CHINESE

A Chinese friend send my name to Iran and from there somebody passed my name to China
.Hehe a Ping Pong game of name. Ask him he should contact me.A person from Ningbo contacted me.
There start my meeting with Sam.
We met 3 days ago and I told him that the most important thing for him is to learn Chinese.I told him you have everything with you.
The brain with is the engine,
The fuel which is the strong desire to learn. I just give you my spark.You will zoom to a future with another layer of knowledge.
This is not possible by Language exchange only.As saying goes , something that cost nothing is simply worth nothing.
I told him to register to a University and start like I did, to sit in the class.Listen to teacher every morning from 8 to 12.
Just let the little kid inside you to wake up.han
You are going to tell me if a man of 34 years of age can still have a small kid inside.
He He I would not give name here.Some much more older than him take the little kid inside and go around .Well just look now may be you

see someone that fits that description.
Let that kid with shiny eyes listen the teacher.
Let that kid who is thirsty of knowledge.Let that kid with curious eyes,look to his teacher and LEARN.
For just 16 weeks.
This new friend is very clever and two days ago I took him to Zhongshan University to let him breath the air of Learning.
My new friend cought the Fever of Learning.He can not sleep anymore.Listening all night the mp3 files i gave him, letting his mind bubbling in

order to cook a new knowledge.

To make my friends life also of all those readers who always wanted to learn a language or any other thing I dedicate this story to him.
I also dedicate this story to my Chinese friends.In my mind the most willing people to learn .
Well let us not forget to keep things in proportion.I did not check every Chinese person.I am sure there are in China many lazy people.
So I share this story with those who have eyes that I saw lightening eyes eager for enlightment.
The language is not only a dictionary stored in our brain.The language is not only a human version of electronic translator where you type a

word and gave you same word in strange looking way
A language is the bridge between the heart of people.I now tell my story a story of a man that not only like learning languages also use it to

cross the bridge of cultures .Just go to other side and sit there.

And learn.


I myself dream t long time to study Chinese , without being able to cross the language barrier.I was in Harbin in -45 degrees when in January

that year The SARS pitted my good friend who was raining doctor in Guangzhou and She said Its better you do not come back to Guangzhou.
There was no official word yet about that evil disease who was killing unfairly those who were working in hospitals to treat other human being.
My friend at the age of 24 was panicking in her hospital bed and sending me SMS messages.telling me that the fear of not being able to

breath was likely to kill her before the disease itself.
I was trying to write her messages to convince her about the secret ability of human brain to fight against the disease.I of course did not stay

long in the coldest place on the earth and came back to Guangzhou
and after about 3 months it was made public of the arrival of that horrible disease who killed the most valuable medical personal and several

aged person.
The following summer I decided to register to Beijing University , went there and filled my form in the empty campus where all students where

running away from Beijing and of course I could not study in those crazy times

Having been working 3 years without Holiday I decided that it was more than time, to go for a rest before an unexpected disease may force

me to have hospital tourism.
Than left to Himalayas and Vietnam , carrying just a 4 kg rock sack.When I was staying in Carmelia Hotel in Kunming, for the last night at the

end of my Holiday.I made friend with a Japanese boy called Haruko, and suddenly he said:
-I will go tomorrow morning to Yunnan University to register for Chinese Language Studies.I was so happy that I said immediately:
-Can I come with you?
He said tomorrow is the first day of semester.I already made my decision that no matter what will happen I will stay in Kunming and use that

Chance to Study the Language of Middle Kingdom.

