Adeline Yen Mah's Blog, page 10

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Hang Zhou Bay's Grand Bridge

杭  州  湾  大  桥

Hang 杭  Zhou 州  Wan 湾 Da 大 Qiao桥  is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world.  It is 22 miles long and cost 11.8 billion yuan (1.7 billion US dollars) to build.

Hang Zhou Bay =  杭 州  湾   is an inlet of the East China Sea, bordered by the province of Zhejiang 浙 江   and the municipality of Shanghai 上 海

It lies south of Shanghai 上 海 , and ends at the city of Hangzhou 杭 州 Hangzhou Bay  杭 州 湾  contains many small islands.

Opened in May 2008, the bridge has a six-lane motorway and a 10,000 square meter service center in its middle.

The bridge shortened the highway travel distance between Ningbo 宁 波  and Shanghai上 海   by 75 miles and reduced travel time by car from 4 to 2.5 hours.

杭 州 湾  大桥

Hang 杭 Zhou 州 Wan 湾 Da 大Qiao 桥

Hangzhou              Bay         Big         Bridge

杭 is pronounced Hang  in the second tone /

The left half of 杭 is the radical 木 (There are approximately 200 radicals.  To look up a word (such as 杭) in the Chinese dictionary, you identify the radical in the word (which in this case is 木), and count the number of strokes in 木 (four). In the dictionary, the radicals are categorized in a radical-chart by their number of strokes.  The 4-stroke radical section with radicals such as木are preceded by the 1-stroke radical section with radicals such as 一,   2-stroke radical section with radicals such as 十, and 3-stroke radical section with radicals such as 大.  Go to the radical chart and identify the 4-stroke 木 section.   All the characters with the radical 木 are listed in the 木 section according to the number of strokes in the right half of that word.  In the case of 杭 the number of strokes in its right half is again four.)   

州 is pronounced Zhou (zh is pronounced like the letter J and zhou sounds like Joe)  in the first tone –.  The character 州 means administrative region.

Chinese cities usually consist of two characters.

 Hangzhou 杭 州  is the provincial capital of Zhejiang province. Situated 112 miles south-west of Shanghai 上 海 , it has a population of 6.5 million.

Founded over two thousand years ago, 杭 州 is renowned for its culture and beauty.  The city wall was built in 591 AD during the Sui 随  Dynasty (please consult my book titled China: Land of Dragons and Emperors which you can download for free).  The Second Sui 随 Emperor also built the Grand Canal which stretches from Beijing 北 京  (northern capital)  in the North for 1103 miles and ends in 杭州 in the South.  The Grand Canal is the longest artificial river in the world.

杭 州 was the Capitol City of China during the Southern Song 宋 Dynasty.   Marco Polo described it as one of the grandest cities in the world.

The character WAN 湾   means BAY and is pronounced in the first tone.  Note the three dots radical on the left half of 湾 denoting that the word has something to do with water.  Hangzhou Wan 杭 州  湾 means Hangzhou Bay.

The character DA 大   means BIG, GRAND, GREAT, LARGE, STRONG and is pronounced in the fourth tone. 

The character QIAO 桥   means BRIDGE and is pronounced in the second tone.  The letter Q is pronounced CH in Chinese.  Hence QIAO is pronounced CHIAO.  Note the 木 radical occupying the left half of 桥.

Thus the five characters Hang 杭 Zhou 州 Wan 湾 Da大 Qiao 桥    are translated as Grand Bridge of Hangzhou Bay.

  My husband Bob and I traveled to Shanghai last year to visit the area where I grew up, and while we were there we met Jane Chang and Jonathan Chan. The husband and wife team were in the process of developing a four star luxury hotel: the Holiday Inn Shanghai West located at 2000 Hu Qing Ping Road.  Telephone 86-21-3973-8888.

When we showed Jane and Jonathan photographs of Bob's large abstract painting "Algal Rhythms," they commissioned him to create a similar work for their hotel lobby.

Bob worked tirelessly for a long time to complete the painting.  The result was "Curvilinear Algal Rhythms," a spectacular 6ft by 10ft canvas (the largest Bob has ever painted) dotted with graceful forms and flowing lines. The owners of the hotel loved the painting so much that they purchased five other paintings of Bob's from Marion Meyer Fine Art Gallery in Laguna Beach, where Bob's paintings are currently represented.

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated the unveiling of Bob's painting with a party at our home in Laguna Beach. This video footage was taken at that event, and we hope you can sense the festive excitement and that wonderful feeling of kindred spirits coming together to toast my husband's talent. He has certainly been a constant source of inspiration to me during the 39 years of our marriage.

I hope that you will be enjoying the company of loved ones during the coming Chinese New Year on February 3rd, 2011, Year of the Rabbit.

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

 When I was a little school girl in Shanghai, it was the ambition of all my classmates to learn English.  Now that I am old and living in California, everyone is asking me the best way to learn Chinese.

