CLS International Newsletter

 

by

Alan Robertson

Megan Mhairi is the teenage daughter of my nephew Derek (Robertson) a well-established and busy artist specialising in wildlife, her mother a graduate in Arts, Law, and a Chartered Accountant forbye. So perhaps it came as little surprise when Megan turned out to be a clever lass. Hers is a happy and studious disposition, although that’s not to say that she isn’t prone to the usual teenage obsessions with Facebook and text messaging. She has just finished Secondary School at Madras College in St. Andrew’s, one of two state schools serving the part of Fife where I now dwell and already has a provisional place at University of Edinburgh which for reasons indicated later, I hoped she would take up.

Although her main field of study seems to be Economics, Edinburgh’s is the only university in Scotland with a thriving Department of Chinese going back many years.  Those who have seen Bertolucci’s film The Last Emperor may recall the significant character Reginald Fleming Johnston, engaged as English tutor to young Emperor Pu Yi.  Played by Peter O’Toole, he appears at one point clad in a blazer adorned with the Edinburgh University crest, for he was an Edinburgh graduate before he went to Oxford, later to become one of the outstanding Chinese scholars of his generation.  

At University of St. Andrew’s, an alma mater I share with Scotland’s First Minister Alec Salmond, of whom not a word more will be said, there are nowadays many undergraduates from the People’s Republic of China and also some from Taiwan.

When I am in St. Andrew’s and chance to come face to face with any Chinese student, I invariably greet him/her and comment on the weather or the like, if only to relish the look of sheer astonishment as it spreads across the features. If there was a cartoon speech bubble, it would read something like “Wah! Did he really say that?”

So much for the background. Now cut to the real story. Last year, after she and some classmates had been taught basic Mandarin by one of these Chinese undergraduates, Megan and others spent three weeks in China. Accommodated and fed at one of the universities in Beijing (accommodation and food an adventure in itself, said she) her group spent a large slice of every day having language lessons.  Only a very little time was devoted to sightseeing: what little remains of old Beijing besides the Forbidden City and so forth; the obligatory Great Wall at Badaling; and a visit to Tianjin. The latter had left a deep impression, possibly all the deeper because shortly before departing for China, Megan had read my copy of The Ford of Heaven, Brian Power’s tale about his childhood there in the 1920s, with many illustrations of Tianjin as it was at the time. Although I had recommended it, her group didn’t visit Qingdao, source of my favourite lager.

Needless to say, I had encouraged Megan ever since first hearing that she was learning Mandarin.   Together with her parents, she had paid me several visits. While they amused themselves otherwise, we talked of classifiers/measure-words, and characters having two entirely different pronunciations and meanings, such as 音乐，快乐。  Shortly before her Mandarin exam at the end of June, she was dropped off for about two hours revision with me.

I have to confess that ahead of her visit, I did some homework.  It didn’t require going back to basics. However, digging out my trusty ‘Kansas’ Dictionary awakened long-dormant memories of hours spent in the Language Lab at Lyemun, Gao Xiaojie, Bai Wenshan, and seemingly endless repetition of 请问，先生，您贵姓？while the late Mr Tang Peng and Commandant Bernard Rourke listened in, poised to correct my many mistakes.  Right up to our final exam, one of my N3 classmates could not pronounce 日 to Mr Tang’s satisfaction.

Megan came armed with her small dictionary, a splendid publication, E-C & C-E, Pinyin & simplified characters, with useful phrases, all in a very clear font.  For the record, it is Collins Easy Learning Mandarin Chinese Dictionary, ISBN13: 9780007261130.

 

Here, the writer blethers on, possibly about some arcane Chinese topic, while Megan listens, looking somewhat bemused.

When the result of her Mandarin exam was announced, she had scored ‘A’, thanks entirely, need I say it, to her own efforts.  To my surprise, she has spoken of meaning to defer taking up her Edinburgh University place in favour of returning to China for further Mandarin.

 

Alan Robertson (罗泌逊)

Mandarin (1969-72), Cantonese (1976-77)

 

 

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