Character development

Emperor Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) (259-210 BC) unified China by standardizing weights and measures, building roads, burying Confucian scholars alive, burning books, and also standardizing the Chinese language.
This was no easy task because even today there are myriad dialects in China and many of them cannot understand each other. But, if you learn to read, everyone can read the newspaper. In mainland China they use simplified characters, as opposed to traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Here is an example of a simplified vs a traditional character.
These two characters are the same (gui3, turtle):
龟 (simplified)
龜 (traditional)
However, there is also a third type of character: the crazy Cantonese characters. These characters are definitely not Qin Shi Huang approved, and they make no sense if you don't know what you are looking at. I recently had a translation project that used these characters, and it was pretty difficult trying to decipher it. Here are a few of them that I learned:

啱喇 (ngaam1 laa3): "That's correct." The first character is completely made up to fit an existing Cantonese word for "right, appropriate." The second is just a final sound to have the exclamation end in a long vowel noise. If you try to say it out loud, just drag out the "laaa" for about 3 whole seconds while trailing off, and you will be speaking expert Cantonese. It is interesting to note that many of the characters that are made up to fit existing words have a "mouth" radical (口) next to them, like these two do. In real characters that often indicates that the word has something to do with your mouth (the above 喇 is also part of a real word for trumpet), but it can also indicate a purely spoken word.

唔係 (m4 hai6): "No." Again we see the mouth radical on the word "m." In Cantonese this word basically indicates negation of any verb that follows it. However, it is also a real character that means "hold in the mouth." The second character is also a real word meaning "link, connection." In this case the words were probably chosen due to their similarity in pronunciation to the Cantonese words for "not" and "is," which equals the word for no.

細蚊仔 (sai3 men1 zai2): "Children." This is kind of a really weird one. If you take the meanings of the characters literally, it means "thin mosquito babies." I can only guess that it is a combination of pronunciation and a good sense of humor. Another word for children is 細路哥 (sai3 lou6 go1) "thin road brother." Yeah, I know.

Qin Shi Huang may have forced thousands of people to build the Great Wall, and created a huge tomb with terra cotta soldiers guarding his body, but the barbarians eventually went around the Wall to invade China, and people dug up the soldiers. (Actually there is a movie about him which I really like called 古今大战秦俑情 (Ancient and Modern War of the Terra Cotta Lovers), starring Zhang Yimou and Gong Li.) So I guess it is only fitting that the Chinese language is once again becoming divided. Which is OK, really. I mean the guy was kind of a maniac.

The lost language of trains

If you never thought about it, you might think trains just blow their horns randomly as they are going by.

I used to be one of those people, until I moved into an apartment that is approximately 100 feet from a "grade crossing," or crossing at street level.

Now, every night between 12 and 4 a.m., a train rolls by and blasts its horn at a bone-rattling 100 dB. While working on a news story for the Brighton Blade about train "quiet zones" I discovered that the trains blow their horns in certain patterns, which mean different things. In the loose constraints of the blogosphere, I figure this information fits into the translation motif, and so here is a brief posting about the strange language of trains....

Below is a list of the common signals. The main one we hear at night is the long-long-short-long ( = = o = ) signal, indicating the train is within a 1/4 mile of the crossing. Some engineers take liberties with this signal, and I can now identify the different drivers, based on their interpretation of the signal.

For instance, Mr. Longhorn makes all of his signals really long, so it just drags on forever. Shortround gives two shortish longs, then a really short short burst, but then he lays on the final long for like 10 seconds.

Anyway, here is a list of the now-de-mystified, secret language of trains. (Courtesy of the Union Pacific Web site)

= means long
o means short

Sound		Translation
Succession of short sounds		"Look out you fools" An attempt to get people or cows to look up and get the heck off the train tracks.
=		"Psssst" Hitting the air brakes while train is stopped.
= =		"Leaving Dodge" AKA: woo-woo sound. Train releases brakes and proceeds.
o o		"OK whatever" Acknowledgment of any signal not otherwise provided for.
o o o		"Backing the thing up" Train is backing up, or acknowledging hand signal to back up.
o o o o		"Huh?" A request for a signal to be given or repeated if not understood.
= o o o		"Watch my back" Instruction for flagman to protect rear of train.
= = = =		"Come back!" The flagman may return from west or south.
= = = = =		"Come baaack!" The flagman may return from east or north.
= = o =		"Wake up, Ben and Michala!!" Train is approaching public crossings at grade with engine in front. Signal starts not less than 15 seconds but not more than 20 seconds before reaching the crossing. If movement is 45 mph or greater, signal starts at or about the crossing sign, but not more than 1/4 mile before the crossing if there is no sign. Signal is prolonged or repeated until the engine completely occupies the crossing(s). In addition, this signal is used when approaching private crossings if pedestrians or motor vehicles are at or near the crossing.
o =		"Crap, no brakes!" Inspect the brake system for leaks or sticking brakes.
= o		"Coming through! Quiet zone be damned!" Train is approaching people or equipment on or near the track, regardless of any whistle prohibitions. After this initial warning, "o o" sounds intermittently until the head end of train has passed the people or equipment.

