did it become an important old book of the mid-16th century, but the author is also not known, a very singular process of 成书. He is generally acknowledged as the originator of the picaresque novel, but beyond that, because these two vagrants of Lazarillo's are so true-to-life, the narrative of the novel can be quite simple — all together, two people: 流浪儿的恶主总是更换不歇，流浪儿的噩运随之巡回不已——所以，一切有过流浪经历, or 干脆所有倒过霉的人，就忍不住狗尾续貂的冲动。这样，无名氏们在篇尾大逞才华，倾倒个人独特痛苦，imitating the taunting writing style of his seniors, 让倒霉花样翻新，使名著生命不老。	确实，不管怎么苛刻也得把它评为名著。它不仅成书年头古老（16世纪中叶），而且作者不详，成书过程奇特。一般公认它是流浪汉小说的鼻祖，不仅如此，由于拉撒路这个流浪儿典型太精彩、小说的叙事方式又太简单——一共两人：流浪儿的恶主总是更换不歇，流浪儿的噩运随之巡回不已——所以，一切有过流浪经历、或者干脆所有倒过霉的人，就忍不住狗尾续貂的冲动。这样，无名氏们在篇尾大逞才华，倾倒个人独特痛苦，模仿前辈嘲讽文风，让倒霉花样翻新，使名著生命不老。
I finished reading it very quickly.	我很快就读完了。
Getting up again to size up that monument to the vagabonds, I felt that the sculpture completely lacked the comedy of the text. Not only did it completely skip over the details, not even drawing the eyebrows and the eyes, the sculptor basically did not convey any facetious humour. The child has no facial expression, not even any pain. And the old man is even more neutered, completely lacking that wanton malevolence, arising from hunger and cold, found in the book. Anyway, I can't really comment; what I read wasn't the original text, so who knows whether it was the book that was written too glibly, or that kind of Rodinesque art was too ambiguous?	起身再打量这座流浪者的丰碑，觉得雕像完全没有文本的诙谐。它不单单略过细节不画眉眼，我觉得塑像者根本没有表达什么诙谐幽默。小孩是无表情的，甚至没有痛苦。老头则更是中性，全然没有书中那种——因饥寒交加滋生的恶毒。我不置可否，反正我读的不是原文，谁知道究竟是书写得过于油腔滑调，还是这种罗丹式的艺术太模棱两可？
Regardless, that bronze statue stood high on the banks of the Tormes River, accompanying the stately old curved Roman bridge.	反正这铜像高高立在托尔美斯的河岸上，和优雅古老的罗马桥作伴，宛似漫漫古代的桥头堡。
Having taken our look at the Roman bridge, and again strolled for a while at the side of the river, we started walking back. Following the bank of the river for about an hour, we again came back to that church with the statue standing right in front of it.	看了一阵罗马桥，又在河边遛跶了一会，我们往回走。顺着河岸半个时辰，又回到了那个正前方立着一座雕像的教堂。
With the day's tasks finished, we walked up to the statue, again sat down at the base, pulled out a bocadillo (cold bread with a layer of hard cheese), and started eating it up.	一天的事结束了，我们走近雕像，还是在台座上坐下，摸出一个波卡迪奥（就是一个冷面包，夹着一层硬奶酪），吃了起来。
Silver and yellow lamps lit up the streets of Salamanca, and at that time, the sky went dark.	萨拉曼卡的市街，亮起了黄的和银色的灯，就在这时天黑了。
Statue 2	（2）
This old man did not resemble the jet black of the vagrant before, but rather the kind of green bronze statue you commonly see. A philospher, with long beard and flowing hair, lapels fluttering，facing down on the university town below.	这一尊不似刚才流浪汉的乌黑，它是常见的那种青绿铜像。一个披发的哲人，长髯披发，衣裾飘拂，俯身看着下面的大学城。
The remaining rays of light were already quite dim; I could not see his eyes or 神情 clearly. I had to look at the inscription before I realized, this second statue was none other than Brother Franciscus de Victoria (Francisco de Vitoria) of the Salamanca school.	光线很暗，看不清他的眉眼和神情。仔细辨认了铭文才知道，这第二座雕像不是别人，正是萨拉曼卡学派的弗朗西斯科·徳·维多利亚修士（Francisco de Vitoria）。
In the 16th century, taking aim at the process of colonialism which Spain was implementing in the Americas, and especially the terrifying slavery, massacres, and denial of the humanity of the Indios, a group of Catholic theologians at the University of Salamanca bravely criticised their unjust mother country; fearing not the king nor the Church, they revealed their humanity and their innate knowledge of right and wrong.	十六世纪，针对西班牙对美洲实施的大规模殖民过程，特别对其中的可怕奴役、大量屠杀、以及对印第安人的人性否认，萨拉曼卡大学的一批天主教神学家曾勇敢地批判不义的祖国，他们不畏王权和神权，显示了人类的良知。
In 1539, Brother Francisco published his "Relectiones theologicae", in which he denied the legality of the edict with which the Pope bestowed the American continent upon the Kingdom of Spain. He said, Jesus had never bestowed secular authority on individuals; the Pope also had no authority to dispose of others' land or property. As America was an inhabited land, the local inhabitants possessed all natural rights over the land. Spain had no right to use the excuse of spreading Christianity to wage war against the Americas.	1539年，维多利亚修士发表《论神学》，否认教皇把美洲赠送给西班牙国王的诏书合法。他说，耶稣从未把世俗权力赐予个人，教皇也无权处理他人的财产土地。美洲是有人居住的土地，本地居民拥有对土地的一切自然权利。西班牙无权借口传播基督教，对美洲发动战争。
At that time, the papal court in Spain was burning heretics at the stake every day, while in Latin America, in the name of God the holy, colonialism was wantonly plundering and slaughtering. People could not imagine what kind of enormous terror was being unleashed, or the narrow discourse space of that age — only those who came later would know. Brother Francisco and the pioneers of humanitarianism at the University of Salamanca offered a mighty defence for the race of Indios, seen as inferior and subhuman.	那时，西班牙王国的宗教裁判所每天都在用火刑处死异端。殖民主义以神圣的名义，在拉丁美洲大肆屠杀掠夺。人们不能想象，他们究竟是冒着极大的恐怖，还是那个时代也存在一定的言论空间——后人只知道，维多利亚修士和萨拉曼卡的人道主义先驱们，为视为劣等非人的印第安种族，实行过伟大的辩护。
Unexpectedly, I sat down at his feet ... I was truly shocked.	居然我就坐在他脚下！……我大吃一惊。
Reading this today is like reading heavenly script: not only is there no one who will listen, nor is there anyone who understands.	如今读着他的话如读天书，不仅无人听，而且读不懂。
This towering goodness from faraway ancient times, made me feel a kind of convulsion, like a plant being pulled out by the roots. It made me excited and nervous, my heart filled with both dignity and embarassment. Now, the whole world still silently watches and acknowledges the violence of large countries towards small countries. In the name of internationalism, they take the land and the oil of the weak and gift them to those who right now are engaged in the commission of robbery. And only because of the weapons of the robbers, only because of the threats of the robbers ...	在遥远的古代矗立的良知，使我感到一种被连根拔起的震撼。它使我亢奋而紧张，心里交叉涌着尊严和羞耻。如今，全世界都默认地注视着一个大国对一个小国施暴。他们以国际的名义，把弱者的土地和石油，赠送给正在犯罪的强盗。只因为强盗的武器，只因为强盗的恫吓。
A set of famous words of Brother Francisco from five hundred years ago are worth being repeated:	五百年前维多利亚修士的一系列名言值得重新背诵：
“If the subjects are aware of the injustice of war then it should not be fought, even if the monarch orders it.” “All peoples have the right to rule themselves, and to select their preferred political system, even if they do not choose the best system.”	“如果臣民意识到战争的非正义性就不该前去打仗，哪怕受遣于君主的命令。” “一切民族都有权自我管理，选择他们喜欢的政治制度，哪怕选择的不是最好的制度。”

Setora - Sen Borsan

2006-09-26T00:07:00.000+08:00

Watch it on YouTube

Learned one more grammatical parallel with Japanese: uchun, which appears to act roughly like のために.

Also, the lyrics make a lot more sense in the context of the video. At least here, the images, even with their variable production quality, add to the experience rather than subtracting from it (as is often the case with music videos, even those shot in million-dollar studios) ...

Uzbek/English	Glosses
Sen Borsan	You're here
Sog'inchdan to'lib qalbim, surating yonida jim, To'kilar qayg'u yoshim, seni eslab doim. Sog'inchdan to'lib my heart, Your picture silent next to me, To'kilar my tears of grief, I (will?) remember you always.	sog'in: to miss, long for + ch: nominaliser? + dan: to'lib: qalb: heart + im: 1st-person possessive surat: picture + ing: 2nd-person possessive yon: near, side jim: quiet, still to'kil: spill, get spilt, pour out, empty + ar: ??? qayg'u: grief yosh: tears + im: 1st-person possessive esla: to remember + b: ??? doim: always
Sevgimiz og'ushida sevinchga to'lardi dil, Bu kunlar to'kilmazdek ko'rinardi menga. Our love og'ushida sevinchga to'lardi dil, Those days to'kilmazdek ko'rinardi to me.	sevgi: love + miz: 1st-person plural sevin: to rejoice + ch: nominaliser? + ga: towards to'lar: ??? + di: ??? dil: heart kun: day + lar: plural to'kil: spill, get spilt, pour out, empty + mazdek: ??? ko'rin: appear, emerge + ardi: ???
Bridge: Jaranglaydi kulgularing nigohlaring ko'z o'nggimda, Sening ruhing yashar mangu baribir men uchun borsan. Your jaranglaydi laughter, Your glances k'oz onggimda Your spirit young forever, You're always there for me	kulgu: laughter + lar: plural + ing: 2nd-person possessive nigoh: glance + lar: plural + ing: 2nd-person possessive ko'z: eye, way to do something o'ng: right-hand side + im: 1st-person possessive + da: locative ruh: spirit + ing: 2nd-person possessive yashar: to look young mangu: forever baribir: ??? uchun: for, for the sake of bor: to have, to exist + san: 2nd-person singular present
Chorus: Hayotimda borsan, yuragimda doim sen yasharsan, Borsan hayotimda borsan, yuragimda doim sen yashaysan. You're there in my life, Inside of me, always, you You're there in my life, Inside of me, always, you	hayot: life + im: 1st-person possessive + da: locative bor: to have, to exist + san: 2nd-person singular present yurak: inside + im: 1st-person possessive + da: locative doim: always
Orzular bo'ldi yakson, afsuski endi yo'qsan, Sen ketding yorug' parloq shirin hayot uchun. My dreams were crushed, You're not here right now. The light behind you parloq, For this sweet life.	orzu: dream + lar: plural bo'ldi: enough yakson: crush, smash, ruin afsuski: unfortunately, sorry endi: just now, at present yo'q: not exist, be not present + san: 2nd-person singular present ket: behind + ing: possessive yorug': light parloq: ??? shirin: sweet, sweetness hayot: life uchun: for, for the sake of
Bo'lsa ham dilda alam, dardimga bo'lar malham, Sevgilim sendan qolgan beg'ubor bordirim. Bo'lsa ham the bitterness in my heart English English English	dil: heart + da: locative alam: grief, bitterness dard: malady, problems + im: 1st-person possessive + ga: towards malham: salve sevgili: lover, beloved + m: 1st-person possessive sen: you + dan: ??? qol: to remain behind, to say + gan: continuous/connective beg'ubor: unsullied, clean, pure bor: to exist, be present + dir: ??? + im: ???
Bridge Chorus x3

Khayalan

2006-09-22T07:53:00.000+08:00

Sing along to the karaoke version on YouTube

This seems to be one of those mindless off-topic karaoke videos that takes away from the song rather than adding to it ... you're better off listening with your eyes closed. I think that's just off Bukit Bintang in the picture, but since I'm not from KL, I'm not entirely sure.

"Khayalan" could mean either "imagination" or "illusion", depending on the context; this means it's hard to translate some connotations into English in all phrases.

Imagination // VE & Ruffedge	Khayalan // VE & Ruffedge
One, two, three, and four There is nothing which I dapat bersamamu hanya penat They could say what they did because they did not feel The burden that was "carved on my chest", that really tormented me I was completely dumbfounded by this dilemma of yours Flying to chase your dream for me Sendiri dalam khayalan menjelma haunts me now	Satu dua tiga dan empat Tiada apa yang ku dapat bersamamu hanya penat Mereka bisa berkata apa kerna tidak merasa Beban yang terpahat di dada sungguh menyeksakanku Terpinga-pinga aku dalam dilema kamu kamu kamu Terbang mengejar mimpi kamu kamu kamu buat ku Sendiri dalam khayalan menjelma kini menghantui diri
The imagination changed when thoughts drifted away and remembered you Your intimate voice like a song The quiet rhythm of your heart ...	Khayalan menjelma ketika fikiran Melayang menjauh mengenangkan mu Suaramu yang mesra mengalunkan lagu Irama hati mu yang sepi
I could feel you suffering profoundly That your love abandoned you and left	Aku dapat merasa engkau dalam derita Tentang kasihmu tinggalkan pergi
I still hear the sound (lit. "hum") of your sorrow That you poured out that night Your face outlined with a smile That was full of bitterness	Ku masih terdengar senandung dukamu Yang engkau curahkan di malam itu Wajahmu terbayang mengukir senyuman Yang penuh dengan kepahitan
I really sympathise with your fate But apakan dayaku ini	Aku sungguh simpati atas nasib dirimu Tapi apakan dayaku ini
I also already have a lover in my heart And I can't change her for another Your face that came in my imagination Imagination	Diriku sudahpun berpunya kekasih hati Tak mungkin ku tukar ganti Wajahmu yang datang dalam khayalan Khayalan
You go look for another, So that you can be happy again Usahlah engkau mengganggu Your face rose up and appeared in my imagination	(Kau) carilah pengganti agar kau gembira lagi Usahlah engkau mengganggu Wajahmu muncul dalam khayalan

Chinese Muslims in Central Asia

2006-09-20T21:09:00.000+08:00

A Shanxi Village in Kazakhstan

An interview with Husain An, a Dungan from Kazakhstan. More on the Dungan people. This is really long ... will finish translating later (even the horribly boring parts about planting vegetables) ...


