Pu Tong Hua
English is simple, it flitters from the tongue,
It means what it says when all’s said and done,
No matter how we say it, stress it or declaim,
In English it always means the same, same, same!
Chinese is difficult, your ‘Pu Tong Hua’,
Is drawn in little pictures that go back so-o-o far,
And every one’s a concept, with no strict meanings
Making it impossible to delve your gleanings.
As often as I study, and try as I might,
I can’t get your xiang xing’s or qing qing’s right.
There isn’t any gender; there isn’t any tense,
So how can your past, present, future, make sense?
Then when I’ve mastered some simple Chinese
You say: ‘That’s fine – but it’s Wenzhou-nese,
Nobody in Guangzhou, Wuhan or Beijing
Would understand a pennyworth of what you’re saying! ’
Every city’s dialect differs from the main,
Canton-ese, Shanghai-nese, nothing is the same.
Beijing has its Mandarin, the old ‘Pu Tong Hua’,
But it’s not what you’ll hear in a Wenzhou bar.
So don’t look for sympathy with adjectives and pauses,
Proper nouns or pronouns, adverbial clauses,
Your cousin’s not your brother, and a ‘she’s’ not a ‘him’,
But how do I tell you in your old Mandarin?
4 April 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.
quote by Mira Sorvino
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Learn Chinese July 11th,2012
LEARN CHINESE July 11th,2012
By
James Bredin
If it was Gaelic they were speaking I might catch a word or two,
But Toronto has turned Chinese and I don't have a clue,
So I think I should learn Mandarin and then we can get along,
I don't know; but is that the language they speak in Hong Kong?
I just looked it up on the Internet and found out to my surprise,
They have more than a hundred languages so I can't improvise,
Has an English-speaking Canadian ever learned Chinese?
Which is easier to learn - Mandarin or Cantonese?
Years ago, I thought of becoming bilingual and learning French,
But Canada is has gone multicultural down a communication trench,
And now I have to find out where they teach easy Chinese,
And maybe eventually, I can pretend I'm Cantonese.
July 11th,2012
poem by James Bredin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Can You Hear It
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
I like that beat as it comes along.
It’s the same beat and the same tune,
we all know it’ll be here soon.
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
fast or slow it’s a catchy song.
I kind of look forward to its day
and it's a shame when it goes away.
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
It's getting closer and it won’t be long.
At last it's coming down our street
with its catchy drumming beat.
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
it's so simple I can’t go wrong.
It's getting louder as it comes near,
the people watching give it a cheer.
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
the beat’s blasting out loud and strong.
The man inside this sweeping machine
sings as he works to keep the streets clean.
Drum, drum, tipi tap, tong,
the sounds are fading as it goes along.
But it's nice to know as he sweeps the curb,
his drum, drum, tipi tap, tong, has the final word.
poem by Orlando Belo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Blueshell Bar
From Monday through to Friday and,
For some, on the weekends too,
There’s a constant round of students here
Attacking the Chinglish stew,
They sweat on the riddle of English tense,
Of gender, of verb and noun,
But Friday nights and their teachers here
Are ready to hit the town.
In old Wenzhou, Canadians,
The Poms and the Aussies rule,
New Zealanders with their flattened vowels,
And Yanks with their godamm drawl,
The Scots are there with the Sassenachs
Their vowels like treacle glue,
‘If ye’ dinna gae doun tae the Blueshell, man,
I’ll nae hae a drink wi’ you! ’
For after a week of adjectives,
Blank faces and wo bu dongs,
They’re ready to slip their traces, and
Retreat to the restaurants,
Their prepositions are shelved at last
With a proposition or two,
Then they all go down to the Blueshell Bar
Where it huddles off Wendi Lu.
From ten o’clock to the early hours
They scramble for space at the bar,
The music’s played at a surly scream
Or drops to a sullen roar,
There’s Chinese faces as well in there,
And girls with a shapely rear,
All perched on stools with the foreign fools
While swilling the local beer.
And down the back there’s another room
Where the groups philosophise,
Over a ‘Jack’ or a Vodka, man,
They talk of their loves and lives,
And over the mumble of bleary talk
A voice rings out at the brink:
‘The world is screwed, it’s over man...
It’s time for another drink! ’
‘It’s time for another drink, ’ he says,
And slams a Tequila down,
A ‘Jack’, a Bacardi One-Five-One,
A bottle of old Tsing Dao,
‘I loved her, man, but I let her go...’
I hear as I hit the street,
And stagger home in the early hours...
‘Are you coming back? ’
‘Next week! ’
1 April 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Tense, You Buggers, Tense!
If ‘I CAN’ can, it’s done right away,
‘I CAN’ never can do it yesterday,
‘I can see, I can do, I can hear, I can feel,
‘I can go, I can stay, I can move, I can steal.’
