Teaching Liang Zhu in America 在美国教梁祝

"Liang Zhu," short for "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai," also known as "Butterfly Lovers," is a classic Chinese love story. Zhu Yingtai, the girl who disguised herself as a young man so she could go to school, met the boy Liang Shanbo. They studied together for three years. Liang Shanbo never realized that Zhu Yingtai was a girl, while Zhu had deeply fallen in love with her school mate. 

Three years later, one day, Zhu Yingtai received a letter from home telling her that her father is dying. Unwilling to leave her dear friend Liang Shanbo, she invited Liang to come to her home and meet her 9th sister. The two friends traveled together for 18 miles, until they finally parted in tears. Liang promised to pay Zhu a visit on the seventh day of the seventh month at her home.

When Liang did travel to Zhu's home, however, he discovered there would be no 9th sister, only his beautiful friend Zhu Yingtai. However, Zhu Yingtai burst into tears when she saw Liang Shanbo. Devoted and passionate about each other they were, Zhu Yingtai’s father had already arranged a marriage for her with another man, like every Chinese family arranged marriages for their daughters. Extremely depressed, Liang returned home. He could not sleep, could not eat, and soon died with a broken heart.

On the day Zhu was to be married to her arranged husband, a whirlwind prevented the wedding procession just as they passed Liang Shanbo’s tomb. Zhu broke away from her attendants and collapsed in front of Liang’s tomb, crying remorsefully. Suddenly, the thunder stroke, heavy rain poured down, and Liang’s tomb split apart. Zhu Yingtai dived into the open tomb to join her lover. What happened next? The sun reappeared, and a rainbow spread across the sky. A pair of butterflies emerged from the tomb, free and cheerful. Together, they danced around the tomb for a little while, and then slowly flew away. Liang and Zhu have lived on. Their love has triumphed over odds and death.

I love the "Liang Zhu" story so much. It represents one of the most beautiful strings of Chinese culture. I want to introduce it to my students. My initial attempt, however, was not successful. I first tried to introduce "Liang Zhu" to some of my Chinese students last year when we were studying a chapter about dating. As I told the story in Chinese, I tried my best to stay within their vocabulary, draw illustrations on the board, speak dramatically, and act some parts. But nobody seemed to appreciate the story. I was not sure if they did not understand the story, or just did not find it particularly moving. Perhaps that was a predominantly boys' class, and high school boys did not want to look cheesy in front of each other. Or perhaps they were too young to comprehend classic, lofty love. Whatever reason it might be, I felt rather pitiful of myself. I was definitely playing a zither in front of a cow - as a Chinese idiom would describe it, meaning that I had the wrong audience and therefore wasted my efforts.

But I wouldn't give up so easily.  If the students are learning Romeo and Juliet in their English class, they should be able to appreciate "Liang Zhu." I decided to try again this year, to a new group of Chinese students who are studying the same chapter about dating. And I decided that I would make some major changes to the way I tell the story. First, I drew on the SmartBoard, using more colors for my illustrations, and enjoyed the advantage of moving images around. The students seemed more engaged as my illustrations became more appealing. And after all, SmartBoard is still a pretty cool thing. The second change I made was to tell the story slowly. Not only did I try to use only the words they know, I made sure to explain the words they may not understand in English. In fact, I told the story over two days, and was so satisfied that on the second day, the students could retell the first part of the story that they just heard the previous day with rich details and in Chinese. After that, they followed carefully till the end of the whole story, responding actively to each detail, and amazed at the lovers rebirth as butterflies, as they should.

Excited I was to see their favorable response, I decided to share the music of Liang Zhu with them as well. I myself have been moved by the music of Liang Zhu since I was little, and the power of the music had its effort on me again when the classroom was filled with that beautiful melody. To my delightful surprise, the students loved the music that they requested that we listen to the whole symphony piece, and we did for almost half an hour. It was truly a surprise that these teenagers could be so absorbed by a piece of Chinese music, and some even looked as if they were deeply in thought. They responded wonderfully to the music just as they responded wonderfully to the story. Some kept asking which part of the music movement corresponded to which part of the story. One of the students even compared Zhu Yingtai's dive into Liang's tomb with Juliet's death with Romeo. Not less surprisingly was how they responded to the end of "Liang Zhu" with remarkable optimism, something I did not think before, that they thought turning into butterflies was a happy ending for the devoted lovers. It was nice to think that way, wasn't it, so not all great love stories end in tragedy.

I was overjoyed. It was so blissful to share the beauty of Liang Zhu with my American students.

