What jazz have you been listening to today?

i knew this buddy, but since we don't type any actual chinese, well, it's pinyin! anyway i'll stick to english...

i'm trying to learn as much chinese ideograms as i can , that is to say the most used, the most recommanded in manuals and those i need to know not feel too ignorant when the kids i look after are tlking chinese. they're from wenzhou, but you already know that mandarin is the most reliable language since it's understood almost everywhere. i don't know much mandarin to this day, but i'm learning slowly.

well, to be precise, the ideograms themselves are for my culture and maybe for travelling. the pronounciation ( adapted to french tongue in my case ) is what really matters of course when it comes to the children or anyone else i hear speaking chinese.

Many years ago the Chinese Government instituted a language reform which causes the characters to be simplified. They wanted to address the illiteracy of many Chinese. When I began serious study of Chinese I was given the option of learning the simplified or the classical. I chose the classical so that I would have easier access to classical Chinese texts.

The jury is still out if the simplification will cause a further disconnect betwixt the modern Chinese citizen and the invaluable pearl of China's cultural history associted with its classical language. My gut feeling is that simplification means loss of something priceless for the contemporary Chinese citizen and indeed, for the whole world.

i can see that you care a lot for the world's "patrimoine" and this is a noble feeling. as for me, i don't really know. my parents are from reunion island and it's a place where people have a language of their own, that's not recognized as such by france or any institution. same for the west indies, and numerous other parts of the world, of course. people call reunion creole "dialect", "patois", or any name that indicates something not as settled as french, english or chinese. i do believe languages have to start one day, being nothing more than a "dialect", a very local use. languages just evolves, written words take different shapes, pronounciation changes, it seems you can't do much against this process. Like a mountain eroded by the wind. As i told you in an former post concerning movies, i'm quite a conservative man in a way, but you can't stop what we call time. i admit that keeping a language the same for ever is one of the concepts i like. identity is important, and culture is part of identity. it is true that china has a long and rich history, one of the most important cultures of all by many standards, but even china changes. who knows, maybe some future day we will communicate by thought!

jazz: martial solal - nage sur le do majeur

Aloha sunwaiter,

Are you a *child of the Islands*? Thats fascinating...I wish not to be political in what I'm about to say, namely, France having had many colonies and taking a condescending attitude towards indigenous cultures has hampered the development of different Island cultures and what you speak of, that France does not recognise the local language.

You have some interesting points about how language *evolves*. Of course, I'm not a specialist in linguistics but I have a notion that phonetically-based languages will radically *evolve* over time. Japanese has a system of phonetic script included in the use of the Japanese language, whilst Chinese has no such thing. So, the Chinese language will not *evolve* like Japanese or Korean. That does not mean to say that Chinese is a backward language - Heavens no - It is just a language system that is so unique to the world.

Yes, truly, many languages are dying out but as long as governments, and by extension, the voting constituency understand the significance of language as as a bearer of culture, those countries will continue to prosper.

As for communicating by thought as opposed to formal language, well, I don't think that there will be such an *animal* since there will be too much resistance from people and nations whose languages are part of the world's cultural *patrimoine*.

Cheerio,

CD

i quite agree, a real change in communication modes would be a real revolution!

i'm a child of children from the islands! i was born in the world-known city of tourism. yeah france has had a super-condescendant attitude towards africa and its colonies, but the west indies and reunion islands are another story, though filled with pain as well. reunion island has never been a colony. its story takes us back much earlier, but not very far in centuries. the island was discovered by portuguese mariners ( as often ), and quite soon became french. for a short period egland owned it but then it became frnehc again. it was then called "Ile Bourbon" as a reference to the royal family, i guess.

it is a volcanic island, so it's very young in comparison to other archipels. each year the "furnace" ( le piton de la fournaise ) spits its lava or at least shakes a little, remembering locals that it's still alive. the south-east part of this small island is where the lava extends its territory, making the map change each time it reaches the sea. by the way, there is nothing like watching lava cooling down underwater! it's a weird scene. but maybe you have this at home, i still don't know where you are exactly.

funny thing is that my parents, when "migrating" to the metropole in the early seventies, settled in what was to become the chinatown of paris! maybe my interest for this country comes from that period, when i wasn't even born...

jazz: james brown - porgy don't let them take me

Aloha sunwaiter,

Which *arrondissement* is the chinatown of Paris located?

