Inga Nielsen R.I.P.

[methodistgirl]

Corno, the only thing I can understand in Chinese is Mah Jong. This is
a match game.
judy tooley

[intet_at_tabe]

My friend and mentor Corno Dolce, now as my tutor in the department of the chinese language.

Amasing and realy appreciated from my illiterate side of the desk. You realy overwhelmed me with this evolved explanation on the chinese characters with reference to the old classical chinese, you have preferred to study. I can understand why you chose this. So I guess my question was not all that stupid.

Keep it up dear sir , I love it (here should be a huge red heart for emoticon), when you can teach me concreet illimitable knowledge on the many things in life, I just don´t grasp.

AMASING and AWESOME compadre Corno Dolce.

[intet_at_tabe]

Corno, the only thing I can understand in Chinese is Mah Jong. This is
a match game.
judy tooley

Ms. Judy

Do you actually play Mah Jong?

[Corno Dolce]

Dearest Intet,

There really is no such a thing as a stupid question but a question that is un-asked - now thats stupid!

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be with you dear sir,

CD

[methodistgirl]

Yes Intet, I like playing Mah Jong. It's so addictive!
judy tooley

[intet_at_tabe]

Dearest Intet,

There really is no such a thing as a stupid question but a question that is un-asked - now thats stupid!

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be with you dear sir,

CD

Corno Dolce

So in your esteemation dear sir, you´re well of with 4000 memorised characters, which covers most of, what you need to be able to manage as a foreignor in the Chinese language - Yes?

The imigrating koreans you said you help, where you live now in Oceania. Did you already speak Chinese, when you traveled to and in the South East of Asia, or did you achieve the interest to be able to speak Chinese after returning from the South East of Asia, and now these days to be able to speak to and understand the new oceanians from Korea?

Aren´t there an awful lots of different dialects in Chinese and the korean Chinese? Have you any knowledge, if there are the usual Chinese Triads in Oceania 2008?

[Corno Dolce]

Hi Intet,

I started to learn Chinese 15 years ago - mainly spoken. Then through the years as my interest in China had grown I began memorising the Chinese logograms. Now, you mixed in the Koreans - They have their own written language, Hangul, which is the worlds most scientific written language. It was invented by King Sejong and his staff resposible for education of the Korean People. Classical Korean has many Chinese logograms but the modern Korean person has no need of using Chinese logograms, unless they are pursuing scholarly studies of literature. The two main dialects in China are Mandarin and Cantonese but there are other dialects as well.

You brought up my NGO work - Now, North Koreans use Hangul strictly without any Chinese logograms. This is in tune with the concept of "Juche" = self-sufficiency, as promulgated by Kim il-Sung. The North Koreans are trying to escape tyranny, so it is not immigration in the usual sense but the seeking of asylum and protection from a regime that only cares for its own survival.

My travels brought me first to East Asia then to Southeast Asia, ergo China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Indonesia. I shall continue studying Chinese for the rest of my life. How many logograms that might entail? God only knows. If you have competency in, say, 5000 Chinese logograms you should then be able to look up whatever Chinese logogram based on the radical and the number of strokes in a Chinese dictionary.

No living human being today has memorised all the Chinese logograms, especially not all that are found in the Zhonghua Zihai with over 80,000 logograms, the reason being that those logograms are not used in daily conversation, nor in Government. Of course, in an advanced scholarly setting certain individuals might know the use of a certain logogram but it remains in the academic sphere. As an example of Classical Chinese logograms here is one:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_tMPW7Mr4XK0/...-h/biang_2.gif

It has 57 strokes and denotes a special noodle dish found in Shaanxi Province. Phonetically, it is written as "biáng-biáng". Yes, there is a restaurant in a city(Xi'an) in Shaanxi Province that serves these noodles:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...he_noodles.jpg

According to a colleague and dear friend there is a restaurant franchise in Beijing called "Noodle King" which serves these noodles. I'm somewhat sceptical if they are any good. Once you take a regional food and mass-market it, it invariably will lose much because of mass-production techniques - (shave a little bit from here, take a little bit from there, add this spice or condiment here, take away that ingredient from there) well, you know what I mean.......

