On me being AWESOME! and the Chinese being cocky

So peeps been asking me what on earth "Joe in Zhongguo" means. Since the vast majority of you have ZERO Mandarin experience, this is a perfection acceptable question, and I apologize for titling this blog such an arcane name. In order to clear up some of the confusion, I offer the lot of you the following explanation:

Let's start with the "Joe" part first. "Joe" comes from the English name "Joseph", which in turn is derived from the Hebrew name "Yosef". "Yosef" has origins in the Bible, and it means "the Lord will increase/add". Basically, this means "God's going to make this dude AWESOME", a definition I really fancy because I, myself, am AWESOME! I appreciate the good name choosing Mom and Dad. You two are the bestest.

Anyways, I put the name "Joe" in the title of the blog because, well, I'm Joe and this blog is about me and I'm AWESOME! Nuff said, right?

Now, let's look at the "Zhongguo" part. "Zhongguo" is the name for China in Mandarin and is written like this - 中国. "Zhongguo" can be split into two parts. The first part is "zhong", written 中. The "zh" is pronounced something similar to an English "j" sound, and the "o" is pronounced something similar to the vowel sound "oh" as in "oh no!". Together, these make the "zho" part sound real similar to my name, "Joe". If you stick a little "ng" sound to the end of "Joe", you get "Joe-ng", which is a good approximation to the pronunciation of "Zhong".

"Zhong" means "middle" or "central" in Chinese. If you look at its character, 中, you will notice that it is written as a rectangle with a line through it, suggesting the concept of "middle".

The second part of "Zhongguo" is "guo", written 国. "Guo" is pronounced just like you would guess, as "gwo". This word is Mandarin for "kingdom" or "nation". Thus, "Zhongguo" literally means "Middle Kingdom", aka, China.

Before you get all like "Wow! Them Chinese a cocky bunch, thinking they the center of the universe!", please keep in mind that back in the day we English speakers did the same thing. You know how Tolkien called his world "Middle Earth" in Lord of the Rings? That's because back in Old English, we called our settled land "Middellaerd" which means… yeah you guessed it… Middle Earth, which = England. Basically, those Chinese guys weren't the only cocky people. They did however continue to call their nation "Middle Kingdom" like 1,000 years longer than English speakers, so I guess they are a bit cockier than we are. It kinda makes sense though. I mean, they did invent paper and fireworks and all that like 10,000 years ago or something...

Anyways, now we all know why I titled this blog "Joe in Zhongguo". It's because I'm AWESOME! and I'm going to China. Sweet.

5,164 Steps of Marathon

First of all, I spend way too much time at work. My inside jokes, they are all with coworkers. My problems, I discuss them with coworkers. My texts, they usually are sent to coworkers. As I've already said, I spend way too much time at work.

The reason this matters is because there’s this one guy I work with who’s real awesome. We’re going to call him BriBri. Well BriBri has a girlfriend who is absolutely obsessed with Disney World. When I say obsessed, I mean OBSESSED. Girl sees a rat trying to eat her cheese, and she starts dreaming about Mickey Mouse. Yes. Obsessed. Anyways, one day, she woke up and decided to do this.

Before you start thinking about how bizarre it is that there are hundreds of women out there who wanna put on Cinderella tiaras and Mickey Mouse ears, then run more than 26 miles, just think about how cool it is that she just woke up one day, having never ran before in her life, and decided to run a marathon 2 months later. Yes. You heard me - 2 months later. She went from 1 mile of running to 26 miles of running in TWO MONTHS!!! Dear BriBri Girl, you psycho and crazy and Disney-obsessed, but you got some balls. Respect.

