Already Friday...
...wow these days are passing by so quickly. I've been studying so much that I'm forgetting what day it is!! Actually, I'm surprised I'm studying at all. Yesterday and the day before, I went out of my way to mezmerize a good 60-80 Chinese characters for a quiz. Plus the 400 character essay. Certainly not fun.
It ain't fun anymore
This is the first time where Chinese is seriously not fun anymore. I was enjoying Chinese up to a point, but now it's all just lots of hard work. Maybe I'll slowly start to enjoy it again, but right now I feel like I'm not learning anything in class. I guess if I had more opportunities to practice speaking, then things would be different. Most of my learning is outside of class, since laoshi doesn't go over any of the grammar, only vocabulary works. There's no emphasis on actually learning Chinese, rather learning tons of words and characters.
But fortunately, I'm keeping up with all the material. And it's also been helping my Korean vocabulary. Anyway, so classes are challenging this semester...more like very challenging....18 credits with Chinese being one of those classes. I almost can't believe I'm handling Chinese!! Actually I found out about some Chinese exam called HSK, it looks to be something like the Chinese equivalent of TOEFL, which is the English test for non-native English speakers. Anyway, so I found out that I'm eligible for a full scholarship to study in China for a month, if I do well on the HSK. Only thing is, I highly doubt I'll do well...I'm considering it, since it'll also give me the opportunity to see where I am and how much more I need to learn....maybe I'll take it..
Something about persecuted brethren
Just yesterday, I bought a huge binder and printed something like 200 pages of N. Korean related material. Some of them are articles, others are testimonies and some are official reports/documents. I also printed another 140 pages of that secret document on China's security sector: "Religion and National Security in China - Secret Documents from China's Security Sector". I'm still shocked by the reality of it, and the fact that someone managed to smuggle those documents out of China!! That's like stealing classified documents out of the pengaton!! Here's an interested statement that comments on the document:
These documents demonstrate - for the first time - how China's government has officially orchestrated a crackdown campaign directed by their central-party leaders. According to these internal documents, Hu Jin-tao and other party leaders know of and encourage the torture of their fellow-countrymen. These papers detail the lengths that PRC is taking to identify and ban a variety of "cults" which are considered a "crawling danger to domestic security and defense." China's ambiguous definition of "evil cult" can be applied so arbitrarily that almost anyone in an unregistered group can be accused of belonging to one. While the 14 "cults" listed in these documents don't even satisfy the Chinese Communist Party's own definition of the word, the expense and resources the CCP has invested in spying on spirituality groups and church members - both at home and abroad - is astounding.
So I wonder: how many spies are there? How careful do I have to be if I wanted to help underground Catholics in China? Wow....scary stuff... I'm starting to think I should stop using this blog: I have no way of finding out who's reading this. The fact that I updated this blog in China several times (which mentioned all sorts of religious terms), means I've potentially jeopardized my own future??? Ok so I think too much. In any case, I'm thinking of creating a new blog altogether. I've been wanting to move away from 'hoonbaba' anyway.
It ain't fun anymore
This is the first time where Chinese is seriously not fun anymore. I was enjoying Chinese up to a point, but now it's all just lots of hard work. Maybe I'll slowly start to enjoy it again, but right now I feel like I'm not learning anything in class. I guess if I had more opportunities to practice speaking, then things would be different. Most of my learning is outside of class, since laoshi doesn't go over any of the grammar, only vocabulary works. There's no emphasis on actually learning Chinese, rather learning tons of words and characters.
But fortunately, I'm keeping up with all the material. And it's also been helping my Korean vocabulary. Anyway, so classes are challenging this semester...more like very challenging....18 credits with Chinese being one of those classes. I almost can't believe I'm handling Chinese!! Actually I found out about some Chinese exam called HSK, it looks to be something like the Chinese equivalent of TOEFL, which is the English test for non-native English speakers. Anyway, so I found out that I'm eligible for a full scholarship to study in China for a month, if I do well on the HSK. Only thing is, I highly doubt I'll do well...I'm considering it, since it'll also give me the opportunity to see where I am and how much more I need to learn....maybe I'll take it..
Something about persecuted brethren
Just yesterday, I bought a huge binder and printed something like 200 pages of N. Korean related material. Some of them are articles, others are testimonies and some are official reports/documents. I also printed another 140 pages of that secret document on China's security sector: "Religion and National Security in China - Secret Documents from China's Security Sector". I'm still shocked by the reality of it, and the fact that someone managed to smuggle those documents out of China!! That's like stealing classified documents out of the pengaton!! Here's an interested statement that comments on the document:
These documents demonstrate - for the first time - how China's government has officially orchestrated a crackdown campaign directed by their central-party leaders. According to these internal documents, Hu Jin-tao and other party leaders know of and encourage the torture of their fellow-countrymen. These papers detail the lengths that PRC is taking to identify and ban a variety of "cults" which are considered a "crawling danger to domestic security and defense." China's ambiguous definition of "evil cult" can be applied so arbitrarily that almost anyone in an unregistered group can be accused of belonging to one. While the 14 "cults" listed in these documents don't even satisfy the Chinese Communist Party's own definition of the word, the expense and resources the CCP has invested in spying on spirituality groups and church members - both at home and abroad - is astounding.
So I wonder: how many spies are there? How careful do I have to be if I wanted to help underground Catholics in China? Wow....scary stuff... I'm starting to think I should stop using this blog: I have no way of finding out who's reading this. The fact that I updated this blog in China several times (which mentioned all sorts of religious terms), means I've potentially jeopardized my own future??? Ok so I think too much. In any case, I'm thinking of creating a new blog altogether. I've been wanting to move away from 'hoonbaba' anyway.