China Three - Text
The subject is a female theatre student, born 1985 in Tai Yuan, in Shan Xi province. She began learning English academically in junior high school in her home town. At the time of the recording, she had been in the US for one year. In addition to reading Comma Gets a Cure, she speaks of growing up in her hometown, a very peaceful place. She speaks of the daily practice of Tai Chi, and of the peacefulness of her country despite its lack of material possessions and its crowded conditions. Her English is quite fluent and she has mastered many the phonetic features of English, though her accent is still distinctively Chinese. She speaks a few lines of poetry in her native Mandarin at the end of the recording.
Recorded September 14, 2005 by Paul Meier. Running time 00:05:26.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
Uh, I was born in China, uh, Shan Xi, China. Uh, my, uh, my hometown is Tai Yuan. It’s the capital of Shan Xi. Uh, and I started to learn English, uh, while I was in junior high, as, uh, just like the other people. So, uh, I, uh, right now I’ve been learning English for seven years and I stay in Mer – in America for one year. And, uh, uh, right now I’m studying theatre, although I have no experience. In China I’ve been tra-, uh, I’ve been traveling a lot, uh, traveling, traveling a lot. I’ve been to Qingdao, um, Shanghai, Beijing, I be-, I’ve been, I’ve been to Beijing a lot because Tai Yuan is close to Beijing. And, uh, other places, uh, like Ciwu, you must know that. Just some, yeah, just some places near Shanghai, and Nanjing, Chenjing, something like that. Uh, my hometown is very peaceful. I love it a lot. Like, I think in China that everywhere, everywhere is like that, although maybe Beijing and Shanghai is a little mi-, a little bit more busier, you know? But, still, peoples’ life are very relaxing. Like, in the morning when you are going to school or when you are going to work or something, you can see people are practicing, you know, we are, they are, uh, exercising – play Tai Chi, in the park – and people are very…I think, like, people may not have so, as many things as American people have, but they are having a very good life be-, be enjoying their life a lot. Chi-, like, Chi-, China…I think everywhere is very crowded, except those desert…desert…there is somewhere…but, it’s very crowded everywhere. Although, my homeland’s very crowded, but it’s still, it’s very crowded, it’s like, it has three million people. Uh, so, yeah. American people might not like there, but it’s still, I love it a lot. So here is a very, uh, old poetry fro-, uh, from, uh, an ancient po-, poet. Uh, his name is Li Yu. (RECITES POEM IN MANDARIN) I forgot. (laughs)
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY PETE CROSS, 15 JULY, 2008