Ep. 16 - Chinese School Stories... in Chinese!

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! This is episode 16 and we did it all in Chinese - it's a must listen. We share stories about going to Chinese School every Saturday, the highs and lows of learning the language, and also our LNY plans. It's a fun one as always, we hope you enjoy. 

* Transcript available in English

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Transcript

Transcript: 

Ailin: Hello everyone, welcome to episode 16 and Happy Lunar New Year! We are bringing you this festive episode with an interesting twist… we’ll be doing it in our mother tongue, Chinese! Today we’ll be attempting to share our stories learning Chinese together, plus of course our favourite parts of LNY and what we’re up to this Chun Jie. 
Louise: For our lovely listeners that don’t know Chinese - don’t worry! Our Chinese is definitely not perfect and we will be speaking some Chinglish here and there, but also Apple Podcasts has recently announced transcripts for all podcast episodes including this one. So we’ll make sure that we have a transcript ready for you guys to follow along so that you don’t miss out on anything. Hope you enjoy!

A: Hello, Louise!

L: Hey, Ailin!

A: I’m very happy to be talking to you today about this topic. Are you ready?

L: Yes, I’m ready!

A: Alright, first question is ‘How good is your Mandarin? If you had to rate yourself on a scale, 1 being you can’t speak it at all, 10 being native fluency, where would you place yourself in terms of fluency?

L: Ooh, you speak really well. I think I would give myself a 7. I think I’m not too bad. Although of course I was born here and am an ABC, but we learnt Chinese for so many years, so I think my Chinese is still ok. And so with normal conversation there’s no problem. I normally don’t speak a lot of Mandarin, but I do have simple conversations with the Chinese patients I get at work, and I think I have learnt some specialised medical terminology while at work too..so I think I’m alright. So I’m not too bad verbally, however for example if you ask me to write something, I don’t think I could write it!

A: Aiya! You used to write so many poems!

L: I know I know! I just feel like we used to write so many essays, like every week we’d write an essay, and we’d write so many words during tests too. But I really feel like I forgot so many words, and I’m not very fluent with phrases and idioms now. What do you think?

A: I feel like you’re rating yourself too harshly. I feel like honestly you speak well, and I remember the standards of your essays were pretty high. I remember all the essays we wrote were posted on the Queanbeyan Chinese School website, and the essays you wrote were really interesting and pretty good.

L: But you know we were the ones to post all our essays online haha!

A: Yes, we have to help promote our Chinese school haha! But honestly I thought some of the poems you wrote back then were really good.

L: Wow, thank you thank you

A: It was even written in the ‘Tang Dynasty’ hahaha.

L: You flatter me hahaha. What about yourself though?

A: I feel like before I would rate myself pretty high, but in the last few years I would probably give myself an 8. It’s not extremely high. Like of course at home and on the phone with parents I will speak Chinese Mandarin, and I try my best to keep practising so as not to lose my mother tongue I guess. But these last few years with working in Brisbane I wouldn’t speak Chinese everyday, I speak English everyday, and so the amount of practice I get isn’t a lot. I do try my best to listen to Chinese songs, and watch Chinese shows. I feel like my listening skills is the best

L: Oh is that right?

A: Yeah, and second I would say is my verbal skills, my ability to speak. Lastly I would place my reading/writing skills as the worst, and I need to practise more. I feel like if I’m using my phone to type out Chinese ping yin then I’m fine, but I wouldn’t be extremely confident if I was to physically write out an essay in Chinese now.

L: Yeah, yeah.

A: Yeah, because it’s not like in the past at Chinese School where we’re practising our words daily. 

L: Yeah I agree. I also think my reading skills are the worst. Like for example, even tonight we were reading some Chinese words online and I was reading so slow, and I don’t even understand what it means haha.

A: Sometimes reading the Chinese newspapers there’s many words and phrases I don’t remember or just don’t know what it is hahaha.

L: Yeah that’s right haha.

A: Haha I’m kind of embarrassed haha.

L: We did learn simplified Chinese writing at school though, so of course reading the newspapers in traditional Chinese would be even harder…

A: Yes it is. You can kind of guess some traditional Chinese words and what they mean by the shape of the character, but I reckon it’s pretty hard to try and read a whole string of traditional characters very quickly. 

L: Mmm.

A: Aiya we need to up our practise! 

L: Don’t give up, we got this! 

A: We got this!

L: Alright, the second question is ‘Can you recount your Chinese school timeline and experience?

