When learning a foreign language, why do we remember certain words or phrases, but quickly forget others? From my own experiences both as a teacher and as a student, I've come up with some reasons why some words stick in our heads:

a) It's the first thing you learn - I will never forget how to say "How's the weather" in French, thanks to my Grade One teacher, Mrs. McGee (yes, she was Scottish!), who made us sing the phrase to the tune of "Skip to my Lou".

b) You say it or hear it a million times over - As a teacher in a high school, I learnt the word "uso" (no way!) pretty quickly!

c) It's useful - One night at the bar, a sleazy guy said "You're pretty" to me in every Asian language he could think of until he hit the right one!

d) It's funny - I can still say "You are as ugly as a frog" in Spanish...now there's a useful phrase!

Now if I can only figure out why my brother's knowledge of French consists mainly of Halloween vocabulary...

Guten Morgen!

Feeding the bunnies on campus

Part of my research requires me to read some papers in German, so to review the tiny bit I've learnt four years ago, I've been auditing a translation course. Since English has its roots in the German language (as well as French) it's been interesting. I especially like the compound words; my favourite is Eier (eggs) + Auflauf (riot, or running amuk) = Eierauflauf (souffle)! It's great how they can just make up new words by stringing old words together. Of course this makes for some ridiculously long words. Apparently the longest word in German is: DONAUDAMPFSCHIFFAHRTSELEKTRIZITAETENHAUPTBETRIEBS-WERKBAUUNTERBEAMTENGESELLSCHAFT, which means "the club for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services (name of a pre-war club in Vienna). In the Japanese language, there is a vowel between each consonant, even when using foreign words...for example, McDonald's becomes Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do. I wonder how Japanese students pronounce German!!

By the way, when "-er" is attached to a place name, it is an adjective describing where something or someone is from. So the meat between those buns is called a "hamburger" because it originated in Hamburg, the sausage you eat with beer is a "wiener" because it's from Vienna (Vienna is Wien in German) and the "frankfurter" is a specialty of Frankfurt! There's your useless bit of information of the day, a topic for those Christmas parties.

Time to get ready for school. I'm taking the bus today because Es regnet Bratwürste! (A strange way of saying it's pouring...but why not bratwurst? Why cats and dogs?) Tschüss!

Cypress Mountain

My brother and I enjoyed the early snowboarding season last weekend. It was a bit too early - the powder wasn't great - but I sure got a lot of smiles and started up a few conversations by taking my board up to Vancouver in mid-November. That's the thing about fanatics...they're always friendly to each other!

Meeting the parents

As it was my uncle's birthday last weekend, my family went to his house for dinner. (Go figure...the birthday boy cooked us dinner and, following Chinese custom, he gave us all "lucky money" too. No wonder Chinese people don't celebrate their birthdays). As we're all so busy these days, my brothers and I don't get to see our cousins that often, so it's nice to get together. This time, our table expanded to include a new person...my cousin's new boyfriend.

It's hard enough to meet your bf/gf's family, not to mention extended family, but when their culture is completely different from yours, I imagine it must be nerve-racking. Eating strange-looking food, observing foreign customs, all with people speaking a language you don't understand...I can't imagine! I remember my old boyfriend was quite nervous with my parents at first. Luckily he had more exposure to Chinese culture than fortune cookies, sweet and sour chicken balls and kung fu flicks. In fact my parents loved him because they could feed him pretty much anything, even things my brothers and I wouldn't touch. (Incidentally, I think my cousin's b/f passed with flying colours).

These days, especially in a country made up of immigrants like Canada, interracial dating is common. It can be hard for some families to accept - particularly the older members - but it is unavoidable when you live somewhere so multicultural. I remember when one of my cousins married a non-Chinese girl - the first one of the family to do so. The younger ones cheered (none of us wanted to be the one to break the mould), the older ones shook their heads and my grandma cried. Of course, as soon as grandchildren came into the picture, everything was okay.

Without question there are different challenges when two people come from different cultures, the biggest one being the language barrier. My parents speak English OK, but I still have to interpret sometimes (especially for my dad, who speaks a very "unique" version of the English language). There's also the fear of losing a bit of your identity; with first-generation Canadians, it is inevitable that some of the culture gets lost, and will continue to diminish with each generation. As a child of immigrants, I always felt stuck between two cultures - not quite Canadian, and not quite Chinese. Of course, there are a lot more immigrants nowadays, and there are schools in Vancouver where the Chinese are the majority. But when I was growing up in the suburbia of Victoria, I remember being painfully aware of being different. My parents worked in a restaurant, not in an office; we ate bok choy for dinner, not potatoes; my mom drove the restaurant delivery car, not a mini-van; I got "lucky money" on my birthday, not presents. Back then, I desparately wanted to be white-collar white. Kids these days don't seem to have the same angst - maybe there's less shame in being different when everyone else comes from somewhere else too. With all this mixing between races, maybe one day all the cultures will be blurred together. One day, as my brother says, there will no longer be white, black, yellow...everyone's going to be a light brown! Considering all the violence and hatred that comes from racial tension, this may be a good thing. After all, the more you learn about a culture, the less prejudiced you become. And what better way to unite people than with a marriage?

P.S. I'm not going to allow comments on my posts anymore - almost all of you send me your feedback through e-mail anyhow. I just keep getting these "comments" from people trying to sell me Viagra, speed-reading books and other such useful things...

Oh Canada!

Mountains have just opened in Vancouver! Woo hoo! I love this city...

Hold onto your hats!

Another blustery day on the island...