Getting married: The clothes worn by Dungan brides when they get married are all handmade. The Shanxi town in Kazakhstan's borders still preserves many of the folkways of Shanxi from over a hundred years ago; when getting married, the bride has to wear embroidered shoes, red silk clothes, and put up their hair in a hairstyle from the time of the Qing dynasty or even Ming dynasty, and stick in zanzi (簪子)。	出嫁：东干新娘出嫁的服饰全部是用手工制作的。哈萨克斯坦境内的陕西村还保留着一百多年前的陕西民俗，出嫁的新娘要穿绣花鞋，红绸衣服，挽着清朝或者明朝时的发型，插着簪子。
"You come from the country of Qing?"	“你是从大清国来的？”
Near the borders between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrghyzstan, there live some special residents --- yellow-skinned and black-haired, speaking genuine Shanxi dialect. They refer to government organizations as "imperial courts" (yamen), police as "imperial court soldiers" (yatou), and airplanes as "windships" (fungchuan). A lullaby within the village which goes "The moon, the moon, slowly rizing, riding a white horse, carrying a sword ..." has been sung for over a hundred years. Qinqiang (秦腔, a kind of northwestern opera) is still a custom. The place where they live is usually called "Shanxi Town".	在中亚哈萨克斯坦、乌兹别克斯坦和吉尔吉斯斯坦三国交界处，居住着一群特殊的居民———黄皮肤黑头发，讲着地道的陕西方言。他们称呼政府部门为衙门，称呼干部为衙役，把飞机叫风船。村内的儿歌“月亮月亮渐渐高，骑白马带腰刀……”已经唱了百余年，秦腔仍是村内人的传统项目。他们居住的地方被统称为“陕西村”。
In 1862, at the same time as the Taiping (Kingdom of Heavenly Peace) rebellion, in China's northwest, Hui in Shanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia united with people of various nationalities in an enormous anti-Qing uprising.	1862年，正值太平天国运动期间，我国西北陕、甘、宁等地的回民联合当地各族人民掀起大规模反清起义。
In 1877, around ten thousand of those rebels fled over the peaks in the west. Thousands died along the way. In the end, 3,314 people made it to Central Asia, among them a division led by Bai Yanfu, who made camp along the banks of Russia's Amur River. They were called "Donggan" by the locals ---- meaning "people from the East" in Shanxi dialect. The Czarist government gave them 70,000 acres of land and a ten-year exemption from taxes. Then, in that land, these Shanxi and Gansu people planted the seeds of wheat and seeds which they had carried from their ancestral home, gradually they increased, and their village began to spread out from their camp.	1877年，起义队伍最后有约万余人向西翻越天山山脉，有数千人死在路上，最后约3314人来到中亚，其中由白彦虎率领的最大的一支队伍在俄国秋河岸边扎下“营盘”。这些人被当时的沙皇政府称为东干人（陕西方言“东边的人”）。沙皇政府给了他们7万亩土地，并免征10年赋税。此后，这些陕甘人便在那块土地上播种下从老家带来的麦种和菜籽，就此繁衍生息，村落也由“营盘”向四周扩散。
In 1990, the man who would be called "the first researcher of the Donggan," Wang Guojie, a professor at Shanxi Normal College and a PhD advisor, went to Uzbekistan for the first time to interview an elderly Donggan. This old man surprisedly asked Wang, "Are you from the Qing Empire? Are Zuo Zongtang's people still there?" [Zuo Zongtang was a failed civil servant from Hunan, who later become famous as the military leader who broke the back of the Taiping Rebellion. He later quelled uprisings in Western China, including the Dungan's. But you probably already know who he is: General Tso's chicken is named after him.]	1990年，被称为国内“东干人研究第一人”的陕西师大教授、博士生导师王国杰在乌兹别克斯坦第一次回访到一名东干老人。这名老人惊异地问王国杰：“你是从大清国来的？”“左宗棠的人还在不？”
After the Soviet Union dissolved, the land where these immigrants were living was divided among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrghyzstan. Their present population is about 120,000.	前苏联解体后，这群移民的居住地分属哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦三国。目前的总人口已有12万人。
Historians have defined them as "the world's largest contiguous body of immigrant Chinese"; up to now, they are also the most numerous group of sojourners from Shanxi.	“中国海外最大的移民团体”，历史学家这样为他们定义，这也是迄今为止陕西最大的海外侨民团体。
Shanxi Village's "chieftain," the 44-year old Husain An, is said to be the sixth . His real identity is that of head of the Kazakhstan Donggan Studies Commission, a member of the Kazakh People's Consultative assembly, and chairman of the Shanxi Collective Agricultural Assocation in "Jiangbuer" Province. In April, An went to Xian, the capital of Shanxi province, to join in 西洽 and memorial activities at the tomb of the Yellow Emperor; at 11 in the evening on April 10th, the night before he was to return to Kazakhstan, An, his mouth full of Shanxi dialect, had an interesting conversation with a "New Beijing" reporter:	“陕西村村长”安胡赛今年44岁的安胡赛被人称为“陕西村”史上第六任村长。他实际的身份是哈萨克斯坦东干协会会长、哈萨克斯坦人民委员会常委、江布尔州陕西集体农庄主席。4月初，安胡赛到西安参加西洽会并参加黄帝陵公祭活动，4月10日晚11时，在回哈萨克斯坦的前夜，满口陕西话的安胡赛与新京报记者进行了一番有趣的对话。
New Beijing: Mr. An, how many times have you returned home (to Shanxi)?	问：你好，安先生，你这是第几次回家？
Husain An: It's already been 30 times. I come back to Shanxi a lot.	安胡赛（以下简称“安”）：都快30次了吧。俺经常回陕西。
NB: Do you still remember the first time you came back?	问：还记得第一次回来是什么时候吗？
An: The first time was exactly 10 years ago, in April 1994. I was very excited; before then, I'd always heard the old people talking about Shanxi people, old Shanxi, but we young people had never seen or been here before.	安：第一次离现在刚好十年了，是1994年的4月份，那一次我很激动，以前经常听老人说我们是中国陕西人，是老陕，可是我们没有见过陕西，也没有来过陕西。
NB: Are you the first person to come to Shanxi from Kazakhstan's Shanxi village?	问：在哈萨克斯坦陕西村，您是第一个到陕西的人吗？
An: No, in 1989, a man from the original Soviet Donggan Studies Group came, he was the first one to go back home. We waited for him to come back to Kazakhstan, and had a meeting. We invited cadres from every village, which ended up being four or five hundred people. He kept talking about how good things were back in our ancestral home.	安：不是，在1989年，原苏联东干协会会长来过，他是第一个回家的人。等他回到哈萨克斯坦，我们就开了一个会，光邀请的各村里的干部，就有四五百人，他讲家乡多么好多么好。
NB: How did he describe things?	问：他怎么讲的？
An: He said the people there were warm and friendly. Later he even wrote a story about his trip home in our "Donggan News"; people read it, and wanted to come back to Shanxi too. But back then, we couldn't go through the procedures to get permission. It was only from 1985 that people started coming over. Things are much better now.	安：他说家里人都很热情，后来在我们自己办的《东干报》上专门作了一期回家报道，人们看了报纸都想回来。可那时手续办不了。从1985年才逐渐有人过来，但是手续特别麻烦，现在好了。
"Locals (in Kazakhstan) say the Donggan are very industrious."	“当地人都说东干人勤劳”
NB: What's your itinerary been like this time?	问：你这一次的行程是怎么样的？
An: Hah, what's that you say? (Ed: He obviously couldn't understand the word "itinerary")	安：咋的，你说？（记者注：安胡赛显然听不懂“行程”一词）
NB: Like, this time you came home, what have you been doing?	问：就是说您这次回来都做了些什么？
An: We joined in a public memorial ceremony at the Yellow Emperor's tomb. There were so many people there; you could see the respect Chinese people have for their ancestors. After I go back, I want to tell the village committee in Shanxi Village about the Yellow Emperor's tomb, and let Donggan people know how long Chinese people's history is. I want to bring more people from over there to see the ceremonies at the tomb.	安：先参加了黄帝陵公祭，那么多人都来了，可以看出中国人对祖先很尊重。我回去后要把黄帝陵告诉“陕西村”的乡党，让东干人知道中华民族的历史有多长，以后要带更多那边的人到黄帝陵祭祖。
NB: I've heard your main reason for coming this time was to join in the 西洽会, how was that?	问：听说您这次主要是来参加西洽会的，谈得怎么样？
An: We had a pretty good talk; I spoke about several items, most importantly education; I signed contracts with two schools, to let Shanxi people from Kazakhstan come to China and study their mother tongue.	安：这一次谈得相当可以，俺谈了好几个项目，最先的就是教育，和两个学校签了约，让哈萨克斯坦的陕西人到中国来学母语。
NB: Not everyone there can speak Chinese?	问：大家不是都会说汉语吗？
An: We've preserved the Shanxi dialect pretty well, but not the writing. There's also, what's it called, you can see society is developing so fast, and the language is also developing; they've come up with so many new words like "telephone" (dianhua), "computer" (diannao), "aeroplane" (feiji)--- we didn't have any of these before.	安：是，陕西的方言保留得很好，但是文字没有保留下来。还有那个啥，现在你看这个社会发展快，语言也发展着呢，出来很多新词，像这个电话呀，电脑呀，飞机啊，这个以前都没有。
NB: You're saying, these words, you all can't say them in Shanxi dialect, is that right?	问：你是说，这些词，你们用陕西话都不会说，是吗？
An: Yes, all these are words I've learned here.	安：是的。都是俺从这里学的。
NB: So how do you all call those things then?	问：那你们怎么叫这些词？
An: We call telephones and computers using Russian words; aeroplanes we call "windships" (fungchuan), we call the government "the imperial court" (yamen), and the police "imperial soldiers" (yatou).	安：把电脑叫computer ，电话叫telephone，飞机叫风船。还有啊，俺们把陕西政府叫衙门，把干部叫衙役。
You all really do still preserve all those old titles; when did you go to Kazakhstan?	问：你们岂不是还保留着古代的称呼，你们是什么时候去的哈国？
An: I've heard the old people say, from 1862 until 1877, Shanxi and Gansu had a Hui uprising. By 1877, there were about 3000 or so rebels who escaped to central Asia, and settled down on the banks of the Amur river; later we grew to about 100,000. After the Soviet Union broke up, we were divided among Kazakhstan, Kyrgyhzstan, and Uzbekistan.	安：听老人们讲，1862年到1877年，陕西甘肃等地爆发回民起义。最后1877年起义队伍有3000多人逃难到了中亚地区，在俄国秋河旁边居住了下来，后来发展到了10多万人，苏联解体后，咱们就分散在哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦。
NB: Did they have many dealings with local people?	问：那与当地人交往多吗？
An: Lots. There are 134 different ethnicities in Kazakhstan, all very united. Chinese people there are called "Donggan", the ethnicities there like to have dealings with Donggans; they say Donggan people are very industrious.	安：多。哈萨克斯坦共有134个民族，都很团结，中国人在那边被称为东干人，这些民族都喜欢跟东干人交往，他们说东干人勤劳。
"If you lose your language, it's better not to go home at all."	“把语言给丢了，就不好回家了”
NB: How many students do you plan to send to study Chinese this year?	问：今年要派多少学生来学习汉语？
An: We're planning on sending about 30 ; the Shanxi provincial government is giving us special treatment as locals rather than foreigners, so that we pay the same tuition fees as students from inside China. Even more, the Hong Kong Television School's branch in Shanxi has promised us to freely train five of our kids, to study for three years, the first as language preparation, and then two more years studying to be television directors.	安：计划送30个娃到陕西外语学院专门学习语言，陕西省政府给予咱们优惠政策，不把我们当外国学生看待，跟国内的娃收费一样。还有，香港影视学院陕西分院，答应免费为我们培养5个娃，他们学习三年，一年预科学语言，后两年学影视导演。
NB: Up until now, how many students have you sent back to China to study the language?	问：到现在，你们送了多少学生回国学习语言？
An: 16. We collected funds for them to study, and we hope that they'll come back to teach others. But I'm afraid, if you've forgotten your language, it's better not to go home.	安：16个。俺们集资供他们学习，希望他们回去教其他人学习语言。我害怕，把语言给丢了，就不好回家了。
NB: Are there some Shanxi people over there who can't speak Chinese?	问：那边的陕西人有不会说汉语的吗？
An: There are some. Like the ones who lived far away from the places where most of the Shanxi people lived, they've . There's one village that's about 300km away, another 400km away, about a thousand people in each village; only a few old people can say some simple phrases in Chinese. In order to solve this problem, we've sent two full-time teachers to them, to teach them Dungan writing.	安：也有。像离我们集中居住地远的两地方的陕西人，他们都不会说陕西话了。一个地方离我们约300公里，另一个地方离我们约400公里，每个村1000来人，只有一些老汉还会说一两句简单的汉话。为了解决这个问题，俺给他们专门配了两名老师，教他们东干文。
NB: "Dunggan writing" is a writing system you invented yourselves?	问：东干文是你们发明的文字？
An: That's right. In 1928, some scholars created an alphabet, and we just started using Roman letters; in 1958 we switched to Cyrillic letters, using them specifically to spell out the sounds of the old Shanxi dialect.	安：对的。1928年，专门造出来的字母，刚开始用的是拉丁字母，1958年用俄文字母，拼出来专门发老陕甘方言的音。
NB: Do the people in those two villages want to study Chinese?	问：那两个村子的人愿意学汉语吗？
An: They do, but there's a problem --- in China, there are so many new words, even the teachers don't know them. But in Kazakhstan so many things are imported from China; it's inconvenient if they can't learn the new words.	安：愿意学。可是有一个问题，现在国内出现一些新名词，老师也不会，哈萨克斯坦那边很多东西都是从中国进口，他们学不到新词不方便。
NB: So what language do the students there study?	问：学生们在那边都学什么语言？
An: Russian, Kazakh, English, and of course, Donggan.	安：俄罗斯语言、哈萨克语言、英语，还学东干语言。
NB:Are they good?	问：好学吗？
An: Not really, but they have to study them.	安：也不好学。但必须学。
NB: So how many languages can you speak?	问：您会几种语言啊？
An: I never studied English, but I studied German. Russian, Chinese, German, I'm used to speaking them, Arabic, I can speak some, and I know a bit of English.	安：俺原来没学英语，学的德语。俄语、汉语、德语说得很惯，阿拉伯语会一些，英语知道一点。
NB: That's a lot.	问：这么多。
An: Everyone can speak a few languages.	安：大家都会好几种语言。
"Kazakhstan's President Learns Technology From Us"	“哈萨克斯坦总统向我学技术”
NB: I've heard that you still keep a lot of old customs in your Shanxi Town?	问：听说你们陕西村很多老风俗习惯还保留着？
An: That's right. The things we eat and drink, they're all Chinese vegetables. And we like foods made from flour, like we usually eat ramen, dumplings, buns, and stuff. Also rice soup. Donggan food is famous in Kazakhstan and the old Soviet Union. There are more than 30 Shanxi restaurants in the capital Astana, and they're doing business really well.	安：对的。饮食了什么的，都是中国的老菜，咱喜欢吃面食，像平常都吃拉面、饺子、包子什么的，还有米汤。咱们东干菜在哈萨克斯坦和原苏联都很有名，在首都阿斯塔纳已经建造了30多个陕西饭馆，生意都很好。
NB: Do you grow the vegetables you eat?	问：你们吃的菜是自己种吗？
An: Yes, a lot of us are involved in farming. 50% of the produce and grains in Kazakhstan are grown by Donggans. In 1877, when our ancestors just got here, they brought a lot of seeds with them. We've still kept a lot of those around today, like peppers and eggplants. Look, some of our names for vegetables even started being used by Russians, like leeks (jiu cai), Russians also say it jiu cai. Same with celery (qin cai), Russians also call it qin cai. Ramen, back in the days of the Soviet Union, everyone knew Dungan ramen.	安：是的，很多都搞农业。哈萨克斯坦全国50%的蔬菜粮食都是东干人种的，1877年，我们的老祖先刚过去，他们就带了好多种子，现在还有很多都保留下来，像辣子、茄子、芹菜啊，现在还都有。你看，有些咱们的菜名都用俄文叫开了，你像韭菜，俄文发音也是“韭菜”，还有芹菜，俄文也叫“芹菜”了。拉面，原来还是苏联时，全苏联都知道东干拉面。
NB: They didn't have those vegetables there before?	问：他们那里以前没有这些菜？
An: Umm, that's right. When they saw us eating leeks, they said it was grass, but now most people like to eat it, stuffing dumplings with it like us, or using it as seasoning in ramen.	安：嗯，对的。开始看到咱们吃韭菜，他们说是草，现在大部分都喜欢吃这个韭菜，跟咱们一样当馅包饺子吃，做拉面当调料。
NB: Besides those, what other vegetables do you plant?	问：除了这些菜，你们还种什么菜？
An: It's not like China. Shanxi people nowadays eat some vegetables I've never seen before. In 1999, I hired three technicians, one dealt with 大棚菜, two with mushrooms. Afterwards, I hired another one to run a brickyard, one to run a biscuit factory, and one to run a flour mill, so they could bring those skills over.	安：不如中国多，现在陕西人吃的一些菜，俺就没见过。1999年，我请了三个技术员，一个搞大棚菜，两个搞蘑菇。后来，又请了一个搞砖厂的，一个搞饼干厂的，一个搞面粉厂的，让他们把这些新技术带了过去。
NB: So the factories have all been constructed?	问：厂都建成了吗？
An: Built and working.	安：建起来了，都工作着。
NB: Flour mills and the like, you didn't originally have them there?	问：像面粉厂，原来那边没有吗？
An: There were, but they were far away from us, and belonged to other ethnicities, so we'd have to go over 100km away to buy.	安：有，离咱们住的地方比较远，是别的民族的，咱们得走100多公里去买。
NB: So how's the development of the 大棚菜 and mushrooms?	问：大棚菜和蘑菇发展得怎么样？
An: We planted the mushrooms, and the locals really like them, clamouring to buy them. There's also local wild mushrooms, but they're only available for one month, and they're not sure they can be cultivated.	安：咱种了蘑菇，当地人都喜欢吃，都争着买。当地有野蘑菇，但是只有一个月，他们都不相信这个蘑菇还能自己养出来。
NB: So the vegetables you planted also earn a lot of money?	问：那你们种菜的很挣钱了？
An: It's okay, like mushrooms, we sell by the kilogram, 6 RMB.	安：还行，你像蘑菇，按公斤算，每公斤相当于人民币6块钱。
NB: The locals also support you running these factories and planting?	问：当地也都很支持你们搞这些工厂和种植吧？
An: They do; Kazakhstan's president Nazarbayev even invited us to his office to ask about these new skills. I took some tomatoes and mushrooms, and he asked how they could be made, where they were imported from? I told him, from China, from my old home.	安：是，哈萨克斯坦总统纳扎尔巴耶夫还把俺请到他的办公室，问这个新技术。俺拿了番茄，蘑菇，他问怎么把这个造出来的？从哪里引进的？我跟他说，从中国，我的老家。
NB: What did he say?	问：他怎么说？
An: He said good, that I should import more of these new (agricultural) techniques.	安：他说好，让俺多引进一些这样的新技术。
NB: So later, did you 推广 these techniques?	问：后来有没有推广这些技术？
	安：推广了，专门在陕西村，召开了一个哈萨克斯坦全国农业推广会，农业部长还有几个州的州长全都去了，后来在全国搞了很多日光温室，效益都很好。这一次西洽会，俺跟咸阳政府签了协议，发展农业区，像现在那边的玉米小麦产量都很低，小麦一亩产100公斤，玉米亩产只有200公斤，我们希望引进一些新的优良品种。另外，我们还引进了一些水果品种。
NB: What fruits?	问：什么水果？
An: Mostly apples.	安：主要是苹果，像那边的苹果还是以前的黄元帅红元帅等老品种，很多也退化了，像红富士苹果都是从中国进口过去的，这样运费很贵，每公斤8块钱到16块钱。陕西村要建李白纪念馆
	问：你这个陕西村村长，带着全哈萨克斯坦人搞农业生产了。
	安（笑）：这里有个说法不对，那里有7个乡都是住的咱东干人，有三个乡百分百的都是陕西省的人。
	问：我看这边都把你们叫陕西村啊？
	安：陕西村是咱们这边叫的，那边不是村，是乡，我把我们住的那个乡改成陕西集体庄园，有2000多户，12000多人，整个庄园就是一个大公司。
	问：我听有人叫您主席，您在庄园担任主席是吗？
	安：是的，俺还是哈萨克斯坦东干协会会长，这个协会就代表这个民族，还是哈萨克斯坦人民委员会常委。回到陕西老家，大家都喊俺村长。
	问：你在那边叫什么名字？
	安：名字很复杂，你像俺的名字叫达吾劳夫·胡赛·西玛劳维赤。
	问：人们都直呼你的名字？
	安：直呼什么意思？
	问：就是可以直接叫你的名字吗？
	安：噢，大部分没有。跟俄罗斯的称呼一样，叫俺胡赛·西玛劳维赤。俺觉得像这边叫个小安、老安就很不错，那边还不习惯。
	问：陕西村里人都有两个名字吗？
	安：都有两个，一个中国的，一个当地的。
	问：那安胡赛就是您的中国名了。
	安：是的，俺爸给俺起的，俺小时候他就跟俺说，你姓安，是安家的人，你的家在中国陕西。俺还听这里的专家说，中国唐代著名大诗人李白，他的出生地在唐代叫碎叶城，离俺住的地方不足3公里，俺已经向哈萨克斯坦国家民族委员会打了报告，俺想在“陕西村”内建成李白纪念碑和纪念馆。
	“她话没说完，俺就哭了”
	问：你们在中国还有亲戚吗？
	安：俺上一次回来，还认了亲戚呢。在西安长安区王曲镇一个村上，一名82岁的姓安的老太太，拿出家谱来，上面还有俺老爷爷弟兄两人的名字，安兴虎、安兴皇，他们就是从中国出生到哈国的。我同她论起辈分来，她还是俺的姑姑。
	问：您就见到这一位亲人吗？
	安：对的，见到一位就不容易了，她没说完话俺就哭了，（同家族的人）100多年没有见面了，俺带着在这里上学的几个娃去（看她）了，后来，俺又把俺媳妇、两个姐姐都带去（看她）了。
	问：咱们这边的人有没有去你们那里？
	安：有，咱们这里有很多人在那边搞贸易。1991年有一个陕西伊斯兰教促进会6个人，专门去看老乡去，他们那次去，俺印象很深，咱们专门派车到首都阿斯塔纳机场去迎接，到了庄园，好几千人去看他们，都哭了，没有一个没流眼泪的。那一次之后，咱们就把路子走开了，后来又发展贸易。
	2000来户有3000多辆轿车
	问：你们在那边收入怎么样？
	安：收入？是钱吗？
	问：对，对。
	安：现在还可以啊，比当地的民族要强。你看咱陕西庄园，2000来户有3000多辆小轿车。
	问：这么多，都是什么车？
	安：像丰田、奥迪、宝马比较多，那边车便宜，一辆奥迪4000多美元，一辆宝马5000到6000美元。
	那边家家户户都有车，每家几亩地，围一个庄园，种点粮食和蔬菜。
	问：那你们每月挣多少钱？
	安：一般教师每月收入合人民币1200块吧，有些做生意的比较多，一年最少收入1万美元，多的可以收入10万到上百万美元，不过那样的很少。
	“不说媒就不能结婚”
	问：你们的风俗习惯也保留得很好，能介绍一下吗？
	安：我们那边的婚丧嫁娶风俗都没有变，这一块保护的特别好。娶亲得先要说媒。
	问：不允许自由恋爱啊？
	安：自由恋？不行，就是恋好了，也得说媒。
	问：要是不找媒人不行吗？
	安：没有那样的。不找媒人那不礼貌嘛，把咱传统的文化都丢了嘛。
	问：可是现在国内都可以自由恋爱啊。
	安：咱要保留这些习惯，这样才记得家。媒人到女方说媒，前两次，不能给媒人喝茶，不给吃饭，最少他（媒人）要去三次，一般要去五次，才可以同意把女儿嫁给人家。
	问：这么麻烦？
	安：次数少了你就同意，显得你的女娃没地位。
	问：同意之后，接下来还有些什么程序？
	安：同意了，就要喝茶吃饭，媒人把男女两方的家人，舅舅姑姑什么的都叫在一起，见个面。后面，男方就要准备耳环、缎子啊，布啊，还要1000美元的礼金。
	问：女方呢？
	安：女方就开始准备嫁妆，要准备绣花鞋、绣衣服，最少得准备半年到一年，缝制这些衣服。
	问：每个女孩都会缝制这些吗？
	安：都会，家家户户都要会。
	问：结婚典礼怎么举行？
	安：最少得热闹两个礼拜，吃饭喝酒，好复杂，俺刚把两个女儿嫁出去，好复杂，好不容易。
	问：大家都愿意保留这种风俗吗？
	安：愿意，大家都知道这样做咱才是中国人，是陕西人。
	问：新郎新娘穿什么？
	安：手工绣花的袍子和靴子，新娘要穿绣花鞋，红绸衣服，挽着清朝或者明朝时的发型，插着簪子。
	问：全都这样？
	安：你不穿那个，结不了婚，人都笑话嘛。
	问：那用轿子抬新媳妇吗？
	安：现在都用汽车拉，部分人用马车。
	问：为什么要用马车？
	安：原来咱们的风俗就是用马车嘛，大家还是习惯那个风俗。马车还是搞的中国那个老样子，那个比用奔驰车还高档呢。
	问：现在咱们国内都没有马车拉媳妇了。
	安：不行，咱们要保留那个。
	问：一定得保留？
	安：那是一定。现在俺想的啥，现在都称咱那里是中国古代的活化石嘛，我还计划搞旅游，好多陕西人都想过去看看咱那边的生活，咱要搞一些宾馆、民族大楼。
	问：现在搞了吗？
	安：正在弄。
	问：那你们平常都穿什么衣服？
	安：平常，什么都有，有的穿这边人穿的西服，有的穿清朝、明朝的袍子，披肩，大衣小衣，不过很少。
	问：男的不留长辫子吧！
	安：这个不留，俺看老相片都还有长辫子。原来都穿布鞋，现在都穿这个新鞋，这边叫皮鞋，从中国进口去的。
	“男女比例失衡最让我头痛”
	问：那边搞计划生育吗？
	安：没有，那边生得越多越好，哈萨克斯坦的人口很少，人口经常降，原来苏联没解体时是1800万人，现在是1400万人。
	问：现在陕西村的人，一家有几个小孩？
	安：一般四个小孩。
	问：您有几个？
	安（笑）：我有六个，五个女娃，一个男娃。六个不算多，1990年，俺当集体农庄副主席时，还选出了380个英雄母亲。
	他们都生了10个以上的孩子。生10个以上的孩子，政府就颁给你一个英雄母亲的牌子，政府给你免很多费。
	问：生这么多小孩，养活得起吗？
	安：现在没有这么多，一般四五个。没办法，要生个男娃嘛。
	问：结婚有没有岁数限制？
	安：按照哈萨克斯坦法律，男的18，女的17就可以，实际中，咱的娃结婚也太早，女的十八九就结婚了，男的一般22岁就结婚了。
	问：当地人也这么早吗？
	安：他们要比咱们平均晚三四年吧。咱们结婚太早，这不是个好习惯。
	问：那你们有没有想过让你们的娃回到中国来找个媳妇或者婆家？
	安：俺对这些留学的娃们都说了，我说你们学一上完，回去时候一定每人都找一个媳妇，把那边的血缘都换一换嘛。
	问：这是怎么考虑的？
	安：现在那边家家户户都是亲戚了，这是一个很大的问题，100多年前的几千人，现在发展成12万人了，这个不好嘛，有些小孩身体都不好了。
	问：那你怎么没说让女娃在中国找个婆家？
	安：也可以吗，不过一般不允许女孩在外面找，可是现在都开放了嘛，也行。俺下一步也考虑，那边女的比男的多，很多女的嫁不出去，咱们庄子1万多人有好几百女的就找不到对象，30岁以上，男女差了15%。可以让女娃回到中国来结婚。
	问：咱们不跟当地人通婚？
	安：很少，连1%都没有。女娃嫁不出去也不能找当地的，咱们觉得不太礼貌，他们愿意娶，咱们不能嫁，这是中国的老传统。
	问：那嫁不出去的女孩怎么办？
	安：这是我很大的头痛嘛。原来我的大学同学，还有两个没有结婚。
	问：那就把她们嫁到国内来吧。
	安：是啊，这是个好事情。俺想把那些嫁不出去的都嫁到国内来嘛。
	问：嫁不出去的才嫁回来啊？
	安（笑）：不是不是。
	问：她们愿意吗？
	安：咋不愿意嘛！她们都愿意回中国来，中国是故乡嘛。
	问：很多风俗你们保留得这么全，一夫多妻制没有保留吗？
	安：娶多个老婆可以是可以，但是哈国的法律不允许，有的人也娶了两个呢，但很少，一般的都是有的女的不生娃，就再娶一个，还有一个生了8个女娃，他也娶第二个希望生个男娃。
	东干人的诗《给中国》虽然中国我没去，也没见过。可是时常在心里，我可思想。你的俊美我听了，打爷跟前。说是那头他生了，百年之前。好像绿岭摆着呢，高山树林。冰山明明闪着呢，景景照红。长江黄河流着呢，打西往东。一切活物饮着呢，河里水清。水清滩里落着呢，老坝跟前。在水里头浮着呢，悄声叫唤。跟前莲花开着呢，开的喜色。麻雀花上落着呢，不想要飞。历史书上也听过，中国很早。可是最后可开了，鲜花味道。就像春天撒开了，花的气色。一切民族闻见了，她的香味。———索尊实
	索尊实是东干诗人索阿宏·达乌的笔名，意思是尊重史实。索尊实，今年60多岁，东干村民称他为“写家”。虽然从来没回过中国，他写的诗大部分却是关于中国。（来源：新京报）

