Writing a bilingual children’s book in Mandarin and English based on values from Chinese philosophies

I have never particularly been interested in language learning. Well, I never really thought I had the intellectual and mental capacity to even fathom trying to learn another language other than Indonesian and English because memorisation and pronunciation has always posed as one of my greatest academic weaknesses. What initially drew me to language-learning was merely the culture that it is backed up by. How this interest in Chinese culture came to be is quite an ironic story that started by me watching the anime Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic. The fictional nations that were part of this form of Japanese media mirrored ancient civilisations from real world histories—the Achaemenid Empire, Ancient Egypt, the Abbasid Caliphate, and the one that impacted me the most with their ornaments and antiques—Imperial China. It may sound like a frivolous reason to study a language to some, but to me, it was something that pushed me to learn about one of the most influential nations to have ever existed in the history of humanity. Even so, I would be lying if I said that that was the sole reason I wanted to learn simplified Chinese; the reason for my motivation in learning such an infamously difficult language stemmed from the innate desire to connect and understand. What happened years ago was merely a catalyst that deepened my curiosity of the former isolationist country—a nation that has made some of the greatest impacts in both the ancient and modern world. The fascination of the ancient past was also accompanied by its role in the modern age and a prediction of the future; enormed with its great influence, large population, and controversial international relations. It seems that every shoe I wear and every toy I bought had the same blank ink signature prescribed with a small “Made in China”. In every part of the world that I have travelled to, there seems to always be at least one ethnically Chinese person—and every object I use seems to have at least one component of it shipped from China. And as such, it became clear to me that China—a nation with a rich culture and complex history, a former isolationist country that now is seen as a tyranny to the rest of the globe—is taking the world by storm. Likewise, I doubt it is stopping any time soon. It seemed to align all too well with what Napoleon Bonaparte had said a couple centuries ago: “Let China sleep. For when she wakes up, she will shake the world”. With my found curiosity and interest in Asian humanities, along with the desire to take advantage of the near future, I have therefore decided that I can use this Personal Project as a way to cultivate my passions in linguistics, history, and philosophy by challenging myself to learn more. To connect, understand, and take one step forward to developing self-integrity. Therefore, my learning goal was to learn to speak, write, read, and listen in Mandarin at a basic level which will correspond to the abilities of a Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi Level 2 student, and have a more in-depth perspective on Chinese philosophy.

Product Goal

I will create a children’s book containing a total of three short stories written in Mandarin and English that will be accompanied by a variety of illustrations and graphics to provide a visual representation of what is written. Each short story will relate to a value(s) from three different Chinese philosophies.

I believe one of the biggest signs of excellence and understanding is the ability to portray abstract and complex concepts into works of simplicity. Abstract concepts and complex themes can be simplified to a mere one or two paragraphs with simple words and easy sentences. Being able to portray these ideas in a way that everyone regardless of age or intellect can understand means that one has achieved an in-depth understanding and mastery of a certain topic. The same would go for philosophy; if you cannot interpret what you learn from such a field into the real world through acts that reflect those values, then what is the point? This is exactly the reason why I have decided to write bilingual, short, and simple stories that have a clear and concise plot which successfully creates a representation on abstract values in Chinese Philosophy. These are the characteristics I wish to implement in my own children's storybook by using several values of “The Three Pillars of Ancient Chinese Society”: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. These stories will be simplistic in nature and appealing in plot by applying for fantastical and realistic components within different stories.

Reflection

“Do something that you could finish as soon as possible while still enjoying the process.” That was the first thought I had when I went into a series of fruitless ruminations in an attempt to come up with the “Perfect Personal Project Idea” for myself. Creating a list of ideas beforehand, I would shortlist and narrow it down to this “perfect idea”—the one that checks off all my carefully curated criterias. But I had made the wrong and naive assumption because two things had hit me after two weeks: the crumpled paper I had accidentally ripped from one of my HSK textbooks and the realisation that teaching myself Chinese language and philosophy within a short span of time was hard. It was not remotely as easy nor as time saving as I expected—I had miscalculated but not everything was meant to go my way in the first place. In the end, I worked through it because I was passionate about the topics I studied and never stopped learning from the experience. From this came one of my biggest takeaways: not everything will go as planned, there will always be obstacles in the path to success that can turn either everything to ruins or be overcome in order to continue moving forwards.

The HSK exams were a stark reminder of this takeaway as it caused me to make a major shift from my original plans. Initially, I planned on taking the exams in late November - a plan that I made when I had done very minimal research on several important factors to take into consideration. One important factor that I did not take any consideration of was the date of the exams, as I was under the assumption that anyone could take it online. It turned out that the exam only happens twice a year and the last one for 2021 was happening at the end of September—which was the same month I found out about it. This forced me to take in everything at a very fast pace while balancing school work and doing last minute preparation as time moves to approach what I had thought to be the day of my demise. Luckily, after four weeks of rigorous studying, I managed to pass the exam with flying colours but luckily not at the cost of a few late school task submissions here and there.

The same takeaway could also be connected to the process of writing my short stories. I estimated that it would only take roughly three days of sitting on my broken spiny chair and staring at my laptop screen for hours to come up with the perfect stories for my product and write all of them down. Again, I was wrong. I remember sitting on the white chair in my living room, staring at the lights dangling from the ceiling, trying to list down every idea that came to mind without scratching it seconds after I had written it. It took a total of 10 days to actually finish every piece of writing. 10 days of pacing around my house, thinking of an idea, writing it down, scratching it off because it was not good enough, and finally settling on three ideas to write about. This situation has made me reflect on my personal flaws and weaknesses especially when it comes to judging my own character and capabilities.

One of the few things I was grateful for after finishing my Personal Project was my new found interest in writing fables and fairy stories based on abstract concepts that may pertain to heavy subjects such as philosophy, politics, and history. To express complex and often misunderstood topics and themes and compress them to become these cute little stories is genuinely fun and I am considering writing more.

Product Evaluation

My final product is a 58-page illustrated children's book consisting of three short stories. The short stories were written and provided in two languages, Mandarin and English, where each sentence was described through their own respective writing conventions and language devices but delivered the same meaning either way. The contents of the book include a “Word of Gratitude,” book testimonials, and the actual stories.

I believe that my product, “Forests, Rivers, and Jungles,” was successful overall but did not reach its full potential. With a person of my skill level and proficiency in Mandarin, I had gladly exceeded my expectations and others too. The main weakness and flaw of the product however is that not enough time or concern was allotted into designing product which led to last minute decisions and rash aesthetic choices that may or may not have lessened its quality as a visual-heavy children’s storybook.