By Matthew Richter

In short: A Chinese PhD student has been denied a visa to study in Canada, formally on the grounds he could potentially, at some point in the future, maybe become or be forced to act as a, spy, informally on the grounds that Canada is buying into US imperialism, deliberate provocation of war with China and informal technology ( Read more... )

As a unavoidable element in a Chinese Language (Linguistics Major) degree, one spends a lot of time dealing with Classical Chinese. NB: Not traditional characters, Classical or Ancient Chinese texts.

When translating a new text, there seems to be three basic levels:

1. You look at it, you can read it, understand the underlying messages and ( Read more... )

Listening comprehension likely failed.
Comprehensive class possibly failed.
Others... there's a few questionably, which is very sad.

It was a crap term; they've been crap for a while.

About 10 days ago, we had the Classical Chinese (古代汉语) test. That test was at 14:00 in the afternoon. By the time we reached that exam, I had a pounding headache that was not being affected very much by painkillers. During the exam I reached the point of wanting to vomit due to pain and having to concentrate to keep my hands steady. Why do I ( Read more... )

• Have flat, small, dark, okay except flatmates are, until very recently and after two of us kicked up a stink (pun intended), filthy
• comprehensive mid-term test result 94.3% WITH a few stupid mistakes I should not have made; downside is teacher announced top few results. Target...or paranoia probably
• Spoken Chinese report to entire class went okay
• ( Read more... )

As of roughly a month ago now (01.07 [that's January 7th] for someone who doesn't want to check the date of this post) we finished all our exams for the first semester of Chinese. As of roughly a month ago (01.07, see how this is getting easier) I knew three of the four results ( Read more... )

I have been considering the possibility of staying for a while longer rather than returning home. I was hoping to continue my studies; improve the only 2nd language with which I've ever become even vaguely competent while preferably retaining a decent job. Another alternative was an okay part-time job for a little while and teaching tango, ( Read more... )