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Shi YanZhang's School in China

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  • I think they should send language students there, I would have learnt a lot more on my degree course had I have been in Dengfeng and not in language school in Taipei
    this is a joke, right?
    ZhongwenMovies.com

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    • Hi chicken,

      Thanks for the info! im certainly coming out to china on the 24 december and will be coming to yan zhangs school ill have to have a word with my shifu to call yan zhang to get me a letter for my visa,do you think it would be easy enough for me to get a visa for a year? i live in london and this is the first time im going somewhere this far for so long so i need to get everything prepeared as in paperwork, would be greatful if you could give me any other info what might be helpful that would be great.looking

      also have you met any of the foriengh students you might know a friend of mine he called johnathan its his last month at yan zhangs just wanted to know how hes doing cause i have not had contact with him since hes been in china, if your saw my shifu when he came to yan zhangs recently im sure you would have seen john.

      look forward to your reply

      Thanks

      Comment


      • Hi Wen,

        Jonathan and I grew up in the same town and went to the same school, well a few years apart that is. I'm not sure but I think Heng Long/Lin Cunguo, who is your shifu (right?), is also at large in China... last time I heard about them, Jonathan was visiting Heng Long's folks. (Heng Long is a good friend of mine, btw.)

        Either way, I'm not sure if we can get you a letter of introduction to get a visa (has this been done before?) either way I will check it out with the school myself. I'll ask some previous students what they did as well and get back to you Wen.

        Wen, just let me answer Mortal and Onespr1ng:

        Mortal, on the subject of Sanda, I suggest you head over to Yan Zhang's and spar up with Heng Xuan, one of his students "Ya Lue" and the sanda coach Liu... and when you get out of hospital let me know if you think the sanda is good or not.

        When it comes to whether they study traditional stuff or not, Heng Xuan can do all traditional and all modern forms that anyone asks him to perform, and he only studied at Yan Zhang's school. Since its evidently implausible that he learnt the forms at Yan Zhang's I guess he must have picked up the traditional stuff watching wushu soap operas...

        Onespr1ng: having a requirement to learn a language is a better incentive than any teacher or any classroom training and I have a degree in Chinese so do know what I'm talking about on this occasion.

        Wen, I'll get the low down on where Jonathan is, and tell him to get in contact with you.

        Got to run

        Chicken

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        • Give me an example of a non-chinese student who developed a high level of sanda in china. Not the 2 guys chinese guys in the school that trained it there whole life and are actually good at it. The question was if they get foreingers up to a high level of sanda. Your answer only confirms what I said.

          For the record no one has ever put me in the hospital.

          Chicken

          When YOU could put me in the hospital then talk shit otherwise shut the #%@% up.

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          • hi chicken thanks for the reply, your right heng long is my shifu youve probly seen my cousin a few times at hes home i remember my cousin telling me that he met wang, anyway thanks for your reply it would be great if you could get some info for me regarding the process of me stayin at the school for a year and visa requriements.

            thanks.

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            • chicken,

              也許我從台南的成公大學得到了跟你一樣的學歷。 反正...

              固然人們都需要誘因, 不過, 我想你指的是「必要性」。 然而,上課的確為學生帶來很多誘因,因為在上課的過程中,學生都得寫功課、 交文章、練習問答...等等 。 事實上, 一個人在街上可以學到的東西, 遠比不上從一位專業老師那兒學到的多。 而且,人們需要訓練, 才能真正地進步。 你知道我已經聽過了多少不正確的建議嗎? 因為你具有中文背景,因此學習、吸收新的生詞 、辨認漢字 、發音,以及其他跟學習中文關的資料, 對你來說,易如反掌 。 關鍵在於, 沒有像你一樣經驗的人, 若只從街上學習, 將錯失許多重要而正確的觀念。 基本上, 如果你仍然認為在街上學習的成果超過課堂裡的, 那麼, 你一定是個白癡!

              g
              ZhongwenMovies.com

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              • English for the forum. Especially if that was about me!

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                • Mortal: tell Wen's friend Jonathan and Heihu (who started this thread) that their sanda is pants... and let me know how you get on.

                  I have no desire to put anyone in hospital, just think you should be careful not to make general statements about the standard of people come out Yan Zhang's or any other school, as you never know when you might catch up with the ones that aren't sow's ears.

                  Onespr1ng: thanks... I agree with the points that you make especially at higher levels of language acquisition, but do you underestimate the degree to which cultural context is essential in language learning, especially with cultures that are so different as Western - Eastern ones? Since you are bi-lingual, you maybe don't have the perspective of having learnt a language in a classroom as well as through cultural immersion? Personally I find the later essential for initial understanding, then resort to acquisition from other sources, in as much as as a child at school your vocabulary expands to encompass the subjects you study. Since most people only aim to get by in Chinese and not debate the universe, most can pick up what they need to get by in Dengfeng very quickly with all the repetition within the training and the lifestyle.

                  Sorry, I don't pay you the compliment of replying in Chinese, I'm not bilingual, so stick with English with those whose English level is better than my Chinese! Oh and by the way the "fanti zi" totally threw me... I haven't resoured them since 1991, which is a real pity since Taiwan is just the coolest place.