If ‘I COULD’ ever could, then he’d do it last week
Because ‘I COULD’ and ‘I DID’ are best mates, (so to speak) .
‘I could see, I could do, I could hear, I could feel,
I could go, I could stay, I could move, I could steal.’
If ‘I DID’ ever did it, the deed has been done,
‘I DID’ never does it right now, old son.
‘I did not' - 'You did too' - 'So I did, you can sue, '
'What I did, when I did it, I did it for you.’
If ‘I WILL’ or ‘I WOULD’ or ‘I SHOULD’ are your thing,
Then don’t hold your breath, it’ll happen next spring,
‘I will go, I will come, I will be, I will see,
I would stay if I could, I should get home for tea.’
But if ‘I HAVE DONE’ ever comes raising it's head
The time has now gone, and the battle is dead.
‘I have seen, I have heard, I have said in the past
I have travelled the world, I have finished, at last! ’
(Written for my Chinese English students, in desperation, when they mixed past, present and future tenses in the same sentence) .
7 April 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
It Is My Pleasure
It is my pleasure
It is like making love to you
The better the poem
The hotter I get
And my words
Are all I have to make
You feel my passion
Until that day
I will ravage your body
With my vowels
And my pronouns will
Lick you insane
And my nouns will I
Penetrate you with and
Adjectives will pound
And pound and pound
Viciously until you come
And my subjectives
Will drain all
My pretense into you
Hot Hot Words
And all english grammar too
poem by Midnights Voice
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Shoes
'Get rid of those old shoes, ' she said,
'Their time has come and gone.'
I looked down at my battered soles
And smiled, as she went on;
When women talk of 'romance', then
It must be dressed to kill,
But these old shoes saw more romance
Than she could ever tell.
I took these shoes to China,
They passed through Singapore,
They trod old Wenzhou's meaner streets
In silence, pride and awe;
They padded through fine Restaurants
And stood before my class,
While Chinese students bit their pens
Translating Poe, en masse.
These shoes took me to Shanghai,
To walk the Nanjing Road,
They stood while shoppers gaily passed
And chattered some sweet code,
These shoes have trod through old Beijing
The Square, Tian'anmen,
Where Marco Polo did his thing
My shoes had followed on.
They walked the Summer Palace
Where Emperors played their roles,
A thousand years of history
Was scuffed along their soles,
They slithered over Kunming Lake
Long frozen, on the ice,
They strolled the Bronze Pavilion
Like some ancient paradise.
Then on the heights at Ba-da-ling
They helped me climb 'The Wall',
They dragged my poor old bones aloft,
I thought that I would fall,
They paced beside the Terra Cotta
Warriors at Xian,
These shoes have seen more romance
Than a new pair ever can.
'Get rid of these old shoes, my dear,
I couldn't, I regret;
I bought them when I first met you,
When we were young, my pet;
They hold too many memories
Of how we were back when;
I'll keep them underneath our bed - '
The wife - she kissed me then!
21 February 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Chinese Style Olympia 2008
How great it was in Beijing Olympia
Wisdom and Intellect are it answers.
Used a lot of capitals and manpower
Most sports performed in a bird’s nest
Swimming sports were in a water cubic
Our concept was ‘one man, one dream’
Every body may have the same dreaming
No matter you are Chinese or guests
Bring the same heart to look for success
The starting day performed marvelous shows
Men and women made shapes of symbols
One day by one day different races were in safe
Chinese athletes happily raced with guests
Both the Chinese and the foreigners were happy
American athlete seemed like a swimming jet
He made excellent results gained 8 gold medals
Frog’s style swim champion is a Japanese king
Grouped winner named by the youth of Chinese
American athletes have won world’s success
There were many new and young athletes born
Different races were greatly gaining high results.
Competition was not the main purpose
Chinese needed the world’s united friendship
It’s why we build a nest you comes together
Let the peace forever consists for a whole world
poem by Albert Wong
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Riding the Wenzhou Bus
They squeak and rattle, and jerk and pull
And throw you across the floor,
The double-deckers, the number 5’s,
The 3’s and the 64,
They come in colours of red and blue,
Of green, and in spattered mud,
They wait for no-one but bully on through
If you get in their way – there’s blood!
The seats are plastic and hard as nails,
The roof is but four feet high,
You scramble along on your knees at the back,
Unless you’re a dwarf, or sly -
And climb the stairs to the upper deck
To slide in the slime, and cuss,
You need to be dressed in your army boots
When riding the Wenzhou Bus!
The brakes are shot, they rumble and howl
As they wheeze and groan to a halt,
The body sways, and the rust is foul,
And they buck like a playful colt;
The roar of the engines is petty assault,
But your ears get used to the din,
The gears grind at the stop, the start
And as second and third slide in.
