Adeline Yen Mah's Blog

Recent Activity:

San Francisco’s Superior Court Judge

 Julie Tang

and Judge Lillian Sing invited me last week to speak

at the funeral of Wei Shao-lan, a Chinese Comfort

Woman who passed away in May 2019. Julie and

Lilian are co-founders of the Comfort Women Justice

Coalition.

Comfort Women were females who were forced into

sexual slavery by the Japanese Military in occupied

countries during the Second World War. With the

help of Julie Tang, I had interviewed Wei Shao-lan in

her hometown of Guiling, China, in 2017. Now I was

scheduled to speak at her funeral.

I boarded the Jet-Blue Flight at 6.45AM from Long

Beach Airport and arrived in San Francisco at

8.17AM. Julie Tang met me at the airport and drove

to St. Margaret Square in Chinatown where we

attended Wei Shao-lan’s memorial service in front of

the Column of Strength, depicting statues of three

young Asian girls with clenched fists.

Attached is a scanned copy of an article published

in the San Francisco Chinese Newspaper Ding Dao

Daily on May 24 th , 2019. I have translated the

headlines of the article into English.

I also enclose the account of my interview with Wei

Shao-lan who was 97 years old when we met at her

home near Guiling, China.

Wei Shao Lan

 

Translation: 

受張純如啟發

Stimulated and inspired by the writer Iris Chang,

 

訪韋紹蘭老人新作既將發表

 

a new work resulting from a visit to Wei Shao-lan will soon be released.

 

為二戰慰安婦立傳

 

In recording the plight of Comfort Women during WW2

 

馬嚴君玲唏噓感嘆

the writer Adeline Yen Mah expresses her sorrow

and regret on their behalf.

 

本週六三藩市慰安婦正義聯盟將為中國剛剛去世的兩位慰安婦老人湯根珍與韋紹蘭舉行紀念儀式。

 

This Saturday, San Francisco’s Coalition Alliance  of Justice for Comfort Women will be holding a ceremony for the two recently departed Comfort Women: Tang Gen-zhen and Wei Shao-lan.

 

曾特別回中國桂林拜訪過韋紹蘭的著名華裔作家馬嚴君玲(Adeline Yen Mah)也將從洛杉磯長島 (Long Beach)趕來叁加儀式。

 

The well-known Chinese-American writer Adeline Yen Mah, who had once flown to Guiling to interview Wei Shao-lan, will be flying specially from Long Beach to take part in the ceremony.

 

馬嚴君玲表式，自己已將與韋紹蘭老人的對話進行了英文整理，既將發表。此舉也是受已故南京大屠殺作者張純如啟發。希望完成當年與她之間的承諾。

 

Adeline Yen Mah said she has translated her interview with Wei Shao-lan into English and will be publishing the work.  Her interest in Comfort Women was first inspired by Iris Chang, renowned author of  `Nanking Massacre’.  By bringing the plight of Comfort Women to the world, Adeline is fulfilling a promise she had made to Iris Chang.

 

 

The post Chinese Comfort Women appeared first on Adeline Yen Mah.

Dear Subscriber,

Happy New Year!

I have been remiss in sending you weekly Chinese lessons because I was developing an iPad game during the major part of 2012. Its title is PinYinPal.

My husband Bob, nephew Larry and I created PinYinPal to teach Chinese for free over the internet. Hopefully, you will find PinYinPal to be a useful and fascinating educational tool for a long time to come.

PinYinPal will be released by Apple on January 17th, 2013.  It is the only Mandarin Chinese word game played with letters of the alphabet.  And it’s free.

To learn more about PinYinPal, please click on http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_RpPAl6FXZceNCADEnS-IA

We have exciting news.

This morning, we were informed that PinYinPal has been nominated to be a part of MacWorld’s iFan Favorite App contest. The only way that PinYinPal can win the grand prize is if you vote for our app on the MacWorld Facebook page. Please follow these simple instructions below:

1) Vote for PinYinPal to be MacWorld’s iFan Favorite App here: http://bit.ly/11jKrFy

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Vote! One vote per entry per person. Voting concludes at the end of the month.

2) “Like” us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pinyinpal) so you can see how we’re doing!

3) Tell all of your friends on Facebook that you can’t wait for PinYinPal to arrive in the App Store on January 17th!

It’s a pleasure and privilege to be your friend and teacher. Let us create something wonderful together.

