Well last night we learnt our first Mandarin Tongue Twister – yes, they have them too, and they are just about as silly!
One is just a short line: se sher se jer se sher sher ze which means ’44 dead stone lions’ – but try saying that 5x fast!
The other one we learnt is: ma ma chee ma, ma man, ma ma ma ma which means ‘mother riding horse, horse slow, mother angry at horse’ – that one is good for practicing tones because it uses all 4 tones and only 3 different pronounciations.
We learn these because we spend time with our English students after class. That is also the same reason we get to learn how to write the characters using a Ch*nese brush or ‘mao bi’. And during our time we ask how do you write the word for ‘love’ and they show us a complicated character and we quickly realize that its very difficult :). But it does present the opportunity to tell them that God loves them, they don’t have to do anything to make him love them, he wants to and chooses to.
Yesterday, Angela asked our friends what they most fear? One said ghosts. In North America we might be tempted to laugh because we have no experience with that but it is more real here and no joke for them. Though we, because of Christ, have nothing to fear, most people here have no such guardian to look to and must brave their fears and the dangers they face on their own. Maybe one day they will take notice that God, through Jesus, has real life for them, freedom unhindered by fears and all the things in this world that hold them down.
Teaching Adventures 