Anyways, I was talking to another coworker. We're going to call her HollyT (Btw, HollyT digs her some food. She's got a blog about foods here). HollyT and I are going to accompany one another to Singapore/Beijing this summer, and we were talking about BriBri Girl and her epic marathon-ness. Then we were thinking, wouldn't it be cool to run a marathon... in China... on the GREAT WALL!!! Just imagine, 18 miles in, you're so tired your body's failing, then you look down in front of you and there are 200 stairs you have to climb down. You don't want to finish it. But you have to... cause there's no way off the wall!!! So you start climbing down those stairs and all of a sudden BOOM! your legs fail, and you fall down 200 stairs. You're all cut up and completely exhausted... but you have to keep going... cause there's no way off the wall!!! So you keep going... and going... and going... and it sucks. But you know what? You're absolutely forced to run those 26+ miles... cause there's no way off the wall!!!

Doesn't this sound like just the best idea EVER??? Yeah, I know. Best idea ever. Plus, you get to run those 26+ miles over 5,125 steps while looking at this:

Ooooh... pretty... so awesome... so almost worth it...

Right... Well it turns out that there IS a Great Wall of China Marathon and you can find it all right here.

Yes. There are people out there stupid and crazy enough to run a marathon on the Great Wall of China. And you know what? Me and HollyT were actually considering joining that elite class of stupid, crazy people... and then we realized... damn... this is a marathon... over 5,164 steps of wall... in the mountains... in smoggy China... Well screw that.

Resultative Complements PART I

So I came across a sentence the other day that I found crazy cool. For all of you interested in Chinese, this might be an intriguing but long post (read: book). However, for the rest of y'all, your chances of being intrigued are slim, so just stop reading now. Anyways, this is the sentence I came across:

这本书， 我看了， 可是还没看完了。
Zhei ben shu, wo kan le, keshi hai mei kanwan le.
*I have read that book, but I still haven't finished it.

And I swear to God it's interesting, but to discuss why it's so interesting, I'm first going to have to cover several other concepts rather in-depth-ly. So, without further ado, I present to you:

Concept 1 – Activity Verbs

Activity verbs are action verbs with duration that do not run to completion. The following are all activity verbs.

Chinese Activity Verbs

看 kan to read
写 xie to write
说 shuo to talk
听 ting to listen
买 mai to shop
睡 shui to sleep
念 nian to study

Activity verbs can be identified with series of tests. These tests differ between languages, but below I have outlined 3 tests for Chinese activity verbs. If a particular verb satisfies all three, it is likely an activity verb.

Tests for Activity Verbs in Chinese

I. Activity verbs can be modified by the perfective affix, 了.
我看了那本书。
Wo kan le nei ben shu.
I read that book.

II. Activity verbs can be modified by the imperfective prefix, 在.
我在买书。
Wo zai mai shu.
I am shopping for books.

III. Activity verbs can take durative complements.
我看书看了一个钟头。
Wo kan shu kan le yi ge zhongtou.
I read for an hour.

These three tests highlight three traits that define activity verbs. These traits are as follows:

Traits of Activity Verbs

I. Activity verbs are dynamic. That is, they express actions instead of states.

II. Activity verbs are durative. That is, they occur over a period of time instead of occurring instantaneously.

III. Activity verbs are atelic. That is, they convey an action that does not have a defined result.

Concept 2 – Telicity

What makes activity verbs interesting in relation to resultative complements is that they “refer to open-ended actions without a specified result or conclusion.” To understand this better, let’s imagine that verbs give a snapshot at an event, where an event consists of two parts – a process and a result.

Let’s consider the event, “finding a book”. As an event, there are two parts to “finding a book”. The first part, the process, is “searching for the book”. The second part, the result, is “locating the book successfully”.

An action may consist of only a part of an event or an event in its entirety. The verb “to look for” only expresses the process. That is to say, “to look for” consists of only the process “searching”. However, the verb “to find” expresses both the process and the result. That is to say, “to find” consists of both the process, “searching”, and the result, “locating”.

We can better understand this with examples:

1.) John looked for the book.

2.) John found the book.

In (1), John only searches for the book. However, in (2), John both searches for the book and locates it. In this manner, the action in (1) never comes to a conclusion, but the action in (2) does have a conclusion.