                  Wen: is your cousin at Art School? If so, yup, nice guy, saw me being totally freaked out at having to keep track of two shaolins... at that point it somehow haddn't occured to me that knowing one of them would lead to spending time around many, many more of them... LoL

                  I think the longest visa you can get as a student or visitor is a single entry 6 month visa. If you are staying for longer you head down to Hong Kong and get another visa when you are six months in, I'm reviewing this to check that nothing has changed. Don't worry about it being your first trip away from home... life is so different it takes quite some time for you to think about home, let alone start to miss it - you'll do fine!

                  Chicken

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                  • Hi chicken,

                    thanks for the help most greatful, yeah my cousin is the one in art school, your right about one thing when you know one shaolin you know them all, ill be coming out to china with heng sheng so ill probly c u soon! got a good idea of what i need to now in terms of visa when in china thats great! to the other guys in this thread regarding the sanda i would not want to test anyones sanda skills especially if they trained at yan zhangs my shifu was one of the top masters in the school and he trained some top fighters not just chinese! everyone is entitled to an opinion but if i was you keep them to yourself i mean that in the nicest way possible

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                    • Also chicken is there another way i can comunicate with you besides this site? do you have msn or something?got loads of other questions and doin it through this site take quite a bit of time!

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                      • My mother told me there is a weirdo on every bus, but I could never find him.

                        Amitabha nerdery at it's very best.

                        What tournaments have these top notch sanda guys won?

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                        • not sure ill findout from my shifu and get back to you!

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                          • Chicken,

                            Actually the reason I responded was because I had a very difficult time improving before I put myself through school and I wouldn't want to see someone fooling themselves into thinking they can go far without proper training.

                            I don't "underestimate the degree to which cultural context is essential in language learning," but when in Mainland it was like kicking myself in the head while simply trying to get a reasonably consistent answer from people. Chinese don't generally have a good understanding of how there language works linguistically -- not that others do or anything. It's just that, if you want to speak well, read and write well, you have to put in the classroom hours. Many people learn "street Chinese" and feel they know a great deal. I think they fall short in many areas. My Chinese needs improvement, yet I'm not often misunderstood, and basically that's cause I speak it around 6 to 8 hours everyday, read and write.

                            If the people you're referring to want to be able to survive and get along traveling, buying things, etc...then immersion is suitable; if really tackling the language is your goal, just being in an area won't do it....less your reaaaaaally patient. Appeared you were implying that a person learns more on the street then they do from a degree. My impression, however, is that a person can only really develop themselves on the street if they have build a foundation in the class. (much like gong fu I suppose)

                            So it seems maybe you were in taiwan for a few years, went back home, then returned to China?
                            -------------
                            Mortal, my dear friend, sadly it's one of those inside things. I only mentioned you thirty seven times in the first two sentences anyhow.
                            ZhongwenMovies.com

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                            • bye bye

                              Im off to china boxing day and will be at yan zhangs school in the new year, anyone else going near this time to this school?

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                              • Wen,

                                the Hengs were on your case last night. Heng Sheng is going to call Heng Xuan again today so he can talk to GuoYin... I didn't realise that you were in contact with Heng Sheng as well as Heng Long, or that Heng Sheng was familar with Guo Yin, for that matter. Is Heng Sheng part of the Yan Zhang crew too? Anyway, can you drop me a line at dogwithnotail@yahoo.co.uk and I'll give you the low down.

                                Chicken


                                Onespr1ng,


                                sorry I only pick this up again now... I did write this some time ago, but couldn't send it:.....

                                I think we arrive at the same conclusions but our entry points to the language were different. I did a year of Chinese at university in the UK and it was an absolute nightmare... I could read and memorise the characters reasonably well, but when it came to listening comprehension, I was an absolute disaster. I spent the second year in Taiwan, which seemed a safer bet than the Mainland, at the time we had to decide where to go (1990) we were bearly a year away from Tiananmen.



                                In the 10th month in Taiwan, I had the breakthrough that the reason that I still couldn't understand anything was that by and large the language on the street wasn't guoyu! Fortunately, some of the classroom must have sunk through... the chinese tutors in the UK taught us in mandarin in the 3rd and 4th years, and I just couldn't see how I would manage. I can't tell you how surprised I was that I actually understood them!



                                On graduation I worked in Guangzhou for two years, and again had great difficulty with the Cantonese accent... at that point most people in Guangzhou were still Cantonese and their putonghua was heavily accented. Towards the end of those two years I developed some fluency (1997). My Chinese was then dormant until roughly a year ago. I came back out here in May.



                                If you can find me someone who can speak good putonghua, my listening comprehension is high. Unfortunately, my reading vocabulary has greatly deteriorated, I recognise everyday characters, and can pronounce 90% of the rest but have lost their meanings!




                                I agree with you that it is very hard to progress without a concerted effort, but find self-study more efficient than classrooms. Maybe this is because having started learning Chinese in university, I always had the study skills to study by myself.



                                Having observed the level of acquisition of some of Hengxuan's students who were with him in Dengfeng for about a year, and the rates of acquisition of some of the international students at Yan Zhang's and compared it with my own in the UK, they were far more conversant than I was at a comparative stage. So I think that my auditory processing of the language would have been faster at Yan Zhang's than at university.



                                So how about you? It sounds like you got the basics and then went to school, and since your acquistion rate was then faster in school you think that school is the better environment? How long have you been in Taiwan, and where did you call home before then?


                                Chicken

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