GRAD703 – Week 02

IEDAS – Vr. 1.3

IDEA 01 – Speak out – Vol 1 – The take on Cantonese

I at first wanted to do a Cantonese-related topic. Because I was born and raised in a Cantonese culture family, both of my parents and relatives speak Cantonese, thus, giving me a deep perspective on the language.

Since the 2000s, with the born of my little sister, we’ve seen to go through the same path. Yet, it was not. Since the massive promotion of Mandarin teaching in mainland China in 1998, schools from kindergarten to university are adopting Mandarin in education. And it causes the learning of the native dialect the responsible of the parents. She was a quick learner; before going to kindergarten, she could speak our native relatively fluently. Fast forward to primary school, she can speak Cantonese and Mandarin smoothly. But, when she went to higher degrees, she started to use Mandarin more and more, to the point that communication between family is in Mandarin. Unfortunately, my parents never learn Mandarin in their whole life and now have to struggle to learn the language in their late 30s in order to communicate with my little sister. It was both funny and sad; they never mastered Mandarin and could only speak in a Frankenstein, quirky way that Mandarin speakers called Bao Dong Gua”煲冬瓜”. [ Translate to English – Mandarin Pu Tong Hua “普通话” with a heavy accent] It is a frankly a racist term to describe someone who can’t speak Mandarin fluently or with a distinct Cantonese accent.

I was trying to ask her why she did not uses our native. And she said it was much more convenient; everyone in the school uses it. Moreover, She told me she had lost some vocabulary in the native, therefore, leading her don’t want to use it with others because she was scared of being called “塑料粤语”. [Translate to English – Plastic Cantonese, describe A Guangdong^*1 born person who doesn’t know how to speak or understand Cantonese]

I wanted to know why the younger generations don’t want to speak the native. I also wanted to make a survey on the current situation of Cantonese. In the different age groups, how they view on the topic, can they speak their native fluently, and how to preserve the native language.

The term “Plastic” was a hit to me. I did not know the term plastic is used to descript a person who is disconnected from their native culture, language, or customs. In the first semester of 2022, from the project by one of our classmates showcasing what plastic means in other cultures, I was having a Deja Vu moment, and the dots were starting to connect.

I want to create a publication, that is interesting to read, things like local customs, traditions, and story writing in Cantonese, also provides the most up-to-date information on the current status of Cantonese, the changes, the meaning, and the user base. I might also include interviews with Cantonese activists, Cantonese researchers, and Cantonese social media personalities. To gain their option on the current situation of Cantonese, and how to preserve the language.

Description

*1 – Not all Guangdong are Cantonese-speaking areas. Cantonese speakers are mostly centric around places close to Guangzhou, as it was originally Canton’s official language “广州官话”, Places like Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan have their own take on Cantonese and created words and tones specifically for the area, but nevertheless, most Cantonese speakers can understand each other despite the tone differences.

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IDEA 02 – The brief history of Chinese characters and their development

With this idea, I’d like to explore some of the iconic Chinese characters and its change from ancient times. This is a popular topic that has been done a number of times in China, but in the western countries, however, it was not. There are books about the evolution of characters, but all of them are heavily focused on sinologist research which is hard for average people to read, and long boring academic reading can kill someone’s interest rather efficiently. All of them, as far as I know, are designed in the most boring way, splash on some eastern elements and lettering, cheesy cover and boring layout. I want to challenge that and prove that history and eastern tales can be made in a modern, clean, tasteful way. With the right design tools, I believe I can challenge the stereotype that studying ancient, historical topics can be fun and engaging.

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IDEA 03 – The condensed information hidden in the Chinese characters

The writing system of Chinese characters is heavily dependent on visuals. The characters themselves have changed a number of times thought-out history. The biggest change happened with the Chinses simplification movement the information had been condensed from traditional Chinese. But with the simplification, the characters lose some of their identity. The beauty of the writing system in Chinese is that the parts which form the character can also be explained individually. Therefore making the characters contain more information and can be easier to read with limited space. I want to look into the parts that form the Chinese characters and explore the meaning and relationship between characters.

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Rethink of creativity

During the morning lecture, we were asked to answer a few questions regarding creativity. Because the questions were unexpected and the core of them was extremely broad thus, it was quite challenging to narrow down the meaning and provides my understanding in a short period of time.

The answer was not edited.

What is creativity?

Creativity is to do what your gut tells you to do, not someone else telling you what to do.

Follow-up explanation: Intuition is the key to most designers. Usually, when I’m designing, I like to let my mind goes wild, and most of the time I think I did something awesome and ultimately find it has been done before, but I still find it fascinating that someone else has the same idea as you but might get to it with a different method.

Can creativity be learned?

Yes, it can be. By studying cases you’ll learn how they think, and by doing so, you might discover new connections.

Follow-up explanation: I think creativity is strongly linked with curiosity. The learning process is within for all of us as a species and inherited from generations. The basis of creativity is shown when we are little; either drawing on the walls or rolling in the sand are all considered human ingenuity acting in its pure nature, and being able to express ourselves for no apparent benefit to the needs of survival is one of the keys different between animals and us. The only difference between ourselves is that some of us studied drawing for years and gained extensive knowledge on how to create a cohesive artwork. That is not to say that someone who spent years in computer science and coding can’t be creative in their respective sector. Thus, I consider creativity can be “learned” or improved, and it is only relevant to the perspective of the position.

 

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Read of the week

The reading demonstrates the idea behind the position and how it effects the researcher’s ideology. One of the things I like the most from the paper was the perspective on acknowledging the build of the position can take a lifetime to build and refine. The characteristics or personality of a researcher could be vastly distinct from someone who grow-up from the same region. Multiple factors can contribute to the difference in development. Social status can play a big role from my point of view because it determines the level of education, belief and social group. The paper also stated as researcher, we should periodically reflecting on ourselves.

(Holmes, 2020)