The Legend of Nian

This year Monday, January 23rd will mark the Lunar New Year, commonly referred to as Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is a time steeped in tradition and custom. Like superheroes, these traditions often have at least one origin story associated with them--Chinese New Year has several. One that I'm particularly fond of is the legend of the mythical creature 年 (Nian).

Legend says that with winter coming to an end and spring fast approaching, the mythical beast Nian would come from hiding to feast on people and anything else it could eat. However, Nian had a fear of three things: the color red, blazing fires, and loud noises. One winter, after discovering the beast's three weaknesses, the people of a small village decided to prepare for the beasts arrival, placing planks of red peach wood on either side of their doors, and lighting large fires before their doors. No one dared sleep that evening, so instead they stayed awake beating pots and pans, making as much noise as they could muster.

That evening the beast fled from the village, never to return again. The next day, everyone gathered together to celebrate their success, wishing each other safety and happiness for the year to come. That day became known as Guo Nian, or the day that they survived the attack of Nian. From that day forward, every year when winter was coming to an end and spring was fast approaching they would cover their doors in red, light fires and spend the night making a racket in case Nian decided to return.

Today, people have long forgotten the legend of Nian, but the customs still remain. Guo Nian (过年: guònián）now means to pass (or observe) the New Year. The planks of red peach wood are now the 春聯 (chūnlián: spring festival couplets) that can be found pasted on doorways. The fire and loud noises are the 鞭炮 （biānpào), the string of small firecrackers that people light on New Year's Eve. Still today, on the first day of the new year, everyone gathers together on the streets to celebrate and wish everyone a peaceful and happy year.

The modern version of 春聯 that are hung up outside of doors for the New Year.

Everyone at Skritter hopes you all have a wonderful Lunar New Year. If you've heard other Lunar New Year legends, or want to share some of the other traditions associated with the New Year, be sure to share them in the comments below.

新年快乐！
The Skritter Team


* The above legend was translated (loosely) from the following text, with parts added from Jade Dragon.

过年的习俗，有很多不同的传说，有一种说法是：

有个怪兽叫做 “年”，冬天快结束， 要到春天的时候，常会出来吃人，找食物，但它怕三样东西，一是红色，二是火光，三是很吵的声音。所以大家在冬天的时候，在门的两边挂上红色的桃木板，门口放一堆火，夜里不睡觉，敲敲打打的弄出很吵的声音，结果把 “年” 这只怪兽吓跑，再也不敢出来，过了这一夜，大家互相庆祝，说说吉祥话，恭喜大家平安快乐。

后来，门两边挂上红色桃木板的习俗，就变成了在门的两边贴上红色的“春联”。火光和大的声音，就变成了放鞭炮。一到了新年的早上，到处都会看见红色的喜气，大家见了面都会互相恭喜，祝贺大家都平安，可以快乐过新年。
（Text adapted to simplified Chinese from tcsl.ntnu.edu.tw/writing)

How to write a New Year's Card

With the Lunar New Year fast approaching, it is a time for many to return home and spend their holiday with family. But sometimes connecting with distant (as in location) relatives isn't an option. In times like that, the 新年賀卡 (xīn nián hè kǎ), or New Year's Card is a perfect way to send one's well wishes. For students of Chinese, this is the perfect time to put some of our hard-earned studying time to good use, and to get some serious culture points in the process.

A traditional 新年賀卡

The traditional New Year greeting card (see above) is typically just a single piece of paper with four major components.

