Two Months Already

Two months already. It flew by and even though the cold days linger ahead, the next while is promising to go by just as fast. There’s no shortage of work. Starting this week-end, I will every week, teach 6 hours of French, 2 to 3 hours of English and study 6 hours of Mandarin. Throughout all that, there is of course photography which remains my main focus. It looks like I’ll be busier than I have been in quite a while. It’s probably a good thing. It will force me to make better use of my time and improve my efficiency. First resolution, I will get up at 7h00 AM every morning. As we say: “The future belongs to those who get up early.” Ok ok ok, I can all hear you laugh from all the way from here. Nonetheless, my alarm clock is set and we shall see how long it will remain that way.

After one month, for a total of 24 hours, of studying Mandarin, well... it remains pretty much incomprehensible. It is really, REALLY difficult I think the most challenging aspect of its spoken form, as we are not even going to discuss it’s written from with its thousands on dense little scribbles, resides in the fact that, unlike English or French for instance, Mandarin is not based on words but rather on sounds. For example, you can say: hello, helllo, hellooooo, hellllloOoOoo, it remains “hello” and everyone will understand it. The emotions conveyed by it might differ but the word and meaning stay the same. Not so in China. There are 4 different tones plus 1 neutral one. So every sound that composes the language have 2, 3 or even 4 deferent variables depending on its applicable tones. For the complete list of all those sounds, check ( http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/pinyin-combo.html ). That list is what is called Pinyin. Pinyin was created some fifty years ago as some sort of bridge between Mandarin and our alphabet as we know it. Don’t rely on the letters, they, of course, do not pronounce the same way. That would be way too easy. For instance: e = eaA, s = schea, z = tshea, c = tshea also butwith “more air” in it, j = tj, n = nea, r= j, q = tchi, p = poaa, h = hr, eng = Oongm, ong = oonoumg, etc, etc, etc. Thus these are rather difficult to produce and reproduce, especially when you put them all one after the other with all their different and respective tones. To speak Mandarin, you have to be able to sing. All of that leave practically no room for error. One cannot have too much of an accent and expect to be understood. You have to say things the way they say it and fast too, otherwise they simply will not understand. Even after listening to them for 2 months I can barely single out a few rare key words in what to me seems nothing more than a long string of strange noises. I will continue my classes nonetheless. Before I left, and even once here at the beginning, I was secretly hoping deep down that it would be somewhat easier but at the same time I knew I was only luring myself.


I will leave you with a few photos of what is, if all goes well, an architectural wonder to be. Do not adjust your monitor’s screen. This is not an optical aberration cause by my lenses nor a Photoshop trick. These two 234 m tall giant skyscrapers are actually leaning towards one another at a 6 degree angle. They are even supposed to merge into one big kind of loop containing no right angles. At its opening scheduled before the Olympics, it will be the new headquarters of CCTV, the principal, and almost only, Chinese TV Station. Estimated cost: 750 million dollars. While taking some of these photos, a journalist and his cameraman came to ask me what were “my feelings” about this building. So maybe I’ve on Chinese TV. For more details, or for an insight at what it is supposed to look like once over, check at: (http://www.cctv.com/newSiteProgram/en/project_info.htm ).