A: I think mine and Louise’s experience at Chinese School is fairly similar, although of course you were born and raised here so the start of your Chinese School experience might be a bit different. I was born in Jinan city, in the Shan Dong Province of China and I only officially migrated to Australia at around 4 years old. So from 0-4 I was being raised in China, and I spoke Chinese everyday with my paternal and maternal grandparents and extended family; we all spoke Chinese. So Chinese was really my most fluent language in my opinion, but after coming to Australia, then I had to focus on learning English, and it changed to speaking Chinese at home, and English when I was out elsewhere. My mum and dad would get me to go to Chinese School everyday Saturday from when I was really young. I remember it all started in Adelaide, when I was about 5 years old. And then after moving to Canberra, that’s when I would go with Louise, we went to many different schools, from when we were young all the way to about year 10. Louise, I’m sure you have a more comprehensive timeframe haha?

L: Wow. I didn’t know you actually went to Chinese School in Adelaide?

A: Yeah I did.

L: Well my timeline for learning Chinese was first after meeting you, and your mum would teach us characters at your home.

A: Yeah, yeah.

L: So it was from us meeting up every week, writing lots of words and practising together, this was how it all began. And after that we would go to a few different schools in Canberra, before our parents started up their own school in Queanbeyan. It really was learning from when we were young to old! 

A: Yes exactly, it like our weekly ritual, every Saturday we had to go to Chinese school! 

L: Yes, our little activity…there were actually a lot of good memories now that I think of it. There were times when we were young of course that we’d want to be playing rather than studying, but actually at school we met lots of friends, and after school we would all hang out together, go eat etc, go swimming… But we have to talk about our best and worst… 

A: Experiences

L: Yes, experiences at Chinese School.

A: Mmm, best and worst experiences…I guess the worst part was because I was kind of lazy, and sometimes I would forget the words we had learnt last week. Then when it came time to do the written test I would have no idea and would feel so sad and the teacher wouldn’t be that happy hahaha. And I feel like your memory is better than mine, or you studied better than me, so you tested better than me haha.

L: No I didn’t hahaha. There were times I really didn’t want to do the homework we got from Chinese school, but I felt like it was so hard.

A: It took so long!

L: Right haha, I had to look up words in the dictionary, and write the ping yin on every single character, so it took so much time.

A: Yeah and the homework was so many pages

L: Yep

A: And every page had many different topics and subjects. Which obviously is good for learning Chinese but as kids we got so tired - like we’d go to Chinese school for 2 hours, then after that do another 2 hours of homework! Like when would we get to play ahaha? At least Louise and I would help each other with the homework, so it was a bit faster that way.

L: Yeah, if we didn’t know the answer to a question we’d talk about it and right the same thing hahah

A: Hahaha, this is called teamwork.

L: Helping each other out.

A: Collaboration haha.

L: Let’s talk about something good..When we were at Queanbeyan, I really enjoyed when we would go to the Multicultural Festival. We would sing, and wear our traditional qi pao…I really liked that! Since we both loved singing too. I remember once you even came to my house and we recorded ourselves singing and playing the piano, that was so fun.

A: Do you still have the recording?

L: Ummm… I think so, it’s probably on some random USB.

A: Woow I really want to watch it haha. 

L: Yeah I should have it.

A: I actually wanted to talk about the same thing, I also really enjoyed going to the Multicultural festival. I loved how we sang all types of songs, from popular songs to the old classics, so it included everything. And of course my favourite memory was that our Chinese School was a great community, and everyone was friends. After school or even on holidays or Chinese New Year, we’d eat together or go out, and have parties. These are definitely very happy memories.

L: A lot of people our age say they didn’t enjoy Chinese School, but because we had such good memories I thought it wasn’t that bad, like I actually enjoyed Chinese School.

A: Yeah, and looking back now it was a really wonderful time of life.

L: And very useful too

A: Yeah, it was meaningful. And like you said before how you find it helpful at work, the many patients from China you meet can’t speak English, especially those who are older. 

L: Yes that’s right.

A: Yeah, or their understanding might be limited, so when we can speak even a little bit of Chinese to them they feel more at home, and we will have helped them. 

L: Yes I agree. Do you speak Chinese often? You did say that with these last few years in Brisbane you felt as though you have spoken less?

A: Umm, yes like I said before I’ve spoken less over these last few years, although it’s not to say I don’t speak at all. For example, I have a real good friend and housemate Cai Xia, she’s Chinese, and most of the time at home we speak Mandarin together. We find it more convenient and clearer, plus it gives me the opportunity to practise! Otherwise it would be just the hour or so talking to mum and dad where I would speak Chinese. When I talk to my brother on the phone, I also try to speak Chinese to him, and give him the chance to practise too. It’s interesting because we both speak Chinese, but usually when we’re together we speak English, I guess because it’s just more smooth, I don’t know..