But for one and a half, or just two Kwai
You can ride ‘til the day is done,
You can watch the girls in their stylish clothes
All hanging on straps, each one,
With bags and baggage and cases full,
Watch peasants, or someone’s boss,
Togged out in rags or in business suits
While riding the Wenzhou Bus.
And through the murk of the window panes,
All scratched, and marked, and fogged,
The Chinese go on their friendly way,
The rest of the world unplugged,
The shops, the temples, the slums, the views
Of the parks and squares – like us!
We rattle on by for just two Kwai
When riding the Wenzhou Bus.
28 February 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A word imagery
It is nice to translate imagery
It is fine blend of summary
It may come In the form of words
It may be fine flow to take it forward
Is it pure means to praise some one?
Or simple oratory or words for none?
It is likely to bring some one to the core
To draw the inference and come closer
It is likely to raise the status
There is great feeling and new impetus
Some one has occupied your mind
You are trying to woo but no means to find
It may ease the life for all times to come
The change is all of sudden and welcome
It is regarding the holy union for future
The words fulfill it and make doubly sure
How to explain it when it is specially a woman?
It has always proved difficult for simple man
He may try to prove it as much as he can
He may try all means so not to miss the train
It is intelligent way of approaching
It may bring new hope each morning
There may still be and look different
It may matter less as it is transparent
Each word may speak of high volume
There is no scope for doubts to assume
One has to grasp it correctly and go ahead
Life may look easy and worthwhile to lead
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Chinese woman
When your eyes,
Meet mine,
You smile,
So fine.
The thought
Of being with you,
Excites me,
It’s all I wanna do.
Chinese woman,
I love you,
Chinese woman,
Why don’t you love me too?
Chinese woman,
Don’t go far away,
Chinese woman,
Why don’t you stay?
Every time,
You see me,
I try
to be funny.
I don’t understand,
You laugh and smile,
Yet I don’t hear from
You in a while.
Chinese woman,
I love you,
Chinese woman,
Why don’t you love me too?
Chinese woman,
Don’t go far away,
Chinese woman,
Why don’t you stay?
Days come
In and out.
Still I have
To shout.
Just so you
Look at me.
Just so you
Can see…
Chinese woman,
I love you,
Why don’t you love me too?
Chinese woman,
Don’t go away,
Why don’t you want to stay?
With me.
Chinese woman.
This poem, is actually the words to a song. I wrote them as lyrics first.
poem by Roger Naya
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Colloquial Is Your Rude Character
Colloquial Is Your Rude Character
I am the girl whom you call "hey"
As you continuously greet me with "hey" in my voice mail
Your rude colloquial messages and tone represent your vile character
For you are truly a vile POS
As Mandarin is like Greek to me
For the concept has no logic to speak in a language where one does not understand
For it bears no meaning to me
Futile
Fills the void for the dead spots
For I am not the standard Mandarin girl willing to tolerate your nonsense
Of whom you surround with
Think before you act
Point blank: I am a Cantonese girl
Eloquent properly to me in Cantonese or Tosian
For we can then converse in Chinese
Colloquial Is Your Rude Character
Reflection of your uncivilized lifestyle
Am I a friend or foe to you?
As you don't treat a friend so poorly like vermin
By articulating lies and name calling
For you are one ghastly imagine to a lady
Barbaric as a cave man
Implies ghetto background
Lacking class
Unpolished
As a lady needs to be treated with respect
Surely, you can handle respect in your demeanor
Colloquial Is Your Rude Character
To succeed in this world
Ineloquent does not bring the bread home
Disrespect will haunt you
As respect commands a gregarious worldwide presence
Disappointedly the English language does not cooperate with respect anymore
You can run, but cannot hide
From the cold hard truth of yourself
From Nanking to Beijing, buyers are never as smart as the sellers.
Three Wives Of A Mandarin
Lawful wife.
There is still some wine left in the chalice,
And the plate that’s served is nests of the swallows.
Since the birth of time, the legal spouse
Is respected by her mandarin-husband.
Concubine
There is still some wine left in the chalice,
And the plate is served – duck: fat and heavy;
Should a mandarin be deprived of children -
Concubine is needed for a mandarin.
Maid
There is still some wine left in the chalice,
And the plate is served - preserves and marmalade.
Why the two of you are in his house?
Every night a new woman he desires.
Mandarin
There is no more wine left in the chalice,
And the plate that’s served is hot red pepper.
Silence! O you: bunch of silly blabbers,
Dare you laughing at the poor old mandarin.
poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Before I forget...
The China stint is over,
There’s only a week to go,
I packed up a box of souvenirs
And trudged to the ‘you zheng ju’,
They cost me an arm and leg to send
By ‘shui lu lu xin jian, ’
I just have to pack a suitcase now,
Say ‘ron’ to a special friend.