Cheerio,

CD

hey Corno. sorry for not having spotted you post earlier. our historic "chinatown" is located in the 13th arrondissement, to be precise when you observe it while having a walk, you can draw a triangle between Place d'Italie, Porte d'Ivry and Porte d'Italie. inside this triangle you can find all sorts of shops, and of course mainly restaurants. There is some sort of "avenue" called les Olympiades that goes through really ugly projects, but displaying chinese-style pagodas, joining a university site and a commercial center, like a mini-mall, right under tenements, filled with hair-doers, butchers, chinese clothes, japanese goodies ( kitty is everywhere... ), some more restaurants and a buddhist temple. actually, there is not only chinese in this aera, but lots of cambodian ( i've been told the real owners of big shops like Tang Frères are cambodians ), vietnamese ( huge immigration wave after the khmer rouge massacre, with lots of fake ID cards ), people from thaïland, laos, etc...

the other big chinese community in paris is in Belleville, on the right bank of the river, northern part, the most popular and less shiny part of the city where tourists don't drift along too late at night. As a child i saw a majority of maghrebian people there, as in any french suburb, but now they've been replaced by the very-very-hard working asians.

below, chinese new year celebration:

a crossroad where most of the people go when in chinatown ( this is the entry to the "mini-mall" ):


the bhuddist temple, teochew association:


dazibao - annoucements and a "bonze" passing by

uh well, of course the khmer rouge massacre took place in cambodia. too many words will kill me.

Aloha sunwaiter,

Thanx for sharing some great info. I find it puzzling that the Asians are so very, very hard working as compared to the Mahgrebians who are lazy. And those Mahgrebians have populated the very *banlieues* where there has been so much violence, protests, and confrontations with the Police. The laziness of the Mahgrebians puts them in such economic hardship that they rebel and revolt, start fires and smash people's cars. Oh well, sorry for digressing.

Back on topic: *Blue Bossa* By McCoy Tyner - released in 1991.

i never said that maghrebians were by essence lazier than anyone else. but i DO stress that we cannot deny the working frenzy one can see in any asian community in Paris.As you already know, the girl i love is chinese, and from a very modest background. i never ever met someone who worship work and the money that goes with it, as she does. all her life she HAD to follow the rules of work, rentability and saving. there is virtually no room for something else. in France we don't know a thing about this kind of life, because our history is different.

algerian and morrocan people have other different histories ( with long french colonization chapters! ).

back on topic:

Oliver Nelson - Baja Bossa

Aloha sunwaiter,

Yes, there is that spectre of the Algerian War that spooks the French politicians. I don't know if I share your view that France, historically speaking, does not know hard work and thrift.

Cheerio,

CD

sunwaiter said:

back on topic:

Click to expand...

Exactly.


Herbie Hancock - Possibilities

Aloha Mat,

I just read recently that the Jazz pianist Adam Makowicz was born in the Czech Republic. Did he and his parents move to Poland when he was a teenager?

Cheerio,

CD

Hi there,

He was born in Śląsk Cieszyński. His parents moved to Rybnik, Poland when he was 6.


Cheers

Aloha Mat,

According to the Wikipedia article Adam's birthplace is considered to be a part of the Czech Republic - fascinating. Would it be proper to consider Adam as the leading Jazz pianist in Poland?

Just curious....

CD

It would be inappropriate not to consider him as the leading Jazz pianist. But besides him there are others names that should be named. For example: Krzysztof Komeda, Leszek Możdżer, Wojciech Karolak or Marcin Wasilewski.

Most popular and most available music in Poland is, suprisingly, pop music. Jazz tends to be something that only true connoisseurs care about.

it remembers me this football player, called Podolski. such a name doesn't leave any room for doubt, he's got something to do with Poland. he was born in Poland. I don't know whether he grew up as a german or polish child but anyway he did ended up playing for Germany, though he wanted to play for Poland, according to what i've heard and read. now i know this story is not really interesting but what it points at is much more of a real topic. as a french man i consider frontiers as absurdities, but i understand and accept that there's not much we can do about it. to me lalo schifrin has never been from argentine or united states, he simply is one great composer.

Corno, back in 1936, french people knew what work was about, true. but things change. i don't say we are ( or i am ) lazy but we have now what we call "social benefits", legitimately gained since the thirties and all changes that followed, as in any industrially developped country where workingmen's voices can still be heard, even if just a little bit.

hey Mat, i've listened to my extra ball album again lately. nice.