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We have just heard that Sand Cusack who taught in Chongqing 03/04 and in Fuzhou 05/08 died last week in Australia aged 88.

Stan was a Christian Brother with many years experience as a teacher and with great interest in his students and in China.

He will be greatly missed by all who knew him in China and the many whose lives he touched in Australia.

by Garreth Byrne

Communist China has held seven Census exercises since the early 1950s. In mid-May this year the cn.news online website published some of the statistical findings. There are implications for the ratio of children to other age cohorts in a population of about 1.45 billion people.

The population growth rate has slowed down. The average annual growth rate in the past ten years was 0.53%, a decrease of 0.04 percentage points from the previous decade. In some provinces, the proportion of children under the age of 14 is as low as about 10%.

The journalist for cn.news remarks:

“Behind this is the decline of many young people’s willingness to marry and even have children in recent years.”

The report goes on to state that economic development and urbanisation ‘inevitably’ slow down the birth rate. It compares this with what has happened in capitalist countries of Europe, North America and other continents.

 Regarding the slowdown in population growth, Ning Jizhe, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, clearly stated, “This is the objective result of the development of industrialization and urbanization to a certain stage, and it is also a problem faced by countries around the world, especially developed countries.”

In 2015, after much internal discussion away from media attention, China changed its One Child policy to a Two Child policy in urban areas. This radically altered parental attitudes, but now demographical analysts see a need to encourage fertility in marriage so that schools, technical institutes and universities are not adversely affected in the near future.

The reporter goes on: “The high cost of raising children is an important reason why families do not want to have more children. Therefore, to improve the quality of the population, the state still needs to share the family’s cost of raising children and break the barriers of the existing system. There have been many discussions about measures to encourage childcare such as extending marriage and parental leave and providing public provision for childcare.”

Many other points are made and it highlights a conundrum. A sharp decline in parental fertility and the birth rate in developed urbanised societies will have consequences for marital stability, child rearing, educational and social development.

Link: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_12621021

* Garreth Byrne spent ten years working in different cities of China with Aitece. In the years 2004-5 he worked for a private TEFL company in Suzhou, a scenic canal city one hour by train west of Shanghai. He took taxis on different days to primary and secondary schools to give special oral English lessons. Here are a few photos he took of children he encountered.

The first shows a choral singing practice in a school playground. Another shows children in a class where he taught. The third shows Garreth, in winter clothing, with teenaged children in a middle school.

By Garreth Byrne

There is a long story about the evolution of Chinese character writing that begins during the Shang Dynasty about 1500 BC, when divination inscriptions were carved on tortoise shells and ox bones. The story speeds up about 100 BC when paper scrolls made from paper derived from crushed bamboo enabled learned men (a privileged minority in Chinese society) to write articles on traditional medicine, folk wisdom, religious rites and the duties of rulers.

For centuries after the invention of block printing literacy and learning was confined to the mandarin elites and the dynastic rulers they served.

Ancient Chinese characters began as pictographs when words for sun, moon and mountain were drawn like simple pictures. Over time the pictures were replaced by simplified ideophones i.e. a combination of image and sound.

The communists led by Mao Tse Tung (now written Mao Zedong) came to power in October 1949 after a terrible civil war. In the early 1950s the government set up a commission of linguists to simplify written Chinese. The aim was to promote mass literacy in town and country. Prototype dictionaries were printed for use in schools, factories and farming communes. Due to chaos caused by the Cultural Revolution, it wasn’t until 1978 that the first edition of a single volume Standard Mandarin hanyu dictionary was printed. Between 1983 and 2016 subsequent revised editions, with supplements, were published. The first edition in 1978 had 56,000 characters and the seventh edition in 2017 had 70,000 listings. The next edition could have up to 80,000 entries. The mind boggles.

No single individual can memorise 70,000 characters. A university graduate might learn to read 8,000 characters, while a farmer or worker might be able to read a daily newspaper if able to recognise more than 3,000 characters.

When children start school at the age of seven they first learn the pinyin alphabet first introduced in the late 1950s. School books contain colourful pictures and the pinyin word printed above or below. Teachers make pupils pronounce the correct four tones of standard Chinese (six tones in Cantonese or Guangdong hua in southern China). After three years pupils are introduced to characters. These appear on a book page together with the pinyin version. Pupils have special books in which they practise writing simple characters over and over. It is drudgery but must be done.

It is not easy to learn written Chinese. There are strict rules for inscribing the various strokes that make up a character. Foreign students from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America generally do a crash course in spoken Chinese using the pinyin system at the beginning of their third level courses. Chinese students are assigned the task of organising social and fun-based activities for the foreigners during the rest of their first year of studies. Mercifully most foreign students do their reading and writing assignments and final exams in English.

By Garreth ByrneThe

28th Beijing International Book Fair BIBF opened on September 14 at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing’s Shunyi District. Hosting more than 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions and displaying some 300,000 books, it is the first major international book fair being held online and offline amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

EAGER READERS

People are increasingly getting into the reading habit in China. Per capita reading volume for paper books was 4.70 and 3.29 for digital books in 2020, with both figures higher than those in 2019, according to a national survey released in April by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication.

The Covid-19 lockdown early in 2020 had a big impact in book reading trends. An independent e-commerce company called JD.com monitored the book industry and concluded that a significant proportion of people devoted more time to reading in 2020, as restrictions from COVID-19 caused people to spend more time at home. According to its findings, more than 46 percent read more paper books, 59.6 percent read more digital books and 58.8 percent listened to more audiobooks. If you are housebound, you can watch television, or you can read books.

Sinan Mansions are a remodeled houses complex dating from the French concession of the 1920s in the Huangpu district of Shanghai. Sinan Mansions are considered part of city’s cultural heritage, an outdoor museum with gardens, elegant European style old architecture, pedestrian lines and trees. In September 2020, after months of shutdown, shops, restaurants and museums reopened to the public. Huge queues formed to visit a large bookstore.

In a communist ruled society obviously many published books are about the history of the Party, the struggles against foreign rule, the anti-Japanese war and the exploits of political and military heroes. The party line with no revisionist independent angles is naturally salient in such publications.

The above mentioned JD.com survey noted that Selected Works of Mao Zedong are increasingly popular among readers born after 1985. Red Star Over China, a hagigographical account of Mao and the Long March (1932-1934) authored by American journalist Edgar Snow in the 1930s, made it to the top-10 best-selling paper books list in 2020.  This influential book was translated into Chinese long ago and has never gone out of print. It continues to boost state sponsored patriotism among the upcoming generations who never had to endure the barbaric distortions of the Cultural Revolution.

In Foreign Language bookstores found in the provincial capital cities citizens who read English or French can find the works of classical novels by French, English and American authors such as Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Jack London, Hart Crane, Edgar Allen Poe, Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck and Hemingway. Chinese translations are also abundant. Students majoring in English are directed to read the blockbuster Gone with the Wind. I have spotted a Chinese translation of Joyce’s Ulysses and wondered if the stream-of-consciousness complexity is more difficult to comprehend than in the original Hiberno-English.

One bestselling non-fiction book in English and in translation is Dale Carnegie’s How to make Friends and influence People. You may also find The Bible in Chinese at outdoor bookstalls during university Freshers’ Weeks in September.

Children’s book publishing is hugely large and lucrative in mainland China. Coloured illustrations are artistically attractive. Parents and grandparents buy a lot as presents for birthdays and for the Spring Festival. Many books recount ancient Chinese folk tales. As children get older they may encounter Party ideology and patriotism in other books.

CHINA CENSUS SHOWS BIRTH RATE SLOW-DOWN

Communist China has held seven Census exercises since the early 1950s. In mid-May this year the cn.news online website published some of the statistical findings. There are implications for the ratio of children to other age cohorts in a population of about 1.45 billion people.

The population growth rate has slowed down. The average annual growth rate in the past ten years was 0.53%, a decrease of 0.04 percentage points from the previous decade. In some provinces, the proportion of children under the age of 14 is as low as about 10%.

The journalist for cn.news remarks:

“Behind this is the decline of many young people’s willingness to marry and even have children in recent years.”

The report goes on to state that economic development and urbanisation ‘inevitably’ slow down the birth rate. It compares this with what has happened in capitalist countries of Europe, North America and other continents.

 Regarding the slowdown in population growth, Ning Jizhe, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, clearly stated, “This is the objective result of the development of industrialization and urbanization to a certain stage, and it is also a problem faced by countries around the world, especially developed countries.”

In 2015, after much internal discussion away from media attention, China changed its One Child policy to a Two Child policy in urban areas. This radically altered parental attitudes, but now demographical analysts see a need to encourage fertility in marriage so that schools, technical institutes and universities are not adversely affected in the near future.

The reporter goes on: “The high cost of raising children is an important reason why families do not want to have more children. Therefore, to improve the quality of the population, the state still needs to share the family’s cost of raising children and break the barriers of the existing system. There have been many discussions about measures to encourage childcare such as extending marriage and parental leave and providing public provision for childcare.”

Many other points are made and it highlights a conundrum. A sharp decline in parental fertility and the birth rate in developed urbanised societies will have consequences for marital stability, child rearing, educational and social development.

Link: https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_12621021

* Garreth Byrne spent ten years working in different cities of China with Aitece. In the years 2004-5 he worked for a private TEFL company in Suzhou, a scenic canal city one hour by train west of Shanghai. He took taxis on different days to primary and secondary schools to give special oral English lessons. Here are a few photos he took of children he encountered.

The first shows a choral singing practice in a school playground. Another shows children in a class where he taught. The third shows Garreth, in winter clothing, with teenaged children in a middle school.

Last week, sticking to the ‘stay in your own county’ rule, I visited a corner of Kildare that is a great example of ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’.

I was searching for high crosses with the images of two men who lived in Egypt 1600 years ago and never visited Ireland.  Why then were they depicted on Irish High Crosses dating from the 8^th century?