The apartment’s almost empty,
It looks quite bare, forlorn,
As bare as the heart I gave to them
The people of old Zhejiang,
Their lives will go on without me now
As I head to the ‘Fei ji chang, ’
But I take my memories, every one
To the land where I come from.
The children dancing at ‘Dou Mei Li, ’
At the end of Wendi Lu,
The neon signs, the disco bars
And the Chimp from the Wenzhou Zoo,
The rat-tat-chatter of Chinese girls
The smiles from a Chinese cop,
The crazy lady at Ming Hang Lu
At the ‘I am your friend’-ly shop.
The buses rattling by non-stop
That take you to who knows where,
The moonlight rides in a trike, red top,
The crazies that drive ‘Jiao Che’s’,
All this I’ll remember while travelling home,
Then back to my life before,
But many a Chinese Moon will wane
Before I forget Zhong guo!
(Glossary and Pronunciation:
you zheng ju (Yo jung jew) – the Post Office
Shui lu lu xin jian (Shway loo loo shin jen) – Surface Mail
ron – Aussie expression – ‘Catch ya late(r on) .
Zhejiang (Ger –as in Germany – jang) – A Chinese Province.
Fei ji chang (Fay gee chang) – airport.
Dou mei li (Doe may lee) – Do&Me – Chicken place like KFC
Wendi Lu (Wendy Loo) – Wendi Street.
Ming Hang Lu (Meen Haang Loo) – Ming Hang Street.
‘I am your friend’ is the one English phrase known by this lady.
Jiao Che (Jow – as in ouch – Tchur) – Taxi
Zhong guo (Jong gwor) – China.
26 June 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The New Poet In Town
the new poet in town laughs
at his finding
that when he write
his poems
his only purpose
is that the poem
must not be understood
by anybody
because it is only
through this way
that they will say
the new poet in town
is deep
with his sorrow
and panicky with his
pain and
lamentable with his
foment
the critique
scratches his head and
proclaims
the glory of the new poet in town
saying
'this is the best poem i have read'
(because he does not understand what it means
though sounding like a hollow pipe that you sling with a stone
saying ' ping, xing, tsing, ting, tang tong, oinnk., , toinkk'
'excellent' the last critic with a tainted glass declares.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
On Understanding
if a cliche
can be used for you to understand, by all means
i will use it
without much ado, whatever that serves the purpose
to build this bridge of peace
between u & me
i will do it at once,
without much thought
there is no need of a degree supposedly
to understand
the basics of truths, one must simply be a man
or a woman to
understand and be understood
no need to
high falutinizations
factoring of meanings like some algebraic equations
to unveil the identities of numbers
or discover metaphors here and there
nothing Frenchy
or Latiny, just say what is in your mind
make it simple
say what you feel
if you really love me
say it
plain and simple
and if
it is really true from the bottom of your heart
you do not even say
it
i do not need words
please
just do it
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Leave The Past And Moving On With The Future
What does it means to
Leave the past, and moving on with future?
It means you have to just let it go
Even it going hurt and feel so much in pain
You have other things looking forward too
If you love something so much
It will come back to you
It does it meant to be and if don't then just move on
I have finally learn my mistakes after yesterday
It's was perfect day off
I want to be who I am
I changes so much just to fit in
That's not like me
Time to figure out what I really want
What does it means to
Leave the past and moving on with future?
It means that this is now and your chances to do what you been waiting for
Time is running out
No going back and forth in path
No going back and forth in past to future
I'm stop acting like I'm scared
I'm not and now this is my time
I'm not regreat anything anymore
I don't want be like this
I need to think before I say something or do it
Past is not something I need think about
I need to think about future that I'm waiting for to happen
This is me and I finally understand what I didn't before
It's all right in front of me
I need to grab it and hold onto it
Future is waiting for me
I'm moving forward
Leave the past and moving on with future
poem by Christina Phan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Fish And Rice
Daniel phoned me today
with his usual two year old exuberance
which comes naturally when you are two
and comes naturally when you're fifty two
until you extinguish it with old damp habits,
and he said
'Fish! Fish! I like fish very much!
Daddy, fan fan, fan fan', (Chinese for rice)
and yes Daniel has already mastered
three languages, English, Mandarin and enthusiasm
the last of which he is most adept at.
Well I thought he was enjoying his fish supper
but not so, and I should have known,
this exuberance could not be the result of food
unless perhaps a rare taste
of smooth creamy chocolate.
No he was feeding fish,
fish with an appetite for rice?
No, but no one had told him the ingredients of fish food
or me for that matter
and of course he was right,
as far as the fish are concerned
this was indeed the rice of life.
And he was now suddenly very upset
standing in the corner, arms folded, despondent
what happened? I asked
I am told by my reporting wife
that there had been a message I had missed,
and should have known.
Feeding fish is more essential for happiness
than eating fish,
and on his return home, freely swimming happy fish
should be waiting for his love and bliss.
poem by David Taylor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!