	寻根：去年11月，在王国杰的带领下，安胡赛在西安长安区王曲镇一个村上找到了自己的本家姑姑，一位82岁的姓安的老太太。在安老太太拿出的家谱上，安胡赛找到了他爷爷弟兄二人的名字，安兴虎、安兴皇。

	哈萨克斯坦“陕西村”村长称，该“中国海外最大移民团体”完整保留了127年前中国风俗对话背景。

Polygamy statistics

2006-09-15T00:21:00.000+08:00

After translating highly literary passages from famous authors, or song lyrics in languages I barely speak, stuff like this is easy. Just put the original text on one side of the screen and start typing the translation on the other. Regardless of the fact that the quality of the original writing is really godawful and reads like it itself must have been a translation itself of an article from Malay (e.g. can anyone figure out what the author is going on about when he says "马来西亚30%的华人沿袭中国古代男人妻妾成群的传统﹐也获得马来西亚法律的许可", and whether he really believes it?) and I can't tell what those Malay names transcribed into Chinese are ...

Men with many wives rare in Malaysia	马来西亚罕见多妻丈夫
Malaysian marriage laws permit men to have many wives, and Muslims who believe in Islam (as opposed to Muslims who believe in Buddhism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for example) are also permitted to have many wives. In Malaysia, the ethnic Chinese, who are 30% of the population, "沿袭" the old Chinese tradition with large numbers of wives and concubines all gathered together, which is also permitted by Malaysia's laws. Research conducted by the New Straits Times regarding the phenomenon of polygamy in Malaysia shows, 90% of mature males stay married with one wife their entire lives; even though polygamy is permitted and they themselves are willing to choose it, ultimately, polygamous households are a minority.	马来西亚的婚姻法许可男人多妻﹐信仰伊斯兰的穆斯林﹐准许男人多妻﹐马来西亚30%的华人沿袭中国古代男人妻妾成群的传统﹐也获得马来西亚法律的许可。《新海峡时报》对马来西亚多妻现象进行的社会调查显示﹐90%的成年男子都终身守住一位妻子﹐多妻虽然法律许可﹐个人志愿选择﹐但一男多妻者终究是少数家庭。
The research, conducted against a random sample of 13,000, discovered that, only 5% of families in Malaysia have men with multiple wives, those with three wives compose only 4.3%, and those with four wives don't even reach 1%. Nine out of every ten men believe, one man and one wife is most ideal and (results in) the happiest life. With regards to Malaysia's Islamic marriage law, every state has the right of independent legislation, so the system isn't entirely the same, but because Islam is the national religion, polygamy is a system permitted by the federal government's laws; even though various localities may take different measures, or establish diffirent prerequisites for polygamy, such as requiring the husband to obtain the consent of his first wife in a court of law, (polygamy) is a universal system. Among men of Chinese descent, those having two wives at the same time compose 4%, and those with three wives compose 1.3%. Among men of Indian descent, those having two wives at the same time compose 3%, and 1.3% of men have three wives. Their condition is similar to that of the Malay race, so in sum, even though polgyamy is legal, not even one out of every ten men are actually willing to be polygamists. The purpose of this social survey was to complement the AIDS prevention 社会文化状况, because legal marriage makes the rate of transmission of AIDS lower, whereas in the "sexually free" countries, AIDS is very easily spread around.	在对一万三千名抽样调查中发现﹐马来西亚男子家有两位太太的家庭只有5%﹐有三位太太的男人占4‧3%﹐同时娶四位妻子的男人不到1%。十分之九的男人认为﹐一夫一妻最理想﹐生活最幸福。马来西亚的伊斯兰婚姻法各州有独立立法权﹐不尽相同﹐但因为伊斯兰是国教﹐多妻是联邦政府法律许可的制度﹐但各地采取不同的措施﹐或对多妻设置不同的先决条件﹐例如必须在法庭上获得第一位太太的同意﹐是共同的制度。华裔男子中﹐同时有两位太太的人占4%﹐有三位太太的华人男子占1﹒3%。印度裔的男子3%的家庭有两位妻子﹐1﹒3%的男人有三位妻子。情况与马来族近似﹐总之﹐虽然多妻合法﹐真正愿意多妻的男人不到十分之一。这次社会调查的目的﹐是配合防治艾滋病传染的社会文化状况﹐因为合法婚姻使传染艾滋病的机率最低﹐而性自由的国家﹐艾滋病传染性容易流行。
The Times reporter interviewed many monogamous households, and found the husbands often believed it wasn't necessary to marry a second wife and have her live with the family. The "Ibolaxian" (易卜拉欣) family have been married for 41 years, and the husband has never even thought about needing a second wife; both husband and wife found the reporter's question strange., and believed that polygamous households were not normal. The wife said: "Ever since we have been married up until now, we have felt satisfied with life, and there's no need to add in the help of another woman." The husband said: "All of my energy is (devoted) to work and family, wife and children. A family is a wife and children, and there's no need to spoil this perfect life."	《时报》记者采访了许多一夫一妻的家庭﹐丈夫普遍认为没有必要再娶第二位妻子﹐与家人同住。易卜拉欣夫妇结婚41年了﹐丈夫从来没有想到过﹐他需要第二位妻子﹐夫妇双方对记者的问题觉得奇怪﹐认为多妻不是正常的家庭。妻子说﹕“我们从结婚到现在﹐感到生活满足﹐没有必要增加另一个女人的帮助。” 丈夫说﹕“我的全部精力﹐就是工作和家庭﹐妻子和孩子们。家庭就是妻子和孩子﹐没有必要破坏这个完美的生活。”
"Nuoxida" (诺希达) are an elderly couple; the husband is 71 years old, the wife 68. They said, they have cared for each other and looked out for each other their whole lives, and are quite satisfied with their lives, because they both know each other's needs, likes, and taboos. The husband said: "The Quran says, the husband should show tolerance for his wife, because when you are disatisfied with your wife, you should think more about her good points. A godly husband and wife are endowed with mutual commiseration and mutual love. To add in another wife complicates the household life, because of unnecessary problems which are hard to deal with."	诺希达是一对老年夫妇﹐丈夫今年71岁﹐妻子68岁。他们说﹐互相关怀和照顾了一辈子﹐对生活非常满足﹐因为互相都知道对方需要什么﹐喜欢什么﹐有什么忌讳。诺希达老人说﹕“古兰经说﹐丈夫要容忍妻子﹐因为对妻子不满意的时候﹐要多想想妻子的优点。真主造化的夫妻﹐天生都是互相怜悯﹐互相疼爱的。增加一个妻子﹐使家庭生活复杂化﹐因为多余的事﹐不好处理。”
Pomande Jir (波万特·吉尔) is a doctor who has been married for 30 years. He said: "In my life, I couldn't leave my wife, she always shows consideration for me. Every time I come home after a business trip, she prepares everything for me." The reporter said: "Given your salary and conditions, you could support a second wife, so why don't you marry one?" He said: "Polygamy is not for the purpose of enjoyment, but for humanitarianism, to devote yourself to your wives. According to Islamic law and Malaysia's polygamy law, the husband needs to treat both or all of his wives equally, even the feelings should not have any change. Islamic faith does not permit you to be enthusiastic to one wife and cold to another. Anyway, I myself wouldn't be able to do it, and I wouldn't want the trouble."	结婚三十年的波万特·吉尔是一位医生﹐他说﹕“我的生活中离不开我的老妻﹐她什么都关心我。每次出差回家﹐什么都为我准备好了。” 记者说﹕“按照你的收入和条件﹐你能养得起两位太太﹐为什么不娶呢﹖” 他说﹕“多妻不是为了娱乐﹐而是更加人道主义﹐为妻子付出。根据伊斯兰的法制和马来西亚的多妻法律﹐丈夫必须同等对待两位或多位妻子﹐连感情都不应当有偏移。伊斯兰信仰不许可对一个妻子热情﹐对另一个妻子冷淡。反正﹐我做不到﹐也不要自找麻烦。
For example, when I come back home from an overseas trip, how would I accept the welcome of two wives, and not treat one better than the other?" The husband and wife who were interviewed said, life as an old couple is most meaningful, as both sides have build up feelings and trust, and it's the most reasonable model for a household. If there were another person, the trust and the feelings couldn't be undivided. A (single) husband and wife are of course warm towards each other much of the time, which is good, but with one husband and many wives, it could be difficult to maintain a balanced relationship; if one wife developed suspicion, the warmth could go away, which wouldn't be good.	譬如我从外地出差回来﹐怎么接受两位妻子的欢迎﹐而不能偏待一方呢﹖” 被访问的夫妇都说﹐老夫老妻生活最有意义﹐双方建立了感情和信任﹐这是最合理的家庭模式。如果多了一个人﹐信任和感情都不能专一。夫妻当然是温暖时候多﹐就好﹐一夫多妻可能很难维持平衡关系﹐其中有一人产生怀疑﹐温暖减少﹐就不好。
The reporter also interviewed several husbands with multiple wives, and they also expressed satisfaction with their lives, because they each have their own particular needs. Abudu Samode (阿布杜·撒莫德), who is 58 this year, said that he discovered that his first wife could not satisfy his sexual needs, whereupon she consented for him to marry another wife. He said, now he lives well, and there's no conflict between the two wifes; he makes every effort to satisfy them, and is also able to find satisfaction himself, so everyone is living perfectly happily. He also said, "Men like me who have a lot of needs in the bedroom, just need to marry another wife, it's legal behaviour. I am a Muslim, I definitely would not cheat on my wives, that would be wrong."	记者访问了几位多妻的丈夫﹐他们也都对生活表示满意﹐因为各有特殊的需要。今年58岁的阿布杜·撒莫德说﹐当他发现第一位妻子不能满足他的性要求﹐于是同意他再娶一位妻子。他说﹐现在日子过得很好﹐两姐妹之间没有矛盾﹐我极力满足她们﹐我自己也得到了满足﹐大家都是心甘情愿这么过日子。他说﹕“像我这样对房事需要多的人﹐只有多娶妻子﹐这是合法行为。我是穆斯林﹐绝不会到外面寻花问柳﹐那是罪过。”
Muhata (穆哈塔), the boss of a construction company, has three wives; he says: "Before I got married, I joined a class conducted by the court, and seriously studied Islamic marriage law, and I even passed the examination. The law permits me to marry more than one wife, but I have to swear that I will treat them equally, I swore this towards Allah in court, and my oath has legal validity; if any one of my wives feels that she is not being treated fairly, she can go to court and raise a lawsuit. Of course, I wouldn't let this kind of thing happen. I swore to Allah, I would not treat any one of my wives poorly. I do things well, my wives are satisfied with me, and our family is happy. For example, I go in turn to each of their houses, each day spending the night with one wife. If one is sick, or feels badly, I ask for permission from the other two wives, and spend another day with her." Muhata went on to say: "Wives and wealth don't directly have anything to do with each other. Today, I have money, but many soon, I would become poor. They didn't get married to me for my money, but because they believed that I am a sincere person, who will true-heartedly love each of them, and be responsible for them. This is the stipulation of the Islamic marriage law." According to what his three wives said, their husband's treatment of each of their children also shows the same kind of fondness and concern, and Muhata himself often says, his having many wives and many children is a test of his mettle that Allah puts him through.	建筑公司老板穆哈塔有三房太太﹐他说﹕“我在结婚前﹐曾经参加法庭举办的学习班﹐认真学习伊斯兰婚姻法﹐并且参加考试合格。法律许可我多妻﹐但必须发誓同等对待她们﹐我在法庭上向真主发了誓﹐而且我的誓言有法律效果﹐任何一位妻子受到不公正待遇可以到法庭去诉讼。当然﹐我不会让那样的事发生。我指真主发誓﹐绝不亏待任何一位妻子。我做得很圆满﹐妻子们对我很满意﹐家庭很幸福。譬如﹐我轮流到她们各自的住房﹐每天陪一位妻子过夜。如果谁有病﹐或者心情不好﹐我要求那两位同意﹐多陪这位一天。” 穆哈塔说﹕“多妻同财产没有直接关系。我今天有钱﹐也许不久有穷苦的时候。她们都不是为了我的钱嫁给我﹐而相信我是一个诚实的人﹐我真心爱她们每一人﹐而且为她们负责任。这是伊斯兰婚姻法的规定。” 据他的三位妻子说﹐她们的丈夫对待各人的子女也是同样的喜欢和关心﹐穆哈塔本人常说﹐他多妻﹐多子女﹐是真主对他的考验。

Excessively trendy dictionaries

2006-09-14T00:24:00.000+08:00

Randomly seen on the front page at tw.dictionary.yahoo.com under "新字辭典":

DINS = Double Income, No Sex 丁斯家庭 (夫妻雙收入但因為工作或生活壓力而沒有性生活...

Some statistics:

Google hits for "丁斯家庭": 102
Google hits for "double income no sex" -在: 79 (-在 being a first-order approximation of filtering out Chinese-language pages)

It's showing up in the news and even in blogs. Not sure whether to be relieved or afraid ...