The concept of the presence or absence of a conclusion or result in an action is called telicity. Telic verbs have results, but atelic verbs do not have results.

In English, there are a number of telic/atelic verb pairs, in which both verbs convey the same event, but one includes the result, and the other does not. Some examples:

Telic/Atelic verb pairs in English

to see – to look at
to hear – to listen to
to find – to look for
to shoot – to shoot at

However, in Chinese, these telic/atelic verb pairs do not exist. Instead of using verb pairs, we use a grammatical construction, the resultative complement, to modify telicity.

Concept 3 – Resultative Complements

According to Trait III above, all activity verbs are atelic and therefore have no result. In order to indicate the result of an activity verb, a resultative complement is suffixed to the activity verb. The new suffixed verb is no longer an activity verb since it is now telic. Instead, it is now known as an achievement verb. Achievement verbs have the following traits:

Traits of Achievement Verbs

I. Activity verbs are dynamic. That is, they express actions instead of states.

II. Activity verbs are durative. That is, they occur over a period of time instead of occurring instantaneously.

III. Activity verbs are telic. That is, they convey an action which has a defined result.

As you can see, achievement verbs and activity verbs are identical except in telicity. Although this doesn’t seem to be too great of a change, it has a profound effect on the grammatical structures verbs can take. I’m not going to get into that now though. Instead, here are examples of achievement verbs formed from activity verbs plus resultative complements:

Chinese Achievement Verbs

看完 kanwan to finish reading (read to completion)
写错 xiecuo to write incorrectly
听懂 tingdong to understand (listen to until comprehension)
买到 maidao to buy (to shop until possession)
找到 zhaodao to find (to look for until possession)

The important thing to note about resultative complements in Chinese is that they convey two things:

Concepts conveyed by Resultative Complements

1.) completion of an event

2.) result of that event

Without a resultative complement, activity verbs convey neither completion nor result and are strictly open-ended actions. Please keep that in mind as we take a look at a few example sentences comparing activity verbs with and without resultative complements:

1.) 那些书，我都看了。
Nei xie shu, wo dou kan le.
I read all of those books.

2.) 那些书，我都看完了。
Nei xie shu, wo dou kanwan le.
I finished reading all of those books.

3.) 那些书，我都看懂了。
Nei xie shu, wo dou kandong le.
I understood all of those books.

First, let's look at (1). In (1), we have an activity verb, 看, but no resultative complement. As such, the event “reading a book” is began, but never completed. Therefore, this sentence translates into something like “I read all of those books (but never finished them)”. Keep in mind that the lack of resultative complement means that the books were never finished being read.

Now, let's look at (2). In (2), we have an activity verb, 看, as well as a resultative complement, 完. By having a resultative complement, it is conveyed that the event of the verb is completed. In addition, the resultative complement, 完, specifically conveys that the event’s result is completion. That is to say, the books were read until the very last page.

Finally, let's look at (3). In (3), we yet again have the activity verb, 看, as well as a resultative complement. This time, the resultative complement is 懂. Again, by having a resultative complement, it is conveyed that the event of the verb is completed. However, the resultative complement this time conveys that the result of the event is comprehension. That is to say, the books were read, completed, and understood.

I hope this explains well the function of the resultative complement in Chinese. I'll probably write a few more sentences later, but for now, I'm happy with what I've already put. Anyways, I think this brings us to a good stopping point. Tomorrow, I'm going to continue on about Verbal-了, so that I can maybe finally discuss that sentence way up there at the top of this post. So... until then.

Singapore Orientation

On Tuesday, I went to an orientation meeting introducing information we need to know before leaving for Singapore. We got to meet some of the students we’d be travelling with and the professors that’d be teaching us. They also gave us a little presentation. This presentation was pretty cool, so I thought I’d show you some of the more interesting facts and pictures in it.

