More memories of the eclipse

Total Eclipse

Cards84664 - Own work in Wikipedia under eclipse 2024 in Wikipedia Commons
 

I went to a newly formed Toastmasters International group called travelmasters. One of the prepared speeches started with memories of the eclipse. This year the speaker saw a partial eclipse from his area. Those in the New Jersey and New York area saw more.

India

He had previously been to see an eeclipse in India. He was with a local society which was studying wildlife. They went to the forest to see the effect the eclipse would have on animals, incects and birds. They were looking at bats and monkeys. 

Prepare For Dark & Cold

As the eclipse progressed over half an hour the sky grew darker. You need a torch to get around in the dark. 

As it got dark, the weather grew chillier. So this year he was prepared for the drop in temperature and took a jacket.

Camera Ready\

You have your camera ready. Not just for the sky and the eclipse. Also for the reactions on the ground. Your astonished friends. 

Animal Reactions

But also the wildlie. As the sky grew darker during the daytime, which was unusual, the animals stopped foraging for food and hunting and went back to their homes, their burrows, or nests. For their own safety? To protect their amilies. For comfort. I dont suppose they even thought about it. Just instinct.

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What do Chinese names mean?

Flag of Singapore

Flag of Japan

Chinese names appear in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and Singapore.

Vietnamese flag

 Chinese names have derivatives in Vietnam.   

The same sign language is used in Japan. 

You will also encounter these names in Chinese quarters and restaurants all over the world.

In addition you may see them in businesses online.

I shall list them alphabetically in English.

Kim/Jin means gold or money.

The Chinese character for Li
Pronunciation	Lǐ (Mandarin) Lei5 (Cantonese)
Language(s)	Chinese
Origin
Language(s)	Old Chinese
Meaning	Plum, plum tree
Other names
Variant form(s)	Lee, Lei, Lie
Derivative(s)	Lee, Ri, Yi, Rhee, Rhie, Reeh (Korean)

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, easier to remember if you start with the family name Lee. 

China has a Li River. Easiest to remember if you recall:

Chinese 理 (lǐ) meaning "reason, logic", 

立 (lì) meaning "stand, establish", 

黎 (lí) meaning "black, dawn", 

力 (lì) meaning "power, capability, influence" (which is usually only masculine) or

丽 (lì) meaning "beautiful" (usually only feminine).

So, if you are asking a calligrapher to write your name in Chinese, don't be surprised if another person writes your name differently.

Lim means forest.

You might also come across people named Lam or Lum.

The first name Shan is mountain. Shan Shan is plural, mountains.

Popular Family Names

 The top three—Wang (王), Li (李), and Zhang (張)—cover more than 20% of the population.

Useful Website

https://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/chinese

Facebook polyglot page

About the Author

Angela Lansbury speaks and teaches English and French and public speaking and aspires to be a polyglot (speaker of many languages.)

Member of 5 Toastmasters International speakers clubs. Join BHA as a guest. Wed Aug 5th 7 pm Singapore time. 

Learn Chinese Writing, Strokes & Simple Words - Chinese Writing - Chinese Time Courses - Page 1 - chinesetimeschool.com

A friend told me that Chinese writing follows a logic and just as you write strokes in a certain order. You may remember how you learned to write English from left to right right. I vividly recall learning to write on a straight line with another faint line on top to contain or limit the upward verticals on h or l. A faint line below was the limit for lower loops on g or y.

In Chinese, he told me, the lower line of a character is like the English (Roman) L or l, and has a base which is wide like the ground beneath a tree.

From Chinesasy book I learned that characters fit into boxes, so that when you put two characters side by side they are squashed up as if you were still writing them inside a box as you would when learning to write in primary school.

In Wikipedia I stambled across Chinese writing. I saw that characters could be divided into single stroke characters, two stroke characters, three stroke characters.

For me the easiest characters to learn at a glance were one, two three, written as single, double and triple horizontal lines. Just like the roman l ll lll but turned sideways. What I had not noticed was that in two in Chinese the lower line is slightly wider.

My latest discovery, whilst hunting for the flashcards with the names of countries, was a list of the basic strokes, showing them in freuqently seen and used words.

The words you often see on doorways and railway timetable are the characters for day and month and the numbers one to ten.

The lines with the little hooks at the end are not merely decorative like serifs in the font Times. They are essential. The two cubes piled on top of each other for day and night or sun and moon are distinguished by the curve on the moon. At first I muddled up sun and moon. then I larned to look for the curve, like a curned moon, on the left hand downward stroke.

Instead of viewing Chinese as a huge mystery, view it like those puzzles of spot the difference. Add a little spot the difference puzzle each day, or re-do a set of puzzles so they gradually become easier. You get a sense of achievement.


From Simplified wiki I find this handy chart:

山	shān	mountain	3 peaks
人	rén	person/people/humanity	a creature standing on 2 legs
口	kŏu	mouth	an open mouth
刀	dāo	sword/knife	a blade
木	mù	wood	a tree
日	rì	sun/day	a sun with a cloud in the middle
月	yuè	moon/month	same as 日, but in the shape of a crescent
女	nǚ	woman/girl/female	person with large breasts
子	zi/zĭ	child	a child wrapped in a blanket
馬 / 马	mǎ	horse	a horse with a head, a mane, a body, a tail, and 4 legs
鳥 / 鸟	niǎo	bird	a creature with a head and a wing with feathers
目	mù	eye	an eye with 2 eyelids
水	shuǐ	water	three streams of water

• Simple ideograms, zhi shi (指事): characters that use one radical, to represent abstract nouns, such as ideas and abstractions. Examples include:

Chinese character (traditional/ simplified)	Pīnyīn (Mandarin pronunciation)	Meaning	Looks like
一	yī	one	1 line
二	èr	two	2 lines
三	sān	three	3 lines
大	dà	big/large/great	a person 人 holding out his/her arms as wide as possible
天	tiān	heaven/sky/day	like 大, but one line above, so the greatest of the great
小	xiǎo	little/small	fingers holding onto a needle
上	shàng	up/above/previous	a plant's stem and leaf above the ground
下	xià	down/below/next	a plant's roots
本	běn	root	a tree 木 with its roots showing underground
末	mò	apex	a tree 木 with one extra line on the top, so the very top

• Complex ideograms, hui yi (会意), or characters that use more than one radical to represent more complex ideas or abstractions. Examples include:

Chinese character (traditional/ simplified)	Pīnyīn (Mandarin pronunciation)	Meaning	Looks like
明	míng	bright/light/tomorrow	a sun 日 and a moon 月 next to each other, indicating that tomorrow happens after the sun and moon passes
好	hǎo	good	a woman 女 and a child 子 next to each other, indicating that a woman with a child is good
休	xiū	rest	a person 亻(人) next to a tree 木
林	lín	woods	two trees 木 next to each other
森	sēn	forest	three trees 木 next to each othe

Useful Websites
Learn Chinese Writing——Stroke - Chinese Writing Chinese Time Courses Chinese Language - Page 1 - chinesetimeschool.com
https://quizlet.com/35569456/country-names-in-chinese-flash-cards/
https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b05605/getting-started-with-kanji.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages.
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How Chinese Writing Evolved From Drawings And Pictures To Stick Figures and Symbols

The third sign along from the left in the Chinese characters means exit.
Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
I can see how the Western alphabet evolved from the symbols for words, becoming the initial letters. T for taurus was the sign of the bull's horns. But what about Chinese?

Answer
Chinese evolved similarly. Just as we have created compound words in English such as telephone, from distant and phonos for sound,

In Chinese one stick drawing of  tree is the word tree. Three stick trees are a forest.

Useful Websites

www.china-learn.info/Hanyu/Flashcard_Menu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification
www.duolingo.com Chinese

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and languages, in person and by email and Skype, workshops for individuals and business.

How To Preserve The Joy of Photographing Pets And Wildlife On Trips

Spider. Photo by Trevor Sharot.

My husband's photo of a forest was short-listed in a photographic competition run by National Geographic magazine contest for photos of forests. He was runner-up, with his photo displayed at the shop in Regent Street (shop now moved location). The outright winner won with a photo including a small living creature, contrasting with the giant trees.

Add Animals
You can enhance a photo of nature by adding a human being - your companion, a dog, or cat, or a car to get the scale of a tall tree. For a video add something moving such as a fish, or still, such as a spider. If nobody else is around, try a selfie. But in case you are too ugly, or your movement creates camera blur, have other photos without the living creature. 

Before And After Photos
You can also do before and after pictures. Present them side by side as a pair. Or as a threesome. The scene changes when the visitor arrives. The scene is enhanced or destroyed by the happy campers. When they are gone, it is empty again.

Animals Facing Obstacles
I watched a video of a small porcupine eating a slice of banana. I had never seen a porcupine close up. 

We would simply peel a banana. We would eat a small piece in one gulp. The little porcupine makes a five-minute meal out of a small slice. The little darling is struggling to hold it with teeny hands. A major challenge for the baby porcupine is to extract and eat the banana off the inside of the peel.

The Challenge For Animals
We have loads of things to do and for us often food is merely fuel. In one sense we eat to live but a cow lives to eat, eating all day, as does a bird (except when singing for a mate.) You could also argue the reverse. We eat to live. But the porcupine is totally engrossed, living to eat.

Analysis
A friend, Jane on Facebook, asked a question I have previously asked: Why do we find these animal pictures so appealing? She used the lovely word enchanting.

My first answer was: They concentrate so hard. They seem to be enjoying it. Their eyes are wide open. It's funny because they eat so fast, as if scared you will take it away.

Animals are oblivious to table manners. They eat with their mouths open. 

Humans are trained not to be obsessed with food. We speak. We say please and thank you. But animals are wholly expressing their hunger or pleasure by gestures which exaggerate what we would do. 

We also gain the voyeur's delight. They are concentrating on the food and don't realise we are sneaking up with an ulterior motive and secretly making a film. 

We get vicarious satisfaction from their joy at eating the food. Plus the joy of being let into their secret world, never before seen. 

We have a sense of power, control. They are tiny. Easily pleased. Kept in one place, in front of our camera. Put down a tiny piece of banana and we have a porcupine which is thriving, happy, obedient, devoted, the perfect camera model.

Animal Or Insect Alone
You can get over your fear or disgust at seeing a spider or a line of ants if you are concentrating on another task, getting a good photo. Instead of the wild word encroaching, invading, spoiling your day, the wild world has enhanced your experience and provided an opportunity for camera work.

Spiders
I never knew a spider's legs could come in three colours. I can identify the spider in Wikipedia, and be sure it is a 'normal' indigenous spider, not a dangerous spider. 

Leave it outside, busy with its valuable work, catching flies. It sits patiently, waiting for the prey, as patient as a photographer.

Sharing With The World
If you have a great photo, you can share it on Facebook and numerous other websites. If you are wondering how to locate and sign up for Pinterest or another website, simple go to a news story on the BBC or another page and click on share. Up pop half a dozen media outlets and you can sign up for a new one.

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See my other posts on this blog and my new blog
http://luxurytravelforless.co.uk

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