1. 收件者 (shōu jiàn zhě: the receiver). The receivers name should be placed in the top right corner of the card, followed by their 尊稱 (zūn chēng) or honorific title (if they have one).
2. 吉祥話 or 祝福話 (jí xiáng huà: auspicious words / zhù fú huà: well wishes). Place in the center of the card, as this is the meat of the greeting card. The words should appear larger than the rest. Auspicious words should be selected according to the status of the recipient.
3. 寄件者 (jì jiàn zhě: the sender). Placed on the left hand side of the card this portion is divided into three sections. The first is 自稱 (zì chēng: your self-professed title) ex. 學生(xué shēng: student). It should be slightly smaller than your 署名 (shŭ míng: signature), which follows on the next line over. Proceeding your signature is the 啟事敬辭 (qǐ shì jìng cí), a way of further showing your respect to the sender. A typical example of this is 敬上(jìng shàng), the Chinese form of "respectfully".
4. 日期 (rì qí: the date). Much like personal and professional letters it is always important to wrap things up with the date. This appears furthest to the left on a traditional greeting letter.

Even if you are using the more common western-style greeting card found today, the components remain the same--just be sure to switch all the components to fit western standards.

A more western style of 新年賀卡, where the writing goes on the inside!

The big question still remains. What should you put in the middle? While the ubiquitous 新年快樂 (xīn nián kuài lè), or Happy New Year, is the obvious choice, there are many other options. One that is certain to be popular for 龍年 （lóng nián: the year of the dragon) is: 龍年行大運 (lóng nián xíng dà yùn), which will bring good luck to all your actions during the year of the dragon.

For a great list of some standard well wishes, and some great four character couplets, check out Card City, and some of their more standard greetings (found in the box marked: 參考賀詞: cān kǎo hè cí). The site is all in traditional Chinese, but pretty easy to navigate. You can even send an e-card to your friends and family if you choose.

Care to share a few of your favorite New Year greetings? Put them in the comments below.

Big Noise from the Little Island

January 14, 2012 might not seem like an important day in the west, but here in the "rogue province" we know as Taiwan it will mark the 13th-term presidential election. I'll let The Wall Street Journal and other news media outlets report on what this could mean for China/Taiwan relations, as Ma Ying-jeou and Tsai Ing-wen battle it out for what is expected to be quite the photo finish. Instead, I thought I would try and capture a bit of what it means for me here in Taiwan, and how the political atmosphere feels compared to the US.

I swear there is a scooter in the picture somewhere.

Firstly, the upcoming elections has meant loads of spam in my mailbox (the old fashion kind, that is). I'm sure candidates want to make sure that their message gets out to everyone. However, based on the fact that just about every piece of political spam in my apartment building now graces the floor of our first floor entryway, I would say that the general population (or at least everyone in my building) has already made up their mind on how they are going to cast their vote this Saturday. I guess it is better than having people go door to door, but that would at least give me a chance to practice some politically focused Mandarin!

While we don't get the door to door visits, I'm actually quite surprised at how willing people are to share their political views here. While I grew up being taught that politics were never a polite topic during meals, I've certainly had my fair share of politically conversations at my local breakfast shop. Not that I really have an opinion one way or another, but when I'm reading the newspaper I can't help but ask a few questions about what is being said by the candidates, and how the talking heads (yeah they have those here too) are spinning the facts. But things are all smiles when it comes to talking politics. The owner of the breakfast shop informed me that he and his brother don't speak because of political difference. Needless to say I didn't probe any further on that topic.

On the streets, you would have to be a fool to not know that something big was going on. Taipei, a city usually filled with more scooters than I ever thought possible, is now filled with the political equivalent of Hell's Angels--scooter gangs than have transferred their rides into rolling billboards for the candidate they support. Unlike the Angels, they've traded loud pipes for small speakers systems that blast the candidates' maxims for all to hear (and in three languages too). Since I live near a gas station, my apartment has been inundated with these sounds for months.

It doesn't stop there, as mini-trucks pick up the scooter slack, blaring the message even louder and longer, since they can't quite zip through traffic in the same reckless manner. In addition to these mobile ads, all the major roadways are graced with political flags and banner ads, as if the seeming disconcern for traffic lanes (or signaling before a lane change) weren't a big enough distraction while on the road.

