Monday 10/11/08

After a long weekend, it is time for lesson again. First lesson is taught by one of our favourite teacher, 李煜晖老师, who teaches us literature. Today, he talked about 诸葛孔明 of the romance of the three kingdoms (三国演义). He told us how godly 孔明 is. Among the abilities that he has are to predict happenings (未卜先知), to be able to control the weather (呼风唤雨), to be able to position his army and outsmart the enemy (斗阵布阵), and lastly to be able to make machine that does not need energy to work (木牛流马). Besides his abilities, there are also some interesting happenings that he is involved in. Among the few are to scare away his greatest opponent, 司马懿, by his 空城计, even though he is losing the battle, and also by his 木像 after he is dead. Also, he had irritated 周瑜 3 times until he is dead. He had also scolded 王郎 until he is dead. Very unbelievable.

Next lesson is by 李文燕老师, who introduced us to the Chinese economy development from the perspective of the change of clothes that were worn by the people. It was divided into 5 sections. Section 1 is during 孙中山先生 era. During that time, most people wear 中山装 to work. Section 2 is during 新中国 era, which is from 1949 - 1952. During that time, China wants to follow the communism ideology. During that time, they wear 干部服 to work. Section 3 is during the time when China is isolated from the world, which is from 1958 – 1978. During that time, the people are very poor and they have to go for rationing due to shortage of food. Hence, during that time, the clothes they wear will have to wear it for more than 10 years, which will seem very old. Section 4 is during 文革, which is from 1960s – 1970s. During this time, old culture is banned. People cannot wear 旗袍 to the street as people will attack you. Section 5 is after 改革开放, which is after 1978. After that, clothes such as western coat and leather shoes can be seen on any streets of China.

Another interesting event is the 民歌. Today, we learnt about the songs from 2 different areas – the Northwest area and the Southeast area. The songs of the Northwest area have very high pitch and rough since they have to sing from mountains to mountains, hills to hills. There are 2 types – 花儿，信天游. In contrast, the songs from Southeast are softer and not very rough. There is a lot of lake in the Southeast region and hence the songs they sing do not need so much power. There are 3 types – 弥渡山歌，对鸟，幸福歌。Besides, today I finally know why some songs can be differentiated easily as a Chinese song. This is because Chinese songs only have 5 notes in a scale while western songs have 7 notes – do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti. The Chinese only has do, re, mi, so, la, which is known as 五声。

That's all for now. Bye.

Run Xian