Zhang Chengzhi

2006-09-12T14:35:00.000+08:00

Finally went to the library and borrowed "鮮花的廢墟". Since I'm on a translation kick these days, here's my mostly-finished (but unpolished) translation of the introduction, parts of which resonated strongly with me, and parts of which disturbed me.

Random thoughts:

I'd probably never even pick up an American author who used words like "hegemonism"; pointed anti-nationalism gets grating for me to read for too long. Granted, so does Zhang's pointed ethnic nationalism, regardless of how he dresses it up with 3rd-world "internationalism" or appeals to the ummah. But at least he makes it interesting ...
In contrast, one thing I can't help but admire about Zhang is how he responded to being "sent down" to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. A lot of people sent off by the government, whether to the military, national service, exile, etc., waste it and come back whining about "lost years" spent in drunkenness, dissolution, and dedovschina. But Zhang took his years in the countryside learning Mongolian and getting started on the path to becoming a writer. Of course, my American training, still shouting from the back of my mind, tells me to look at this merely as a manifestation of human capital he gained as a consequence of his social privilege (Zhang graduated from one of the top high schools in Beijing at a time when most peasants never even saw the inside of a classroom; he also claims to have invented the term "Red Guards") ...

Foreword	小引
Who can completely describe the pleasure that travel brings to your life?	谁能尽说旅行给生命带来的愉悦？
After many years, I've gotten used to it. It was my companion in youth, 结交究里， and gradually, I've even made my companions fall in love with it. Thinking back to my younger years, what filled my body was freedom from inhibition 的快畅; time glided on up until now, and I became more used to obtaining satisfaction from toil. Needless to say, this is the traditional meaning of a "journey"; not like the vacations where the rich flash their wealth, and even more different from the "adventures" of that excite the masses (哗众). It's far more important than money or success; only it can cure you, expand you, raise you up. Very early on, it became my style of living, my hometown, the byword for my base. In my long, endless journeys, I've welcomed and bid farewell to months and years, not realising that the end of life was just dawning. That fastidiousness of route, that 视野的沐浴、that glimpse of true knowledge, that kind of touching submersion — they all come, one by one, with the movement of your body, your heart, and your two legs. I've slowly come to understand; they themselves are thus compositions, and the essays I leave behind en route, are nothing more than footprints which can be discarded and abandoned.	多年来我习惯了它。青春作伴，结交究里，渐渐地我还使同伴也爱上了它。回溯年轻时代，充斥身体的是淋漓的快畅，时光流逝至今，人更惯于从劳累中获取满足。不消说，它是古典意味的“旅”；而不同于炫富的旅游，更与哗众的探险两不相干。它远比金钱和成功重要，惟它能疗救自己，使自己扩展提升。它早就成了我生活的方式，成了我的故乡与基地的代名词。我在不断的长旅中迎送岁月，不觉人生迟暮之将至。那种路线的讲究、那种视野的沐浴、那种真知的窥见、那种潜入的感动——都随着双脚身心的行动逐一降临。我渐渐懂了：它们本身即是作品，而途中留下的文章，不过是些可留可弃的脚印。
My two feet have also stepped on the soil of other countries.	双脚也曾踏上异国的土地。
If I go back to my first footprints overseas, probably the first ones belong to Japan. Because, after all, I've been there twice to pursue my studies, and not only do I have a rough command of the language, I also have some awareness towards the culture, and in the hardships and perils of life, it was there that a turning point appeared. Next comes Mongolia, an extension of my lifelong pursuit of the grasslands of Üzemücin. Aside from this, another that was hard to forget is Malaysia in the southern sea, which gave me a very important eye-opening. Needless to say, there are still so many places I yearn to 一睹芳容: Turkey and Kazakhstan, Mauritania and Chechnya, Cyprus and Pakistan, a slice of dark and mysterious Africa, South America teeming with hope --- on the ranking of the countries I fancy, France, Germany, America, Canada, those so-called "first-order countries", come at the end. Even though I also 曾不远万里抵达，而且一再企求深入，但它们与我缘如薄纸，不能唤起投奔或穷究的冲动。	若回首国外的脚印，也许首推当属日本。因为我毕竟在那里两度求学，不仅粗知语言，也对文化有所感悟，在人生艰险之际，也是在那里实现了转机。其次可以数到蒙古，它是我对乌珠穆沁草原一生探求的延长。此外难忘的还有南洋的马来，它给了我重要的开眼。不用说，渴望一睹芳容的地方还多得很：土耳其和哈萨克、毛里塔尼亚和车臣尼亚，塞浦路斯和巴勒斯坦，一片神秘的黑非洲，充满希望的南美洲。——在我的喜爱程度的名单上，最后才能排到法、德、美、加，所谓的一类国家。虽然我也曾不远万里抵达，而且一再企求深入，但它们与我缘如薄纸，不能唤起投奔或穷究的冲动。
But Spain is a special case!	唯西班牙是个特例！
The culture much more ambiguous than Japan, its colours deep and fresh, the 脉络 clear and sharp like knives. Spain is like the bad child in Europe's house, not caring about her appearance, coarse and casual, with some extent of poverty. Its every cultural custom presents a face of a different colour, every story entangled with the framework of the world's history. It is the true border between East and West, the sword slashes and black cinders of war still left on the walls, 供像我这样的人前去寻觅，考古访今。It has a wild nature that that moves people, you cannot imagine, so many towering 危山险壑 all crammed into a single peninsula. 美感逼人的男子和女人在那儿忙碌着，像在沿袭古代，像在证明什么。After encountering them, I suddenly became conscious of it: as a child, hadn't I always dreamed of the remotest corners of the earth? Well here they were.	比起日本的文化暧昧，它的色彩浓烈而鲜明，它的脉络刀砍般清楚。它好像欧洲之家的坏孩子，不修边幅，粗砬随便，多少有点穷。它的每一项文化风俗都呈着异色的面相，每一个故事都纠缠着世界史的纲目。它是东方与西方的真正边界，争战的刀痕黑烬今天还留在墙上，供像我这样的人前去寻觅，考古访今。它有让人感动的野性的大自然，你不能想象，那么多峥嵘的危山险壑都拥挤在一个半岛。美感逼人的男子和女人在那儿忙碌着，像在沿袭古代，像在证明什么。和他们相遇以后你突然意识到：童年时不是一直梦想着天涯海角么，那地方已经到了。
Just as speaking fluent English, 中会被语言染上一层精明商人的色彩一样；one mouthful of mouth-and-chest-reverberating Spanish gives the listener a kind of sexy, free and uninhibited 暗示. Ai, that language almost lacking in 元音 and 谐律, like the Altaic languages, verbs and adverbs each in their place, 听来粗哑 and forthright，说着琅琅上口，the 恼人的 charm that can't be described clearly，just makes you want to learn it! This is not the kind of language that makes one's natural qualities give way; rather, it puts those characteristics into even sharper relief, 也许还能举出日语。 They make people unconsciously 塑造着 themselves when they're speaking, an indescribably subtle feeling.	就像操着流利英语不意中会被语言染上一层精明商人的色彩一样；一口胸音共鸣的西班牙语，常给对方一种性感和自由不羁的暗示。唉，那似乎缺少元音和谐律的语言，宛如阿尔泰语一样动词副词各就其位，听来粗哑明快，说着琅琅上口，说不清它恼人的魅力，只想……把它学会！这种不是使人的本色后退、而是凸现人的性格的语言例子，也许还能举出日语。它们使人在说话时不觉塑造着自己，那感觉妙不可言。
Arabs call Muslim Spain "Al-Andalus". From the 8th to the 15th century, the southern section of the Iberian peninsula, and the area south of the Gibraltar Strait, was a wondrous place where a civilization flowered, bore fruit, and then withered away. So, the word "Al-Andalus" also means that historical age. That I'm deeply interested in it is only natural; because it is not only a period of history when Muslims prevailed against the West, but the only time when the East itself scored a victory against the West, especially a civilizational victory.	阿拉伯人把穆斯林的西班牙唤作安达卢斯（Al-andalus）。从公元８世纪到公元１５世纪，伊比利亚半岛的中南部、以及直布罗陀海峡以南的地区，是一个传奇的文明开花、结果、并且凋零的地方。所以，安达卢斯一语也意味着那个历史时代。我对它深怀兴趣是自然的；因为它不仅是穆斯林战胜了西方、而且是整个东方唯有一次的战胜西方、尤其是文明战胜西方的一段历史。
Taking advantage of a lull in life, pooling together enough spending money for another long trip, 远渡 the Strat of Gibraltar, arriving in the ancient land of Al-Andalus, 做一次甚至数次的踏查求学，是多么难得而且知感的事！ I almost ran through every historical spot in Al-Andalus, my tracks covering the three countries of Spain, Morocco, and Portugal. Thinking back to those 日日新知 days in those six months, every day like a tale of marvels. Tossed about on the waves, tested, feeling excited for my youthful enthusiasm, and even more for the 蕴含 of Al-Andalus, feeling shaken.	趁着人生的间歇，凑够长旅的盘缠，远渡直布罗陀海峡，抵达安达卢斯旧地，做一次甚至数次的踏查求学，是多么难得而且知感的事！……我几乎跑遍了每一个安达卢斯的历史地点，行踪涉及西班牙、摩洛哥、葡萄牙三国。回忆那六个月里那些日日新知的日子，那一天天常如小小传奇。奔波着，求证着，我为自己未老的热情感到高兴，更为安达卢斯的蕴含感到震撼。
And in this way, I came to the end of the journey, the thread of a feeling on the horizon. I muttered to my self, trying to recapture the flavour; I've picked up my pen, 深浅描述的愿望。	这样到了旅途之末，一丝把握的感觉临近了。我沉吟回味，有了拿起笔来，深浅描述的愿望。
The new imperialism is raising the 昔日十字军 and the black flag of colonialism, 实行对东方 control and oppression 的进军. Ancient times have not yet ended. Al-Andalus, its resplendence and ashy gloom, its attainments and its significance, its defeats and its lessons，today, more than ever, need to be communicated 给朋友。	新帝国主义正举着昔日十字军和殖民主义的黑旗，实行对东方控制和压迫的进军。古代并没有结束。安达卢斯，它的辉煌与黯灭、它的建树与含义、它的失败与教训，正是在今天，才更需要传达给朋友。
	这本小书被襄助着写成了。
I don't know whether I should say it or not: this book is not the same at all as those foreign travel books which are so popular in the market. Because its 举意 first is a criticism of a world infested by hegemonism. Secondly, it is an investigation, research, and commentary on a period of history with great importance to the Third World. So in the end, I say, these are notes about seeking knowledge. But regardless, these are also notes permeated with emotion; after all, Al-Andalus signifies a great victory of Muslims, representing the richness of culture and pride of spirit of the Third World。	不知我该不该说：它和流行书市的境外旅游书毫不相干。因为它的举意，首先是对这个霸权主义横行的世界的批判。其次则是对一段于第三世界意义重大的历史的追究、考证、和注释。说它是学术书言之太过，所以我总说这是一本求学笔记。只不过，它是一部情感浸透的笔记；毕竟，安达卢斯意味着穆斯林的伟大胜利，意味着第三世界的文明财富和精神骄傲。
Like 《大陆与情感》, my collection of photography and writings, or any other number of my recent collections of writings, the maps, drawings, pictures, and calligraphy in this book, except for a small number which are marked out, were all photographed, drawn, or scrawled by me.	如摄影散文集《大陆与情感》和近年的几部散文集一样：书中的地图、绘画、照片、书法，除少数另作注明者之外，均为作者自己拍摄、绘制或涂鸦。
Yusuf Has Hajib, in the Kutadgu Bilig, aside from the main text, also wrote a poem of a few lines that accentuates the pursuit of study. I am sure it is because 那部大著曾逼他像小学生般地学习. He put in some effort and studied some things, and so 行间 reveals a kind of delight of study:	玉素甫·哈斯哈吉甫在《福乐智慧》的正文之外，特别写过强调求学的几行诗。我想一定是因为那部大著曾逼他像小学生般地学习。他下了功夫，学到了东西，所以行间流露着一种学习的快感：
Like the sea, knowledge has no bottom and no boundary. Or like a little bird sipping at sea-water, how can he drink it dry? Go, seek knowledge, only then are you what is called 人上之人 Plain words come out from my mouth, crude and pungent, Wise men, please appreciate my plain words.	知识好比海洋，无底无边，小鸟啜饮海水，岂能饮干！去求知吧，那才是所谓人上之人，或者你莫称人类，去和畜牲作伴！ ——我口出直言，粗野而辛辣， ——智者啊，请欣赏我的直言。
I like this frame of mind of his, 超过研读他的大部头. It's true, this little book is nothing more than study notes. Sometimes I was edified, sometimes I discover something fresh and new to me, and my words become excited, delight and 失度 overflowed into expression — for this, I must apologise in advance.	我喜爱他的这种心境，超过研读他的大部头。是的，这部小书不过是一本学习笔记。有时自己被启发了，有时发现了于自己新鲜的东西，文字就会兴奋，快感和失度就会溢于言表——这些还需要先做致歉。

Foreign Service Institute Turkish Basic Course

2006-09-03T19:40:00.000+08:00

Republishers' recommended price: USD$255 (click here if you want it at this price)
What it should cost, given that it's federal government-created material (and thus in the public domain): USD$0.00 (click here if you want it at this price)
Marginal cost of production for physical units being sold at USD$255: a few cents for the CDs, around $10 for the book.
Rentier profit: more than USD$200

Shopping for books online in China

2006-08-31T13:30:00.000+08:00

It seems Welan.com, a major, well-stocked online bookstore in mainland China, and also a direct competitor with Amazon-owned joint venture Joyo.com, have got their own version of "Look Inside the Book" featuring scanned pages from books they offer for sale. (It also seems I'm the first person in the Anglophone world to notice this.). They're using a backend provider Duxiu; not sure if that's a subsidiary of Welan or what. Disorganised observations:

To the best of my knowledge, this is a first in the Sinophone world, ahead of HK, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. --- aside from all those book piracy sites like MillionBook.Net, of course. It might even be a first in all of Asia --- I know Amazon Japan, Kinokuniya, and the like don't have anything like this. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some Korean bookstore had.
Duxiu are already much farther down the "long tail" than the pirates; within just a few months of being around, they've already scanned in some fairly obscure non-fiction like "Islam and Beijing Mosque Culture". It's not just trashy romance novels and diet books.
Unlike Amazon or Google, you can link directly to the online versions of the books, as demonstrated above --- at least for now. Maybe they figure that book piracy is already so rampant in China that no publisher's going to care that you can download JPEGs of books page by page from their site --- the publishers have got bigger fish to fry.
Also a first among Chinese bookstores, Welan themselves are making it a lot easier for bloggers to drive their traffic --- for example, it takes only a single click to automatically generate HTML code to provide a cover photo, link and summary for a book, which you can then repost on your own site (as I've done at right).

The main question: does this put Welan in a better position relative to their competitors? I doubt it. This being China, I doubt their permissions from the original publishers are all in order. Especially in cases where the rights conflict (e.g. both a government agency and a private company claim to be the successor to an organisation holding the rights to a certain book, and only one of the two have given permission for the books to be posted online), Welan have just opened themselves up to a new and unfamiliar breed of lawsuits.

Hopefully we'll soon see a shakeout in the Chinese online bookstore market, which is now crowded with plenty of useless, understocked regional players (especially in Guangzhou) and/or niche sellers (like islambook.net). But it could be some ways off --- the niche players still offer titles which the national businesses like Welan don't even have in their catalogues, and the regional players can offer faster delivery to their local markets (even though their catalogues are fairly narrow). Welan may also be disadvantaged relative to Joyo with respect to the overseas market (selling Chinese books to Chinese speakers outside of China): they can't easily accept credit cards. On the other hand, no one cares about that inside the China market, and Welan's catalogue is much more extensive.

Faqat sen (غاقات س‍ېن)

2006-08-30T21:31:00.000+08:00

Watch it on YouTube

First heard in a party at a friend's apartment in Guangzhou about a year ago. From the viewpoint of language study, this song is probably easier than "Oynayli" since it uses only the simple past tense, rather than conditionals, aorists, and imperatives. The only problem is all these long clauses with no identifiable verb --- Turkic languages are similar to Malay in one aspect: in informal speech, they never really bother with the verb " to be". This never causes problems for me in Malay, but it drives me nuts in this song.

This is Uzbek rather than Uyghur. Uyghurs and Uzbeks always tell me there's not much difference, since they're the same branch of the Turkic language family, but even the title of the song would be slightly different in Uyghur (Pəķət Sən). As far as I can tell, the difference is just sound shifts (i.e. accent), not lexicon. (After all, I am using my RMB20 Uyghur grammar book from mainland China to translate this thing). But just to make things confusing, the orthography is different too:

Consonants: "q" and "x" are read as glottals (think "achtung!") like in Arabic romanization, not as a "ch/sh" sound like in Hanyu Pinyin and in Uyghur yengi yezik.
Vowels: a might be a or ə. e is not ə, but some vowels which are ə in Uyghur shift to e in Uzbek. i can of course be i or ı.

Vocabulary which is repeated often:

Men = I
Sen = You, sometimes suffixed with:
- -(n)i = object marker, like Japanese を or Korean 를
- -ga = towards, somewhat like Japanese に or に対して
Faqat = only

Hence the title of the song (and the use of deeply-felt, poetic Persian words like "vafodor", "shirin", "abad", etc., unlike the last song which just demanded "oynamak").

Faqat Sen (Only You)
Uzbek/English	Gloss
Men negadır bilardım Topaman deb senı baribır Tushmi ungim, izlaganım Senı uchratdım yolg'ızım I knew somehow ??? ??? I met you by myself	negadir: somehow bilmoq: to know + moq/ardim (1st-person past) topmoq: to find deb: used to form direct quotes baribir: all the same tushmoq: to dream + moq/mi (???) unmoq: to grow + moq/gim (???) uchramaq: to meet, run into + mak/tdim (1st-person past) yolg'iz: single, solitary + im (1st-person possessive)
Men senı ko'p izladım Sinovchı hayot yo'llarıda Men taqdıring, men yuraging Bo'lsaydım sening xayoling I looked for you a lot ??? I was your fate, I was your courage I became a memory of yours	ko'p: many, a great deal, often izlamak: to look for sinovchı: tester hayot: life yo'lla: direct, show the way + rıda: ??? taqdir: fate, future + ing: 2nd-person possessive yurak: courage, insides + ing: 2nd-person possessive sening: your xayol: thought, imagination, memory
Chorus: Sen, sen, sen, Faqat sen, sen Men izlagan muhabbat Qalbımdagi shırın hasrat You, you, you Only you, you (are) The love that I searched for The sweetness and pain in my heart	izlamak: to search for + mak/gan muhabbat: love, affection qalb: heart + im: 1st-person possessive + dagi: in shırın: sweetness hasrat: grief, sorrow, pain
Faqat sen, sen, sen Men orzu qılgan baht sen Men izlagan, doim tılagan Muhabbat sen, sen (faqat sen) Only you, you, you (are) You who I dreamed of The love that I searched for, always wished for Is you, you (only you)	orzu qilmak: to dream (qilmak: to do) baht: ??? (some sort of particle, I guess?) izlamak: to search for + mak/gan doim: always tilamak: to wish for + mak/gan muhabbat: love, affection
Armon bo'lmagin deya So'rardım senı hayotımdan Menga dunyo sensan tanho Sen tanamdagi jon ??? ??? Alone with you in the world You are the soul in my body	armon: regret, unfulfilled wish bo'lmak: to become + mak/magin: ??? deya: from deyarli: almost, nearly so'ramak: to ask for + mak/ardım: ??? hayot: life + im: 1st-person possessive + dan: ??? dunyo: the world sen: you + san: ??? tanho: solitary, alone, lone tana: body + m: 1st-person possesive + dagi: within jon: soul
Har bır so'zing, nigohing Senga zor yuragımga mador Dil intizor, senga bedor To abad senga vafodor Each of your words, each of your glances ??? My heart is waiting, vigilant to you Until eternity, I'll be loyal to you	har bir: each one so'z: word + ing: 2nd-person possessive nigoh: a glance + ing: 2nd-person possessive zor: wailing, weeping, plea yurak: stomach, insides + im: 1st-person possessive + ga: towards mador: strength, vigour dil: heart intizor: expecting, waiting anxiously for bedor: unsleeping, vigilant to: until abad: eternity vafodor: loyalty
Chorus x2

Related links:
Uyghur/English Bilingual joke: Pekhetla mas vahtidila (Only when he's drunk). Not very funny, but it illustrates the use of the word "Pəķət".