For many, this weekend marks a trip back to their hometowns. Taiwan does not have an absentee-ballot system, so if you want to cast your vote it means you've got to head back to wherever "home" is on your resident IDs. This is a huge issue for many of my classmates who are still not done with finals and final reports for the semester. However, not wanting to miss their first chance to vote (the voting age in Taiwan is 20), they are getting even less sleep than before, trying to cram before the weekend. On an even bigger scale this also means that an estimated 180,000 overseas Taiwanese are returning home to cast their votes as well.

Reflecting back on my time in Taiwan around the 2008 election, it felt nothing like these past few weeks. Sure there were mini-trucks and flags, but it didn't feel like politics were out to get you, waiting in dark alleys or something. If that is any indication, I would say that the 14th is a huge day for Taiwan. The margins are close--way too close to call, and the general noise surrounding the streets (and the relentless mailbox spam) means these candidates are doing everything they can to get the votes. When the dust settles on the 15th, it will be interesting to see what this means for the upcoming future of Taiwan and cross-strait relations. At least one thing is certain: the streets will be a little quieter. Until Chinese New Year, anyway.

So many ways to be distracted on the road!

iOS App in Ethiopia

While George, Scott, and I are working hard on the upcoming Skritter iOS app, we thought we'd share some of the alpha testers' experiences with it so far. Even in its rough form, a lot of testers have great stories to tell about how they're using the app. First up is junglegirl, who you may remember from the October newsletter.

---

For several months I had been planning a 3-week trip to Ethiopia in November 2011, and as much as I was looking forward to it, I was also dreading being away from Skritter for so long. I knew that Internet access would not be widely available there, and even when I did find an internet café the connection would probably be too slow. On the rare occasions in the past when I had gone just a few days without Skrittering, my study routine had been turned upside down, and I had become very frustrated by seeing how quickly I had forgotten what I had learned. I hated to think what would happen after three weeks.

At that time the iOS app was still in the early stages of alpha testing; it tended to crash a lot, so I didn’t have much hope that it could hold out for the whole trip. Nevertheless, I explained my situation to Nick, and he finished a stable version for me the day before I left. Lo and behold, it worked!

Thanks to the iOS app, I had Skritter in my pocket, no matter where I went! I could Skritter while cruising from one monastery to another on a boat around Lake Tana, watching gelada baboons playing on a plateau above Lalibela, trekking through the newly harvested fields of the Tigrai region, waiting for the bus conductor to change a flat tire, or just relaxing in a hotel room after a long day of travel. Ethiopia is a beautiful and often misunderstood country with a unique history, culture, cuisine, religion and people. I had an amazing trip there, and it was made all the better by the fact that Skritter was right there with me the whole time.

Even now that I’ve returned home and am connected to the Internet for most of the day, I definitely still enjoy playing (I mean, er, studying) on the app. Skritter is actually much faster on the app than on my laptop, and it’s great to be able to pick it up and study straight away, even when I only have a few minutes, rather than waiting until I have a solid chunk of time available to sit in front of the computer. Knowing how far the app has come already, I can’t wait to see what the finished version will be like once it hits the market.

---

For more photos of junglegirl's trip, check out jungleboy's Flickr page. And if you haven't already, go check out the Skritter iOS app teaser page and sign up to get an email when we launch the free app. You'll also be entered to win a free iPad to Skritter on.

Making Progress Numbers Accurate

As things currently stand, the progress page and its numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Skritter tracks two things separately:

1. How well you know each individual item currently and
2. How much you know overall for any given day in the past

Ideally, adding up the progress of the individual items should give you the overall number for the current day. However, over time and due to persistent, hard-to-find bugs, those two numbers tend to diverge a little bit, usually by no more than a percent or two.

However, with the new iOS app, all sorts of new progress bugs have been wreaking havoc on our intrepid alpha testers. Junglegirl, for example, has reportedly learned over four billion characters. To correct these numbers I've built a quick tool to take all the correct progress stats we have on individual items and reconstruct the sums that are shown on the progress page so they are 100% correct once more. Since iOS alpha testers won't be the only ones who might want to correct errors in their progress, I've added a 'recalculate' button to the progress page (inside the 'totals' popup) on the beta site for everyone to use. Give it a try! Let us know if there are any issues with it before we put it to the stable site in January.