L: When you speak to your brother in Chinese do you find it strange?

A: I don’t think it’s that bad. Of course at time we forget the words and end up saying the English word, or sometimes we start off in Chinese and it slowly ends up being an English conversation haha. So there’s definitely that scenario. It also depends on what language my brother wants to use, sometimes he’s more in the mood to speak English. 

L: Right, right.

A: I do tell him though that we need to speak more Chinese, because once you don’t go to Chinese School the opportunities to speak become way less.

L: Oooh, you’re such a good big sister hahaha.

A: Hahaha.

L: With me and my brother we just speak English. If we spoke Cantonese, it’d be so weird.

A: Oh?

L: Yeah, and we don’t even have to talk about Mandarin.

A: Does your brother know how to speak Mandarin?

L: As you know, at the time my brother really didn’t want to learn, but not wanting to learn didn’t mean not learning haha! So he can listen to Mandarin, and could probably speak a tiny amount of Chinese? His Cantonese isn’t bad though…

A: Yep, at least he can somewhat understand.

L: Yeah, it wasn’t wasted.

A: Yeah, and I can understand why you two want to speak English given that you both grew up here.

L: Yeah yeah yeah

A: Yeah it’s like it’s already a habit so..

L: Yeah, and like we definitely don’t speak Mandarin at home, we speak Cantonese.. We speak like half Cantonese, half English hahaha.

A: Hahaha

L: You know there’s a word that I always say in English, because I don’t know the word for it in Chinese, which is ‘or’.

A: Or?

L: Yeah, it’s ‘huo zhe’.

A: Isn’t that the Chinese word for it?

L: Yeah yeah, but I never say that. I say “zhe ge (this) or zhe ge” hahaha.

A: Hahaha, do people ever look at you funny for saying that?

L: Well you know people from Hong Kong actually have pretty good English right, and they’ll use some English words when speaking. So I think I can just add some English when I speak Chinese and they’ll still understand haha.

A: That’s good, at least they can understand haha. Like in my hometown there would be less people who understood. Especially when they also have their own Shan Dong dialects, it makes it even harder. Sometimes I don’t even know what they are saying, because I use the standardised Mandarin dialect, so they can hear at once that I’m not from a native. 

L: Ooh.

A: Yeah, because the Shan Dong dialect is very unique, if you ever went to visit you would see what I mean, it’s quite different.

L: Ok, next time I’ll go have a look!

A: Ok, I’ll take you around haha.

L: Sounds good.

A: So Louise, do you have a favourite Chinese entertainment, like shows, movies, music or any books?

L: To be honest, I don’t really watch many Chinese shows. I feel like such a banana hahaha.

A: Hahaha.

L: Ages ago I watched ‘King of Lan Ling’ and I really like it, I remember telling you to watch it too, so that would probably be considered my favourite show. I feel like you would know so much more.

A: I feel like I would know some more forms of Chinese entertainment and shows because I’m just interested in them more. Like if I’m just learning the Chinese language then I might not be super keen, but adding in some entertainment or historical and cultural aspects makes it easier. I actually love watching TV dramas. 

L: Yeah I know haha.

A: Hahaha yeah. I’m not always watching Chinese dramas, it’s usually after I watch some English shows then I’ll watch a new Chinese show. I often watch historical dramas set in the Chinese Palaces, kind of like ‘King of Lan Ling’. Like it has the emperor and concubines etc. Recently I watched some really popular shows like ‘Xing Han Can Lan’, the main actor is so hot haha.

L: You need to tell me the English name.

A: The English title is….something something Galaxy haha.

L: Oh hahaha.

A: Once I remember it I’ll send it to you.

L: Yeah send it to me haha.

A: I’m also watching a show called ‘Ning An Ru Meng’. I’ve only watched about half, but it’s also a historical period drama. Yeah I just really like the way they used to dress and the way they speak, it’s really engaging.

L: Yeah definitely.

A: Also, I really enjoy listening to some Chinese music. Again, it’s not the most popular or recent artists, but my favourite include Eric Chou, Jay Chou, JJ Lin. Artists like these, they’re not super recent but they’re classics everyone likes.

L: Yeah yeah. Hey didn’t you used to really like ‘The Monkey King’?

A: Haha, I don’t know if I would say I really liked it

L: I didn’t like haha, also that show ‘Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf’, I really disliked that.

A: Why didn’t you like it?

L: I just thought it was so annoying, like the Goat was so annoying hahah.

A: The goat was annoying? So did you like the wolf then?

L: No, they were all annoying! Remember our friends Jordan and his family really loved it haha, and I always thought you liked ‘The Monkey King’, and I also didn’t like that.

A: Hahaha so you were like, why are my friends like this?

L: You were probably asking the same question about me.

A: Nah, like the reason why I watched ‘The Monkey King’ so many times was because we brought the whole set from China, and I didn’t have any other DVDs, so I’d just watched that and you thought I really liked it.

L: It’s probably because I didn’t understand what they were saying, and it looks so old. Like it wasn’t produced very well haha.

A: Are you talking about the cartoon or the live version?

L: The live version.

A: Ooooh, yeah the live version was the most classic version of ‘The Monkey King’.

L: Yeah I know, so I felt like I should like it, but I didn’t because it was so old style.

A: Too old style, not recent enough haha.

L: Yeah haha.

A: Remember when we watched ‘Detective Conan’?

L: Yeah but this is Japanese!

A: Yeah but there’s the Chinese version!

L: Oh the Chinese version?

A: Yeah, the one you brought back from China?

L: Oh yeah yeah ahahha.

A: Actually my favourite when I was younger was ‘Chibi Maruko’.

L: Oh I know, so many people like that.

A: Yeah, and it’s also Japanese too. I remember my whole family watched it and thought it was so funny.

L: Wasn’t there a cartoon about an old man? Do you remember

A: Ohh wasn’t it..

L: Like there were two old men, one whose face was really long, and the other was fat hahha. Like a potato hahaha.

A: Wait wait, wasn’t it a small boy with a big head and his grandpa with the long face?

L: Hahah I didn’t know it was a small boy hahahha.

A: Hahahah, wait, maybe we are talking about something different.

L: [Gibberish]

A:  I think we’re talking about different things haha.

L: Ok, let us google it and we’ll come back and ask some more questions.

[Interlude]

L: Alright Ailin, what are your plans for this LNY?

A: This year I plan to go from Brisbane to Canberra with my boyfriend and celebrate together with my family. We arrive on New Year’s Eve, so of course will be enjoying a New Year’s Eve meal together, making dumplings and watching some New Year’s Gala show. Then we will ‘bai nian’ (formal greeting and wishing of good luck) on New Year’s day and continue eating haha. We will stay in Canberra for 3 days and it’s nice to be able to spend it with family. 

L: Yeah for sure, to enjoy a family meal altogether. That’s so nice.

A: How about you?

L: I’ll be having a quiet LNY in Brisbane. Next month my mum and I will be going to China together, so we thought we’d just celebrate separately and then meet up together in March. We’re only going for about 10 days but it’ll be nice to go with my mum since I haven’t been back for a long time.

A: Go live it up! I feel like I’ve seen so many videos on Wechat and instagram and it looks like China is progressing so fast, and there’s so many fun things to do and places to eat. It’s definitely been a while since we went and enjoyed, so its very exciting.

L: Yeah for sure, I’m excited too!

A: Make sure you send me lots of pictures! 

L: I will haha! Will you tell everyone how our zodiac fortune is looking this year?

A: Yes sure, so we did something similar last year but we read it in English, this year I specifically looked up a Chinese site with our Chinese fortune for 2024. Mainly this pertains to the ox zodiac fortune because we are both ox. Ok let me have a look…some words I might not say very fluently but I’ll give it a go: 

People born in the Year of the Ox will be guilty of Tai Sui this year (not really sure what that means, don’t sound good haha) so they should "talk less and do more practical things" (so don’t gossip so much but do more actions). It means that you will have good financial luck, but you need to be careful in your work and interpersonal relationships. It is suggested that people born in the Year of the Ox should avoid being a middleman, so as not to do bad things with good intentions. It is best to consider changing furniture or decorating your home to improve your home fortune, which is also good for the health of your family members (so maybe you could look at any furniture in your home that needs changing? haha)

L: You mean we can spend money? Like if it’s on the house? Haha

A: Yes haha.

L: For our health of course.

A: Yes for the health of our body haha. Also it says: Since rats and oxen are good friends, it is recommended that people born in the zodiac of the oxen wear rat-shaped ornaments close to their bodies to help resolve the adverse effects of Tai Sui (so wearing some Rat shaped things will bring us good luck!)

L: Like what?

