The Matter of China.

Given my current preoccupation with China and all things Chinese, I thought I’d look at a few websites about learning Chinese languages. I already knew that Mandarin is the major language and Cantonese the main variant. I also knew that Chinese languages are tonal. What I didn’t know was that Mandarin is easier to learn since it has only five tones, whereas Cantonese has nine.

That still makes it a bit tricky, though, doesn’t it? It seems that even in Mandarin, wa-a, for example, can mean…

Hello

Go away

Turned out nice again

Is this seat taken?

My dog’s just been sick

…depending on the inflection.

I suppose it would make sense to leave it for now and just make sure I’m born there in my next life. I have to do that anyway since I have an appointment to meet somebody in the mountains (the only problem being that we never said which mountains, and China is a damn big place…)

Oh, well. In the meantime, I just watched nearly an hour of Chinese dance on YouTube. It appears that the Chinese are particularly good at dancing. I suppose it’s to do with them being so skinny and supple, an’ all. And Chinese women seem able to get their legs into places where wise men fear to tread. Better make sure I’m not too wise in my next life.