new toy comin'

[calden]

Hey all

Thanks to our pal here Yinhao I'm going to soon be getting a jinghu. That's the little teeny weeny member of the erhu family, so small one needs a microscope and tweezers to play it. Or so it would seem. Used primarily in Beijing Opera, that most exquisite and beautiful of the world's art forms.

I got the idea for this a couple of months ago at our community's Chinese New Year celebration program. I have a Chinese friend who did martial arts for the show - a few years ago he did some outstanding Opera tune set to a recorded CD. This year I asked him why he didn't do it again - he said that not enought people liked it. I told him I'd be happy to accompany him - I ALWAYS prefer live music for this kind of thing. He said the erhu wasn't the right instrument, so of course I volunteered to buy a jinghu (I need the flimsiest of excuses to buy another instrument to add to my stable.)

Well - after just arranging with Yinhao last week to purchase a good jinghu, I got a phone call from my friend, who said he had found a Chinese website where I could buy a jinghu instructional VCD, and was I still interested in playing music with him? It's great when the stars align like that.

I'll let you all know when it gets here.

By the way, I finally figured out how to use the Chinese writing program in my iMac OS. Let's see if I can get it up and running as a test. I have had troubles configuring it for internet use, but let's see:

§Ú§Æ±æ§A­Ì³£·|¬ÝÀ´§Ú¤jªº¦r¡C

Carlos

[Charlie Huang]

Can read, though there are mistakes in my books... LOL!

[calden]

HEY!

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¼Ú¶}­Û
Carlos

[calden]

Okay, I'll stop with the Zhongwen. I got carried away there but it seems rather rude of me to start off a perfectly good Thursday morning on a tangent like this. Apologies. I'll keep to topic, I promise.

Carlos

[paulv]

Carlos,
That's great -- I've been thinking about doubling on a banhu (jinghu is too high pitched for me), but that's a couple of years from now -- I need to be more proficient with the erhu first. Good luck with your jinghu!

Regards,
paul....

[Charlie Huang]

calden said:

HEY!

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¼Ú¶}­Û
Carlos

*resists*

[calden]

Ah - I see what's happening. I'm typing in pinyin in a simplified character program, and somehow when it gets "read" by different browsers it's turning it into a) traditional characters and b) changing some of the characters. It's not just me! Really!

Carlos
(hai shi Ou Kailun)

[maaltan]

calden said:

HEY!

§Ú¤£»¡§Ú¤jªº¦r¨S¦³¿ù»~¡I§Ú¥u»¡§Ú·|¥Î§Úªº¹q¸£¼g¤¤¤å¡I?µM¡A½Ð§ï¥¿§Ú¼gªº¡C§A§¹¥þª¾¹D³o®É§Úªº²Ä¤G?»y¨¥¡C

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Carlos

ok, with some browser tweaking i can see it. It's in big5 traditional chinese encoding. Unicode is more compatable i think if you have the option. I understand what you are saying, but i cheated and used google

BTW What does "europe opened" mean? ¼Ú¶}­Û

[calden]

Ha ha ha!

Europe Opened is my chinese name given to me by my first year teacher way back in 1978.

"Ou Kai Lun" is a rough transliteration of "Carlos Alden." Family name of "Ou" is not common - in fact a lot of Zhongguoren think I am mistaken and it's really "Ouyang," a more common last name (but still unusual in being a two-character name.)

"Kai Lun" means I'm open to new things but selective to what I actually take in. Or so I was told.

However I like Europe Opened.

Carlos
or whatever you want to call me.

[Charlie Huang]

I would suggest you add the Yang to your Ou to become Ouyang, coz it fits with the pronunciation of your name and it's a legit surname: Alden = Ouyang.