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This is the Liang Zhu symphony I used in the class, absolutely beautiful:

Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto 1st 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第一樂章

Butterfly Lovers violin Concerto 2nd 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第二樂章

Butterfly Lovers violin Concerto 3rd 梁祝小提琴協奏曲：第三樂章

作曲：陳綱、何占豪 
Composed by Chen Gang, He Zhan-hao in 1959
小提琴：呂思清Violin by Lu Si-Qing
The winner of the International Paganini Violin Competition in 1987

譚利華指揮北京中央樂團

Learning Chinese with IPad 用 IPad 教中文

My newest gadget Ipad has occupied my free times for weeks now, and I marvel again at how easily accessible information has become. So for serious and potential Chinese learners out there, I recommend the following Chinese-related Ipad apps. All these are survivors from hours and hours of search and trial. Although they are by no means exhaustive, they are probably the most functional out there so far.

You can click the icons or app names to follow the links.

Learning Character apps

eZi Test

• A very comprehensive app and is FREE!
• It includes information as to audio flashcards, stroke orders, quizzes and games.
• The word index can be any index that you can download, also for free.

• iLearnChinese is worth purchasing the full version for. It includes information not just about how to write characters, but about their etymology, uses, and derived characters.

• ChineseWords has attractive page design and can work well with children.

• Writer is a cool game. You have to know the stroke order of characters in order to win!

• 写汉字免费版 has a rather bland interface, but nonetheless provides good space for practice screen writing.

Chinese Reading apps

Nciku Reader

• You have to make in-app purchases, and the list of books are limited. But it has good dictionary and annotation functions that make it appealing to a Chinese learner.

老夫子精选漫画

• In-app purchases can be worth it.
• The cartoon books are illustrated with traditional characters, but they are entertaining and appropriate for all age groups.

囧四格漫画

• Another cartoon reading app. However, compared with 老夫子精选漫画, the audience of 囧四格 may not include the very young. Yet for the right audience, it can be pretty funny.

Chinese Listening apps

Radio Chinese Plus +

• Free Mandarin and Cantonese radio stations from LA and NYC.

• Radio can play while you do other things with your Ipad.

Chinese Video apps

• These are all from 5Q Channel Chinese Reading apps, some of my favorite apps. Although their difficulty level is relatively high, they are great classroom aids when introducing Chinese culture to students.
• I myself learn a lot about the traditions and legends of each of these festivals from these apps.
• These are all the festivals the provider currently has.

• These are also from 5Q Channel Chinese Reading apps. Again, gorgeous interface. You can easily find an Apple VGA adaptor and show these videos in class.
• The stories are all about Chinese folktales or idioms. Great cultural infusion.
• The video comes with both simplified and traditional characters, picture books, with pinyin and English translation.
• Although you have to pay for each individual story, it is worth it. They are very well done.
• All the stories I have here are relatively easy ones.

Chinese Game apps

These characteristic Chinese games can subsidize Chinese learning with a taste of Chinese culture.

• Chinese Checkers is a great game and it's free. It reminds me of the checkers games I used to play with my dad when I was little, and in Chinese, we call it "jumping chess." What makes this version cool is that instead of having just two players, as I was used to, you can play with as many players as you want (up to six real or virtual players).

• Chinese Chess is another Chinese game that is free. I have a student who loves learning Chinese partially because he enjoys playing Chinese chess. We even play it in class sometime!

• Puzzle Games for Chinese Idiom is a game that tests your familiarity with Chinese idiom. I like it, because I'm more advanced in Chinese. I even got the full paid version for it. The default is in traditional characters, but you can easily change the setting to display simplified characters.

• Love Chinese is a cute game for baby. Lovely interface. They even let you get stickers as a prize! Has a paid version.

• Matching Game for Chinese poetry is quite hard I have to say, but could be a fun activity for more advanced learners. Needs to pay if you want the full version.

Testing apps

HSK Test

• These are test questions based on the HSK Test, the official Chinese level test administered by the Chinese government.
• I thought the full version is not free, but it seems like you can still get a lot of free test questions from the free version of this app.

• It can be a good help to teachers who write new tests so often!

Learning Chinese has never been so easy and fun. As a teacher, my role is to facilitate learning with technology, to infuse classroom with digital learning. In specific, I can request the school purchases a VGA adaptor so I can project my Ipad to a larger screen. Let students try my apps. They may even be able to download the apps for their own Ipads or Iphones. Also, I should recommend these apps to my colleagues and parents so more people can get involved in promoting digital learning in and beyond school. In addition, I can even request that the school can provide Ipad carts for classroom use. Technology does not threat the profession of teachers because teachers mean more than passing on knowledge, but technology should become more prominent in classroom to expand the capacity of teaching and learning.