I Can Speak Better Than Chinese Do

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I Can Speak Better Than Chinese Do

Foreigners in China

“She said that I spoke Chinese better than some Chinese people.” Rui Jiang Ming told me proudly. This compliment came from one of his Chinese friends while they were having lunch together. He said “I don’t know.” in Chinese which surprised his friends because his accent was nearly the same to those authentic Beijingers. When one of the Chinese girl were asked to pronounce the same sentence, he found that she cannot do the accent as he did, then he found out that some Chinese people from out of Beijing cannot do the Beijing accent as good as he did.

When I first met him, I translated one of the words in his name “ming” into tomorrow, but he insisted that it should be translated into brilliant even when I told him that they were the same word. But after I listened to his experience, I started to believe that brilliant is a perfect word to describe him. Rui Jiang Ming came from the capital city of People's Republic of Bangladesh Dhaka which is politic, economy and culture center of the nation. His first impression about a country named China

came from a book. After reading it, he became curious about China. When he was in High School, his cousin came to Chinese to study Chinese. From the conversation with his cousin, he got the information that China is developing very quickly these years and there were many foreign student study Chinese in many big cities in China. Ever since then, the urge to go to Chinese has become more and more strong. Later, when he knew that the University of Dhaka which is the best university throughout Bangladesh offered Chinese class and there was a chance that you can go to China as an exchange student, he signed up for the program without any hesitated.

He began his study in the University of Dhaka since August 2006. There is a huge different between Bengali and Chinese that there is no such pronunciation as “zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi” in Bengali. The most difficult thing for one that trying to learn Chinese is that you must remember the sequence of the writing of every words, some starting from left, some from top and others from outside to inside. When asked about how to learn Chinese in such a short period, he became serious. “You have to love what you are learning even when the thing is extremely difficult.” is a motto that he believe in during the study of Chinese, it is the passion for Chinese that encourage him never stopping learning Chinese. During the time when he was learning Chinese in Bangladesh, he spent 18 hours per day learning Chinese except the time of taking shower or sleeping. He told me that he wrote the Chinese words on a piece of

paper which he carried with him wherever he went. He repeated the Chinese word on the paper when he was eating and even walking. There was a time when in the morning he ran for a little and his mother and aunt would follow him. Of course he repeated Chinese words when he was running, sometimes his mother and aunt would repeat after him. Just as this time, there was a girl passing them and she was shocked by the strange act of Rui Jiang Ming. So she turned to his mother and asked if there was something wrong with the boy. His mother replied with humor “Yes, that boy is crazy, so be careful the next time you see him.” Rui Jiang Ming spent on year living like these and his Chinese was improves significantly. After passing one writing test and one oral test, he ranked No.1 in one hundred people and was awarded scholarship given by CSC (China Scholarship Council). He finally got the chance to come to Chinese to learn Chinese. Actually he didn’t tell his parents that he would take the test and when the result came out his father was too shocked to speak a word while his mother couldn’t stop crying. Then the celebration followed that his parents invited all the relatives to a feast to give Rui Jiang Ming the deepest congratulation.

After he came to China, he was shocked by the modernization of China and the hospitality of Chinese people. Just two days ago, he was waiting for his bus when some one offered him help. Because of his sanguinity nature, he made a lot of Chinese friends. When he is too tired of studying, he went out dancing with his friends. His favorite spots in Beijing is parks, when he has a little time, he likes to spend it in the park like Zi Zhu Yuan and Yu Yuan Tan Park. He also use his vocation traveling around China. He went to the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Beihai Park, Honghe Lama Temple and also some places other than Beijing like Xian, Huang Mountain, Tai Mountain. When talking about the things that he has been up to lately, he mentioned a Speech Competition entitled “Beijing Olympic and me”. There are many foreign students from many famous universities who speak very good Chinese signed up for the competition. Many principles of universities attended the competition also. Rui Jiang Ming entered the seconded round of the competition with his excellent oral Chinese and knowledge about China. He said he could enter the second round because he used a little trick which is the Olympic song “Beijing, Welcome You”. He receives unanimous compliments from the students and from the principles. About future, he hopes to major in Computer after this years Chinese studying. He wish to work in China and invest his money back to Bangladesh or go back to Dhaka and contribute himself to the development of his nation.