A: Not sure, but of course it would be cute things, not yuck things.

L: Yeah, but is it like stuff that someone who was born in the year of the Rat gives you? Or is it an actual rat thing, like a rat key chain haha.

A: I think it means the object looks like a rat shape.

L: Oh I get it ok. Like wearing some rat…

A: Clothes hahaha.

L: I forgot the word…Rat socks.

A: Do you have some?

L: No, but I could buy some. How do you say socks?

A: ‘Wa zi’. 

L: Oh yeah ahahaha.

A: Hahaha, it’s all very interesting right. Even though we don’t know how accurate these zodiacs are, but they’re still meaningful.

L: Yeah haha, very interesting and fun! Hahaha

A: Louise before we end this podcast episode, is there anything else that’s interesting we need to say?

L: I have one thing, but I feel like if I say it I’ll sound dumb.

A: Ah?

L: Like it’s another ‘banana’ thing haha.

A: Hahaha just say it.

L: So, obviously English is my first language, and like we said at my work there’s a lot of Asian patients. They don’t have English names, they have Chinese names that are spelt out in English. And I find it really hard to pronounce, like I don’t know how to pronounce it. I see some of my colleagues who have come from China, they see the Chinese names and they find the most appropriate way of how to say the ping yin, like ‘Zhang Ai Lin’ or ‘Lin Ruo Qian’. But when I see it I don’t know the ping yin and so I’ll use English. But some of the spellings I feel like sound so strange, like it could be another phrase. For example, I saw a name that said ‘ Wang Da Qiang’ (sounds like ‘Wang Big Wall’- that’s why we’re laughing).

A: Hahahahaha.

L: I don’t know if it’s said that way! Big Wall sounds wrong! So I’ll use English and say ‘Wang Da Qiang’ (no tone) hahaha.

A: Hahaha. I feel like you said it right though

L: I’m just worried I’ll pronounce the tone wrong and the patient won’t be happy.

A: I can understand that.

L: So I want to know if it’s just me who does that or is it everyone?

A: In my experience, if the patient tells me their last name, like Liu, I’ll use it and call them Grandpa Liu for example, but if they’re speaking English and not Chinese, then I’ll be kind of like you and say Liu (no tone). So it depends on the situation. Some words are really hard to guess if you don’t actually see the Chinese character and its only the English ping yin.

L: Yeah yeah.

A: So I don’t think it’s completely your fault.

L: Yeah I probably didn’t explain that very well haha.

A: Nah it’s ok, I get what you said haha.

L: What about you? Do you have anything else to say?

A: I don’t think I have anything that funny but you did remind me of something. So here we have an app called Tik Tok, and in China they have the same app but it’s called Dou Yin. And I recently found out that both my parents have Dou Yin.

L: They both have it?!

A: Yeah, they both have it. They’re both influencers! Especially my mum, she's really popular. I mean not popular but she really enjoys it. Her Dou Yin handle is ‘@ Ao Zhou Zhang Jie Julia’ （@澳洲张姐Julia）

L: Oh we need to go follow her, give her some likes!

A: Yeah everyone go like her page. She just posts everyday lifestyle photos or videos from Australia like kangaroos or if they went to the beach. Anyway they both like it so we’ll let them have their fun.

L: Mmm mmm. No harm in that.

A: Yeah, like it’s not a bad thing that they’re introduced to some newer technologies

L: Well they’re actually more up to date than us!

A: Yeah, we both don’t have Dou Yin.

L: Yeah that’s true. I feel like Tik Tok and Dou Yin are a bit different. Like Tik Tok is more about dancing and funny stuff etc etc. But Dou Yin in China is more meaningful and you can learn new things and see people cook etc. Seems a bit different.

A: Yeah, I don’t have Dou Yin but it seems the content and ideas are a bit better maybe than Tik Tok. Of course, Tik Tok is also interesting but maybe many people are doing the same thing on there, where it’s more unique on Dou Yin.

L: Yeah, well we all better check out Aunty Zhang’s Dou Yin haha.

A: Hahaha welcome welcome. Give her some more followers.

L: Yeah.

A: Thank you everyone for listening to this podcast episode. We wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year with your family. Happy New Year! Wishing you health and prosperity! That all your dreams come true! And luck in the Dragon Year! Hahaha, time to get red pockets!

L: Thanks everyone for tuning in to this episode, we had a lot of fun - we hope you did too! How did you think we went with our Chinese? And how would you rate yourself? We are wishing everyone a safe and happy Lunar New Year, and we will see you next month!