How the world has changed! Is Chinese difficult?  Yes and No. The good news is that Chinese has practically no grammar: no singular or plural, no masculine and feminine nouns, no past, present and future tenses. The bad news is that every Chinese character is a picture that needs to be memorized.  But there are shortcuts available.

I wish to thank every reader who visits my website.  It's great to hear from  you.  In return, I would like to give you a present. 

 All of us recognize that China will probably become the world's largest economy in twenty years'  time.  Knowing Chinese will not only give you understanding of China's history and culture, it will also create endless opportunities for a brilliant future.

 Please click on ChineseCharacterADay and sign up for free Chinese lessons.  That is my gift to you.

 ADELINE

Two staged readings of  Adeline's "Falling Leaves" will be held in New York at the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre on Friday November 12, 2010, at 7pm, and on Saturday November 13, 2010, at 3pm.  This event will take place in the Bruce Mitchell Room, Art/NY Spaces  520 8th Ave, between 36th and 37th, 3rd Floor.  For more information please see flyer below.

Falling Leaves Flyer

September 25, 2010

10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

http://cityofmissionviejo.org/CityInfo.aspx?id=10585

Dear Readers,

For those of you who visit my website and write to me, would you like me to teach you  the Chinese language?

I went to Borders the other day and looked at a Chinese dictionary as well as an electronic tool for learning Chinese.  To my amazement, the price came to US$600.25!  $12.95 for the dictionary, and $539.00 for the electronic CD.  Together with State and local tax, this amounted to $600.25!

My heart went out to the students who wish to learn Chinese.  How can anyone afford this sort of charges?

Then and there, I decided to launch my own program to teach Chinese to every woman, man or child who wishes to learn the language.  AT NO COST WHATSOEVER!  Let this be my gift to you.

If you are interested, all you need to do is to send me a message on my website www.adelineyenmah.com that you want me to teach you Chinese and I will send you a personal email at regular intervals.  These emails will give you  Chinese lessons via the computer using pinyin.  Tell your friends and family or anyone who wish to learn Chinese to send me a message on my website Contact and I will include them.

Teachers can share their newly acquired knowledge of Chinese with their students in a classroom or encourage the students to subscribe to my website themselves.  Once a person has subscribed, I will send him/her regular emails.

For those who do not wish to receive any further email lessons from me, there will be an unsubscribe button embedded in my emails.  All one needs to do is to click on it and no more emails will be sent from then on.

I wish you joy in learning Chinese.

http://chinesecharacteraday.com/

Dear Readers,

For those of you who visit my website and write to me, would you like me to teach you  the Chinese language?

I went to Borders the other day and looked at a Chinese dictionary as well as an electronic tool for learning Chinese.  To my amazement, the price came to US$600.25!  $12.95 for the dictionary, and $539.00 for the electronic CD.  Together with State and local tax, this amounted to $600.25!

My heart went out to the students who wish to learn Chinese.  How can anyone afford...

Dear Reader,

I'd like to introduce you to a fresh, new fiction voice, a young author whose first novel I was thrilled to discover. But full disclosure: it's my daughter, Ann Mah.

Ann's book, Kitchen Chinese, is a funny and poignant story about a young Chinese-American woman who travels to Beijing and discovers China, and herself, through the cuisine. Ann explores family relationships with perception and honesty (she assures me, however, that all the characters are purely fictional!). This is a ...

Dear Reader,

I'd like to introduce you to a fresh, new fiction voice, a young author whose first novel I was thrilled to discover. But full disclosure: it's my daughter, Ann Mah.

Ann's book, Kitchen Chinese, is a funny and poignant story about a young Chinese-American woman who travels to Beijing and discovers China, and herself, through the cuisine. Ann explores family relationships with perception and honesty (she assures me, however, that all the characters are purely fictional!). This is a story about identity, about losing and finding yourself in another culture, a tale that would have touched me even if I weren't Ann's mom.

I hope you enjoy discovering Kitchen Chinese – I am confident you will fall in love with this funny, heartfelt novel and I hope you will join me in spreading the word about it.

There is a joke in Chinese that says behind every successful man there is a strong wife – who is just like his mother. Well, behind Kitchen Chinese, there is simply a strong mother! I apologize for being a stereotypical pushy Asian mom… but if you read Kitchen Chinese, you'll thank me – I promise.

Sincerely,

Adeline Yen Mah

Order a copy of Kitchen Chinese now.

Pictures of Ann's booksigning:

[Show as slideshow]

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m the South Coast Repertory and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County presented a play on "Falling Leaves".  This play was sold out and hugely successful.   This success was not better summarized than this letter written to Adeline:

"Adeline, congratulations on the great success of your new play, Falling Leaves.  It was truly a wonderful evening for all attending.  I certainly had tears in my eyes while watching.

Even though I have read your book and heard...