Prohibited stuff at the Singapore customs:
Intoxicating liquors, Tobacco product, Motor oil, Chewing gum, Chewing tobacco and imitation tobacco products, Cigarette lighters, Firecrackers, Reproduction of copyright publications, video tapes, video discs, laser discs, records or cassette.

Shit laws in Singapore:
Laws against jaywalking, littering, and spitting
Laws pertaining to the propriety of behavior between people and the modesty of individuals
Strict laws against the possession/use of drugs (I hear that 1 kg = hanging)
Strict penalties for those who possess or carry arms
There are no jury trials in Singapore, judges hear cases and decide sentencing

Map of Singapore:
I’d be staying in the south, right about where the second “o” is in the “Colonial District” label. Also, Singapore and Atlanta are evidently about the same size. Kinda cool.

Map of NUS:
This a map of NUS, the school in Singapore I'm at. The dorms I'll live in are the purple ones in the bottom right. Supposedly, there are only a few dorms with A/C on campus, and they give all of these to those damn Americans. Silly us. Having been to Hawaii in the summer in my grandparents non-A/C-ed house, I'm glad we Americans get special treatment. :)

Dorm Room:
It's pretty, right? There's one student per room. We also get our own bathroom. Sweet. So much better than gatech. Our school needs to invest in some awesome-ness liddat.

These are some rules governing the student residence:
No smoking or drinking in residences
Quiet hours: 11pm-7am
No physical games/sports activities in non-sport locations
Guests are responsible for the conduct of their visitors, who must also comply with all rules
All guests must leave the residences by 11 pm and are strictly prohibited from spending the night (aww... :( ... no dates)
A fee of $20 will be charged for each lost/damaged key
NO animals, halogen lamps, heating/food preparation appliances, refrigerators, and air conditioners
Appliances not provided are private property of residents and are NOT to be used without its owner’s permission

From an American perspective, these rules are limiting and suck, but whatevs... New place, new stuff.

One finals thing - food!!!:
I guess food in Singapore is awesome. As a melting pot, they gots everything Asian, everything Western, and everything Near Eastern. I'm so excited. I love food. Anyway, I thought this picture was cool because of the "FOR NON-MUSLIM UTENSILS ONLY" sign. I didn't realize Singapore had a huge muslim population, but I guess it does. I think it will be cool to be in an environment that recognizes religious diversity.

Hello World!

Hi everybody. As you probably already know (cause you’re all friends and family), I’m Joe Miller, and on May 24^th, 2010 (or theres-abouts), I am leaving Atlanta to begin an 8 month odyssey to Singapore and Beijing. This is going to be my blog for all y’all to keep up with me with. Now, I’m not sure what exactly this little project is going to become, but I imagine three types of posts: 1) adventure stories 2) cultural thoughts and 3) linguistic analyses. Since I’m going to China for almost entirely linguistic motives, I imagine that latter taking up most this blog. I’d like to apologize for this in advance, but I seriously think about linguistics about 50% of the day, so it’s unavoidable.

Anyways, during the summer semester, I’m planning on partaking in gatech’s Beijing-Singapore Program. This is a gatech sponsored event, ran by real gatech professors, taking real gatech isye courses in Singapore and Beijing. I’d be spending 5 weeks in Singapore and 5 weeks in Beijing. This is a link to the programs website for more info: http://www.beijing-singapore.gatech.edu/.

The second program I’m planning on doing is a Tsinghua Exchange Program. This is at a school called Tsinghua (pronounced Ching-hwa) in Beijing. Coincidentally, this is the same university that the Beijing-Singapore program ends at. So basically, I’m just going to chill at the same school for a few (read: six) more months. Tsinghua is a real, real good technical school that is highly respected worldwide. You can find more info about this here: http://www.oie.gatech.edu/sa/programs/details/tsing.php.

Yup... that’s all I have to say… I’m just real excited and can’t wait to go. At this point, that I go to China is dependent only on administrative and financial stuffs, so hopefully it will all happen.