Next morning the clerk at at he admission office told me that I can listen the teacher for 2 weeks without paying anything.I was so tired to wait

for that day I said No please I want to pay and learn in that class for the next 16 weeks.
16 hours per week.
I was going to have the most wonderful time since I have been coming to China.I was going to be able to talk eye to eye to the people that I

admired and respected over 26 years.
For nothing, I will give up that chance that just falled on me from the mouth of Haruko.After paying the tuition fee,
Here I was sitting in the class and listening my first lesson of Chinese.And the teacher was teaching me BOPOMO the romanization .
I immediately had the feeling that was a journey that was too long.I decided if I follow that class I was 53 years old , I may even die before I

can even learn Chinese.
After the first hour I decide to give my self a One second examination and graduated my self in the Second year of Chinese learning Class.
There I was surrounded by Koreans a Finnish Girl A German boy an American boy and a few Japanese watching with horror that my class

mates
could write with ease the Chinese writing, and worst of all my teacher TIAN LAO SHI was speaking the Martian version of Chinese Language

at the speed of Light.
My decision not to return to the beginners class was irrevocable
I decided to listen my teacher just to find a way to understand her.
In the mean time I was able just to write very ugly and huge imitation of the chinese writing she was writing on the black board.
I called my friend Fey in Hong Kong and asked him to send me a Walkman that I can record my teacher lesson
I stayed for whole week with a grim face watching my teachers until I found out on Friday that the teacher was going to teach us the Lesson

26.
I spent the whole week to figure out how I can understand my teacher.
After 5 days listening I received a Recording Walkman from my friend FEY that he sent me from Hong Kong to Kunming
I will use this recorder in class record my teacher
And afternoon I will listen my teacher voice at home, over and over washing my brain with a new language.

I also made a

DON'T LIST
-----------------

DON'T speak any other language than Chinese even you know 10 words
DON'T make friend with people who can speak another language than Chinese
DON'T make friend from school
DON'T live near school re

Do list
---------------
Just eat with Chinese people in short
Take the Chinese language from the class
and put it in every part of your life..


In short Absolute and Total Immersion in New Language Environment

I used also Greek way.

Greeks come from the work every day at 7 pm.
They will sleep 4 hours wake up at 11 pm go out enjoy every night 2 to 3 hours and come back at home and sleep another 4 hours.
I will do the same
But wake up was the hardest thing to do.
But i will do it after struggling.
Than my house was near the Bar Street of Kundu in Kunming.

I will have shower with fresh face will go to a bar.
There was Chinese young people sitting around table drunk and happy to celebrate a birth day
Alcohol will free them from their shyness.

They will say in Chinese

Hey foreigner come and sit with us.
I will feel Hey its wonderful in restaurant and in a bar My school continues..
In my eyes I was in the most beautiful Language School.
It was a school who was going to teach me the language that will later make this country ,More beautiful than before in my eyes.

It was also going to make me the lovely people more lovely than before..

I than remember this phrase in Turkish


Bir Lisan
Bir Insan
Iki Lisan
Iki Insan


One language is One Man
Two Language is Two Man

I was going to be a second person of my self
I was going to be me.Me in Chinese Version.
Hehe the little kid inside me was laughing.
Like they say laughing all the way to the bank.
If you are reading all those things in my blog since I started to write February 27.
It is the Chinese Language that gave me the chance to do it.
3 weeks after beginning of the class Kim the Korean boy sitting next to me said:
Joe I do not believe that you never studied Chinese before that class.
Than I told him that was really true that I did not.
I told him about my DO LIST and DON'T LIST
Than he said
With the same eyes, of Drug addict or Cigarette Smoker who feels too weak to give up his addiction
With really crying eyes. he said?
-How you can stay away from culture.
I told him
My culture is the foundation of who I am .I like my culture I keep it.
But I must decide whether I use my culture to the best of my ability or I let my culture Like Heroine, Like Marijuana and Like Cigarette to put

me inside the fortress of my culture and staying in a garden of a single flower and single scent..
Oh no!
I cant do that .
I just go out and see different kind of flowers and different kind of scents in the garden of our beautiful world of different cultures.
My stories are just of a man who is used to cross the boundary of cultures
A new kind of Iron Wall.

THE CULTURE WALL