Oynayli (ئوينايلې)

2006-08-22T21:43:00.000+08:00

Partial translation of a song I heard in a Uyghur restaurant in Causeway Bay the other day. Random thoughts:

First rule of intercultural communication: all music sounds much more profound when you don't understand what it means, or, failing that, if you don't think too hard about what it's saying.
I really wish Uyghur orthography would pick up the Turkish habit of distinguishing "ı" from "i". (Which I've done below for my own benefit even though it's nonstandard.)
Why does the Unicode "lowercase g with cedilla" character put the cedilla on top??? (I'd rather input in the Arabic alphabet, except my typing speed is too slow and half the letters don't join properly).
Playing 刀郎 songs in a Uyghur restaurant seems roughly analogous to playing "Kung Fu Fighting" in a Chinese restaurant or "Turning Japanese" in a sushi joint.
The word "to play" has a fairly strong sexual connotation if used in reference to anyone over the age of puberty in most languages, including almost all the ones I know well. (C.f. English "player", "get some play", "Playboy", etc.) I'm told the same holds true for Turkic languages as well. The one exception I'm aware of is Chinese, where "玩" is regularly used in relation to innocuous stuff like travelling or going on MSN. In my experience, second-language speakers of Chinese tend to avoid this usage to varying degrees.

Uyghur/English	Gloss
kelinglər dostlər oynayli heqkim qettdə ķalmasın kelinglər dostlər oynayli heqkim qettdə ķalmasın Come, you friends, let's play Don't leave anyone out.	kel = ??? + ing (2nd-person imperative) + lər (plural)? dost = friend + lar (plural) oynamaķ = to play + maķ/ylik (1st-person plural imperative) heqkim = no one (kim=person) qet = outside + də (locative) ķalmaķ = to leave out + maķ/masın (3rd-person singular/plural negative imperative)
kinıng məyli kimdə bolsa ķoyup bering oynasın kinıng məyli kimdə bolsa ķoyup bering oynasın Even though ??? ??? play	kinıngməyli = ??? kim = person + də (locative) bolmaķ = to become, happen + maķ/sa (3rd-person conditional/concession) ķoymaķ = to put down + maķ/yup (continuous) bering = please oynamaķ = to play + maķ/sın (3rd-person singular/plural imperative)
Oyanigə taxləp oynasın buyanigə taxləp oynasın Oyanigə taxləp oynasın buyanigə taxləp oynasın English goes here	oyan = ??? + igə (???) taxmaķ = ??? + maķ/ləp (???) oynamaķ = to play + maķ/sın (3rd-person singular/plural imperative) buyan = since, before + igə (???)
Qaqıģa asģan lentısini yaniģa taxləp oynasın Qaqıģa asģan lentısini yaniģa taxləp oynasın the ribbons (hanging) in your hair ??? play	qaq = hair + ıģa (???) asmaķ = to hang + maķ/ģan (adjectivalization) lentə + si (3rd person possessive, referent "qaq", causes a/ı shift in lentə) + ni (object marker) yan = ??? + iģa (???) taxmaķ = ??? + maķ/ləp (???) oynamaķ = to play + maķ/sın (3rd-person singular/plural imperative)

Korean Muslims in Indonesia

2006-08-09T23:06:00.000+08:00

Muslims, a minority among minorities
http://www.thejakartapost.com/community/korea3.asp
The Jakarta Post

Indonesians and Koreans living in this country are likely to know more about Korean movies than the existence here of a Korean Muslim community.

"There are very few Korean Muslims in Indonesia," said Ahn Ali, 43, a member of the Korean Muslim Federation in Indonesia.

Among some 30,000 Koreans living in this country, only 50 are Muslims, including those who converted to because they married Indonesian women.

Such a small number was probably due to the lack of knowledge Koreans had about Islamic teaching and culture, Ahn said.

"Even in Korea there are only 35,000 Muslims out of the country's 40 million population."

The spread of Islam in Korea dated back to the 1950s, when the Korean War broke out. Two Turkish soldiers, Zubercoch and Abdul Rahman, who were stationed in Korea at that time, built a hut -- later called the Masjid Tent -- where they gathered locals and preached Islamic values.

The development of Islam in Korea was later supported with the establishment of the Korean Islamic Foundation in 1967. Its Indonesian branch, known as the Korean Muslim Federation, later opened in 1982 as many Koreans were coming to work in this country.

Despite the surging number of Korean workers in Indonesia, the number of Korean Muslims did not experience a similar growth.

Being minorities in their own community has not held them back from eagerly participating in the spreading of Islamic teachings. In fact, many of them came to Indonesia in the first place to study Islam under scholarships offered by the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs.

"I graduated from IAIN (State Islamic Institute) Jakarta in 1985, majoring in da'wah (proselytizing)," Ahn said.

These days, the man who runs the Korea-Indonesia Information Center is also a part-time lecturer in cultural studies and entrepreneurship at the As-syafi'iyah Islamic Institute in Bekasi.

Not having many fellow Korean Muslims to interact with, the foreign Islamic preacher speaks more at local religious gatherings.

"I am often invited to Indonesian events that are held on Islamic holidays such as Maulid Nabi (the birth of prophet Muhammad)," he said. "There is nothing special going on at such times among the (non-Muslim) Korean community."

Korean Muslims in Indonesia get together once each year for an annual meeting.

"We do not yet have more frequent regular meetings such as pengajian or religious gatherings, so we go to local mosques and join local gatherings instead," said Mohammad Hochul Kil, one of the founders of the federation.

Kil, also a former student of the State Islamic Institute, admitted that as Korean Muslims they were a minority among minorities.

"Learning from our experiences here, we do not see people as Korean or Indonesian or Muslims," Kil said. "We are all brothers.

To tell the truth

2006-07-01T22:44:00.000+08:00

Charles Jenkins' autobiography has just been released in Korean translation: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200606/kt2006063017041210980.htm:

The Japanese version has been available for over 9 months. And now the Korean version, which was translated from the Japanese version. But nothing in English, which is Jenkins' native language and the language in which the damn book was originally written??? (The Japanese version itself is a translation, which makes the Korean version a 3rd-generation copy).

I suspect there may never be an English language version of this book. Probably a combination of a few things. First and foremost, Jenkins probably feels some reluctance about letting this book become an item of discussion in the Anglophone world, especially in America where he's seen as a traitor. A Japanese version is fine because he's seen as a sort of protector for Hitomi Soga, the tragic heroine. Also, no US publisher wants to pick it up, for similar reasons. Maybe an Australian imprint?

Pan-Turkicism

2006-05-30T22:32:00.000+08:00

Two articles. One recent, one not so recent.

http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=407&issue_id=3319&article_id=2369694

Kazakhstan and Turkey search for common ground
In the early 1990s, many policymakers in Kazakhstan and in Turkey were euphoric about the prospects of intense cooperation between ethnically related nations that had for decades been divided by an ideological iron curtain. Turkey, hoping to expand its influence in Russia-dominated but Turkic-speaking Central Asia, opened its doors wide to Kazakh students and cultural delegations. In practice, however, these endeavors did not yield much, and disappointment with Turkey for having little to offer in terms of high-tech industries and machinery, is growing.

http://www.b-info.com/places/Bulgaria/news/98-11/nov11d.rfe

Central Asia: Students Flock To Turkey
In the nearly seven years since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Turkey has become a Mecca not only for Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian traders. Less visibly but potentially just as significant, Turkey has attracted many thousands of students from the post-Soviet Turkic republics. They include Azerbaijanis, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, as well as Tatars, Bashkirs and Altai-Turks from Russia, Gagauzi from Moldova and Crimean Tatars from Ukraine.

Uyghur Dialects

2006-04-12T17:38:00.000+08:00

Here's my translation/summarisation of some of the more interesting facts and tables from the chapter 3.3 of Weiwueryu Fangyan yu Fangyan Diaocha, discussing the central dialect of Uyghur. A few of my own observations are also included, in italics. Hopefully later this week I'll have time to cover the Lopnur and Hotan dialects.

Geography

Central dialect is the most geographically widespread dialect, stretching from Hami in the east to Ili in the west and Kashgar in the south, and including in its range other major cities like Urumqi, Turpan, Korla, Kucha, and Aksu.

Phonology

Note: I'm using mainland phonetic alphabet, except borrowing Turkish ğ, IPA ʒ, and the non-standard ä and ö. The standard literary pronunciation is marked by a gray background.

Gloss	Kashgar	Yili	Turpan	Sound shift
far	ʒiraķ		yiraķ	The "y" of the standard dialect is seen to shift to "ʒ" (like French j) in initial position in front of high vowels in Kashgar and Yili dialects.
far	ʒip		yip
year	ʒil		yil
Uyghur "bagel"	giʒdä	girdä	giedä	Syllable-final "r" gets "stronger" in Kashgar dialect, but "weaker" in Turpan dialect
edge	ķiʒ	ķir	ķiä
one	biʒ	bir	biä
firewood	otan	otun		After wide rounded vowels "o" and "ö", the Kashgar dialect changes "u" and "ü" to "a" and "ä".
game	oyan	oyun
son	oğal	oğul
boot	ötäk	ötük
coal	kömä	kömür
flower	gul	gül		Kashgar dialect often converts front vowels entirely into back vowels; however, this does not occur in all cases.
strength	kuq	küq
meat	gux	güx
kettle	qogun	qögün
kettle	longga	lönggä	lünggä
school	maktap	mäktäp
chopsticks	qoka		qökä	Turpan dialect manifests the opposite phenomenon: standard "u" and "a" are shifted forward to become "ü" and "ä" The equivalent shift in Kashgar dialect occurs, but is much more rare.
young married woman	qokan		qökän
gift	söğat		soğät
	h¸äydäx	h¸aydax
ink bottle	düwät	dügät		The letter "w" ("v") shifts to "g" in Yili and Turpan dialects.
oil press	juwaz	jugaz
Uyghur dessert	h¸alwa	h¸alga
leather coat	juwa	juga

Vocabulary

In progress

Grammar

In progress

Chinese, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs in Turkey

2006-04-07T17:45:00.000+08:00

Found this excerpt interesting as an illustration of how Turkey, despite being an ethnoreligiously-defined state, has been able to integrate some of its immigrant racial minorities (partly this is a consequence of the national myth, propagated by Ataturk, which tries to define the origin of the Turkish people as Asian rather than European, even as they cast off their Ottoman history, try to reform their nation onto a European model, struggle for entrance into the EU, etc). I found this quote especially amusing:

Ibrahim's children ... still retain Central Asian facial features, and this formerly made the young men popular with the Turkish girls (because it was thought they had pure 'Turkish Central Asian' blood)

I hate new words

2006-01-21T18:48:00.000+08:00

Unlike some commentators, I'm certainly not a fan of the mass importation of loanwords into a language; it strikes me as a mentally impoverished way of expanding your lexicon. New loanwords tend to be introduced to show off the speaker’s alleged knowledge of a foreign language, rather than actually communicate an idea to the listener (the primary purpose of any use of language).

Granted, all languages borrowed from each other in the past, but that's a poor justification for continuing the practise in the modern world. Better to use your existing linguistic resources, which may include words and roots already borrowed, to coin neologisms instead. Phonetic borrowing of new loanwords hardly captures the "richness" of a foreign language either, one of the common justifications for using loanwords. Better in that case at least to use a calque, which shows the thinking behind the foreign word, than to use a highly mispronounced (and probably misinterpreted) version of it. A calque is at least somewhat transparent to the common man; a loanword is just a random collection of sounds.

But English, among others, has a second and even more irritating method of coining neologisms: using people's names. Yet another way of creating words which don't convey any obvious meaning except to those "in the know" who know the person's name, what field he worked in, and what his ideas were. The cachet of the new word persists until the masses adopt it, at which time the trendy have to start adopting new words instead.

Here's a brief sampling of some English terms which were invented by derivation from someone's names, along with their Chinese equivalents. About half seem to have been unfortunately borrowed into Chinese phonetically; the others have been translated.

Term	Named for	In Chinese	Explanation of Chinese term
Foley artist	Jack Foley	電影配假音效師	Movie False Sound Effects Accompaniment Specialist (音效 "sound effects" is a derivation from the calque 特效 "special effects" — more literally "special effectiveness")
Mulesing	JWH Mules	Unknown	Have seen it explained as "綿羊的皮膚疤痕整平", but not translated using a single word
Boolean logic	George Boole	布爾邏輯	A phonetic borrowing, read bu'er luoji ("cloth thou patrol edit")
Algorithm	Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi	演算法	Method for performing a calculation
Saxophone	Adolphe Sax	薩克斯管	A partial phonetic borrowing, "sakesi tube". The phonetic part literally means "sa overcome this". Sa (the first word) has no meaning in Chinese, except as part of the word 菩薩, a transliteration of Sanskrit bodhisattva, literally a "being of wisdom".
Diesel	Rudolf Diesel	柴油	Firewood Oil. The Japanese (and Korean) term is 軽油, literally "light-weight oil".

"Algorithm" is an especially interesting case, since the name from which it is derived, al-Khwarizmi, just means "guy from Khwarizm", which, even if you understand Arabic, seems like a fairly stupid way to refer to a method for performing a calculation, but look on the bright side. He could have been from Fucking, Austria instead. (Notably, al-Khwarizmi also gave us the word "algebra", the bane of junior high students everywhere. "Algebra" just means something like the "unification of broken parts" — but again, no one knows that, so it's just a mysterious word from which strapping young lads produce creative folk etymologies like "Algae Bra". In Chinese and Japanese, it is referred to by the much more sensible name 代數學, "mathematics of substitute numbers" or "mathematics [using] variables".)

Less-commonly taught languages in Hong Kong

2005-12-16T19:04:00.000+08:00

Translated an article from last month about language study—actually I barely read any paper besides the (free) Metro Daily, so I would have missed this one entirely if my friend hadn’t saved it to show me. My comments are in [bracketed italics]. You can mouse-over underlined words, including links, for their translation—- did this in the case of organisation names and in places where an idiomatic translation required paraphrasing that’s fairly distant from the source material.

(As an aside, this links into one of the most irritating phenomenon in bilingual or pseudo-bilingual societies—- learning a term, especially an officialese term or proper noun, in one language, and having no way to talk about it or look for information about it in the other. It’s even worse if neither language is your mother tongue, and if far more information is available about a topic in one language than the other. The only thing I find more irritating is when terms are phonetically borrowed phonetically (and idiosyncratically transcribed) when they could easily be translated.)

Studying less commonly taught languages, welcoming foreign businessmen
http://jump.mingpao.com/cfm/content_enhance.cfm?file=20051111%5C317a.xml
2005 November 11th
Text and photos: Chan Ching-man

Photo captions (please see original article for photos)

(Picture of Mr. Abbas teaching a class) Hong Kong University Language Centre instructor Mr. Abbas says, in studying Arabic, you need at least 200 hours of class time before you can even deal with daily conversation.
(Picture of Mr. Ng) Hong Kong Communication Art Centre principal Mr. Ng Chi-man stated that in recent years, there’s been an increasing trend for people to study Arabic and Spanish.
(Picture of Arabic textbook) The world’s population of mother-tongue Arabic speakers is around 200 million.
(Picture of Ms. Chen in front of her association’s sign) Russian Culture Association chairwoman Ms. Chen Shuwen believes that Hong Kong severely lacks Russian language talent.

Hong Kong has a reputation as an international city, where knowing Mandarin, Cantonese, and English well is an elementary demand. But in order to have trading relationships with the countries of the world, especially with important emerging markets, it’s important to know even more languages. Studying other foreign languages has become popular in recent years, and the less commonly taught languages especially show a trend of gaining ground. Arabic, Spanish, and Russian are all attracting more people to register for classes, and in some cases Arabic classes are even being offered in middle schools. [Though I’d be very surprised if Arabic was being offered in just any random HK public schools; probably it’s only those with a significant population of Muslim (usually Pakistani or Indonesian) students. So this is roughly like assuming lots of Americans are getting interested in studying Vietnamese because it’s offered at Lowell High School. It’s true in some sense, but you’re missing the point of why they’re studying if you say it’s because of globalisation—- they’re interested in it as a heritage/cultural language, not as a business tool.] It’s precisely because there’s such a lack of talent in these less-commonly-taught languages, that even being able to communicate in them a little increases your competitiveness, giving you a foot in the door in trading companies or the tourism industry.

HKers’ motivation for study: practical necessity

“In Europe, people think it’s perfectly normal to be able to speak three or four languages!” [Of course, this is not that hard when those are all from the same language family as your mother tongue. It’s a bit more impressive when the the Finns, Hungarians, and Estonians do it.] Mr. Ng Chi-man, principal of the Hong Kong Communication Art Centre, said, when he himself left Hong Kong in his teens to study in Canada, he felt the difference in students’ language study in the two countries. “Hong Kong doesn’t emphasize the study of a second foreign language [I assume this means in addition to English, which is already quite overemphasized], and the attitude towards studying is rather passive, which can be an obstacle to learning a language.”

Yet, practical necessity is the most important motivation for HK’ foreign language students. Most of the students at the Hong Kong Communication Art Centre have jobs already, and 60% of the students at the night school are bachelor’s degree holders. “Some students are studying because of their jobs. The teachers often discuss the things which students need in their work, which stimulates their interest in study”, said Ng.

The Centre provides short courses in 12 different languages, with Arabic and Spanish receiving the largest increases in intake during recent years. “Arabic took off about about two or three years ago—- the fighting increased everyone’s interest in the Arab world, along the reconstruction after the fighting, which has also brought more business opportunities. As for Spanish, even as early as 1997, it had already become a “hot pick” among less-commonly-taught languages, because South American countries weren’t affected by the financial crisis. Some people in businesses like trading, finished clothing, and even entertainment, came here one by one to study Spanish, which could get them around anywhere in the South American continent.”