The two are Paul of Thebes and Anthony the Hermit. I found them in Moone and Castledermot though they can also be found in places like Monasterboise.  The two are known as the pioneers of the ‘Desert Fathers’  and obviously had a major influence on the early Irish Church.  On one panel they are sharing bread brought to them by a bird and in another two menacing devils are trying to terrorise Anthony.

Why were they so well known in Ireland that they were put on the equivalent of primetime TV? At that time they represented a vision of Christianity that enthused and changed contemporary Irish society. This led to Ireland having a reputation for enlightenment and learning that lasted for the next five hundred years.

My covid project is to find out how they became so well known in Ireland and what attraction they had for the Irish. It gave me a reason to locate the crosses and also to visit a quiet part of the country with an extraordinary collection of historic remains. I made another interesting discovery there that I will share later. In the meantime if you spot any unusual high crosses out there, let me know. If a Chinese person appeared on one of them, now that would be intriguing. 

What have bluebells and miniature horses got in common?

Last Sunday I was in Killinthomas near Rathangan to see the bluebells.

While enjoying the natural display of bluebells for which the wood is famous we came across miniature horses in a nearby field (or were they ponies?)

First the bluebells. We saw them at their best, covering large spaces and carpeting the old forest. They are native only to the west coast of Europe and are loved so much that they are a protected species in the UK and on the logo of the Botanic Society of Britain and Ireland. The great thing about them, besides their ability to change a landscape, is that there is no need for anyone to look after them. They are 100% natural and independent.

The miniature horses were eye-catching also. One of them had the best covid haircut ever.  But were they miniature horses or small ponies? Is height the only difference? Miniature horses were originally bred as pets for royalty but then, in 1842 when it became illegal for children to work in the mines, in England small horses replaced small children. There is also an ancient breed of small horses in China called Guoxia, literally ‘under the fruit tree’. Was it because they were small enough to walk under fruit trees or did they actually work in orchards?

What started out as a relaxing stroll among the bluebells ended up with time spent on google trying to distinguish bluebells from Hyacinth and between miniature horses, Shetland ponies, Connemara ponies, dwarf horses and Guoxia.

Maybe it would be more relaxing to stay at home watching TV. Immersing oneself in nature can bring up all sorts of inviting questions that would never bother you if you stay indoors.

Two years ago I met a Chinese research scholar in Maynooth who could speak 13 languages including Old and Middle lrish. He has studied in Oxford, got an interest in Celtic languages and gone on to specialise in Irish. His wife, also in Ireland,  is a linguistic anthropologist.  

Last week they were in the news because, having been in Ireland since 2011, they applied in Irish for citizenship here but were told to fill out the form in English instead. Prof Qiu, his wife and young child all speak Irish (their son attends a Gaelscoil) and thought that applying in that language would be a good thing to do.

When the matter was brought up in the Dail, the department got  embarrassed and said that the Irish form used was out of date and a new form was not ready.

The Qiu family could not but be a bit surprised, ‘It was not just the delay, it is the attitude towards the Irish language’, they said.

It does say something about a government that surely wants to invite people to Ireland who have much to contribute (and not just money) and are interested in the Irish language and culture.

Fortunately not all government departments are the same. In Hong Kong the Irish Consulate facilitates the Irish speaking Ciorcal Comhra.  

When painting some eggs, with by companions, for a Columban Easter Egg Competition, I learned three things about eggs.

1. Hens no longer lay white eggs. All the eggs in the supermarkets are brown.  Its harder to paint brown eggs!

2. In China they paint eggs red on the 100^th day after the birth of a child. The eggs are then hidden and young boys (boys only!) are sent to look for them. The boy who finds one will bring good luck to his family.

3. In the USA they have green-themed ‘Shamrock Eggs’ on St Patrick’s Day.

Speaking of St Patrick, on 25 March 433 he broke the ancient custom of not lighting a fire  on that day (to mark the coming of Spring) until the king on Tara did so. Patrick lit his on Slane first and so gave the occasion a new significance, Easter Sunday!

Photos: Our eggs and Chinese Red Eggs.

I usually take these opportunities to report on what is happening in China, especially regarding educational circles, as I am the representative of a group which facilitates Irish teachers teaching in universities in China.  I spent 17 years as manager of the organisation’s headquarters in Hong Kong, now a much-changed city.   

However for the past year the Covid pandemic has put activities on pause though a number of our teachers remained on in China working online or in restricted circumstances.  We hope that travel will be possible again in the autumn and we can resume sending volunteers.

At present kindergartens, primary, middle and secondary schools are open and third level institutes may restart in a limited way by June.  

The country is proud that is it almost covid free and restricts foreign travel to keep it that way.  The lock-down has ended but  regular mandatory tests are held and proof that you are covid-free may be necessary when entering some facilities and shops. People take the pandemic rules and suggestions very seriously and are amazed at how relaxed people are in the West. 

China has developed its own vaccines which it shares with neighbouring and African countries rather than seeing a need to roll them out to all the billion and a half population at home.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong a small but significant number of new cases is reported every day. Commentators on the mainland are not slow in pointing out that this indicates the superiority of their social system.