Here’s an interesting video on the Defense Language Institute (DLI) from the History Channel.  I attended the Chinese Mandarin Course for all of 1991.  It’s so hard to believe that was twenty one years ago. 

The video is interesting.  We didn’t have whiteboards or the internet.  We worked with photocopied articles from the People’s Daily.

Also, the narrator (the Full Metal Jacket guy) says they study their “chosen” language.  Yeah, right.  My recruiter told me I would be studying Russian.  Imagine my surprise at the end of Basic Training when they told me I would be learning Chinese.

I can still speak Chinese and do it whenever I can—the internet helps.  I’ve been to China on business where it really came in handy.  Now, my kids are enrolled in a Chinese class on Saturday afternoons.  It sticks with you, I guess.

I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts—far more than I do watching TV these days.  There are so many good podcasts out there dealing with so many specialised topics.  The podcasts I regularly view or listen to include Diggnation, NBC Nightly News (nice to able to do this in England), Scott Hanselman’s  “Hanselminutes”  (along with DotNetRocks to help me keep up with the .Net tech industry), and the new 37 Signals Podcast.  From time to time, I’ll add or remove other podcasts based on what I’m interested at the time.

There are a lot of podcasts out there to help you learn Chinese.  A few years ago I sampled loads of them and even subscribed to a few.  Most of them were too much on the beginners side for my liking (I’m not counting the news broadcasts in full-speed, faster than fast, Mandarin).  Most of them were very dry and not much different than listening to a short Pimsler Basic Chinese Course lesson each day.  “Today’s lesson: Should we bring an umbrella because of the rain?”

So a few weeks ago I took another look at the Chinese learning podcasts out there and found one that I now include among my favourites.  It’s called Popup Chinese.  The Popup Chinese podcasts gives 3 lessons a week at Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced level which each last between 5 and 10 minutes in length.

The dialogs in the lessons are really what differentiate the lessons from all the other ones out there. Here are a few examples of the lessons they’ve had in the past few weeks:

• How to Start a Business in China – Dialogue between a school principal and a child’s parents about how their child has started the other children with gambling and sniffing glue.
• Performance Anxiety – A dialogue between a performer on an American Idol type show and the judges.
• How to Defuse a Bomb – A bomb is about to go off and a former policeman comes to the rescue but is not sure which wire to cut.

Each lesson is pretty funny and irreverent.  Even with some vocab that you will never use, there is a lot of very good instruction on grammar and common speech.

The show is presented by two American and one Chinese teacher in Beijing. 

It’s a great podcast.  If you are past the beginner stages and into the intermediate and advanced stages of Chinese learning, you should check it out.

I went to China for the first time in August (after 20 years of it being the one place I wanted to see more than any other).  That was for a family holiday in Beijing.  I had a fantastic time and was able to practice using Mandarin more than I ever have before.

Next week, I will be in both Shanghai and Dalian for business.  I have several meetings lined up and I am very interested in seeing the up-and-comers in the software development market.

Shanghai is the fastest growing city in the world.  I’m really looking forward to seeing it.  I suppose there will be a lot of construction in preparation for the World Expo next year.

Dalian is a place I’ve been wanting to see for the past few years as it has a vibrant software outsourcing market.

I’m spending a lot of time this week preparing and am really looking forward to the trip.

Exciting times.

Last night, my family treated ourselves to Indian takeaway.  I was planning on cooking something earlier (I absolutely hate cooking), but was feeling ill after my vaccinations.  So, I called the local Indian restaurant and ordered a curry.

When I showed up at the Indian restaurant to pick up the food, it wasn’t ready yet so I sat in a chair by the door.  The restaurant was empty except for me and the waiter.  I was wearing sandals, shorts and t-shirt, and my San Diego Padres cap.  He was wearing his waiters uniform (bow tie and button-up shirt).  The waiter started to make small talk with me.

“So, are you having a good day today?” he asked.

“Yes.  Thank you.  Are you?” I returned.  I’m never good with small talk. I think this is why I will never be a master networker.  I will never attain my junior high school visions of being able to walk down the street and have people greet me with high fives and everyone knows me.  I’m just not good at talking when I don’t have anything to say.   