The Centre started 3 years ago providing Arabic classes to the Trade Development Council employees; from the single class of three years ago, it has developed to the present 20-plus sections.

Organisations of different countries each have different rankings of world languages, but calculating from the population of first or second language speakers, Mandarin, English, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian each always come out on top in any ranking; add on to that market expansion in South America, the Middle East, and Russia, and it’s clear that the language study trends in Hong Kong complement the worldwide tide of development

More Middle Eastern businessmen purchasing from China

“The world’s population of Arabic mother-tongue speakers is around 200 million; countries which use Arabic include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Morocco, etc. [Yes, but the regional varieties of Arabic are not particularly intercomprehensible]. And even if they need to bring a translator, they still want to go to China to do business!” Abbas, an instructor at Hong Kong University’s Language Centre and a native of Egypt, used to teach in HKU’s Textiles division; from the textiles industry, he has observed more and more Middle Eastern businessmen going to mainland China for purchasing.

He has many students who come to study because of their job requirements, with some selected by their companies to study Arabic. “From the perspective of the Hong Kong student, Arabic is a completely new language family, and the first step begins with learning to recognise the letters of the alphabets. Letters are made from curves and dots; You have to remember various forms of each letter, along with the number of dots. If the position is even a little bit off, then the pronunciation becomes completely different. Also, the pronunciations of some different letters are very similar,” said Abbas.

The students of Abbas’ introductory course, after their first five classes, have only studied half of the 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet. “Classes include pronunciation, conversation, reading and writing. For students to be able to deal with their jobs, they need to at least finish a 200-hour course,” said Abbas. The introductory class is roughly 120 hours long, and a student would have to keep studying through the intermediate level before he could be able to roughly speak the language with any degree of proficiency.

Russian-language talents promote Hong Kong trade

“Hong Kong is seriously lacking in Russian-speaking talents. There’s one 70-year old head of a travel agency who still has to lead tour groups in Russia himself, because they can’t find anyone else who can understand Russian; Russians starting companies in Hong Kong come to me to hire people who understand Russian — but my students are beginners and can barely even read the alphabet, how could they deal with these jobs?”, Russian Culture Association chairwoman Ms. Chen Shuwen said.

Ms. Chen majored in Russian at a mainland university, but after graduation, at the low point of Sino-Russian relations, she switched to teaching English. After coming to Hong Kong, she was in the trading business for 20 years. Then, in the 90s, when Russia began to liberalize, she unpacked her textbooks and started reviewing, because she felt that there was a lack of Russian-speaking talent in Hong Kong, and that there would be a lot of room for development in this area.

Ms. Chen employs a dual-tracked development approach, on one hand training students, and on the creating organizations, establishing contact with Russians, and letting students of Russian encounter Russian people, increasing their chances of getting a job. She set up the non-profit Hong Kong-Russia Friendship Promotion Association in order to introduce Russians who needed business assistance or Russian language services to Russian-speaking talents. Her association also conducts activities like commercial investment seminars. “Before, Russian company purchasers would come to Hong Kong to buy daily-use goods. But in recent years, since the same goods in the mainland have become much cheaper, now Russians coming to Hong Kong want to buy quality goods, such as furs, locally-designed Italian-brand clothing, and the like.” She believes having more Russian-speaking talents will help to promote Hong Kong’s trade.

She also established the Russian Culture Association in order to provide language training. “Last year there were two students going to Russia to attend university. They’d studied a one-year language course here, along with a local bachelors’ degree program. One of them was a high-school dropout, but he put a lot of effort into studying Russian — for him, studying a language and and getting a foreign college degree was definitely a good way to go.”

Discussing language proficiency exams with the Russian Consulate

The two organisations she has set up have both received support from the Russian Consulate, and she is also planning to cooperate with the consulate to draw up a Russian proficiency exam. “The sad thing is, the Continuing Education Fund only assists students to study certain languages, and Russian isn’t one of them. If they could get assistance, there would be more people willing to study”, Chen said. [The usual requirement for CEF funding for language studies is that you take a proficiency exam at the end of the course; drawing up an official Russian proficiency is a big step in helping students to get CEF funding for students of Russian. Unfortunately this doesn’t help me at all because CEF funding is restricted to Hong Kong permanent residents.]

Some language teaching organisations
Name: Hong Kong Communication Art Centre (Arabic, Spanish, etc. [namely Japanese, Korean, Shanghainese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese, and English full-time classes])
Characteristics: 5-10 students per class, uses materials from local university courses
Telephone: 2877 8363

Name: Hong Kong University Language Centre (Arabic and more [namely German, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Thai])
Characteristics: Classes smaller than 20 students [Most classes are held from 5-7PM or 6-8PM on weekdays)]
Telephone: 2859 2000

Name: Russian Culture Association
Characteristics: Managed by Russian Literature major, uses own materials and ones from mainland university courses
Telephone: 3188 1099

Learning Russian in Hong Kong (instead of Cantonese)

2005-12-14T19:07:00.000+08:00

Personally, I haven’t taken classes in any of these schools—I’ve instead opted for the self-study and language-exchange option for now. I'm not really that serious about learning anyway, since I'd rather focus on Turkish. However, I’ve heard good things about the HK Federation of Trade Unions’ classes (namely that they’re pretty cheap and move along at a fast pace). As you can see from the paltry list below, Russian is unfortunately not a very widely taught language here. But then again, it’s not a very widely taught language anywhere. I’m actually fairly impressed with the foreign language teaching here, especially the insane variety of Japanese and Korean language classes I saw, which I guarantee you no city in the US can match.

Russian Schools in Hong Kong
Name	Class Location	Public Transit	Topical Courses
HK Baptist University (Short courses)	HKBU Town Centre 5/F & 6/F 8 Hart Avenue Tel: 2311 2276	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2	24-hour introductory course
Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Continuing Education Centre	5/F Boss Commercial Centre 28 Ferry Street Tel: 2385 8686	Jordan MTR Exit A or Kowloon MTR Exit A	36-hour introductory sequence; various advanced classes offered on sufficient demand
	3/F Cheong Wai Building 62 Portland Street Tel: 2770 3822	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit B2
	2/F Kim Tak Building 328-342A Nathan Road Tel: 2332 0799	Jordan MTR Exit B1
	2/F Hennessy Road Court 213-219 Hennessy Road Tel: 2519 0123	Wan Chai MTR Exit A2
Russian Club of Hong Kong	Block F, 12/F The Manhattan, 33 Tai Tam Road Tel: 2430 7331 (Contact address only; NOT the classroom location)		Please contact directly for updated course information
Russian Cultural Association of Hong Kong (president: Ms. Chen Shuwen; no website, please see related Ming Pao Article)	Hing Lee Commercial Building 12-14 Shanghai Street Tel: 3428-5225 (or	Jordan MTR Exit C2	Please contact directly for updated course information

Learning Japanese in Hong Kong (instead of Cantonese)

2005-12-08T23:52:00.000+08:00

Of the schools listed below, I’ve personally attended classes through Dai-Ichi, who had the advantage of being cheap and flexible, and CUHK’s SCS, who have the widest range of courses as well as decent locations for them (e.g. their Kansai-ben course is in TST, not way out in Taikoo Shing like HKU’s).

Why study Japanese in Hong Kong, instead of Cantonese? More on that later …

Japanese Schools in Hong Kong
Name	Class Location	Public Transit	Topical Courses
World Language & Business College	6/F 38 Plaza 38 Shantung Street Tel: 2735-8223	Mong Kok MTR Exit E1
HK Baptist University (Short courses)	9/F, Cosco Tower 183 Queen’s Road Central Tel: 2572-4351	Central MTR Exit E2
	Henrietta Secondary School 2 City Garden Road	Fortress Hill MTR Exit B
	Hong Kong Baptist University Tel: 3411-5771	Kowloon Tong MTR Exit A2
	Pui Ching Middle School 20 Pui Ching Road	Mong Kok KCR Exit B
	United Christian College 11 Tong Yam Street, Tai Hang Tung	Shek Kip Mei MTR Exit B1
	Cheng Wing Gee College 12-14 Chik Wan Street	Tai Wai KCR
	HKBU Town Centre 5/F & 6/F 8 Hart Avenue Tel: 2311 2276	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2
HK Baptist University (Certificate courses)	Tel: 3411-2861	Please contact directly for location details
CityU SCOPE	City University of Hong Kong 83 Tat Chee Avenue Tel: 2788-7423 Enrollment: 2788-7070	Kowloon Tong MTR Exit C2
Hornington School	6/F On Lee Building 545 Nathan Road Tel: 2384-3243	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit A1	Japanese University Entrance Exam Preparation
HK Language Training Centre	28/F, Soundwill Plaza 38 Russell Street Tel: 2834 2168	Causeway Bay MTR Exit A	Business Japanese
Nikkei Japanese Language School	3/F Kin Tak Fung Building 467-473 Hennessy Road Tel: 2397-7799	Causeway Bay MTR Exit C	Retail/Hotel/Restaurant, Children’s section, Free Talk
	2A Ko Kie Building 9-11 Jordan Road Tel: 2770-0993	Jordan MTR Exit B2
	President Commercial Centre 602-608 Nathan Road Tel: 2369-2379	Mong Kok MTR Exit E2
Daito Bunka Education Centre	6D Eurasia Bank Building 749 Nathan Road Tel: 2749-9818	Prince Edward MTR Exit B2
Polytechnic University (Part-time M.A.)	Hong Kong Polytechnic University Tel: 2766 7508	Hung Hom KCR
HKU Space	494 King’s Road Tel:	North Point MTR Exit B3	Kansai Dialect, Summer Tour for Teenagers, Learning Japanese through the Media
HKU Space	Delia Memorial School Tel:	Tai Koo Shing MTR
Chinese University School of Continuing Studies	Methodist College 50 Gascoigne Road	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit D	Video Translation, Kansai Dialect, Manga, Business Presentations
Chinese University School of Continuing Studies	13/F Oriental Center 67 Chatham Road South	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2
Takadanobaba Nihongo Gakkou	402 Kelly Commercial Centre 570-572 Nathan Road Tel: 2770-7032	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit A2
Dai-ichi Japanese Language School	Wai Kiu College 17 Wai Chi Street Tel: 2778-0902	Shek Kip Mei MTR Exit C	Cultural Course(for JLPT-1 ability; newspaper reading, letter writing, etc.)
Dai-ichi Japanese Language School	6/F Chinachem Johnson Plaza 178-186 Johnson Road Tel: 2116-8719	Wan Chai MTR Exit A3
Japan Society of Hong Kong	1/F & 2/F, Fung House 19-20 Connaught Road Tel: 2537-3797	Central MTR Exit A
Benri Nihongo	Cameron Commercial Centre 458-468 Hennessy Road Tel: 9045-9562	Causeway Bay MTR Exit B
	Sino Centre 582-592 Nathan Road	Mong Kok MTR Exit E2
	Hollywood Commercial Centre 610 Nathan Road	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit E2
	Riviera Gardens Block 2 Yi Lok Street	Tsuen Wan West Rail Exit D
	Yuen Long Trade Centre 99-109 Castle Peak Road (Yuen Long Section)	Tai Tong Road Light Rail
Aie Japanese Language Centre	1315 Rise Commercial Building 5-11 Granville Circuit Tel: 3521-1977	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2
Haneda Japanese Language Tutorial School	Friendship Mansion 5/F 349 Hennessy Road Tel: 2891-7147/6139-1995	Wan Chai MTR Exit A2
IMT Japanese Language Classroom	Please contact directly for further information

Learning Korean in Hong Kong (instead of Cantonese)

2005-12-06T19:13:00.000+08:00

P>Haven't started trying seriously yet, but maybe I will one day in the future ...

Korean Language Schools in Hong Kong
Name	Class Location	Public Transit	Topical Courses
Korean Language Education Centre	1/F Tao Tak Building 644 Nathan Road Tel: 2787-3837	Mong Kok MTR Exit E2	Prep course for international students, 300-hour class sequence from beginning to advanced level
Korean Language Education Centre	5/F Simsons Commercial Building 137-139 Johnston Road	Wan Chai MTR Exit A3
Chinese University School of Continuing Studies	Methodist College 50 Gascoigne Road	Yau Ma Tei MTR Exit D	Korean Conversation through Korean Movies (for intermediate students)
Chinese University School of Continuing Studies	13/F Oriental Center 67 Chatham Road South	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2
World Language & Business College	6/F 38 Plaza 38 Shantung Street Tel: 2735-8223	Mong Kok MTR Exit E1
Delia Memorial Evening Course	Delia School of Canada Tai Fung Avenue Tel: 3421-9822	Taikoo Shing MTR Exit D1
Korean Chamber of Commerce	302 Blissful Building 243-247 Des Voeux Road Tel: 2544-1713	Sheung Wan MTR Exit B	Please contact directly for course information
HK Baptist University (Certificate Courses)	4/F TST Neighbours’ Welfare Assoc. 136A Nathan Road Tel: 3411-5467	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit	Three-level certificate totalling 360 hours of instruction
HK Baptist University (Certificate Courses)	9/F, Cosco Tower 183 Queen’s Road Central	Central MTR Exit E2	Three-level certificate totalling 360 hours of instruction
HK Baptist University (Short courses)	9/F, Cosco Tower 183 Queen’s Road Central Tel: 2572-4351	Central MTR Exit E2
	Henrietta Secondary School 2 City Garden Road	Fortress Hill MTR Exit B
	Hong Kong Baptist University Tel: 3411-5771	Kowloon Tong MTR Exit A2
	Pui Ching Middle School 20 Pui Ching Road	Mong Kok KCR Exit B
	United Christian College 11 Tong Yam Street, Tai Hang Tung	Shek Kip Mei MTR Exit B1
	Cheng Wing Gee College 12-14 Chik Wan Street	Tai Wai KCR
	HKBU Town Centre 5/F & 6/F 8 Hart Avenue Tel: 2311 2276	Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Exit B2

How to get rich by learning foreign languages

2005-12-01T00:58:00.000+08:00

Polyglots often come face-to-face with an unpleasant truth sometime around tackling their third or fourth language. (Since I'm rather slow, I'd already given up on many more before figuring it out): if you have nothing useful to say, expanding the number of people to whom you can say it will not help you get more money, fame, respect, or women. A man who can go to any continent and play the village idiot like a native is merely a global village idiot. (Though if he managed to pass as a native on Antarctica, I'd still be rather impressed. And of course, he would always be assured of a job in the zoo.)

In an attempt to compensate for this unwanted global status, many polyglots try to spread multilingualism itself as if it were a religion, deriding the pathetic single-tongued masses of benighted countries like Amrika.

Charlemagne, a man anointed Emperor by the pope, himself said, "To have another language is to have a second soul." Now here's a concept that people can readily understand. Más almas, más salvación.* It's highly ecumenical, too: whether you're worried about your soul being condemned to hell or reincarnated as an ant, another one offers you twice the chances of achieving nirvana, getting the thumbs up from St. Peter, or what-have-you.

Yet even with the spiritual benefits covered, polyglots still have to convince the monolingual masses of the temporal benefits of their new religion. This isn't as hard as it might seem. Invite lots of middle-aged foreign managers into your country. This means that all the laymen of the upstart Church of Forked Tongues will be too busy trying to learn how to say things to foreigners to actually think about what they're going to say. Not to mention, they'll be less skilled at it than the existing polyglots, who by this point should already be getting rich off tithes and sales of religious literature -- The Book of Pimsleur, the Gospel According to Barry Farber, and the like.

(As a side benefit, all those foreign middle managers need schools for their kids. Why not set some up, charge ridiculous fees, and send your own kids to study along side them? Perfect training for the next generation of little high priests.)

Sound familiar? It's precisely what mass concentrations of multilinguals do to the societies they live in. Look around you. What it all amounts to is a so-called meritocracy wherein "merit" is defined as "English" by the rich people with extreme unfair advantages in learning the language. As an outsider, You ydo not to support or even be aware of the perverse consequences of this incentive structure in order to reap the benefits. Which is why I'm having such a great life in Hong Kong which doesn't leave me any time to post on this blog.

But you should never forget that the system is not perpetuated for your benefit. The blame for the injustice is not yours; nor do the biggest fruits of its injustices accrue to you.

*: From the Spanish version of those "Got milk?" commercials --- "Más leche, más logro"

High-stakes exams

2005-11-21T19:18:00.000+08:00

Which is more important— some kids going to college, or Asia’s second largest stock market? Well, here’s an announcement I translated the other day for my team (by way of Japanese). And y’all think the SAT is a "high-stakes test"??? You don’t see the NYSE pulling this kind of joke out of deference to a bunch of high-schoolers. I guess the stock exchange officials have been beaten into submission by a bunch of education mamas.

제목	2006학년도 대학수학능력시험 시행에 따른 매매거래시간 변경 안내			Subject	Announcement on implementation of changes to exchange trading hours for 2006 Academic Year College Scholastic Aptitude Test
담당부서	주식시장총괄팀	담당팀	시장운영팀	Division	Stock Markets	Team	Market Operations
E-mail	stock@krx.co.kr	작성일	2005/11/21	E-mail	stock@krx.co.kr	Date	2005/11/21
내용	2006학년도 대학수학능력시험 당일 출근시간 조정으로 유가증권시장과 코스닥시장의 매매거래시간을 다음과 같이 임시 변경합니다.			Concents	Due to adjustments to working hours on the day of the 2006 Academic Year College Scholastic Aptitude Test, the trading hours of KSE and KOSDAQ will be temporarily changed as follows
1.변경내용	정규시장 및 시간외시장의 매매거래 개시 및 종료시점을 1시간씩 순연하되, 장종료후 시간외대량매매 및 단일가매매거래의 종료시점은 순연하지 않고 현행과 같이 18:00로 함.			1. Details of change	The start and end times of regular session trading and outside-hours trading will each be moved forward by one hour; however, the ending time of outside-hours block trading and odd-lot trading will not be extended and will remain at 18:00.
2.변경내용	▶변경전			2. Details of change	Prior to change
	(유가증권시장 및 코스닥시장)				(KOSDAQ and KSE)
	정규시장(주식 및 상장지수펀드) : 09:00~15:00				Regular session (Stocks and listed index funds): 09:00-15:00
	장 개시전 시간외시장 : 07:30~08:30				Pre-market trading: 07:30-08:30
	장 종료후 시간외시장 : 종가매매 : 15:10~15:30 대량매매 및 단일가매매 : 15:10(15:30)~~18:00				After-market trading: At close price: 15:10-15:30 Block/odd-lot trading: 15:10 (15:30)-18:00

	(유가증권시장)				(KSE only)
	신주인수권증서,신주인수권증권,수익증권,채권(국채및Repo포함) : 09:00~15:00				Warrants, options, beneficiary certificates, bonds (including government bonds and repo): 09:00-15:00

	▶변경전				Following change
2.변경내용	(유가증권시장 및 코스닥시장)				(KOSDAQ and KSE)
	정규시장(주식 및 상장지수펀드) : 10:00~16:00				Regular session (Stocks and listed index funds): 10:00-16:00
	장 개시전 시간외시장 : 08:30~09:30				Pre-market trading: 08:30-09:30
	장 종료후 시간외시장 : 종가매매 : 16:10~16:30 대량매매 및 단일가매매 : 16:10(16:30)~~18:00				After-market trading: At close price: 16:10-16:30 Block/odd-lot trading: 16:10 (16:30)-18:00

	(유가증권시장)				(KSE only)
	신주인수권증서,신주인수권증권,수익증권,채권(국채및Repo포함) : 10:00~16:00				Warrants, options, beneficiary certificates, bonds (including government bonds and repo): 10:00-16:00

3.시행일:	2005. 11. 23(수) (1일간)			3. Date of implementation	2005/11/23 (Wed)

Where is Kazakhstan?

