Take Chinese For Example, Pedagogy II

1. The first task for me is the mastery of Chinese characters--the method of writing them, the ability to recall exactly how to write them if the sound or the definition is given me, and the most popular combinations in which that individual character appears. At first I only learned the "modern" writing of the term, but now I am putting this together with the classical or traditional writing. Since there are multiple thousands of these characters, this takes loads of time, but it has the most bracing effect on the mind--it forces you to think very precisely about the most mundane things, such as stroke order (i.e., how you write each character), distinguishing characters that are very similar to each other, and learning to associate a basic meaning with each character. Just as the key to my ability to memorize texts, and thus develop deep and sustained knowledge of a subject, was triggered by memorization of an apparently meaningless or useless Bible verse (I tell the story in one of my autobiographies--regarding the memorization of I Pet. 1:1, when I was 19 years-old), I am finding that full Chinese knowledge comes from the most careful and patient attention to the individual character--and then the character in immediate combination.

Mastery of characters has several salutary effects, among them the learning of the radicals and the root connotation of a radical. A Chinese character is made up of a radical, which indicates the root subject area to which the word pertains, and then the "meaning" part. Often the meaning or use of a word in contemporary Chinese has very little, seemingly, to do with the "field" or area of life to which the radical points (such as the three "dots" on the left to indicate water and the word might have nothing to do with water), but by studying the character long enough you can usually draw it back to its "root"--i.e., its radical and its other strokes.

2. A separate task but done almost at the same time as the first, is learning the pinyin form of the term. This is more difficult than it sounds--one would think that any kind of romanization would make the word "easy." But because Chinese is a tonal language (four tones and the "non-tone"), there is the possibility of five ways that a sound can be written. Then, we combine with that the notion that for hundreds, if not thousands of the words, a character can have different phonetic (and not simply tonal) renderings. Thus, the word for "long" is "chang2," the character that looks like a "K," but that same character is also pronounced "zhang3," and it means "older, eldest." Of course, these two are only a few of the multiple meanings that each pronunciation of the word has--which makes Chinese so challenging, but by learning to write the term, and its (in this case) multiple pinyin-izations, one has the beginnings of deep knowledge in the language.

3. This stage is really a multiple series of tasks, but because they can be performed at the same time, I am putting them together here. One of the geniuses of Chinese language is its use of four character combinations of words to express meaning. Often these four character concepts have each of two characters repeated; often the first two say the same thing as the second two; frequently the examples are taken from nature, often they are starkly beautiful and suggestive of much deeper reflection or thought, many times they are derived from historical examples or stories. For example, in the story of the four Chinese beauties, we have each of four names associated with an activity, such as "Xi(1) Shi (1)" whose beauty caused "fish to sink" (two characters). Thus, you have four, four-character lines to express the effect of female beauty. There are thousands of these four-character combinations but the gradual learning of these, both in the characters, their pronunciation and their memorization, begins to give one a huge entry into the language. It is the equivalent of having mastered Roget's thesaurus before learning how to speak English.

Let me just provide one example of a four-character phrase I have learned in the past week that shows Chinese, in this regard, to be far superior to English. We have "yi(1) tong(1) bai(3) tong(1)." It literally says, "learn/master one, learn/master 100." The meaning is that if you learn one thing, it often is the gateway, or occasion, for learning hundreds of things. It is a brilliant epigram for learning theory, because real learning happens for us once one rather small roadblock is removed. It emphasizes the accelerated pace that learning happens once you have learned the first thing. Finally, it points to the fact that learning the first thing often takes a lot of effort to get you into a new groove. But we have no way of saying this simply and efficiently in English; the Chinese beat us here.

4. Many of these four-character sayings are rooted in stories from the past, and I take these sayings, then, as a window to reading and mastery of these stories, as well as the names of old dynasties, people and place names. Thus, I need to learn tons of other characters. As you read these stories, you learn a lot more about China and Chinese, and you have countless other opportunities for taking historical or other byways. For example, a few days ago I learned the four-character "dong(1) chuang(2) tan(3) fu(4)," which literally means "expose stomach on the Eastern bed." Of course, in this form it makes no sense at all, but it points to the independence of a particular Wang Xi Zhi who, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (3rd century CE), was lying in a rather unkempt condition when a prospective father-in-law was seeking a suitor for his daughter in the Wang family palace. Rather than giving his daughter to one of the nicely attired and attentive Wangs, the father (a Xi) was so struck by Wang Xi Zhi's seeming indifference to all the ritual and hoopla that he picked him for his daughter. Wang Xi Zhi grew to be one of China's greatest calligrapher's in history.

Thus we see how mastery of a four-character phrase which, on its own, doesn't seem to say much, brings us into the depths of Chinese history and, indeed, has a moral lesson for us today--about the importance of independence of the person in facing the challenges and invitations of life.

Conclusion

After these four tasks are done or, better said, while these are being done, the traditional four tasks of language learning can take place. But now I am approaching Chinese with such a deeper appreciation of the way that the Chinese culture and people would like to see their own language, and I am doing it in a way that allows me to enter into deep levels of useful understanding not only for the Chinese language but for human understanding. The only "doubt" I sometimes have is this: is life long enough to learn things the way I want to learn them? But that really isn't a question I can answer; I just have to learn in ways that "fit" me.

The bottom line, if there is such a thing in life, is that you need to adopt your own learning style, do enough to "get by" in the way that the world requires, but then pursue your learning style with vigor and unashamed focus. What I have found is that as you do this, you not only begin to have more fun with learning, but others can pick up your excitement, and you become immensely attractive to them as they seek your insight for their needs. Thus, you become a "productive" person not by aiming at production but simply by being willing to discover and pursue what your heart teaches you to pursue. It took the study of the Chinese language to solidify this lesson for me.

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