Tela Mundi

The Internet is fun.
I probably spent like three hours doing research for this graphic that I wanted to post with the tournament posting. Here's how it went down:
I searched for a picture of jousting. Then I found this one, and wanted to put the word "badminton" into the text so it was kind of funny and clever.
But after I inserted the word badminton, I wanted to find out what the original text on the thing actually said. Then it could be even more clever, since it would actually say something in Latin. So I searched for text that I could actually read, namely "di cam deo", and I found
(here is how awesome Google is) this site: http://www.aug.edu/augusta/psalms/psalm41.htm
Which happens to have the entire Paris Psalter Psalm 41 in Latin and its translation -- in Icelandic or something. But I was able to grab the Latin phrase "Apud me oratio Deo vite mee. Dicam Deo: Susceptor meus es."
Notice on the tapestry that "oratio" is actually "oracio." What that implies I don't know. Anyway, I then searched the whole Latin phrase and found this site: http://www.medievalist.net/psalmstxt/ps41.htm
Which in turn allowed me to discover that the phrase is actually part of two verses, that mean:
"With me is the prayer to the God of my life, I will say to God, thou art my support."
Amazing!
So then I played around trying to find other even cleverer things to do to the text. I had "dicam deo forma et filum meus es." Trying to say "I will say to God: thou art my racquet and strings," and I finally found a forum somewhere where I learned how to say "do you want to play __" (ludere cupio ___ ), and then threw in "badmintonus."
SO now it says "With me is the prayer to the god of my life. I will say to God: do you want to play badminton?"
Blasphemous? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.

Rotten cake

糟糕 (zao1 gao1) in Chinese means "rotten cake." It also means "really bad," which is how I did at the Colorado Open badminton tournament last weekend.
Not that I had a bad time! It was really fun, but that doesn't change the fact that I didn't do very well. Fortunately, there are about 4 other tournaments in the area in the next couple of months, so I have plenty of opportunities to improve/try again.
To the right is a picture of me serving, with my doubles partner Note to the right.
We did well in our first match and moved on to the second round. There, we won our first game against a pair of brothers, I think, but then got sloppy and lost the next two games. Michala was watching from the rafters, and said we would have won the second game if we'd been keeping better track of the score, but such is the way of things I guess.
In mixed doubles, we had been sitting around for about 5 hours, then had 4 minutes or less to warm up. Things were running very late at that point, and needless to say we did poorly. We played an unscheduled match against a very good player -- and his 10-year-old daughter. If you ask me, that was a decision made in poor taste and sportsmanship. OK, he was giving her experience, but the fact was that she barely played, and we didn't want to smash at her (at first) so we got totally spanked.
By the time we caught on to the fact that the only way to beat them was to "attack" the little girl, it was way too late. Then, the same team beat the German guy I lost to in singles and his female partner. During their match I was trying to think of a way to tell him to go after the girl in German, but I couldn't think of it.
Later I thought it might be something like "blitzen der fraulein!!" but I'm not sure. That may have just confused him.
Well, the next tournament is the Fort Collins Open in April. But, I just got a large translation to do so I will likely be distracted by that. It is interesting in that it is written Cantonese, which is quite different from written Mandarin. Mostly the same, but some key words are altered.

Tournament time

Last night in Westminster the excitement was palpable. The one word zipping around the gym more than "shuttlecock" was: "tournament."
Oh, the heart races at the thought of it! The English word brings to mind ancient battles and jousts and tests of mettle, fair maidens giving away tokens to their champions.
In Chinese, the word for tournament is way more mundane: 比赛 (bi3 sai4), literally "comparison contest." We'll see how my skills stack up.
Today, Friday, March 28, is the first day of the Colorado Open Badminton Tournament. I will be playing singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles. The doubles events are Saturday, but tonight are the singles matches. My first match-up is against Steffen, a German guy who is pretty good. It will be a tough match, but it is good I am playing him early on. He's got more stamina than me so if I faced him tired I'd have less of a chance. My main hope is to overpower him early and bump him out of the way.
I am playing men's doubles with my friend Note, a kid from Thailand. Apparently lots of Thai youngsters have English nicknames that are random words. Note's real name is Pawis. His brother's nickname is Knot. He said most of his friends have similarly monosyllabic English nicknames, so I guess I would fit right in, although the names seem to be nouns.
Last night Note and I played against the pair who won Gold in men's doubles (B) last year, and we beat them 21-10. So we feel pretty good, but we'll have to be aggressive against the players we don't know.
Michala and I will be playing mixed doubles, and again, if we can make it past our first match-up (against Steffen - again - and this woman Addy), we should be OK. I think there are only 8 teams so we have a decent chance of medaling. We've been playing well together recently, and last night we both felt pretty confident.
M is guaranteed a singles medal since there are only 2 women playing singles at all! The winner will get gold in B, the loser will get a gold in C.
I'm excited. I'm wearing my shorts under my work pants. Stay tuned for an update!