 

Best wishes and Happy New Year

Adeline Yen Mah

A new spin on a popular word game favorite, PinYinPal for iPad seeks to revolutionize how the Chinese language is taught. And it’s free too!

Huntington Beach, CA, (January 15, 2013) – Mandarin Chinese is spoken and understood by well over one billion people worldwide and is notorious for being the hardest language to learn. As business opportunities continue to arise in Asia, mastering Mandarin is becoming more and more important.

Enter PinYinPal, a new app for the iPad that makes it easy to define, read, and recognize Chinese characters. This is the first and only viable word game available in Pinyin and comes in a format that many will recognize. Think of it as Words with Friends with a twist.

But wait, isn’t Chinese made up of characters? That’s the beauty of PinYin; it is the Mandarin vocabulary spelled out with the alphabet. PinYinPal includes a built-in Dictionary and Word Finder, which act as guides during the game. Because of this, novices who don’t know any Chinese can play competitively against native Chinese speakers from the first turn.

PinYinPal is the brainchild of Adeline Yen Mah, author of the New York Times best-seller Falling Leaves and founder of Chinesecharacteraday.com Foundation. She said, “I set out to create a game that makes learning Mandarin fun. I’m convinced that the future of language learning lies in playing games, consumed in bite-sized chunks on tablets or mobile phones. The first version of PinYinPal is being offered in English. However, at this very moment, our game is being translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese and Korean. It is my dream that all the people of the world will unite while playing PinYinPal and learning Chinese. Regardless of one’s mother tongue, the basic programming is the same. By tapping a button, a Russian can play with an American; or a Chinese with a Japanese, without knowing one another’s language.”

Players are pitted against their friends on social networks or random opponents, and challenged to take turns spelling pinyin words.

Some of the other key features include:

The ability to chat with an opponent in both English and Chinese characters.
The game is completely ad-free and there are no in-app purchases required to play.
Word Finder will analyze the letters in your rack and teach you what pinyin words to play.
Dictionary feature includes audio pronunciations for each word.
View the characters associated with the Pin Yin words played on the board at the tap of a button.
Earn extra points by recalling the correct character and meaning of the word you just played.
Brag on Facebook about your high scores and successful games.

The PinYinPal app is available for free from the App Store on the iPad. It will be available soon on iPhone and other iOS devices.

App Store Link: Available 1-17-2013

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pinyinpal

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PinYinPalApp

Video Trailer:

About Chinesecharacteraday.com Foundation:

Chinese Character a Day Foundation is dedicated to teaching Mandarin Chinese to anyone who wishes to learn. It was founded by Dr. Adeline Mah, a physician and writer. Born in China, Dr. Mah lives in California with her husband, Professor Robert Mah, a microbiologist. In 1997, she wrote her memoir Falling Leaves which became an international best-seller.  To bridge the gap between East and West, she and Bob established their foundation with the book proceeds. Conceived in the Mahs’ living room, PinyinPal was first played on a sheet of paper with cardboard cut-outs as letter-tiles.  The Mahs are grateful for the help given to them in this endeavor by their nephew Larry Mar and Larry’s secretary, Ashley Gish

Most of them were frightened of the eunuch and said it was a horse. (They were right to be scared – Zhao later punished all those who had dared to call it a deer) The phrase pointing to a deer and calling it a horse has become a well-known proverb in the Chinese language. It describes a situation where right and wrong are deliberately mixed up.

One day, Eunuch Zhao presented a deer to the Second Emperor at court, all the time pointing to the animal and calling it a horse. The Emperor laughed in disbelief and asked the ministers

around him for their opinion.

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Eunuch Zhao was now so powerful that he wished to be the Emperor himself. Only one man stood between him and the throne -the Second Emperor. He decided to test the ministers to see how far they would follow him.

Prime Minister Li announced that the First Emperor was dead and Prince Hu was now Second Emperor. Not long afterwards, a power struggle began between Prime Minister Li and the wily eunuch. The Second Emperor sided with his former tutor, Zhao. He had Li executed, and appointed Zhao Gao to be the new prime minister.

To hide the odor, Prime Minister Li filled the coach with salted shellfish and spread the word that the Emperor had a sudden craving for preserved abalone! They continued touring until the messenger returned from the Great Wall and reported that Prince Fu was safely dead. Only then did they dare to hurry back to the capital.