2005-11-11T19:20:00.000+08:00

Been busy with work for the past two weeks, sorry for not posting. Now it’s public information:

Investment Banks Move Kazakhstan Thousands of Miles to New Home in Europe

In a stunning display of secrecy and civil engineering prowess, ING Financial Markets, J.P. Morgan and UBS Investment Bank relocated the entire Republic of Kazakhstan from its present location on the Chinese border to an undisclosed area in Central Eastern Europe, an internal newsletter at one of the banks in question reported.

The relocation was achieved as part of a US$100m perpetual non-call ten year tier one offering for Kazkommertsbank (KKB), which hoped that linking the offering with their country’s movement out of Central Asia, a region from which global investors have traditionally shied away due to the perception of political instability, would enable them to achieve a more favourable interest rate.

This deal offered particularly unusual challenges for the debt capital markets teams of the three banks, far more used to dealing dollars than moving soil and skyscrapers. A Central European placement for Kazakhstan, the ninth-largest country in the world at 2.7 million square kilometers, simply could not be achieved without massive effects on the geography of the region, already entirely filled with countries. Even the relocation to the Atlantic Ocean of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, and Albania freed up only 2.1 million square kilometers, requiring parts of the Baltic and the entire Black Sea (area: 422,000 sqkm) to be filled in, over protests from leaders in the Russian, Turkish, and Swedish fishing and tourism industries.

Kazakhstan itself showed less than perfect enthusiasm at its new location in Central Europe, which put it thousands of miles from new ally and trading partner China, while leaving a enormous land border with Russia just as large as before. “Of course, this will make money for Kazkommertzbank and the rest of those bigwigs, but what about us regular Kazakhs?”, said Erkin Abdulrahmanov, a newspaper vendor in the former capital of Alma Ata, now on the Baltic coast. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, however, was in a rare good mood at the press conference in Astana announcing the relocation, beaming for the cameras and expressing his hope that his country would be able to apply to join the European Union at the earliest possible opportunity. European Union leader Romano Prodi reacted favourably to the suggestion; private observers hinted that Prodi hoped to use the admission of underpopulated, resource-rich Kazakhstan, a traditionally Muslim and largely ethnically Asian country, to prove to the world that the EU is not, as President George Bush tacitly accused it of being, “the exclusive club of a single religion”. Such a move would allow Prodi to continue to drag his feet on the far more economically weighty question of the Kazakhs’ 70 million linguistic cousins in Turkey.

Kazakhstan’s relocation has also created new problems and new opportunities for citizens of other nations. The 182 million people in the 15 relocated countries expressed a mixture of delight and frustration at their new longitude and latitude off the coast of Portugal. “The weather’s much nicer here”, said an office worker in an import-export firm in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. Others were happy to be finally free of the yoke and indeed the presence of traditional imperial overlord Russia.

However, the loss of land borders with richer members of the European Union, such as Germany and Italy, could prove damaging to the tourism industry, as well as slowing down the growth of the guest worker population in those countries and the vital remittances they send back to relatives at home. Further, the one thing everyone could agree on was that being kicked aside to make room for barely 16 million Kazakhs was an inefficient use of time and resources. These two lingering dissatisfactions provide a perfect platform on which conservative parties are expected to capitalize in upcoming elections.

The former location of Kazakhstan, claimed by Uzbekistan, Russia, and China, is now nothing but a large hole in the ground, roughly two hundred meters deep—the depth recommended by geological engineers involved in the relocation. Some water from the Atlantic displaced by the 15 former Central European countries now located there had been desalinated and used to fill in part of the hole, but experts estimate that it will take decades for the new and as-of-yet unnamed body of water, now the world’s largest inland sea, to reach capacity. Uzbekistan, which had been involved in a territorial dispute with Kazakhstan before the latter’s sudden departure, seemed happy with their new sea and hoped they could gain World Bank assistance for various engineering projects designed to help it fill up more quickly, aiding in the development of marine industries in the struggling Central Asian country.

Not Learning Nastaliq Either

2005-10-24T23:51:00.000+08:00

Ah, Amazon finally posted my review of Persian Handwriting which will probably prevent anyone from ever buying the book again.

Amusing interaction between HK banking practises and Amazon's systems -- they think my last name is Eric. Thus I get the "Real Name" label attached to my reviews without actually having to reveal my real name.

Overpriced and not very useful, October 16, 2005
Reviewer: B. Eric (Hong Kong) -- See all my reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I bought this book expecting to learn how to write nasta'liq. I succeeded to a certain degree, but no thanks to this book, which is highly flawed and which I cannot recommend to any fellow student (and certainly not for $40!) Problems abound:

Examples of handwriting are almost always given without any printed equivalent. If you cannot puzzle out what the author has written, and there is no picture to give you a hint about what the word should be, then you are out of luck. Which leads into the next complaint ...
The pedagogical examples are hard to read and in some cases plain old ugly -- not the ideal model for the student. Many appear to have been scanned at a very low resolution -- the individual pixels are even visible to the naked eye!
The author seems unclear as to what level of student he is trying to reach. Many examples require knowledge of Farsi: you'll see a picture of a book with "kitab" handwritten underneath it, but if you didn't happen to know that word in Farsi, you'd have no idea what letters the author was trying to write. However, much of the book is also filled with introductory material having very little to do with "Persian Handwriting," the purported topic -- for example, 30 pages teaching you the letters of the alphabet (in printed form) and how they connect to each other, and another 20 discussing spelling conventions. Nice to know, but not the reason I paid money for this book.
The book is highly unfocused in its content. Beyond the problems discussed above, the author also devotes many pages to famous historical examples of Persian calligraphy. They are indeed quite pretty, but we introductory students have no hope of being able to imitate them (or indeed to look at them as anything but pretty pictures) -- and you'll be no closer to being able to imitate them after you finish this book.
The attached "software" (really something along the lines of a PowerPoint or HyperCard presentation) has absolutely NOTHING to do with teaching you handwriting. Don't buy this product expecting the software would include animations showing you how your hand should move as you write each letter, or comparisons of written and handwritten form, or anything else -- all you get is a basic tutorial introducing you to the alphabet in it printed form (aimed at someone who cannot read whatsoever), recorded pronunciation of vocabulary words, and a few low-resolution pictures of calligraphy which you could find on the Internet. To make it clear: there is NO discussion of "Persian Handwriting" whatsoever in the included software.

Learn Uyghur by Radio

2005-10-07T18:22:00.000+08:00

p>Here's the first in an occasional series of attempts to teach myself Uyghur vocabulary based off of internet radio broadcasts. For now, I'm using RFA since they're the most easily available source; probably I'd prefer one less "politically incorrect" so that I could avoid my own site (and more likely, my whole provider) being blocked inside the mainland. Also remember that these are more study notes (self-created and self-targetted) than teaching materials—I've only completed the first half of a 160-hour self-teaching introductory course, so mistakes will abound. Also I'd prefer to be using kona yeziq, but I'm on a Windows ME machine right now. Conversion chart here.

Number in parentheses at the beginning of each paragraph is a time index in the broadcast. Post still in progress—I'll keep annotating more vocabulary as I have time. Read or listen:

(0:09) Amérika prézidénti George W Bush peyshenbe küni etigen sherqiy waqit saet 10 din 15 minut ötkende, Washingtondiki Ronald Reagan binasining yighin zalida térrorchiliqqa qarshi urush toghrisida nutuq sözlidi.

(0:23) Prézidént Bush sözining béshida 2001 – Yili yüz bergen 11 -Séntebir weqesini eslep ötüp, Amérika eskerlirining bu weqeni sadir qilghuchi erkinlikning düshmenlirige qarshi köreshke teyyar ikenlikini éytip mundaq dédi:

(0:42; Translation) "Biz insanlar duch kelgen bu ejellik xeterge taqabil turimiz . Biz bu térrorchiliqqa qarshi urushta yéngip chiqmighiche, hérip qalmaymiz we toxtap qalmaymiz".

(0:52) U sözide yene, 11-Séntebir weqesining amérika xelqi hergizmu untulup qalmaydighan bir weqe ikenlikini, shundaqla bu weqeni sadir qilghan islamiy radikal térrorchilarning hazir iraq qatarliq ereb döletliridila emes, belki yawropa we asiyadiki döletlerdimu térrorchiliq paaliyetlirini élip bérishqa urunup, gunahsiz xelqqe ziyan yetküzüshnipilanlawatqanliqini bildürdi. U sözide, islam radikalchilirining idéologiyisining islam dinidin tüptin perqlinidighanliqini éytti. U mundaq dédi:

More to come. Apparently Internet Exploder doesn't support the "abbr" tag which pops up little annotation windows (like for all the vocabulary up there); working on some ugly solution involving CSS.

Not Learning English in Los Angeles

2005-10-03T22:25:00.000+08:00

This will never become a mass phenomenon, but it's interesting to read about:

English bypassed in L.A.

Peruvian immigrant Miguel Aliaga always knew that coming to Los Angeles would mean a long struggle mastering a new language. He just never figured that language would be Korean ...
Aliaga, who for years stocked shelves at Korean-owned grocery stores, initially took Korean-language classes at night school to get ahead and earn a pay raise. Most of his customers spoke little or no English, and he wanted to be one of the few Spanish-speaking employees who could help customers find just the right fish or direct them to canned vegetables.
So, like thousands before him, he studied the language that would provide him with the most economic opportunity. And it happened to be Korean.
"At first it was about a job. When you understand Korean, there are more people that will hire you, especially in restaurants," he said.
Now it's about culture.
On his desk, he keeps a Korean-language instruction book and a Korean-English dictionary that he reads while waiting for customers.

Obviously I'm not the only one making strange language-learning choices. Lie and Abelmann alluded to this phenomenon in Blue Dreams, their study of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and how those riots affected the Korean community; this is the first time I've heard of it since.

Looks like Mr. Aliaga's reasons for studying Korean are almost the exact same reason as mine for focusing on my Japanese study at the expense of Chinese—you want to speak the language of:

Your richest customers
The friends around you who might not be very proficient in any other common language (e.g. English)
Any of your important sources of information, ideas, and entertainment

Uyghur language reform

2005-08-08T23:29:00.000+08:00

To go along with that article about Ataturk's indigenization movement in Turkey, here's a transcript of a radio interview about Uyghur efforts in the area of writing and vocabulary reform:

http://pc12.soc.metu.edu.tr/epart/epart013.htm
(Snatched from the Google cache as the original server seems to have disappeared)

Emet: There is a great researcher of dialects and accents, Amini Gaffar. Since 1955 our capital is Urumchi. Our radio, TV and university all are founded in Urumchi. The population of Urumchi amounts to 2.5 million out of which only 150,000 are Uyghur Turks. The rest are Chinese. Urumchi has become our capital city after that China has recognised our status as Singkiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. Amini Gaffar proposed that the standard language should be the Urumchi accent. There have been efforts for the last 15-20 years to derive the standard language out of the Urumchi accent. The rules of orthography have been changed three times since 1980. True that we see an improvement in orthography. Previously we called meal 'tamak' and when the word got suffix the phoneme at the end were transformed as 'tamaghi'. By this way the word was removed from its original root and the /k/s were transformed into /gh/. Other examples are 'yatak'-'yatagi', 'kitap'-'kitivi'.

Semetova: 'Yatak' is transformed to 'yataghi' in Turkey Turkish, too. /k/ changes into /gh/.

Emet: This is not one of the worst examples. There are yet worse examples regarding the deformation of the root. To standardise the literary language there is a tendency towards shifting to the root of the word. A tendency towards inflecting by keeping the root. This is a very good tendency. For the last 15 years there is a centre under the government called 'Telizat Komitesi'. The task of this centre is to control and register the titles of the newly founded firms, markets. Previously we were taking all the terms related with new technologies from Chinese. Previously we used to call refrigerator ‘dishan’ in Chinese, but now adapting the root 'muz' [ice] we call it 'muzladgo'. For the recorded sound in type, adapting the root 'uen' [voice, sound] we use 'uenalgo'. Now there is a tendency to Uyghurise many words.

Ottoman Turkish

2005-07-07T18:30:00.000+08:00

P>Article about Ataturk's reform of the Turkish language to strip away Persian and Arabic loanwords and replace them with words built out of native Turkic roots. Plenty of modern linguists deride this kind of process, labelling it "isolationism" and worse, but after years of studying Japanese and dealing with ridiculous loanwords like maikaa and waakingu uuman, I think the world needs more linguistic indigenization movements.

To me, it seems the reason why the Turkish reform produced so many problems, though, is because so many of the "foreign" words so replaced had already been effectively indigenized, being used in literature for generations and having a wide range of associations in the minds of the users of the language.

http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/jarring.htm

For a change, let me say a word about one aspect of the reform that I see as totally admirable: the technical terms of the sciences. Until 1937, Turkish school children were still being taught geometry with the Ottoman technical terms. Right angle was zaviye-i kaime two Arabic words joined by the Persian i. It is now dik açı a straight translation of the Arabic. The change began in the winter of 1936/7, when Atatürk wrote a little book on the elements of geometry, which was published anonymously. In it he employed most of the geometrical terms now in regular use, many of his own invention.

We all remember the formula we learned at school: The area of a triangle is equal to the length of the base multiplied by half the height...

In pre-reform Turkish it was:

Bir müsellesin mesaha-i sathiyesi, kaidesinin irtifaına hâsıl-ı zarbinin nısfına müsavidir.

Now it is:
Bir üçgenin yüzölçü tabanının yüksekliğine çarpımının yansına eşittir.

Really two languages - all they have in common is the indefinite article bir at the beginning and the suffix -dir at the end. But only a fanatical conservative would persist in calling interior opposite angles by the 16 syllables of zaviyetan-ı matekabiletan-ı dahiletan rather than the five syllables of içters açılar.

Islam in China

2005-03-01T19:35:00.000+08:00

Not sure why this article is entitled "Islam with Chinese characteristics begins to take hold" ... it seems a lot more like it's losing hold. The process of local Muslims being pressured towards Arab cultural standards by the members of their community who returned from studying in Middle East is a process I'm very familiar with, seeing as the same stuff has been going in on Malaysia for some time ...

Islam with Chinese characteristics begins to take hold
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Isl...?oneclick=true

February 26, 2005

Isolation from other Muslims has spawned a distinct kind of Islam in China, writes Hamish McDonald in Sangpo village.

In a classroom barely heated by a little iron stove, Zhen Shuzhen bent over her desk, her head covered by a scarf, as she carefully copied a passage of Arabic from the blackboard into her exercise book.

A student at a nearby textile college, 19-year-old Ms Zhen is spending her winter vacation studying the Koran.

"At college we don't really have a clue about Islam, but being a Hui we should know about our religion," she said.

Along with about 20 other young women in this village in Central China, Ms Zhen represents a deepening interest in the theology of Islam among a Muslim community known as the Hui that has long been almost buried among China's ethnic Han majority, who mostly follow Buddhism or Daoism.

Along with the dispatch of hundreds of young men and women each year to Islamic schools in the Middle East and Malaysia, and growing numbers of old people making the Haj to Mecca, it suggests a trend to orthodoxy and greater openness to influence by the purist schools of thought that influence Muslims elsewhere.

Descended from Mid-Eastern traders and their converts who came to China around the time of the 14th century emperor, Kublai Khan, the 9 million Hui now speak Mandarin Chinese, look like Han Chinese, and follow most Han customs.

Their long immersion in China and isolation from Muslim-majority countries has lent their practice of Islam a distinctive flavour. Centuries back, it was influenced by Confucianism with its veneration for ancestors and secular virtue, and Confucian terms were used to explain Islamic concepts.

The last century and a half has seen the emergence of women-only mosques or "nusi" and female imams, unique in the Islamic world, where elsewhere women worship in the same mosque as the men, albeit in a separate curtained or partitioned space, and hear the same male preacher.

Ms Zhen's teacher is Guo Dongping, 38, a female imam, or "ahong" in the Chinese title, who also uses the Koranic name Miriam. Trained for six years in Arabic and Persian, married to an ahong who runs a nearby male-only mosque, Ms Guo leads prayers and preaches a sermon every Friday.

Like many Hui women here, Ms Guo stresses the convenience of women having their own place to pray, given the requirements of ritual ablutions beforehand, and the shyness of men teaching female students. "It's a kind of Islam with Chinese characteristics," Ms Guo said.

Academic researchers like Shui Jingjun, a Hui sociologist and co-author of a history titled A Mosque of Their Own, tend to see an unspoken feminist agenda. "These women feel good and feel free at these mosques," she said. "They may be smaller than the male mosques but they are much better organised."

Sangpo is a prosperous village of about 5000 people, mostly Hui, who run what may be the world's biggest centre for tanning sheepskins. This week, young Han men and women were hanging around, hoping to get jobs scraping and washing skins as its tanneries reopen after the Chinese New Year break. But its outlook is gradually changing.

About 100 local people have made the Haj since China opened up in the last two decades. This year, 19 were among some 11,000 Chinese Muslims who went to Mecca, each paying around 40,000 yuan ($6150).

Two of Sangpo's newest pilgrims, brothers Yang Wenfu, 73, and Yang Wengui, 68, this week entertained about 1000 villagers at a sit-down feast in a family sheepskin factory which evidenced a mix of Chinese culture and Muslim faith.

So far, attempts to introduce purist or "Islamist" practices by followers of schools like the Salafi and Wahhabi had mostly failed among the Hui, says Ms Shui, the sociologist.

But Ms Guo says young Hui women coming back from study abroad are now less interested in ritual, more interested in religious content, more likely to wear Arab-style headscarves than the traditional Hui white cap, and more likely to observe Ramadan.

"Very often they become opposed to Western culture like the obsession with beauty of the body, or freedom of sex," she said. "Before they went overseas they didn't really know about it. Now they understand it is offensive to Islam."

Many Hui express hostility to Western intervention in Iraq, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and the banning of headscarves in French schools. Ali Ai Zhuxi, a Sangpo mosque official, said terrorism was created by the actions of powers like the United States.

"The Islamic countries are acting in self-defence," he said. In Zhengzhou, the Henan capital, one worshipper at a female mosque said she felt "a kind of satisfaction" when she saw the September 11 bombings on television.

Though Han Chinese do marry into the prosperous Hui community and convert, Islam is not seeing the same wave of new believers joining churches and new quasi-Buddhist sects by the millions. Instead, religious belief among the existing faithful is intensifying.

