Experimental Caffeine Hazards, Part 4

[tempested_bird]

Salt & Vinegar Kettle Chips are delicious. Chai is delicious. Sadly, these are two great tastes that do not taste great together. In fact, when combined, they bring new meaning to the term "raunchy."

The funny thing is that I wasn't even thinking about it. I sat down at my desk with my freshly made tea, I was talking to my friend, and I happened to have an unfinished bag of chips. I started munching while chatting and feeling a little parched, took a sip.

We'll file this one under "Bad Idea" and move on.

Comments

[ocha-no-hanashi.livejournal.com]

Which is pretty much why I generally avoid most of my university mates who are Asian studies majors.

As do many people at my home university. The very few serious Asian Studies students identify as history or linguistics students. 'Asian Studies Major' is something like a pejorative because of those anime otakus who I avoid like the plague. Sadly, quite often people instantly assume I study Japanese because of an interest in manga or anime. I have no such interests. The truth is I've never really watched anime and I have never read manga. I read books about Buddhism in Japanese, not some silly comic written for children. That sounds harsh, I know, but when damn near every student in the department is part of the campus anime club and soil the entire department's image (and mine through association), I just find myself getting hostile towards them.

As of late I find myself shifting more over to Sinology. I originally started doing Japanese related stuff a few years ago, but after really getting to know Asian history and languages (as a Canadian I was educated with little to no information regarding Asia in general so I pretty much started my study from scratch), I seem to just enjoy diving deep into really ancient Chinese topics the most. A year or so ago I took up studying Classical Chinese and it become both a self-study goal for grad school and a hobby. I'm going to do my Ph.D. on something to do with Classical Chinese, probably something pre-Qin dynasty. Fortunately, no anime otakus or pop culture fiends would ever dare enter into the stuff I am doing now. The other thing though is that as far as western academia goes so little has been done with Old Chinese, so it is largely available for exploration.

You sound like a very enlightened healthy-minded person! I am glad I stumbled on your journal. I'm doing a general linguistics minor myself (though I found semantics to be fun it was really mind boggling at times). Curious, what languages do you have?

[tempested-bird.livejournal.com]

That's what I've found in the more serious Asian studies students, they consider themselves to be historians, linguists, poets to remove themselves from the anime otakus. I find myself doing much the same thing, "Oh, you like Asian studies?" "No, I study literature and philosophy." I can certainly understand your hostility and disdain. I find myself more regarding them with the crestfallen, "Oh no, not another one." I work with a bunch of teenaged anime otakus, and it can get obnoxious.

Part of the reason why I never really got the anime and manga craze is that since I grew up in Seoul, we had a lot of it widely available to us, so it wasn't a big deal. It was just another means of storytelling. I will admit, I love graphic novels but I've never really gotten into manga. I prefer ones with actual, philosophical, intelligent story.

Honestly, I think I would have preferred to be in your shoes as far as exposure to Asian history and languages goes. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and while there is a good deal of Asian culture here and available, very little of it delves into the ancient texts or philosophies. Most of it is very decontextualised, modern, and Americanised. So most kids who want to study Asian language or literature here have to move past a lot of the images and stereotypes built from such a mentality rather than starting from scratch. I was lucky that I received my primary education in Korea, so I wasn't exposed to it as much. I've been finding myself wanting to study Classical Chinese lately, especially since I've started taking up Chinese silk embroidery. I want to learn about the imagery and the story telling mechanism that go into all of it.

Hehehe. Thanks! I'm always happy to meet other open-minded and broadly cultured people. I try to be as open and cut-through-the-crap as much as I can because there's SO MUCH out there.

Ah, linguistics, there's a fun topic. Linguistic Semantics is, indeed, a bit mind-boggling. General Semantics, what I study, it's kind of the parent to Semiotics. It talks about the systems we use to create meaning and how language is a part of it. Very cool stuff.

