The Way of the Warrior (BBC) - tai chi

[Firbolg]

Long ago in a galaxy far far away the beeb did a great documentary called the way of the warrior.. I just found these vids on tai chi in taiwan from that series..

Way of the Warrior (BBC) - tai chi, part 1

There are 4 parts, just click the 'related vids' thumbs there for the other three.


btw they mention 'taiwanese' - I thought mandarin was the local language in taiwan.. is taiwanese another dialect like cantonese?

[flow]

Nice video, had never seen before.


Regarding the language, in Taiwan they speak Hokkien, a dialect originated from Fujian China and that is manly spoken in Taiwan (where it is the mother tongue), Malaysia and Singapore.

However they study in Mandarin at school because Hokkien has no writing system and is considered as a "rude" language (many Mainland and oversea Chinese use the Hokkien for swearing only). I have to disagree with that, it's a very nice and soft language when spoken by Taiwanese in particular.

[Chicken]

There are a few other dialects aside from Fujian (Hokkien) in use in Taiwan and actually a lot of the older popluation speak Japanese.

There's a couple of native languages too that have almost died out. The Hokkien in Taiwan is about as different as English and American. Yes you can understand it, but its quite distinct which is why they call it Taiwanese and not Hokkien. They also call Mandarin "Guoyu" meaning, "The national Language" again its about as differently spoken in Taiwan as UK English and say Australian. They tend to use a wider vocabulary in Taiwan, and their more tonal inflection. If you turn up in China talking with a Taiwanese Mandarin Accent, they think you are posh. If you go the otherway, the Taiwanese tend to think you are a peasant.

Taiwan's history is incredibly interesting. Aside from the Japanese occupation last century, the Portugese arrived there in 1590, and called the place "Ilha Formosa", i.e. The Beautiful Island, which I think is very fitting.

Chicken

[onesp1ng]

they study in Mandarin at school because Hokkien has no writing system and is considered as a "rude" language (many Mainland and oversea Chinese use the Hokkien for swearing only). I have to disagree with that, it's a very nice and soft language when spoken by Taiwanese in particular.

flow i think i understand what you're suggesting, but to say hakka has no writing system is a tad misleading. this is what i wrote a while back when the topic came up................

"It's like the difference between American and British English." I guess you can say this is true, for the most part, if we're discussing the difference between the Chinese 国语 spoken in Taiwan and the Chinese spoken in Mainland. Yet, "Taiwanese" (or Hakka), on the other hand, is a totally different language altogether. It has 9 tones, as opposed to 4, and is much more like Cantonese than Mandarin. Just because you understand Chinese, regardless of the level, does not mean you can understand Taiwanese. Taiwanese people who speak Taiwanese use the same characters that a native Chinese speaker uses when speaking Mandarin, but the oral expression of the characters is entirely different.

my point is that they use 汉字 as well, although, originally, no, there wasn't a formal writing system associated with the language.

as for being considered a "rude" language, that's a somewhat outdated view, at least for taiwanese, i think. in the past, absolutely, is was perceived to be 粗鲁, or rude, and in fact students were not allowed to speak it in school. television and radio programming also frowned on using the language. emphasis was subsequently diverted to 国语，the national language. but things have changed quite a bit over the last fifteen years or so. students have both 国语 and taiwanese classes and can speak whatever they please in school without fear of punishment. there are also many many tv and radio programs these days that cater to the taiwanese speaking demographic -- the majority. sure, taiwanese can sound extremely coarse and unrefined when spoken by some, but, i agree, it can also be very beautifully expressed by others, which really isn't unlike most languages i suppose... i'm not entirely sure how chinese see taiwanese these days...but i can't imagine they would think it's very good......which is probably an indicator of why taiwanese had looked down on their own language for so many years. anyhow, the meixian dialect of hakka, according to many resources, is considered the archetypal spoken form of the language. generally, there are fourteen major languages/ dialects in taiwan.

the differences between the mandarin spoken on the mainland compared to what's spoken in taiwan is another discussion altogether. i'd say that if you listen to the news from taipei, then from hangzhou or some southern city in china, the differences won't be very drastic. then again, the chinese spoken (on the street) in southern taiwan particularly, is quite different from that spoken in northern china. whether one is posh and the other is peasant-like, i couldn;t say...

[flow]

Interesting things to read here.

All i know is from my Girlfriend who's a Malaysian Hokkien (her grandpa was from Fujian). I can hear the difference between Taiwanese "Hokkien" and a more Chinese Hokkien. The Taiwanese is smoother and doesn't sound that rude. Furthermore, Malaysian Hokkien has been watered down and they frequently use English and Malay words where Taiwanese really don't need to do that.

What do you guys think about the video?

[Chicken]

I'm really looking forward to seeing it when I get back to somewhere where the download speeds aren't so slow. I'm doing download heavy work at the moment with images and its like taking half an hour to get through like 6mg.... its so painful.

OneSp1ng, our expert on all things Chinese language from a cross cultural perspective, are Hokkien and Hakka the same dialect? I understood that Hokkien was Fujian Dialect and Hakka is Kejiahua? Or did I get that wrong too?

Thanks in advance,

Chicken

[flow]

Not to invade this post but i found this video too, it's quite interesting. Problem is, very poor quality, but still can see some moves -no 360 degrees fliying kicks as you may expect.

A rare footage, i wish nowdays masters still entered this kind of contest, so we could know which one to study with hehehe.

Check it out too -if u can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S19VsB7__v0

[onesp1ng]

well, babe...

looks like we're all in need of a sino- tibetan languages refresher course. apparently taiwanese is ... taiwanese, not hokkien or hakka, though it may contain aspects of each.

taken from wiki:

Like most ethnic Chinese, whether from mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, or other parts of Southeast Asia, when writing Chinese, Min Nan speakers use Chinese characters as in Standard Mandarin, although there are a number of special characters which are unique to Min Nan and sometimes used in informal writing (as is the case with Cantonese). Where standard Chinese
characters are used, they are not always etymological or genetic; the
borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice.

Taiwanese does not have a strong written tradition. Until the late 19th century, Taiwanese speakers wrote solely in literary Chinese. A system of writing Taiwanese using Latin characters called pe?h-oē-jī (POJ) was developed in the 19th century. Today, Taiwanese speakers most commonly write in vernacular Chinese, which uses the vocabulary and grammar of Mandarin, though Chinese characters are also used to represent spoken Taiwanese in writing.

The Xiamen dialect is a hybrid of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. Taiwanese is also a hybrid of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on Quanzhou speech, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Zhangzhou speech. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The grammar is basically the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen loanwords from Japanese. In contrast, Chaozhou speech is significantly different from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech in three areas: pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

Southern Fujian is home to three main dialect systems of Min Nan. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond:

Amoy (Xiamen)
Changchew (Zhangzhou)
Chinchew (Quanzhou)

As Xiamen (Amoy) is the principal city of southern Fujian, the Amoy dialect is considered the most important, or even prestige variant. Xiamen and the Amoy dialect have played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learned of all Chinese languages/dialects by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.The variants of Min Nan spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that
spoken in Quanzhou.

The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants, and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese is used by a majority of the population and bears much importance from a socio-political perspective,
forming the second (and perhaps today most significant) major pole of the
language.

Those Min Nan variants that are collectively known as "Hokkien" in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants.

In Taiwan, Hakka people comprise about 15% of the population and are descended largely from Guangdong: they form the third largest population group on the island. Many Hakka moved to lands high up in the hills or remote mountains to escape political persecution. Many of the Hakka people continue to live in these hilly locations of Taiwan.

Taiwan's Hakka are concentrated in Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, and around Jhongli in Taoyuan County, and Meinong in Kaohsiung County,and in Pingtong County, with smaller presences in Hualian and Taitung County. In recent decades many Hakka have moved to the largest metropolitan areas, including Taipei and Kaohsiung.

Hakkas also developed a system of martial arts called Hakka Kuen (Hakka Fist), and which lead to the development of Southern Praying Mantis.