Easy Ways to Add a Language

Everyone knows that to major in a subject at Trinity, it requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. For example, for my Chinese major I must complete over 30 hours! But, something that Trinity does, which I love, is that they make it easy to gain these hours in various ways. 

For example, for my Chinese major, there are so many different classes I can take that count. For example, Asian Religions not only counts for my major, but it also counts towards my common curriculum. I feel that this allows students to maxamize their time at school, and also, gain a full-circle understanding of the language...because once I take that class, not only will I know the Chinese language, but I will understand the Chinese people's various religions and the significance both in the modern and historical worlds. 

Another example of Trinity doing this for their students that I personally have experienced is for my spanish minor. For this, I must have 18 hours, which is not neccesarily easy when I started my freshman year taking graduate level classes. But, this semester I took Introduction to Spanish American Literature which gives three hours towards my Spanish minor while knocking of some of my required common curriculum!

The purpose of this post was to show that while adding a double major of a language may be difficult, Trinity makes it more than possible. I love that while I am taking classes about the things that I really care about (languages!) I can still be effective in my required curriculum. Thanks Trinity!

Gong Xi Gong Xi!

Throughout my year of studying Chinese, one new thing that I have experienced is the Chinese New Year Celebration. At this time, people get together and eat a dinner together, light fireworks, and usually, elders give the children red envelopes that have money inside. 

Trinity celebrated this event by getting different Asian groups on campus together and having one New Year celebration together. At this event, which was held in the Fiesta Room, there were performances by the Vietnamese club, Chinese I students, Filipino club, along with others. Food was provided as well as small other fun Chinese souvenirs. 

For this event, I, along with three other Chinese 1 students got together and planned out a performance to the traditional Chinese New Year song, "Gong Xi"-- this means congratulations in Chinese (in ancient history, Chinese people congratulated each other for surviving another year). We organized about 25 students into a choreographed dance and then me, along with one of the other leaders, made a cardboard Ox in which we danced under like traditional New Years performances.  

Through this experience I gained a first-hand experience with the Chinese culture and was able to participate in a way that wouldn't have been possible unless I was in Chinese at Trinity University. Included in this blog is a picture of a traditional Chinese New Year celebration along with a link to a youtube video of the traditional "Gong Xi" song. 

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7laBfy89qK8&feature=related 

Spanish Readings

In addition to taking Chinese this year, I have also taken a Spanish class both semesters. First semester I took a graduate level class, Advanced Grammar, and then second semester, I took Introduction to Spanish American Literature. While it has been difficult to take on two languages at once, its extremely interesting and I love the challenge. 

During my Spanish Lit. class, we read a book that I loved and found very interesting. Titled, "De Los Abajo", it is considered to be one of the most important and influential books during the Mexican Revolution. 

The story follows the famous Mexican Revolutionary, Pancho Villa, and his companion the Indian, Demetrio Macias. The book follows their journeys, conquests, victories, and sacrifices. I found the book very interesting because while it offered historical information, it gave a deep perspective into how the Revolution affected people individually and on the family level. 

In conclusion, this book, while short and definitely a tough read, proved to be very beneficial. Not only did I enjoy it, but I learned about both Mexico's history as well as its culture. 

Continuous Opportunities

Over the past year, I have loved my experience taking Chinese at Trinity. Between learning a lot and meeting a lot of great people, I have become exposed to the various opportunities that Trinity offers its Chinese-language students. 

One of the opportunities that I was most impressed by was that it offers its students a "Chinese Hall". This is a community-living hall within the freshman dorm of McLean, and it is open to anyone who is currently studying Chinese (or Japanese and Korean) or anyone who is a native-Chinese speaker. 

Besides living with others who share the same passion for learning Chinese, the Chinese hall puts on various activities that are open to the entire campus. For example, while the Chinese 1 students were studying the food unit in class, the Chinese hall got together and made dumplings. This event was open to all, and provided an opportunity for anyone to learn more about the Chinese culture. 

All in all, after learning about this community-living hall that Trinity offers to its students, the Trinity language department stood out more than ever before in my eyes. While Trinity may not have the "best" (technically, not in our students' eyes) or the "biggest" Chinese program, in my opinion it is the most well-rounded and also, provides the best and most beneficial opportunities to its students. 

My First Impressions of Chinese

Studying languages in any medium can be a very intimidating endeavorer. At Trinity University, we offer many different languages including Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and next year we add Arabic to the list. As a freshman, I am currently taking my second semester of Chinese 1 as well as various Spanish classes. The purpose of this post is to describe my initial days and thoughts of beginning my formal education of the Chinese language. 

As a teenager, I spent three summers with my Taekwondo team training in Beijing and Taiwan. While I picked up many phrases and even was able to write some characters, I had no idea about how the language worked, but because of my continuing travels to Asia I had a strong desire to learn. 

When picking colleges to apply to during my junior year, I wasn't really sure about what I would want to study, let alone major in. There wasn't a specific subject I was good in, except Spanish. Throughout Junior High and High School I had taken four years of Spanish as well as traveled to Puerto Rico twice and a school trip to Spain. Thats when I realized I wasn't a math, history, art or science person, but rather, a language person. I decided to set my sights on Chinese, and when I attended College fairs, I looked for schools with exceptional Chinese Programs. When I told the admissions officer behind the Trinity table my interest, I was informed that Trinity had the 2nd best Chinese Program in the State of Texas. 

Obviously I was excited to start learning Chinese, I was extremely intimidated and nervous. My biggest fear is that I would be dropped into a classroom with an native-Chinese teacher who would expect me to know how to speak, write, and read right away! While this sounds stereotypical, I was worried I wouldn't fully understand a native-speaker and learning aspects of the language would get lost in translation. 

On my first day of class, I walked in to find Dr. Stephen Field. He is a white male from West Texas... exactly what I was NOT expecting. Basically, Dr. Field told the class that if he could learn Chinese fluently, then all of us could for sure. This gave me a new-found hope for my upcoming challenges within Chinese, and I wasn't nervous anymore. For the rest of the year, any time I got discouraged and confused, I reminded myself that once upon a time Dr. Field was learning the language just like I was. 

Basically, my point of this post is to inform anyone who is interested and yet intimidated of taking a new and foreign language at Trinity to know that all the professors, especially Dr. Field, are there to teach you and help you.