Standard Mandarin

behavior of a mother-tongue Mandarin speaker who is having graduate study in Hong Kong. 　　 　　Hong Kong is a typical metropolis immersed in multilingualism, since there are considerably diverse ethnic groups in this area (2011 Census Office, 2012). According to the report of 2011 Census Office (2012), the number of mother-tongue Standard Mandarin (hereafter, Mandarin) speakers in Hong Kong has displayed an increase in the

place they feel we should go. I was surprised with the assignment to serve in Taiwan, speaking Mandarin Chinese. I had no previous experience with Chinese people or their language, so I felt fortunate that the church provides 2 months of intensive language training before the missionary even gets on the plane. During my 2 months in the language-training center, I found out just how different Mandarin Chinese is from my native language. The time went by quickly, and

culture. I was able to experience a conflict between an American and a Chinese person first hand; the conflict was on the individual level, as it occurred between one of my American classmates, and our Chinese teacher. It was the first day of my Mandarin class, everyone sat in the seats they chose and talked amongst themselves. My teacher, who had been in the back of the room at his desk, then moved to the front of the room. He introduced himself, and then told us about a tradition in China. Whenever

Let’s rewind back in time to 1996, Peter Hessler’s River Town is a graphic account of his experiences as a waiguoren (foreigner) in an ancient country. His crisp, content-rich and attention to detail style of writing keeps the reader mesmerized. Peter Hessler, a.k.a Ho Wei, volunteers as a Peace Corps officer who spends 2 years of his life in a city called Fuling, a Yangtze River town in China. The Peace Corps have assigned him to teach English and Literature in class to students who have never seen

of dialect which each have their own variations. Mandarin dialect is spoken by about 71.5 percent of the population, then the Wu which is 8.5 percent, the Yue which is also known as the Cantonese and is spoken by about 5 percent. Then is the Xiang and the amount of people who speak it is 4.8 percent, Min is 4.1 percent, and Hakka is 3.7 percent, and lastly, is Gan and only 2.4 percent speak it. Standard Chinese which as I mentioned above is Mandarin, is based on the Beijing dialect and as from the

It is generally claimed in today’s world that bilingual education is becoming one of the most significant issues in the sphere of global education. In comparison with the status of bilingual education (BE) in China, a great deal more is known about its development in countries of Europe and North America (Feng 2007, vii). However, BE in China has a lot of varieties determined with the educational context of students and the diversity of languages spoken in regions. But what is bilingual education

1.0 Introduction Nowadays, cultures can be considered as a very important part in our living life because every country or every people must have their own culture and it can be act as a sign for people. According to both Namenwirth and Weber (1987), national culture could be defined as a set of norms, beliefs, customs and behaviors which will always exist within the population of sovereign nation. Nevertheless, Hosftede (1983) also stated that cultural dimensions are only a framework that creates

picked up one of the strips of paper and read it aloud, first in English… Then she translated in Chinese.” The problem that Lindo Jong faces isn’t just in English; she also faces this problem with her future husband as he spoke Cantonese and she spoke Mandarin Chinese: “So we were shy at first, your father and I, neither of us able to speak to each other in our Chinese dialects.” Ultimately, the language barrier helps her get engaged to her future husband: “I don’t know this word ‘spouse.’ Tonight I will

Chinese nationalist party. It was also during the White Terror period that Mandarin Chinese language was established as the official language of Taiwan, and the other native language mainly Taiwanese was considered as taboo and forbidden. The language differences are especially obvious between Northern and Southern of Taiwan, while my mother's’ side of the family resident in the South, as I grow up in the North, I speak mainly Mandarin Chinese, and I can understand but not quite fluent in Taiwanese. My

Gender discrimination, such as sexism, are evident in, “The Jade Peony”. In Chinese cultures, pregnancy is an important but superstitious process in which mothers are fed herbal foods and drinks by their mother-in-laws to aid the pregnancy. Old timers tales describe things which the mother should avoid in order to not have something bad happen to the baby. For instance, rubbing the belly will make the child spoilt. In the beginning of The Jade Peony, Jook-Liang describes touching Stepmother 's "protruding