Also, one of the major persistent bugs causing the diverging progress numbers on the site was finally fixed in October, so the numbers should be recorded much more accurate going forward. The iOS progress tracking has been getting much better lately, and will probably end up being more accurate than the site since we're doing it all from the ground up again, but there are still some issues. Once we're pretty sure those are more cleared up, we'll start adding more alpha testers. We know how eager many of you are, but we don't want to put too many peoples' progress stats in danger!

Skritter iPhone App Teaser

It's been one year since we announced the development of the Skritter iPhone app. That's a long time to wait! That post is still getting comments--151 and counting--so we know you're hungry for an update. George, Scott, and I thought we'd put together a teaser video of the app in action to tide you over. Today will be the first public glimpse, though a small group of alpha testers has been using it for two months. Their feedback bubbles with enthusiasm, and with each tester averaging over 26 hours of study on the app, we know we're onto something!

We can hardly wait to launch the app. It's not ready yet, but today we're starting to promote it in anticipation of its release. To kick things off, along with the teaser video, we've put up a teaser page where you can enter your email address to get an email from us when the app hits the App Store. And when you register your email, we'll enter you in a drawing to win a free iPad. The app will be free, and we're planning to include beginner-friendly content in the app, so tell your friends.

So head on over to the Skritter iOS app teaser page and get excited!

If you have questions about the app, let's hear them in the comments. You can get updates on our development progress by following Skritter on Facebook, SkritterHQ on Twitter, or just me on Google+. If you're wondering where your native Android app is: the plan is to do that one after this one.

We've also just sent out the Skritter December Newsletter.

Know your idiomatic phrases

Idiomatic phrases, those gems of the Chinese language, can make any non-native speaker sound like a pro, and are sure to attract more than a few 你的中文很棒 (nǐ de zhōngwén hěn bàng)  from the locals--especially if they're used correctly. I still remember my first idiom like it was yesterday. Arriving in Pingxi (平溪) for the international lantern festival, I couldn't believe how many people were there. Pushing my way through crowds of people releasing their hopes and dreams into the heavens, I turned to a friend and exclaimed, "人太多了！" (rén tài duō le) only to have a Taiwanese person turn and say, "人山人海" ( rén shān rén hǎi). The phrase was perfect, as people did seem to be covering everything from the mountains to the ocean.

From that moment on I was hooked. Any time I heard or read something that seemed like an idiom, I would rush to write it down, storing it for the perfect moment. Drawing from poems, famous figures and commoners alike, these turns of phrase give us a glimpse into the essence of  Chinese language and culture. If you've ever had a chance to look at a idiom dictionary, you'll soon discover that there seems to be one for just about every occasion. By now you're probably wondering why I haven't used the word "idiom" yet. That's because Chinese is comprised of more than just 成語 (chéng yŭ: idioms).

So let's take a look at the various types of 熟語 (shúyŭ: idiomatic phrases)  and see what makes each of them special.

1. First up are 成語 (chéng yŭ): the most elegant and refined of the idiomatic phrases. Also the most strict. Commonly occurring in four syllable sets, and retaining a quintessence of classical Chinese literature, cheng yu are fixed phrases that cannot be altered. Out of all the idiomatic phrases they appear with the highest frequency, and are also the most literary. Cheng yu generally appear as part of a sentence, and without quotation. Most cheng yu that we see today have a story associated with them, expanding, and giving a background, for the imagery and meaning captured inside these elegant four character sets. A few examples include:

守株待兔 (shǒu zhū dài tù: to wait foolishly for the unexpected)  
曇花一現 (tán huā yī xiàn: to be short lived)

While using chengyu can certainly make your Chinese a lot more impressive, using them in informal settings can be rather awkward, so best to save them for your speeches, and Chinese reports.  