Yes, it is a delicious dish - the noodles are as thick as your belt and sometimes just as long.

I trust that I have answered your questions to your satisfaction?

Oh, I almost forgot - The Triads are from Hong Kong and they have their representatives in just about every country in the world.

Cheers,

CD

[methodistgirl]

Do any of you guys play Mah Jong? I love the computer game of it.
judy tooley

[intet_at_tabe]

Corno Dolce

Amasing info from you dear sir. It must take severel minutes to white or draw any of those characters, but I guess repeating it over and over through experience make it easier. My full admiration compadre

North Korea suffers and has suffered throughout centuries. Any country, who departs itself from the Human Right, we basicly call tyrannies. The il-Sung family has not made things easier. NK is also among the poorest countries in the world on the same level as Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been as closed as Tibet for decades for foreignors, since the USA invaded the country in 1950, because of the fear of communism.

Korea was first invaded in the 2. Century before Jesus Christ by China and kept a colony until the year 900 post Jesus Christ, when Korea became a sovereign independant state again. But in 1392 China was knocking on the doors to Korea again, but later due to the victory of the Manchu-Prince-lineage in China in 1644, Korea returned to the full controle and influence from China. Korea became a colony or vasal state to China.

In 1894-95 when Japan won the war against China, Korea became the protectorate of Japan, and from 1910 known to be a province of Japan with the name Chosen. Due to the end of the WWII in 1945, when Japan capitulated post the USA dropped two nukes with an unpredicted power above first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, Korea north of the 38. degrees of latitude were invaded again both by the Sovjet Union and the rest of Korea by the USA.

In 1948 North Korea, was proclaimed as the Peoples Republic, while the rest of the country called the Republic of South Korea with it´s new President Syngman Rhee.

But then again in 1950 the latest war in Korea arrived, when the USA due to the fear of the spreading of communism world wide, and in particular the South East of Asia region calculating Korea. The USA more viciously than ever before ruined the soil and the uneasy vake economi of both the north and the south of Korea, through CIA produced chemical poisons and conspiracy against any suspected politician, with communist relations from the North.

Until 1972 North and South Korea had no contact on a diplomatic basis. North Korea had lost about 2 million men and women to the combined United Nation´s war against communism in the 1950´s , while the U. N. combined forces led by the USA "only" had about 370.000 male soldiers killed.

The country of Korea has been parted ever since as the communist North Korea and South Korea.
So facts are that Korea as a nation has been under China influence for almost 1100 years in the past, then by Japan and lately the past 30 years North Korea has isolated itself from the world. North Korea is still faithful to China and communism.

Thanks Corno Dolce - You are the Man or rather - The Magician from Oceania.

[Corno Dolce]

Hi Intet,

I only have two issues with your recounting of a part of Korean History. The Chinese and Koreans are known also as the Han People, so Korea was really never a vassal state to China - they are brothers and sisters in spirit. Koreans have had alot of problems with Japan from the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The great Korean Admiral Yi drove the entire Japanese fleet away from Korea using the "Turtle-Boats" which he designed. And China helped Korea to utterly crush the Japanese invaders after Admiral Yi had worked his wonders.

Cheers,

CD

[intet_at_tabe]

Hi back at ya Corno Dolce

The Korean Turtle-Boats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship

Thanks buddy,

[Corno Dolce]

Hi Intet,

Here you can study some more about Classical Korean and its use of Chinese logograms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka_Koreana

Cheers,

CD

[marval]

Hi Judy

Yes I play Mahjong, or it is sometimes called Taipei.

But I have played the original Mahjong the board game.


Margaret

[Contratrombone64]

My (late) father owned a jade and ivory Mahjong set, I remember playing it as a child. My oldest sibling now has it. Fancy, ivory, would be illegal now (thank goodness). Don't remember much about it except there were some quaint names for moves: fishing the moon from the sea" and the like.