Mandarin and Creativity and Rap: And Your Presentations

Language in China is about one written form and many spoken forms. Learning in China is—or at least has been—about repeating discrete bits of information. Painting and poetry in China follow traditional and rather narrow forms. But that is changing. You may have noticed. . .

The wall at left is actually a barrier hiding the ongoing work near the People's Stadium about three years ago, before the Olympics. The writing tells the story of the neighborhood. Parts of the text are highlighted: circled or lined-off on the side. The writing style is traditional and lovely. The topic is the change in the neighborhood. But what does this say about creativity and the strictures imposed by the more-or-less traditional teaching styles of China? We don't know enough about this particular written form. But we can say something about music.

In fact, Sexybeijing.tv has said it for us. Here goes!


By the way: project presentations will happen on Saturday this coming. We'll start with a bit of a group-review and exercise at 8am. Then move into 30 minute presentations (with an additional five minutes to allow set-up between groups). We'll carry this up until noon, then start again at 12:30. I may stretch things to 35 minutes; no more.

If you have questions about the presentations, give me a holler.