小蜜蜂玩球 (Playing with a Ball)

#2012-0830B

You may click here for Part I: 

小蜜蜂挖土 (Playing with a Gardening Trowel).

Mmmmm . . . Little Bee can really play with a ball now. 請各位欣賞我家小寶貝的「玩球新花招」：丟、追、踢、抱 . . . . . 樣樣都行，因地制宜，隨境而遷，實不可小看他才一歲十個月大呢！這是今天 Little Bee 「快樂三部曲」之二。Yes, this is Part II: 小蜜蜂玩球 (Playing with a Ball)。

You may click here for Part III: 

小蜜蜂遊戲 (Little Bee Playing with His Grandma).

小蜜蜂挖土 (Playing With a Gardening Trowel)

#2012-0830A

星期四上午，一歲又十個月大的 Little Bee 由爺爺奶奶帶到「林家宮保第」門前玩耍，先在緊鄰路邊的兩棵大榕樹下，以小鏟子「挖土」挖得有模有樣，卻挖不出什麼名堂來，顯然是「無傷大雅」的安全動作啊！這是今天 Little Bee 「快樂三部曲」之一（參閱下圖）。

至於「快樂三部曲」之二和之三，請分別參閱 #2012-0830B 和 #2012-0830C。

For more photos, please see the next pages: #2012-0830B and #2012-0830C.

小組團契：A Good Time on Sunday Afternoon

#2012-0826

主日崇拜後，我們用一個鐘頭左右的時間練唱詩歌。最近所練的這首「呼求收割者」四部合唱，預定在九月九日主任牧師 (Rector) 就任典禮中獻詩的。練唱結束之後，大家隨即前往佩珍姊妹家「小組團契」----啊！這也是令人難忘的的一次！（美好時光值得回味也。）

. .                                            by Miss Mo (with Margaret Pan's camera)

. .                                 by Ms. Jingjuan (or spelled Ching Chuan)

. .                                 by Ms. Jingjuan (or spelled Ching Chuan)

. .                                                       by Jerry Liang

. .                                                       by Jerry Liang

 是哪家的模範夫妻？

搶先 . . . 而且是 擠在一塊兒

快樂地做洗碗盤的工作！

. .                                                       by Jerry Liang

. .                                                                                                       by Jerry Liang

Mr. Bill Bryson Preaches at St. James' English

#2012-0819

Mr. Bill Bryson came from Taipei yesterday afternoon. I picked him up at Taichung HSR Station and then, after looking around at the church buildings (esp. the guest room where he would stay for one night), we had supper together at a restaurant nearby, Walnut's Castle.

Mr. Bryson was invited to preach at our English service this morning, when we had a Morning Prayer at St. James'. My good friend and "partner" Warren, who usually preaches at a worship service without a priest with us, is now having a one-week vacation, so we needed to make such special arrangements: Mr. Bill Bryson has been scheduled to preach to us this Sunday and Miss Catherine Lee, next Sunday!


Oh, we are grateful for them who are giving help to us, the St. James' English-speaking congregation. In the meantime, we have always wanted to thank and praise our Lord Jesus Christ, for without his love and guidance we wouldn't have gathered together here so regularly for church services on Sundays.

教「外師」說華語 (Learn to Speak Chinese)

#2012-0811

連續幾個暑假，我負責教聖雅各的「外師」說華語。今年所教的 Jenna 和 Melissa 兩位都很年輕、很有活力，學起華語（只說不寫）也進步很快。

她們六月下旬抵達後，聖雅各於 6/26 在五權西三街的「大和屋」舉行迎新餐會（See photo 2 below）；八月中她們離台之前，我們於 8/10 在同一條街的「董月花」辦理送別晚宴（See the last photo）。

從 7/5 起至 8/9 為止，這門 Let's Speak Chinese 華語課，安排在每星期二和星期四下午。總共也不過十來堂課罷了，該教［或學］哪些東西才好呢？或者說，什麼內容應列入優先學習的範疇？而教材的編選，如何兼顧「由易到難」「循序漸進」等教學基本原則？. . . . . 雖然過去讀過許多教育（教學法）理論，我還是要多多與她們討論，以便找出她們的需要和最適當的教學方法。

In my Mandarin (Chinese) Class for beginning learners coming from abroad, I don't teach them to write the Chinese characters at first, as most Chinese words/phrases are much more difficult to write than to say. So I employ Hanyu Pinyin, which I believe is a convenient spelling tool for Western students to use when they start to learn Chinese.

As for the content of the course (what should I teach first?), I think it is extremely important for my students to notice that the Chinese language is a so-called "tone language" (instead of intonation language). When it is read (or said) with a different tone, the same "speech sound" (of a syllable) may refer to something very different.

For example,
1. ma with the 1st tone [= high level] means "mother" (媽),
2. ma with the 2nd tone [= high rising] refers to a kind of plant (蔴),
3. ma with the 3rd tone [= low falling followed by a rising] means "horse" (馬),
4. ma with the 4th tone [= falling from high to low] can be a verb meaning "to score" (罵).

Of course, there are some other words read as ma with one of these four tones -- or even with a so-called "neutral tone" -- which carry very different meanings or which function as "particles" or something like that in Chinese grammar, such as 嗎, 嘛, 麻, 碼, 螞, etc. [Note: 嗎 is a question particle.]

Do you think Chinese is a difficult language? Well, to master any new language is impossible in just a short process of learning. But if you want to learn to speak it, I can assure you that you'll be very successful if you keep practicing it every day with your teacher or friends (and some language devices) that can "show you the way."

下圖摘自 正中書局 出版之《新版實用視聽華語１》第 iii 頁

此處原是「饗宴--牡丹亭」，由於老闆換人，已更名「董月花」。

社區學苑 2012 秋季簡章 (We Plan to Have New Classes/Teams in Autumn)

#2012-0808

For a particular reason, I was appointed as the new (and temporary) director of St. James' Community Service Center from the first day of August on. And below is the first document that my colleagues and I have just produced -- 聖雅各社區服務中心「社區學苑 2012 秋季簡章」 from which you can see what classes (or teams) we are planning to have in the new school term, as well as a brief introduction to our organization.

上圖為修訂版 (Above is the revised/corrected version.)

下圖為原版 (Below is the original/imperfect version.)

父親節 (Father's Day)

#2012-0805

Here in Taiwan the Father's Day falls on the eighth day of August, which is the eighth month of the year. As you may have learned, the number "8" is pronounced as "ba" in Mandarin, and we usually call our father "baba" (sometimes spelled as papa). So it's no wonder that our Father's Day is on August 8 -- the 8th day of the 8th month!

Well, it's not Father's Day today. But some of us who are fathers suggested that we celebrate this special Day ahead of time, so that we can enjoy spending the real Father's Day with our own papa and other members of our own family. This was a good idea, indeed. And so we got together at Zhuhe and Yanling's home this afternoon -- Zhuhe and his wife Yanling are our good friends at St. James' Church. They had cordially invited us to their home to celebrate this year's Father's Day. We did have a wonderful time chatting and eating and drinking together for hours; we drank very good tea, and we even tasted some extremely old whiskey.

Oh! Thank you, Lord. None of us have ever been drunkards. We just tasted a bit of spirits on this particular occasion.

[附註：Spirits are strong alcoholic drinks such as whiskey and gin. Spirits (複數) = 烈酒；又，spirits (複數) = 情緒、心情，或興致。Your spirits are your feelings at a particular time, especially feelings of happiness or unhappiness. 例如說：After supper, everyone was in high spirits.]