"They become Muslim because they have more knowledge and understanding of it, not just because their parents are Muslim," Ms Guo said, about her young students.

Ms Zhen, the young textile student, echoes this voluntary trend. "I don't go to the mosque or pray," she said. "But I want to learn."

Immigration to Turkey

2004-12-15T00:14:00.000+08:00

The colonial countries of the Anglosphere (Australia, Canada, USA, New Zealand) like to think of ourselves as the world's only "immigrant countries", but that misses out on countries as diverse as Israel, Malaysia, Brazil, and yes, Turkey.

Though to be honest, until I read this article, the only immigrants I'd been aware of to Turkey were the Iranian guestworkers (many illegal, and many Azeri-speaking).

Turkey: Give me Your Tired, Your Poor
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/234

by Daniel Pipes
Turkish Times
August 15, 1993

[N.B.: The following reflects what the author submitted, and not exactly what was published. To obtain the precise text of what was printed, please check the original place of publication.]

Although little noted by the outside world, the Ottoman Empire and Turkey has for two centuries been a land of immigration. Millions of individuals running from trouble have turned up in Istanbul and Anatolia seeking refuge. As a French magazine recently noted, correctly, "Every historical upheaval releases a wave of emigration toward Turkey." Peoples fleeing persecution, foreign conquest, or other forms of turmoil-and here is another little-known fact-invariably found a welcome on arrival.

Turkic speakers make up a majority of the immigrants. The modern tradition of Turkic immigration began in 1783-85, when sizeable numbers of Crimean Tatars fled Moscow's conquest of their homeland by seeking asylum in Ottoman territory. Over the next century, Turkic speakers from the Volga-Ural area, the Caucasus, and Central Asia followed their example. Sunnis from Azerbaijan took refuge in Turkey in such large numbers, their proportion of the Azerbaijan population declined from over 50 percent to only 30 percent. Between 1926 and 1936, some 300,000 Turkic speakers arrived in Turkey, mostly from the Soviet Union. In 1951, Turkey accepted several hundred Kazakhs fleeing China. Cypriot Turks trickled in from the mid-1960s on.

The tradition continues today and includes numbers large and small. In 1982, 355 Kirghiz tribesmen from Afghanistan resettled near Van, in eastern Anatolia. The Bulgarian campaign of assimilation of the late 1980s, intended to make Bulgarian Turks lose their identity, prompted 320,000 of its Turkish population-including a world champion weight-lifter-to take refuge in Turkey. (With the fall of the communist regime, however, half of these returned to Bulgaria.) In 1992, the Turkish assembly unanimously voted to accept 50,000 Meskhetian Turks from southern Georgia and indicated a readiness to take in the Akhista (or Akhaltsikhe ) Turks of Kyrgyzstan.

Turkey plays a role for Turkic speakers akin to that the Federal Republic of Germany does for Germans: in both cases, ethnic kin are welcome to the motherland, even those whose ancestors left centuries earlier, or who never even had lived there. Turkey also resembles Israel in that it has a "law of return" on the books ; Turkic speakers like Jews are assured of a place to turn.

But not all immigrants speak Turkic languages. A broad range of "Ottoman Muslims," peoples who either converted to Islam under the aegis of the Ottoman Empire or tied closely to the Empire, have also moved to Turkey in substantial numbers. Circassians, Abkhaz, Chechens, Avars, Karachays , and many other Muslims emptied out of their homelands in the northern Caucasus during the mid-nineteenth century and went to Turkey. As the Ottomans lost ground in Europe, Muslim emigrants known as muhajirs took refuge in Anatolia. Albanians moved there around the turn of this century, mainly for economic reasons. Half a million Muslims, mostly Greek-speaking, arrived in Turkey from Greece between 1912 and 1930. Bosnian emigration to what is today Turkey began in the 1870s and revived in the 1990s. By November 1992, 15,000 Bosnians had newly arrived in Turkey , of which fully 14,000 settled with near relatives. Tens of thousands of Kurds fled Iraq after the end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, and they continue to arrive.

Non-Muslims of many descriptions have also sought refuge or opportunity in Turkey. Sephardic Jews fleeing Spain after 1492 headed for Istanbul, as did Ashkenazi Jews four and a half centuries later fleeing Hitler. Christian Levantines in the nineteenth century arrived seeking to expand their horizons. On occasion, even Christian Europeans in need of political haven found a welcome, including Hungarian nationalists in 1848 and Germans escaping Nazi rule. Though small in number, these political refugees had an important impact both in their home countries and in Turkey.

Immigration has left Turkey with a strikingly diverse population. In this century alone, substantial numbers of immigrants have come from Bosnia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran , the Russian Empire/Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and China. With only a touch of exaggeration, Nur Vergin of Bilkent University points to Turkey as ethnically "a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire." Numbers are hard to come by and are probably exaggerated: Turks of Azeri origins, for example, are said to number six million while nearly ten million Turks trace their origins to the Balkans. In all, the descendants of these immigrants probably number about twelve million, or one-fifth of the Turkish population.

To complete the picture of Turkey's ethnic diversity, one also has to remember the many peoples who antedate the Turks both Muslim (Kurds, Arabs, Laz, Georgians, et al.) and non-Muslim (Greeks, Armenians).

From the point of view of immigration, Turkey resembles France in important ways. Both are major countries with a long but non-ideological tradition of offering refuge and opportunity to a wide range of peoples. Both have powerful assimilationist cultures which discourage ethnic affiliation. The fact that both incorporated large numbers of foreign peoples without the outside world paying much attention testifies to the success of their operations. As in France, immigrants to Turkey have faced few obstacles to advancement; indeed, a number of prominent Turks trace their ancestry to outside Turkey. The mother of former prime minister Mesut Yilmaz, for example, came from Bosnia. Turks, in short, have not inflicted on others the sort of treatment they themselves have experienced in Germany.

What is assimilation?

2003-10-06T21:38:00.000+08:00

It's a popular term in America, but what exactly does it mean to be "assimilated"? People often like to speak of "assimilation" or "Americanization" as a simple binary variable (yes or no), or maybe a position on a single axis (how Americanized are you?), but in fact, there's many different ways in which one can be assimilated --- it's a vector in n-space. And notably, many children of immigrants tend to be assimilated in some ways which traditionally indicated or were used as a proxy for guessing at social integration into the mainstream among white ethnics 80 years ago (such as in language, living situation/home ownership, income, and religion), more of a fusion in other areas (personal habits, entertainment and food consumption), and highly distinguished from the mainstream in the rest (politics, identification, and racial composition of friendships).

Maybe some areas of assimilation are not as crucial to holding together a nation as we thought they were way back in 1920, when all the immigrants were poor, there was still a distinction between "corner boys" who hung out with their co-ethnics and "college boys" who flew with the WASPs and achieved the American Dream, and there were not yet such things as satellite TV, 10-10-345, or study-abroad programs for their kids. And conversely, maybe some areas of assimilation that were ignored back then because they seemed to come naturally, need to be looked at more closely today, to prevent the rise of the kind of oppositionalism, separatism, and distrust of the mainstream we're so familiar with in other communities.

Language: Your ancestral language? English only? One better than the other? Taking classes to try to recover it? "This is America, why should I bother?" Can't speak either one well but know the language of a third country like Costa Rica or Malaysia where your ancestors were hanging around for a few generations before coming to the US? And not just the language itself, but the style in which you speak it: gangster-wannabe? valley girl? prepster?
Identification and attitude towards assimilation: 1.5 generation? 2nd generation? "I'm born here but I don't consider myself an American?" Fresh off the boat? Pretending to be fresh off the boat? "What the fuck do you mean where am I 'really from,' I'm American?" xyz-American?
Living situation: Three generations of your family stuck in one house in your ethnic ghetto? Or in some other ethnicity's ghetto? Apartment in the city? House, 2.3 kids, and 1.2 pets in a cul-de-sac?
Politics: Not your positions on issues, but rather, how race affects your positions, your arguments, and your view of those who disagree with you. Would you vote for a candidate just because he's the same ethnic group as you? The same race? Would it influence you at all? "Por La Raza todo, fuera de La Raza nada?" Would you call him a sellout because of his stance on immigration? On affirmative action? On bilingual education? On racial profiling? On tax increases?
Entertainment/food consumption: Hong Kong TVB series, subtitled anime, or Friends? Sing along to Jay Chou, hum along to Hikki but don't know what the lyrics mean, Linkin Park, or Jars of Clay? Pearl milktea or Starbucks? Hot water or cold water? Dimsum, Dimsum but pass on the chicken feet and the congealed pig's blood in favor of pork buns, or McDonalds? Karaoke or the movies?
Personal values: Gotta save face? Care about passing on your ancestral language to the kids? In favor of interracial dating? Opposed? In favor? In favor when it's you but opposed when it's a girl you want?
Personal habits: What kind of gesture do you make to tell someone to "come here"? How do you move your fingers when you count? What arm motions do you make when you talk about swinging back and forth?
Racial composition of friendships: All white with a few tokens like the suburb you grew up in? "My friends look like the United Nations?" All FOBs from your own country? All 2nd-generation AAs? All black people?
Religion: Vaguely Taoist? Catholic? Muslim? Episcopalian convert? Jewish convert?

Hardly an exhaustive list, but I should have put it up long ago ...

Arabic calligraphy in China

2003-05-11T18:46:00.000+08:00

Calligrapher scripts success with Arabic styles
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030509-90538086.htm

By Erling Hoh
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

BEIJING — In this age of colliding cultures, Chen Jinhui melds two of the more ancient ones simply by using a wolf-hair brush and some finely ground Tie Zhai Ong ink.

He is a Chinese calligrapher writing Arabic script, which in his sanguine, rotund person brings together two of the world's greatest traditions of beautiful writing.

Chinese as well as Islamic culture may revere calligraphy as the highest form of art, but in many ways, the similarity ends there. Where Chinese calligraphy is spontaneous and intuitive, Arabic calligraphy appears intellectual and infinitely premeditated.

While Chinese calligraphy can strike the eye with the liberating effect of a tempest, Arabic calligraphy exudes the cool elegance of an intricate mathematical equation. To fuse them is no mean feat, and by having done so for the past 40 years, Mr. Chen is sparking new synapses and garnering accolades all the way from Beijing to Istanbul.

Seated in his spartan office at the Institute of Islamic Theology in the southern part of Beijing, Mr. Chen, the institute's retired librarian, is not one to dwell on aesthetic dialectics of Chinese and Arabic calligraphy. He will, however, relate the story of his hero, the famous Arabic calligrapher Ibn Mukla, a vizier in Baghdad during the Abbasid dynasty, which ruled from A.D. 750 to 1258.

"His influence was greater than the caliph's, because of his calligraphy," Mr. Chen said. Out of jealousy, Mr. Chen said, the caliph persecuted the Arabic calligrapher. But when the ruler ordered that the artist's hand be cut off, he simply tied the pen to the remaining stump and continued writing.

"That is why they consider him a god. He was attacked so many times, but he never forgot hiscalligraphy," Mr. Chen said.

When Islam spread to China 1,000 years ago, Chinese Muslims began using the traditional brush and ink to copy the Koran. The oldest handwritten copy of the Koran in China dates to 1318. In time, an original form of Arabic calligraphy with distinct Chinese characteristics, known as Sini, evolved.

Following in the footstep of such famous Chinese Arabic calligraphers as Huababa, a Qing dynasty scholar from the province of Henan, Mr. Chen took up Arabic calligraphy as a student at Institute of Islamic Theology in the 1950s.

During Mao Tse-tung's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, however, Islam was virtually forbidden and Arabic calligraphy was denounced as part of the "four olds."

After China reopened its doors in the late 1970s, the country's Muslims were allowed to practice their religion and re-establish ties with the Islamic world. Mr. Chen made his first hajj to Mecca in 1989.

A year earlier, he had received an honorable mention at the first Iraqi International Festival of Arabic Calligraphy and Islamic Decorative Art, and in 1995, he was placed ninth in Kufic script at the Third International Arabic Calligraphy Competition in Turkey. His biggest triumph came when he won first prize at the Second International Calligraphy Competition in Pakistan in 1999.

In a selection of his works, published last year by China's Nationalities Photographic Art Publishing House, Mr. Chen demonstrated his mastery of all the major Arabic styles — Thulethi, Kufic, Persian, Diwani, Diwani-jili, as well as the Sinicized Arabic script.

With his success in international competitions, his calligraphy has been attracting patrons from around the Islamic world.

"They didn't know anything about Chinese Muslims. 'You can read the Koran too,' they exclaimed. They were very surprised," Mr. Chen said about his trips to various competitions in the Middle East.

A major difference between Chinese and Arabic calligraphy is that when the art form began to evolve on the Arabian Peninsula in the sixth and seventh centuries, calligraphers there had to make do with goat skin, bark and cloth. The roughness and low absorbency of these materials might have channeled Arabic calligraphers into developing an aesthetic centered on pattern and intricacy.

In China, where paper was invented in A.D. 105, calligraphers focused their search for beauty on the rich expressive possibilities of the brush-ink-paper medium: texture and immediateness.

In A.D. 751, Arab and Chinese armies clashed in a battle on the Talas River in present-day Kyrgyzstan. The Chinese were defeated, and among the prisoners taken by the Arabs were Chinese paper makers. Having learned the art of paper making from Chinese, the Arabs transmitted the craft to Europe several centuries later.

Chen Jinhui is now busy investigating a cultural diffusion in the other direction: the history of Arabic calligraphy in China.

"It is very difficult research. I want to fill in all the blanks," Mr. Chen said. For encouragement, he has only to recall a saying of the prophet Muhammad: "Seek wisdom, even if it be in China."

Japanese language study growing in popularity in India

2003-05-07T21:48:00.000+08:00

Not too much of a surprise, I guess. Indian technology firms are keen to break into the Japanese outsourcing market. But as far as I understand it most Japanese companies who are doing any outsourcing at all prefer China, especially Dalian. Thanks to SWK of yellowworld.org for the link. Asia Times reports:

"We have classes to prepare our students for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test conducted by the Japan Foundation, which is part of the Ministry of Education of the government of Japan. This is the benchmark for Japanese language qualification worldwide. As the only recognized center for the test in south India, we had around 1,500 students taking the test last year," says P T Kannan, director, language teaching, at ABK-AOTS Dosokai.

There are an estimated 12 language institutions in South India of various levels, providing teaching and translation services that generate approximately Rs 1 million (US$21,000) a year. Japanese language courses cost in the range of $80, which is a not inconsiderable sum in India.

In addition, 2001 marked the first sitting of the JLPT in Bangladesh, which attracted 60 students, though none attempted the Level (I) examination which foreigners planning to work in Japan often taken, and only four attempted the Level (II) examination required for entrance into Japanese universities. (The levels are numbered in reverse order of difficulty; (I) indicates near-fluency while (IV) is aimed at students who have completed a 150-contact-hour course, usually through a yearlong introductory course at university).

However, unlike in China where two-thirds of students took either Level (I) or (II), obviously indicating a professional purpose, even in India with the largest number of examinees, the vast majority (four-fifths) in India attempted the easier levels, which probably aren't very useful as job-seeking qualifications (except possibly in hospitality), and indicate more of a hobbyist interest in the language. This is a rather surprising trend for a poor country, but fits with the idea that it's the upper classes (employed by technology companies) who are taking the exam. Japanese probably won't become a widely popular language outside certain niches simply because there's not much use for it; Japan's immigration policies are far more strict than those of the US, and with the cost of living so high it's not a popular destination for students from poor countries seeking inexpensive technical training, especially as the Japanese government has begun to cut budgets for scholarships to foreign students from Asian countries.

Statistics for all South Asian countries in which a sitting of the examination was offered:

Country	TOEFL			All JLPT			JLPT 1/2
Country	2001	2000	% up	2001	2000	% up	2001	2000	% up
Bangladesh	3315	1011	328%	60	n/a	n/a	4	n/a	n/a
India	38073	10288	370%	2118	1560	35.8%	397	316	25.6%
Pakistan	7058	2649	266%	72	52	38.5%	9	7	28.6%
Sri Lanka	1495	1629	-8.22%	13	930	-98.6%	5	121	-95.8%

Sri Lanka's dramatic drop in 2001 was likely due to their ongoing civil war; between 1999 and 2000 their total testtaker pool grew from 826 to 930, a growth rate of 12.6%. As I wrote previously, Japanese study has also been growing in popularity in East and Southeast Asian countries, though also not as fast as the popularity of English study. 2002 statistics are not yet available, though I can tell you I met 3 guys from Pakistan at the sitting of the 2002 Level (I) examination in Hong Kong. For further information, see JLPT Communication Square for 2001 and 2000 JLPT statistics, or ETS for TOEFL statistics for the past decade.

Palden Gyatso

2003-04-18T18:51:00.000+08:00

The Tibetan former political prisoner, was just sitting in my living room watching CNN on our little 13-inch TV. He's giving a talk at our school tonight and my roommate will be assisting with translation. He can't speak English, and I felt bad to speak Mandarin to him. So when my roommate left the room, he just kinda sat there watching the pictures on the TV.

Don't really know what to say about Tibetan independence or so-called "4th-world nationalism" (the nationalism of minority ethnic groups in developing countries) in general except that the states resulting from it have been pretty uniformly awful places to live. The only thing that changes is that instead of a clique of foreign elites stealing from you, while the world calls it "oppression" and "racism" you have a clique of domestic elites stealing from you instead, while the world calls it "autonomy" and "freedom".

Would independence really make things better? Turning into a country like Bhutan, an autarkic state ruled by an unelected monarch (whose son incidentally spent a semester at my high school)? Or like Nepal or Tajikistan, torn by civil war and of interest mainly to international drug smugglers?

Foreign languages in Japan

2002-08-10T21:55:00.000+08:00

The Daily Yomiuri writes about Korean language teachers in Japan, and compares the extent of Asian language study in Japan and in Korea.

In Japan ... only about 4,590 students at 163 high schools were studying Korean as of July 1 last year, according to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry. It was the fourth-ranked foreign language, following English, Chinese (about 17,850 students at 424 schools) and French (about 8,620 students at 215 schools).

Many people have the impression that the interest in foreign languages in Japan is quite low, due to their TOEFL scores, which are among the lowest in Asia and rank behind all of their former colonies in which they so aggressively promoted the Japanese language in the earlier half of the 20th century. But Japanese are among the most numerous students in many language schools throughout Asia and beyond.

The number of Japanese high school students studying Korean is growing, although it is still small compared with the number of South Korean high school students studying Japanese. Last year, about 555,000 South Korean high school students were studying Japanese*, or about 30 percent of all high school students in South Korea, according to the Japan Foundation, a government-affiliated organization that promotes the teaching of Japanese language overseas. Many of the students in South Korea took Japanese as their mandatory second foreign language after English.

(* I've seen figures as high as 945,000 quoted elsewhere, as in this LONG article about the Japanese culture boom in Asia.)

Those who believe the myth that whenever two foreigners of differing nationalities meet, they use English, take note. Andrew Horvat of Simon Fraser University has written about this phenomenon to some extent.