Dying Breed

A while ago I was reading about how due to rapid globalization, a lot of languages and dialects were going extinct. Dominant languages are assimilating these lesser used languages, before anyone has the chance to document them. This means that languages that have existed for who knows how long will no longer be used and no one will have any record of them.

I'm part of this dying breed. My family comes from Guangdong province (same place as Dr. Sun Yat-Sen) from where my parents were from they all spoke a dialect of Cantonese. I've been told it sounds like Vietnamese, and a lot of Cantonese speaking people don't understand when I speak it. But it has the craziest name: (direct translation) Dragon Blade. City name where parents are from: (again direct translation) Middle Mountain. I kid you not, direct translation word for word my parents speak Dragon Blade and they're from Middle Mountain.

Not many people speak Dragon Blade, and not everyone from Middle Mountain speaks Dragon Blade, most of them speak Cantonese. Considering the amount of people that immigrate to Canada I'd say Dragon Blade speakers make up less then 1% of the Vancouver population (rough estimate based on no statistical evidence).

Dragon Blade isn't a pleasant sounding language, it's actually kind of rude sounding, but its got to have the coolest name out of any language ever.

I'm picturing something like this:

Or like this:

Maybe my translations wrong? Whatever. My cousins, who's parents all speak Dragon Blade, haven't been taught the language because my aunts and uncles all want them to speak the mainstream language. I have nothing against that, but it's sad to know that me and my sisters are probably the last generation to speak the Dragon Blade. Last of a dying breed.

Promotional Trait

I get home today, and as usual I ask my mom how her day was. Instead of the typical "ok" she responded with "great." Boggled, I pry further: "Why are you so happy today?" She proceeds to tell me about how she was offered a promotion.

This is great news, it's not about the money, it's not about the position, it's about the fact that this is the first promotion my mom has ever been offered. My mom's a hard worker, she does her job without complaining and there's no doubt in my mind she's the best at what she does. She's a seamstress with over 20 years of experience, yet because she's hasn't picked up English (even after being in Canada for 20+ years) she's never been offered a higher position.

Being one of the few people who can actually sew / put together samples she's pretty much doing what the supervisor should be doing minus the title.

Surprisingly though, she doesn't want to take the position. She's the new kid on the block having only been there under 4 years (while others have been there 30 years!) and she doesn't want to feel resentment from everyone else. She seems to have passed on this horrible trait to me. I over think things and I always worry about what others are thinking. But this is what makes mom mom and I wouldn't change a thing.

I'm going to take her out to celebrate, now I gotta decide where to go.

Fresh Meat, Less Grill

Today was the BCIT Financial Management presentations, Manulife was invited to go by Larry Stubbs, and I was asked to attend as well. Just being back there I was flushed with memories of me and my schooling there less than a year ago. Entering into Town Square where the presentations were being held I was struck by nervousness. Something about that room where I gave my presentation in front of 20+ professionals, puts my hair on end.

There he was though, Larry J. Stubbs - the best teacher I ever had, greeted us and handed us some evaluation forms. We shot the breeze for a little bit, before taking our seats. I really wanted to talk to Larry more, so much I want to ask the man, but just didn't get the chance to. I've been back to BCIT three separate times, all three of which was to talk to Larry, but he's a busy man and I never caught him. As unorthodox a teaching style that he had, there's really no one else I'd rather have teaching me Financial Management (not even Trevor Linden).

The presentations were really well put together, and dare I say better then mine last year. There was two groups who's PowerPoint presentation just blew me away, so much style so much creativity, so much flare. They should be doing marketing or something in design.

After each presentation Larry encouraged us to ask questions, but I told the Manulife people not to. Of course they didn't care about my opinion and asked questions anyways. I was in the student's spots not too long ago so I knew how nerve racking it was to be asked questions by professionals in the field they were trying to get into. I guess all the professionals thought it was funny to see them sweat.

Just about every group held their own though, which was great to see. This includes the group with my friend in it. We've been friends since before we were in school and the last thing I wanted to see was for him to get grilled.

We were there recruiting, and asked people to attend our orientation, we had a few interested people all very good candidates. I would've like to have talked to more of them, but like last year most of the students already had jobs lined up and didn't care much to talk to the employers.

All in all it was an eventful day, meeting new people, watching some great presentations, and viewing the new class of professionals that will challenge me for my job.......maybe I should've grilled them after all.

Be Pe Me Fe

I had my first Mandarin class on Monday. Learned quite a bit, mostly pronunciation with the odd word thrown in. I want to learn just words, but I guess you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, otherwise you'll walk all crooked?

Mandarin from first impression looks a lot easier to learn then Cantonese. Cantonese is all memorizing, which is why I never had a interest in it (or couldn't retain any of it). I'm not a memorization kind of fellow I'd rather figure things out on my own. Which is why Pinyin (the English spelling for Mandarin words) is so great.

I'm taking the class with a co-worker and her sister, I probably wouldn't be taking the course if they weren't taking it as well. While in the class in walks this girl and she looks so familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, until she sat down. Then it hit me, it was Sophie Lui (ok well she said her name was Sophie) from Global (at least I think she's on Global). She seems like a really nice girl I didn't talk to her even though she sat near me. I'd like to ask her questions about what it's like to be in the media, but I don't want it to sound like I'm hitting on her: "Hey don't I know you from somewhere?"

I don't think anyone else noticed, if they did they kept their cool about it and didn't give her a second look. Co-worker didn't seem to care much, neither did her sister, they were too busy laughing. We were given diagrams of the cross-section of how our mouths are supposed to look like when speaking Mandarin, they thought it was the reproductive system.

Back to Mandarin though, kind of an overwhelming first class as we went over 10 pages of stuff, but I think I'll do fine. Only problem is I'll have to miss one of the classes because I'll be in Mexico, and the last class falls on my birthday. I don't want to skip since I paid for it and I'm trying to make a commitment to learn the language, but I'll decide when the time comes.

Despite it being the first class, and I'm just scratching the surface here, I'd still recommend it if you're on the fence of whether to learn or not. I'm taking it at Langara, cost me $169 for the course.

Sharks vs Stars

I'm sitting here in the living room watching the Sharks vs Stars game, and what a game. I'm writing this during the intermission waiting for the 4th overtime period. Instantly this reminds me of last year's playoff game between the Canucks and Stars.

The players are all playing with desire and drive, but you can tell that they're tired. During one of the breaks I heard the announcer say that they haven't eaten dinner yet, it's 11:00PM here so it's probably past 12 midnight there and that's a long time to go without food.

There are some crazy saves in this game, one robbery on Brad Richard's one-timer was unbelievable. My prediction, Stars take it 2-1, goal by Richards in the 4th overtime period off a two on one.

Game's starting again, if I'm wrong I'll probably just delete the post.

Harold and Kumar: Square Root of 3 Poem

I watched Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay over the weekend. I have to admit I went in thinking that there's no way it could beat the first movie. The first movie was so random it worked, but now everyone's expecting random.

The movie was hilarious though. It was so stupid it was funny. One of the funnier parts in the movie was the Square Root of 3 Poem, I won't say anymore to avoid spoiling (poem was copy and pasted from a Yahoo! answers page: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080426225319AAvw1TR). Here it is in all of its glory:

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed