My Tea Lesson

Tea is probably my most consumed beverage. Well, at least a very close second, then. That will change when I go home for vacation in summer and have an ample stock of Dr. Pepper and am without the convenient selection of Taiwan teas.




I prefer the traditional way of brewing - 老 人 茶 (Old Man Tea) or 功 夫 泡 (I'm translating this as Kung Fu Brew ). This involves a tea pot, decanter, drinking and smelling cups as well as tea tools. The common tea house (茶 藝 館 ) tea method in Taiwan is not as rigid as in Japan, but does have procedures to ensure that if you follow them, you can blame the tea and not yourself.


On Thursday, my Chinese class was moved from our regular bubble-tea house meeting place (bubble tea is flavored, shaken tea very popular in Taiwan) to a traditional tea house at my suggestion. In the past I would visit this style of tea house once every one or two weeks. It has a much more relaxing atmosphere, is very pleasant and amenable to studying or reading. Following are the steps to brewing a proper pot of Taiwan tea as taught to me by my Chinese teacher, David Huang. David chose Jin Hsuan Tea ( 金宣茶 - ㄐㄧㄣ ㄒㄩㄢ ㄔㄚˊ - jin1 xuan1 cha2 ), a tea that has a very subtle milk aroma. If the milk aroma is noticeable, additives have probably been used.

• Water temperature is important. Tea houses supply large water pots for your use. David, the tea house menu and others I have spoken to agree that 80 degrees Celsius and below is the correct brewing temperature.



• Fill the tea pot with the hot water and pour it into the other vessels. This is done for two reasons. One is to clean them of any dust and the other is to bring them closer to the temperature of the tea to be brewed. Pour back and forth among the vessels and then discard into the tea tray.



• Fill the tea pot 1/4 to 1/3 full with tea leaves and add water. Swirl around and discard. This, again, is to wash the leaves.



• Now we are ready for the first brew ( 第一泡). Add water and let steep. Steeping times vary according to who is talking. I've heard anywhere from 15-20 seconds to 1 minute. For the first brew, 1 minute sounds a little long for me. Brewing times will become longer each time water is added to the same leaves. We started with 20 seconds and it was fine.



• Pour tea from pot into serving pot. The serving pot has a fine strainer to catch any small particles.



• On the first brew with a new batch of leaves, be sure to take advantage of all that the tea has to offer. You will have two cups: one is shorter and rounder and the other is taller and narrower. The tall, narrow cup is the smelling cup (聞 香 杯 - wen2 xiang1 bei1 ).



• From the serving pot, fill the smelling cup with tea and cover with the shorter drinking cup.



• Let sit for a few seconds and then invert the cups onto the saucer with the drinking cup now on the bottom.



• Slowly remove the smelling cup and breathe in deeply the tea's aroma. It is common to roll the smelling cup between your hands to warm them on colder days.


• Drink, order tea snacks and enjoy. When the leaves have unfurled completely, dump them and put in new leaves. You can do this for hours, for a little really does go a long way.
  
  

Here is a link about Taiwan teas that offers insight into the different types of Oolong tea in Taiwan and how they are made.

Chinese for Taiwan politics

inaugurate / take office : 1.就職 jiu4 zhi2 ㄐㄧㄡˋ ㄓˊ 2. 就任 jiu4 ren4 ㄐㄧㄡˋ ㄖㄣˋ 3. 上任 shang 4 ren4 ㄖㄣˋㄕㄤˋ
inauguration: 就職典禮 jiu4 zhi2 dian3 li3 ㄐㄧㄡˋ ㄓˊ ㄉㄧㄢˇ ㄌㄧˇ
inauguration speech : 就 職 演 說 ... yan3 shuo1 ㄧㄢˇ ㄕㄨㄛ
swear in / take an oath (of office) : 宣誓 xuan1 shi4 ㄒㄩㄢ ㄕˋ
status quo: 現 狀 xian4 zhuang4 ㄒㄧㄢˋ ㄓㄨㄤˋ
3 links ( Direct mail, transportation and trading links to China. Currently these are indirect links. See next entry) : 三 通 san1 tong1 ㄙㄢ ㄊㄨㄥ
3 mini-links ( The "mini three links" refer to direct postal, transportation and trade links between the Chinese cities of Xiamen, Mawei and Quanzhou in Fujian Province and Taiwan's outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu) : 小三通 xiao3 san1 tong1 ㄒㄧㄠˇㄙㄢ ㄊㄨㄥ
1. 通商 (trade/business) tong1 shang 1 ㄊㄨㄥ ㄕㄤ
2. 通航 (transportation) tong1 hang 2 ㄊㄨㄥ ㄏㄤˊ
3. 通郵 (mail) tong1 you2 ㄊㄨㄥ ㄧㄡˊ
Three No/Noes policy: 三不政策 san1 bu4 zheng4 ce4 ㄙㄢ ㄅㄨˋ ㄓㄥˋ ㄘㄜˋ
1, 不獨 (No declaration of independence) bu4 du2 ㄅㄨˋ ㄉㄨˊ
2. 不統 (No unification) bu4 tong3 ㄅㄨˋ ㄊㄨㄥˇ
3. 不戰 / 武 (No war) bu4 zhan4 / wu3 ㄅㄨˋ ㄓㄢˋ or ㄨˇ
1992 Consensus : 九二共識 jiu3 er4 gong4 shi4 ㄐㄧㄡˇ ㄦˋ ㄍㄨㄥˋ ㄕˋ
so-called : 所 謂 的 suo2 wei4 de5 ㄙㄨㄛˇ ㄨㄟˋ ㄉㄜ˙
charter flights: 包機 bao1 ji1 ㄅㄠ ㄐㄧ
One China, Two Interpretations : 一 中 各 表 yi1 zhong1 ge4 biao3 一 ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄜˋ ㄅㄧㄠˇ