The waiter told me he was fine and a few minutes of silence passed.  Then I realised this was an excellent opportunity to practice some Hindi.  I could actually use some Hindi in a real-life, live fire, situation.

“Aj mausam garam hai,” I said.  This means “The weather is warm”.  Luckily, the weather actually was very warm– because I couldn’t remember if the word “weather” was masculine or feminine and which form of the word “cold” to use.

He looked slightly amused and asked where I learned to speak Hindi.  I told him about taking the class at the local college.  He confirmed back to me that the weather is very warm (“bohot garam hai”).

I was pretty impressed with myself that I was having a Hindi conversation.  But, I had nothing else to say!  I couldn’t think of anything thing else to say that I learned on that 10 week course that I could use. I couldn’t think of anything that my colleagues in Mumbai had taught me.  I froze.  So, to fill the conversation gap, I said the one thing I used to say to my Mumbai friends which usually got them to laugh– “May thola thola mota hai kewkee may chicken bohot passand hai.”  This means “I am a little bit fat because I really like chicken.”

This was just met by an odd look from the man.  He didn’t laugh or even smile– he just looked at me as if not knowing what to say.  He then told me he was actually Bangladeshi but did understand Hindi.  I nodded in understanding and then pretending I was reading a text on my phone.

It got my food and then left.

I’ve been studying Chinese a lot lately and haven’t really used Hindi at all.  To be honest, I found Hindi to be a difficult language to learn.  I am not fluent by any stretch of the imagination.  It will never be listed on my CV.  I’m not sure if I will ever have a reason to pick it up again.

I don’t think I’ll try speaking Hindi in a restaurant again any time soon.

In my preparation for the trip to Dalian, I’ve been watching a lot of videos on Youtube.

Here is a promotional video which shows a lot of scenes around Dalian.  I’m very excited.  But the city is a lot bigger than I thought it would be!

My big news this week (aside from looking for new client opportunities) is that I’ve hit a snag in my visa application to attend CISIS in China in a few weeks.  I’ve registered for CISIS, booked a hotel, and set up meetings in Dalian.  But the passport is taking more time than I allowed for.

The problem with getting a visa for China (which should only take 4 working days) is that I need 6 months remaining on my passport in order to go.  I realised about a month ago that my American passport expires in four months.  Zao Gao! 

So, I had to

1. Renew my American passport
2. Transfer to indefinite leave to remain status for the UK to the new passport (an NTL)
3. Get a visa for China.

The US passport agency said it should take about 3 weeks, since they had to send my passport application to the States.  I got it back in just over two weeks.

The UK border agency didn’t give an estimate, but I figured 3 weeks should be good enough for that.  After all, I already have permanent residency, I just need the stamp in my new passport.  They didn’t need to send it anywhere.  I sent it to them two and a half weeks ago. 

Yesterday, I phoned the Border Agency office.  I had a letter from them saying they had my passport and that I should NOT phone them to check on the status.  But I was worried so I phoned anyway.  After spending ages in a call queue, I got someone on the phone who did not want my reference number when I offered to give it.  “We don’t check on the status of an NTL application until it has been with us for 14 weeks,” they guy told me.  He obviously had to deal with a lot of difficult people and he wasn’t going to give me any lee-way (read “he was kind of rude”).  I asked if there was any way to speed it up, he told me there wasn’t.  He would not check on the status.  I told him it was a renewal, not a new application—but he didn’t help.  He told me that the wait time is between 4 to 14 weeks.  I was speechless.  4 weeks!?!?  There is no way to make this happen before CISIS starts.

Yesterday was a flurry of activity cancelling things.  The hotel was easy to cancel.  The flight was non-refundable (but I might be able to get about half of my money back).  The people at UK Trade and Investment are holding off on booking any more meetings with software companies.  They even offered to help speed up the China visa if it helps.  Still, there is the possibility that the passport might drop through the letter box and everything will be back on.  We’ll see.  I’m not cancelling my flight just yet.

