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茉莉花: やさしい中国語で読む自伝エッセイ
文化大革命が始まった幼少期、日本語に出会った青年期―人気講師がやさしい語り口でつづった、珠玉の自伝エッセイ集。人気講師の幼少期から、来日するまで。
112 pages, Paperback
Published July 13, 2012
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January 30, 2019
茉莉花 (mòlìhuā, "jasmine") is my absolute favorite book for studying Chinese.
It’s a series of autobiographical essays written in Chinese, starting when the author (陳淑梅) was a young child, and ending when she was a young adult. The essays are engaging and fun to read, written in fairly easy to understand language, and short enough (1-2 pages, with generous whitespace) that they don’t seem frustrating for a reader who must look up many words. Many are accompanied by absolutely adorable line drawings.
Despite the short lengths, many of the essays are also historically quite interesting. The author entered grade school just as the cultural revolution began, and these essays offer an interesting view of this tumultuous period and its aftermath, through the eyes of a child. This is not a polemic, and the author clearly remembers much of her childhood with fondness, but neither does she whitewash things.
The result is endearing, often amusing, and yet at times, just slightly creepy.
Some example topics:
+ Her doomed attempt to save her family chickens from the "neighborhood committee" (居民委员会)
+ Her clever plan to win acclaim at school by adding unneeded patches to her clothes to make them look less new
+ Her problems with her school physical-education class, when she simply couldn't pass the grenade-throwing test.
+ Her first job, assigned to a factory, where she figured out she could escape the work by joining the factory anti-aircraft-gunnery team
+ Her first experience with Japanese (she now lives in Japan), studying by lamplight, listening to the radio every night: "每天晚上，坐在台灯前，小声的念日语课文，是我一天中幸福的时间！"
All essays are in Chinese, with Japanese translations in the back of the book.
The book is thankfully free of the sort of annoying intrusive content that’s all too common in beginner’s reading material (e.g. some other books put pinyin under every line, which I find very distracting).
It’s a series of autobiographical essays written in Chinese, starting when the author (陳淑梅) was a young child, and ending when she was a young adult. The essays are engaging and fun to read, written in fairly easy to understand language, and short enough (1-2 pages, with generous whitespace) that they don’t seem frustrating for a reader who must look up many words. Many are accompanied by absolutely adorable line drawings.
Despite the short lengths, many of the essays are also historically quite interesting. The author entered grade school just as the cultural revolution began, and these essays offer an interesting view of this tumultuous period and its aftermath, through the eyes of a child. This is not a polemic, and the author clearly remembers much of her childhood with fondness, but neither does she whitewash things.
小学刚上了，文化大革命就开始了。 小学校里也突然发生了翻天覆地的变化。首先是课本变了。……
The result is endearing, often amusing, and yet at times, just slightly creepy.
Some example topics:
+ Her doomed attempt to save her family chickens from the "neighborhood committee" (居民委员会)
+ Her clever plan to win acclaim at school by adding unneeded patches to her clothes to make them look less new
+ Her problems with her school physical-education class, when she simply couldn't pass the grenade-throwing test.
+ Her first job, assigned to a factory, where she figured out she could escape the work by joining the factory anti-aircraft-gunnery team
+ Her first experience with Japanese (she now lives in Japan), studying by lamplight, listening to the radio every night: "每天晚上，坐在台灯前，小声的念日语课文，是我一天中幸福的时间！"
All essays are in Chinese, with Japanese translations in the back of the book.
The book is thankfully free of the sort of annoying intrusive content that’s all too common in beginner’s reading material (e.g. some other books put pinyin under every line, which I find very distracting).
Displaying 1 of 1 review