Education
Use the following video and web pages to complete the section on education.
1.
Watch the video and write down important facts about Chinas education system. http://to.pbs.org/1jBiroR
2. Add 3 more facts to your list. http://abt.cm/1hhUde9
3. Read the following information on http://cnn.it/1bZP384 Do not watch the video – use the article.
List four surprising facts.
4. Complete the table in order to compare the education system of the United States and China. Compare at least
5 different topics (ex. Length of day).
Tangrams
This one can only be done after you complete the other stations.
The tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes.
The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which
may not overlap. It is reputed to have been invented in China during the Song Dynasty, and then carried over
to Europe by trading ships in the early 19th century. It became very popular in Europe for a time the, and then again
during World War I. It is one of the most popular dissection puzzles in the world. A Chinese psychologist has termed the
tangram "the earliest psychological test in the world", albeit one made for entertainment rather than analysis.
Directions:
1. On your ipad, scroll to the 2nd page and open up Tangram HD.
2. “Open” on the doors on the left by tapping on the gold handles.
3. Click on the shape of the bird and try to complete.
4. Once, complete, you can try to do other shapes.
Food
Click on the video link for Taste of Tongren and complete the food questions on your handout.
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/videos/taste-tongren/
Language
1.
Use the following information to complete the questions on the language section of your handout.
The Chinese language, divided into dialects, developed in isolation from other parts of the world, and Chinese has not
adopted many foreign words. Chinese is a tonal language. The pitch of the voice rises and falls not to convey emotional
connotation but to distinguish the meaning of the word. The language has only 400 possible syllables—that is,
combinations of vowels and consonant. The Mandarin dialect, today the official language of the People's Republic of
China (and is also spoken on Taiwan) has four tones: a high, flat tone; a rising tone; a falling then rising tone; and a falling
tone. The Cantonese dialect, widely spoken in southern China and Hong Kong, has seven tones. The use of tones allows
for more distinctively pronounced syllables. However, Chinese has many homonyms, and only the context of the
conversation can clarify the word's exact meaning.
When a new invention or idea is introduced into China, the Chinese generally prefer to translate the concept into Chinese
words rather than using the foreign name. For example, "telephone" in Chinese is "dian hua," literally "electric speech."
For names of people and places there are official ways of rendering the foreign word in Chinese, sometimes in shortened
form.
Chinese dialects vary from one part of the country to another. Although Mandarin is the official national language and is
therefore taught in schools and used on radio and television, people still use local dialects in daily life. Before modern
telecommunications, it was even harder for people in different parts of China to understand each other. It was written
language that made it possible for the imperial government to rule such a vast region.
Chinese is written in ideographs, commonly called characters, where each symbol represents a word or idea. The
meaning is the same no matter how it is pronounced. A word may consist of one or more characters, just as English uses
compound words.
The earliest examples of written Chinese are inscriptions on the oracle bones used in divination. The symbols stand not
for sounds (like letters of an alphabet) but for whole words. Some of the early symbols are recognizably pictorial, though
that works only for concrete objects. As Chinese culture developed, symbols were needed for abstract words. Some of the
symbols were taken from other words that sounded the same, but then confusion arose as to which word the writer
meant. Extra strokes were added to distinguish one character from another. More than 500 of these were created, though
the number has since been reduced to 214. Today they are called the "radical" (from the Latin word for "root") of the word.
Some radicals classify words—for example, as animals, diseases, spiritual qualities, or body parts, among others. Some
radicals reveal what the object is made of (or was in earlier times), such as wood or metal.
Most dictionaries are organized according to radicals, which are listed in order by the number of writing strokes in the
radical. Words with that radical are then listed in order of the number of strokes in the nonradical part of the character.
Westerners have devised various ways to render Chinese in the Roman alphabet. The standard system in China today
was introduced in 1956 and is strongly influenced by the Russian alphabet. It is called pinyin, meaning "putting sounds
together." Many street signs and other signs today use pinyin as well as Chinese characters.
At the time pinyin was introduced, the Chinese announced simplified versions of about 500 characters to make Chinese
easier to read and write. There had been efforts for more than 2,000 years to simplify written Chinese, so some of these
characters were already in use. Ironically, the government also abolished some simplified characters that people were
already using. The old, complex forms are still found in Taiwan, where mainland China's language reforms were rejected
for political reasons, as well as in Hong Kong.
2. Practice a little bit of Mandarin Chinese. Click on the link for the Peace Corps webpage.
Complete the section on your handout.
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/lesson-plans/food-culture-photo-essays/
Chinese Norms
Go to the following link. http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/china-country-profile.html
This is a website that believes understanding other people's languages, cultures, etiquettes and taboos is of
great value to the traveler or visiting business person. Pretend you are older and have to business in China. You
are researching how to behave in order not to insult your host country.