I’m still going to Dalian.  I’m just not sure when.  I might be be a few days later, or a few weeks. 

Tomorrow, I get 4 shots for vaccination. 

I’m trying not to let it get me down too much.  I’m enjoying the beautiful sunshine (which can be rare in England) and re-establishing some old contacts.  I’m still playing with Ruby on Rails and trying to write a few applications which have been in my todo list for a while.  I might as well enjoy the down time.

As I’m finishing my current contract, I’m also trying to put in place plans to attend the CISIS (China International Software and Information Service) Fair in Dalian this June.  I’ve done a small amount of work with Chinese software developers before but haven’t really been to visit any of them.  The CISIS fair looks like a good opportunity practice my Mandarin and talk to some of the service providers in person. 

I’m really looking forward to it.  I need to get all my visa situation in order.  That, and I have concerns of the swine flu ruining everything.  But, if all goes to plan I’ll be there.

I’ll keep you posted.

This weekend I watched my first Hindi film. I know I could have watched one without taking a Hindi course first, but this was the whole reason I wanted to watch it.

I searched the local Blockbuster for films in Hindi, but it’s a small town and they don’t really have any. So, I ordered a few from LoveFilm and finally had one delivered last week.

I watched Chak De, a film about the a national India Woman’s hockey team. I really enjoyed the movie. I found out from friends at work that it’s a very popular international film. I guess I shouldn’t feel too multi-cultural for having watched it, then.

The movie was really good, but I was surprised at how long it was. It was almost two and a half hours. Just when I thought it was over, it had an “Intermission” card go across the screen.

In terms of Hindi practice, despite being a Novice, I understood a lot that I could identify. My favourite sentences were the really short ones like “Con?” and “Kew?” and I was surprised how much English was thrown in.

My favourite scene was the fight in a McDonald’s. I’m a simple man.

When I watch Chinese movies to practice language, they always seem very different than a Hollywood movie. It could be that my sampling is too small, I suppose– but they always seem to be very artsy. This movie could have been a Hollywood movie easy.

I have a few more films selected on LoveFilm, but they seem to be very slow in sending them.

Tonight is the last night of my Hindi class.

10 weeks of learning to read and speak Hindi. I’ve learned a lot, but I’ve definitely reached the dropping off point in terms of complexity.

Learning a language always starts off easy. Everything you learn is something you frequently use. You learn Hello, thank you, counting, and how to have a brief conversation. It exciting and rewarding to start learning a language this way.

But, then you start to see how difficult the language actually is. There are loads of words you need to learn. It’s easy to learn a word like “weather” that you will use from time to time, but how much time to you want to invest on learning a word like “fountain pen” or “lettuce”? It’s difficult to work these into daily conversation.

It was the same with Chinese and Vietnamese too. You get immediate gains on language learning, then you hit a plateau and have to consider how much you want to push forward. For those languages, it was my job to press forward. This, being a hobby, makes it much more difficult.

I’m having a great time learning the language. I can’t see myself every speaking like a native, though.

Yesterday I was showing my iPhone to a colleague when I started playing with the settings and found out that it was even cooler than I had thought.

One of the most difficult aspects of trying to read Chinese is looking up characters in the dictionary. If you recognize a character and know how it sounds, you can look it up via the pinyin romanization. However, 9 times out of 10, you don’t know what it sounds like. So, you have to look determine what the character’s radical is and check that radical in the radical index. That will then tell you where in the dictionary to look for your specific word. It takes ages.

Most Chinese-English dictionaries I’ve had have a very worn our radical page.

I downloaded some dictionaries for my iPhone a while back to have a play with them. The dictionaries were cool, but it still relied on me entering text via the online keyboard. I never checked the international settings and found that I can set up more than one keyboard on the device. I could also select to enter Pinyin or draw actual characters.

Now I can draw a character into the dictionary program (I’m using Slovo-Ed at the moment) and immediately see a list of characters which look like the one I’m trying to draw. It is really, really cool.

Seriously, if you have every used a Chinese-English dictionary, you will know how much of a time saver this would be!