Hmm... okay, languages: My first language was Korean, Japanese was my second (but I'm very rusty now because I've had little practise with it since we moved away from Japan, but I'm working on getting it back), English was my third, German my fourth (also rusty from lack of use), then French, then Italian. I can also read and write in Sanskrit and Latin (getting rusty here, too), and I'm currently learning Hindi with Mandarin, Swedish, and Arabic next on my list. My goal is to learn every language my brain can possibly hold before I die.

[ocha-no-hanashi.livejournal.com]

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and while there is a good deal of Asian culture here and available, very little of it delves into the ancient texts or philosophies.

In Canada there is sometimes a trend amongst 'Asian' youth to group together and call themselves 'Asian' and promote some odd kind of 'Asian Pride' as a response to living in a predominately white community. I find that kind of odd because Asian-Asians don't really see themselves as a common nation or race and many object to being equated to their neighbors. I mean tell a Korean they're Japanese and you might get smacked for it. Thus, 'Asian American' culture is something of a new fashionable trend that takes bits and peices of mainstream Asian fashion and pop-culture, yet still retains very evident western Americanized roots. Unfortunately, most people where I come from take that particular culture and their local Chinese buffet (run by Filipinos) to be 'Asian Culture'. That coupled with the lack of education about the various cultures and history of Asia just sadly produces a very ignorant view towards Asia in general.

Since what age have you been a linguo-phile? Having Latin and Sanskrit under your belt is indeed an impressive accomplishment. I've done a bit of latin but heck if I can remember any of it. I'd like to do Sanskrit sometime in the future. My classical Chinese is at a point where I can actually write in it if I take my time and recall grammar patterns, though the problem is that the language shifted from being a spoken language to a literary language, and so there is a difference between Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese. The later being the language people wrote in for two millenia in E.Asia. It didn't of course reflect the spoken language as I'm sure you're probably aware of. Hence I sometimes have to decide what period style I want to write and what vocabulary set to use (classical uses mostly one character words, literary is often two character words with the particles being a bit more formalized).


I think in a few years after my Mandarin is solid enough I'd try to dive into probably the most difficult spoken language a native speaker of English could attempt -- Catonese. Eight tones and a whole smack of sounds that don't commonly occur in English. I figure though if I get good in Mandarin then adding a few more tones and sounds won't be that difficult. But we'll see. One thing at a time.

How many years did you live in Japan?

[tempested-bird.livejournal.com]

The label "Asian American" is a problem for me because it really does tend to lump together all of the different experiences the differing groups have had as one whole. It's like taking a grain of sand and using it to represent an entire beach. It's too general. I do think that there is an Americanised Asian culture in the sense of there is a culture of Japanese-American, Chinese-American, Korean-American, etc. but they can't be lumped into one whole. The funny thing is that most of the people in Northern California I see touting the phrase "Asian Pride" are Filipino.

I think I've been a linguaphile my whole life. I grew up a polyglot by my environment (family of polyglots, lived in multiple countries, etc.), and so it was just always something I've loved. I'm still working on my Sanskrit and Latin. It's always an ongoing work in progress for me. I have to take my time with the Sanksrit still. I started my Sanskrit studies when I lived in a monastery for a few months when I was 9.

What got you interested in Classical and Literary Chinese? I think Ancient Chinese poetry is amazing, but it's certainly no easy thing to tackle. I think it's so amazing that you actually are knowledgable enough that you can choose which period style to write in when you do.

Cantonese would definitely be difficult for a native English speaker, but I say awesome for you for actually wanting to attempt it. With a decent amount of linguistic training, I think you could manage it. You're already training your tongue to be more tonal with the Mandarin, so learning to make and add other sounds should at least be easier in theory since you'll understand how to pick apart the sounds and where in the mouth they come from.

I was actually born in Yokosuka and lived there until I was four. My dad was in the U.S. Navy and my mum is from Korea, so when he was at sea, we'd jump over and spend time in Korea. We moved to the States for the first time when I was about five, and then I spent the last 20 years moving around all over the place. I haven't been back to Japan since we left, but I plan to visit at least once since I'm going back to Korea for the summer.