瑞江明和他的姑姑们瑞江明与爸爸妈妈

我说中文比中国人还标准

    “她说我说的中文比中国人还标准。”瑞江明一脸骄傲的对我说。给与他这个评价的是他的一个中国朋友，当时他们在一起吃午饭，他随意说了一句“不知道”，却招来朋友惊讶的目光，觉得他说这话的口音和地道的北京人没什么两样，后来朋友又让另一个外地同学说同样的话，却没有办法说出地道的口音。

    我初次见他时，把他名字中的“明”字解释为明天的明，他却纠正我说是聪明的明，而我说他们是同一个字，可他认真地说就是聪明的明。之后在听完他的经历以后，我不得不认为聪明俩个字的确很适合他。瑞江明来自孟加拉国的首都达卡，是全国政治、经济和文化的中心。他最初认识中国是通过一本书，读完之后，他便对中国充满了好奇。到了上中学的时候，他的表哥来到中国学习，在于表哥的聊天中，他得知的在中国学习的情况以及中国的发展，于是他对来中国的渴望越来越强烈。后来他打听到孟加拉最好的达卡大学有中文课程并且有与中国的留学生交换项目，他毅然决然的报了名。

    2006年8月他开始了在达卡大学的中文学习。孟加拉语和汉语有很大的差别，还有“zi,ci,si,zhi,chi,shi” 这些发音在孟加拉语里都没有。最困难得还是中文的书写，笔画的顺序，要记住先写横还是先写竖。当谈到如何能在这么短的时间内把中文学好，他的表情变的严肃起来，“要想把困难的事情做好，必须要热爱所学的东西”是他在学习中的座右铭，正是对中文的热爱使瑞江民能很快的学好中文。在孟加拉学习中文的一年中，他每天由18小时都在学习，甚至吃饭的时

候都在背诵。他告诉我他把中文单词写在纸上，到哪都带着，吃饭的时候拿出来念，走路的时候也拿出来念。有一段时间，饭后散步的时候妈妈和姑姑和他一起散步跟在他的身后，他在前面念，妈妈和姑姑在后面也跟着念，他们三人形成了一道有趣的风景线。人们不是和他们擦身而过的时候，都会被瑞江明嘴里念的“鸟语”吓到，便去问跟在后面的妈妈他是不是疯了，而他的妈妈就会风趣的回答道：“这孩子是疯了。下回见到他小心点，躲远点”就这样，一年过去了，他的中文进步神速。他在经过俩轮的笔试与面试之后，在一百人中脱颖而出以第一名的成绩获得了CSC（国家留学基金管理委员会）的资助有机会来到中国学习。其实在考试之前，他没有告诉他的父母他要参加考试，结果出来以后，他的爸爸惊讶的说不出话，妈妈也激动的留下了热泪，父母摆了宴席把所有的亲戚召集起来庆祝。

来到中国以后，他惊叹于中国的现代化与中国人民的热情，就在前几天他在车站等车时还有人主动向他提供帮助，由于天性乐观开朗，他来到中国以后交到了许多要好的中国朋友。在学习累的时候，晚上出去跳舞。他非常喜欢去公园，附近的公园像紫竹院，玉渊潭等等。他也利用假期的时间游览长城，颐和园，北海，雍和宫，外地由西安，黄山，泰山等等。但是他还是最喜欢北京，因为北京的历史悠久，有许多古老的建筑，胡同，四合院。谈起最新的动向时，他提起最近参加的“我与北京奥运”演讲比赛，参赛的有来自各个学校的“中文高手”，还有各个高校的校领导，但是瑞江明还是脱颖而出，进入了复赛，所有的人都称赞他。他的演讲中有一个非常大的亮点，就是他在演讲中加入了一首奥运会的主题歌“我家大门常打开开怀容纳天地”，赢得的大家的一致好评。对于未来，他希望将中文学好之后，一年后能在中国学习计算机专业，他希望能在中国工作将赚的钱拿回国投资或者回孟加拉建设祖国。

( By Tan Lu )

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