2. Second on the list is 諺語 (yàn yŭ), also referred to as 俚語 (lǐ yŭ), 俗語(sú yŭ), and 直言(zhí yán ): the great Chinese proverbs that have circulated through the ages carrying profound wisdom in an easy and accessible way. Capturing a sense of ideology, experience and wisdom about all aspects of life, yan yu contain a rich wealth of Chinese philosophy and morals. There form, much like cheng yu, is neat and tidy, with a harmonious tone that is clear and succinct making them easy to teach orally and commit to memory.

These proverbs are often made up of five or six characters, and can be used to connect the meaning of two sentences. A famous examples of this structure is "路遙知馬力, 日久見人心" (lù yáo zhī mǎ lì , rì jiŭ jiàn rén xīn). Unlike 成語 the meaning here is clear and direct, a long road will tell you the power of your horse, and a long period of time will tell you about a persons heart. By far one of the best proverbs for those of us learning Chinese is "活到老，學到老" (huó dào lǎo, xué dào lǎo), the idea that one is never too old to learn something new!

3. Third up is 歇後語 (xiē hòu yŭ), otherwise known as 俏皮語(qiào pí yŭ). These unique phrases are comprised of two interrelated expressions coming together to form a kind of witty simile. The first--(often) a metaphor, the second--the answer, explaining the true meaning of the first expression. However, what is truly unique about these phrases, is that the second expression is often left off entirely, leaving the listener to interpret the metaphor and search their linguistic archives for the proper explanation. Taking the example : 瞎子逛街-目中無人 (xiā zi guàng jiē - mù zhōng wú rén), the connection is drawn between a "blind man shopping" and the idea of (someone) being totally supercilious. While the later "目中無人" is a phrase you would rarely say openly in Chinese culture, the former could help to subtly hint that someone is acting like a total ass. These phrases are a great way to "insult" with a hint of class. Here are a few other examples:

水底撈月－白費心機 (huǐ dǐ lāo yuè--bái fèi xīn jī): to do something in vain.
殺雞取卵－只得一回 (shā jī qŭ luǎn-- zhǐ dé yī huí): to do something stupid.
瞎子看書－裝模作樣(xiā zi kàn shū-- zhuāng mó zuò yàng) to put on a act.

4. Fourth up, 慣用語(guàn yòng yŭ), colloquial expressions that have become the social norm in everyday speech. Short and sweet, these "fixed phrases" are simple and straight forward often describing a range of emotions. A few common examples are: 丟臉(diū liǎn)，亮相(liàng xiàng)，吃香 (chī xiāng), 哭窮(kū qióng) etc. The structure of these colloquial expressions is much more versatile that many phrases on this list, and one can often add other components to them to suit your fancy… such as: “不要丟我的臉”(bú yào diū wǒ de liǎn). Many such expressions carry a similar tone as cheng yu. 

For example: The phrase 無孔不入 (wú kǒng bú rù: get in by every opening), is a fixed expression that cannot be altered. 鑽空子 (zuān kòng zi), however, carries a similar meaning but can be taken apart and altered, for example: 鑽了一個空子 (zuān le yí gè kòng zi).

5. Last but not least are 格言(gé yán), maxims, mottos, or sayings that generally were spoke by notable people in China's history. Also called 箴言(zhēn yán), they represent a concise way of stating the behavioral norms in society, or a certain worldview… something akin to aphorism, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Structurally, these maxims often appear as a complete stand alone sentence, independently expressing an idea. They also will appear in quotation in texts.  Unlike Chinese proverbs, that are author-less, these maxims will have an origin and author. Once such 格言 is Sun Yat-sen's famous line："革命尚未成功, 同志仍須努力" (gé mìng shàng wèi chéng gōng, tóng zhì réng xū nŭ lì)... which translated means "the revolution isn't over, comrades keep on fighting." 

It is clear that Chinese idiomatic phrases come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more colloquial, while others are reserved for research papers and black tie events. Either way, there seems to be at least one phrase out there for just about every type of situation imaginable. Do you have a favorite idiomatic phrase? If so we would love to hear about it below.

As always, the vocabulary from today's post can be found here.