World Learner Chinese provides 15 minute audiocast Chinese lessons. The majority are basic level lessons - Buying a Bookcase, Do You Like Small Animals? , A Bit Swollen...

The Intermeditate lessons are a bit more, topical, I guess - A Mother's Postpartum Rest, Factories and Exhaust, Environmental Protection, Martial Artist and Have You "Been" Hit?

The dialogues are not as dry as the titles may suggest and a good deal better than most textbooks that I've seen. The dialogues for all levels are reletaviley short. Which I believe is good, as I will explain in a moment. There are three readings followed by a sentence-by-sentence parsing. Two instructors, one Taiwanese and one Western, explain tones, tone changes, vocabulary and it usage. In the intermediate lessons you get the added benefit of listening to the Taiwanese instructor explain these things in Chinese. So, actually, you are getting two short lessons in one. Memorization of dialogs can be helpful, but much more useful is listening to how native speakers describe and explain, much more valuable skills. What are you gonna do when you don't have the word that you want to use in your vocabulary? If you have the skills to do so, you explain it. If not, you ( like many students) say sorry and shut up.

I would recommend this site for learners up to the mid to mid-high intermediate level, if only to polish up some of your syntax and pronunciation. I mentioned that the dialogues were short. That's fine. We don't need to be overwhelmed. Language learning theory, according to Krashen, states that we need comprehensible input, i.e., input that is just a tad over our current level. Comprehension comes before production (speaking, writing) for every language learner , native languages included. Therefore the more input we process, the more that becomes available for output. Our passive skills, listening and reading, will always be greater than our productive skills so it is important to keep topping off the tank.

Bonus - Is Your Chinese Better Than an Australian Prime Minister's?

Here is Prime Minister Rudd speaking Mandarin in an interview. Even when the reporter uses English, he sticks to Mandarin. Click and scroll down to view. You could YouTube P.M. Rudd, but go to this site and look around.

Chinese New Year Gift

Now available at local 7-11s: Lucky Great Underwear. They have two styles, boxers and panties. The large character on the box, 鴻, could also be translated as wild goose or swan. But 鴻 is a homophone for 紅, meaning red, which is an auspicious color over here in these parts. I've seen the 鴻 character also translated as grand or vast. So guys, buy a pair and translate as needed to your girlfriend.

Free Beer! Is he in prison or something?

Congratulations to Taiwan's women's softball team. They swept New Zealand in a best-of-three to win the Asia/Oceania qualifier for the 2008 Beiping Olympics. They went through the tourney with a perfect 10-0 record. Because the IOC seems to prefer RMB to NT dollars, athletes representing Taiwan must accept the "Chinese Taipei" moniker or be forced to sit out events. So if they can't change the name, how about the font size?

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I feel that I did not do Yahoo's bilingual dictionary the service it deserves. It does have romanization, sound and Chinese phonetics. It has words that send you scurrying for your Webster's and even those who don't read Chinese characters can benefit. For example, let us say you want to explain how the venerable China Post will not conjure up news with a political slant, but don't know the Chinese for slant. Simple. First, type in the word and find an example that is appropriate.

Using example 2 from below, cut and paste the character(s) in to the search box. For our purposes, the third grouping is the one we want. Enter and you will get the results on the bottom.

New Links and Thanks

The switch to the new blogger was done with much less pain than anticipated, mainly because of Sherry at Beta Blogger Resources (also in sidebar). Usually, when people say to contact them for help you throw out an email and wait for an electronic reply of no help. Well, she contacted me withing half an hour and answered my questions. Oh, if any contributors cannot make the switch, let me know and I will re-invite you.

The other new link is Yahoo's Dictionary. It does not have romanization like Zhongwen, only Chinese characters. However, it is much, much more extensive. I was able to find oblivious, plasmapheresis and Brangelina with synonyms, usage and examples listed (if applicable).

For the Commander's thirst for music -First take a listen to Texas Rebel Radio online and pick your favorites. You could also check out Jason Boland and The Stragglers, Cooder Graw and Cory Morrow.