Badminton street cred

Two weeks ago our good friend Gregory was passing through Colorado on his way to Washington state from Vermont. Two things to know about Gregory: he makes great bread, and he is a fantastic badminton player.
Having spent many hours in his Subaru driving across the country, the man naturally wanted to play some badminton. So we took him to our Thursday night badminton gathering in Westminster.
Westminster badminton is great, but there is a weird badminton hierarchy in place.
I've been playing there for six months, and had not played a game with the "A" players, of which there are about 6. I'm pretty good, but not A level. But still, you need to play up in order to get better. Which I suppose is why they don't mix with the riffraff. Anyway, Gregory shows up, plays one game and spends the rest of the night battling the various A players to fight for dominance.
It's kind of like a primal herd, with the strongest Alpha players constantly butting heads to try and maintain superiority. Then another Alpha shows up and they swarm down on him, to make sure they are still in control. It was amusing to watch. If I sound like I am exempting myself from the primal herd model of badminton clubs, I'm not.
Just like any other animal society, the smaller ones (B-level players) want to challenge up and take a shot at the big dogs, or elk, or sloths or whatever. So I figured, since I brought Gregory, (who proved himself firmly in the A category) that should garner me some modicum of street cred, badminton style.
In fact, it did.
Last week, the gym was crowded, with nearly 50 individuals vying for court space. Luckily, I was picked up by Steveboy, a player of decent abilities, to play in a match with two Alpha players: Paul and Rohit. (Steveboy picked me up after I noticed he was choosing people to play with, and I obnoxiously said "pick me pick me!")
I partnered up with Paul, a Canadian (I think), who was typically taciturn as I walked on the court. His only advice: stay up at the net as much as possible (i.e. stay out of the way). But, despite a few stupid shots and unforced errors, I held my own and we defeated Steveboy and Rohit (who is actually very nice.)
Later in the evening, Rohit and Paul and Brent (another Canadian A player) were picking a game, and their fourth was in another match. So I approached them and said cockily: "need a fourth?"
Rohit, being the nice guy he is, said OK, and I got into an unprecedented second A-level game! Inconceivable.
And guess what, this time Rohit and I defeated the Canadian dudes. Nice!
So, did Gregory's coming to visit gain me valuable credibility on the Mean Courts of Westminster Badminton? Well, at least it gave me the confidence to say to the upper level players: I'm ready. Let's play. Word to your shuttle.

Ben's ming nian

....long hiatus between posts.....
Somehow, everything came together in March, shortly after the beginning of the Chinese new year. Coincidence?
First: I finally got a job! I am a reporter in a northern Colorado suburb. I will be covering the local government and business.
Also: My fiancee and I also found an apartment in a small city west of Denver.
This is the year of the Rat 鼠, (shu3), for those who don't know. That means it is my 本命年 (ben3 ming4 nian2), or "Year of Personal Destiny." (my translation) Everyone has one, and it occurs every 12 years, beginning with the year you were born, as the zodiacal cycle repeats.
I've heard that your personal Year of Destiny is either really good or really bad, no in-betweens. The year of the rat began in early February in 2008, and about a month later, things started to fall into place. First with a job offer, then an apartment offer.

WEIRD SIDE NOTE: Here's a little tidbit of information about Chinese years, not related to the Animal Years thing. In Taiwan, years are officially written as Republic of China Year X. Where the current (Western) year = 1911+X. So, if you see Republic of China Year 90, it really means 2001. Quiz! What is this year in Taiwanese years? Ding! 97.
This is because the Republic of China began in 1911, replacing the Qing Dynasty, and Taiwan recognizes that instead of the PRC which started in 1949. The PRC uses the regular year system.

In your Year of Personal Destiny, you are supposed to wear a 红腰带 (hong 2 yao1 dai4), or Red Belt, in order to secure a prosperous YOPD. I actually had one once, while I was working at China Today magazine back in 1996. I didn't actually wear it, but I did wrap it around my computer. It is basically a red ribbon or strip of cloth, or even a string.
It is meant to ward off evil and disaster, and to attract good fortune. Apparently, though, college girls in Hangzhou are using them as a weight loss device.
Red is usually a good luck color, along with gold. Black and white are mostly reserved for funereal-type affairs.
We'll see how the rest of the Rat pans out....