Much bla bla about nothing

[ongaku_oniko]

well univ is great if you can manage your time properly.

But if you're like me, slack until the end of the semester, sleep for 20 hours a day...

Well, you'll end up like me, barely passing my courses, and having trouble meeting some program requirements :S

and there are a lot of pianos on campus that are free to play. They'r enot really high quality though... but whatever.

There are a bunch of steinway grands for music majors and other important people though :S I WANNA PLAY ON A STEINWAY GRAND.


Oh, can you believe that I was stupid enough to PASS AN OPPORTUNITY to play on a FAZIOLI?!!!! Even my mom played on it! I was too afraid to "ruin" the instrument since I'm not that skilled...

T_T.... it was right before my eyes, a real handmade fazioli....

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

School starts tomorrow, so I thought I’d reply before I never see pianostreet ever again

Great, the students in the program I’m in are famous for our great procrastination skills. Oh well, I still have some time to untrain myself in the art of procrastination, so maybe by uni I’ll have my act together.

There’s lots of pianos!? Great, university may be survivable after all. As long as they work, are somewhat in tune, and all the keys are there, I’m happy. So you can just go and play on the pianos whenever you want, without annoying people or asking? And play scales and all that? For a long period of time?  
  I’ve only played on a Steinway once. For like 2 minutes. Because it was a recital and my teacher made me play my shortest piece.  <_<

Couldn’t you just get your music major friends to sneak you in and let you play on the Steinway ??

Faziolis sound really awesome!! And they look awesome too. Yes, I’ve only heard them and seen them, I’ve never even been near one though, so you’re luckier than me?  But   you’ll probably have a lot of opportunities to play on all the pianos you can imagine, once you become a pro.  
 
 

[countrymath]

"Fora" means "get out" here

[pianowolfi]

"Fora" means "get out" here

Yes, in Catalan.

[birba]

In italian,  fuori!

[countrymath]

Yes, in Catalan.

Portuguese...

[littletune]

YES , I’m counting the silent (or neutral) tone!! I didn’t want to confuse littletune (surprised we didn't scare you off yet, littletune  )… Because whether you count it or not, it still exists and it must be learned! It’s not like the other tones and it isn’t really silent. Kind of reminds me of a raindrop. Or staccato.
Without that 5th tone, Mandarin would sound odd. It’d kind of be like putting  the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. No tones aren’t the same in Chinese and in music, but they do have a relation:
    Here’s a link for you littletune , it relates the tones to music https://www.foreigners-in-china.com/learn-to-speak-chinese.html

No you couldn't scare me off with that!  I think it's really cool! And thanks for the link!!  It's great!! Oh I think this is just for me! Because in my language we're not really supposed to sing when we talk... but a lot of people said to me that I sing when I talk  And we had one teacher once who was teaching us how to speak the right way and all that... and she was always saying when I had to recite something: Oh you're singing again, stop singing!    so I think I should be good at these tones!  I hope!! 

[ongaku_oniko]

I don't quite agree with that website.

It's actually very hard to sing in chinese, since the tones will be distorted.

I mean people can still understand the words, because of context, but the tones will be distorted and wrong. You can't sing with chinese without distorting the tones.

[littletune]

Well I mean I didn't mean that I REALLY sing in my language... I don't sing I just talk in some funny ways so it kinda reminds people of singing I guess.... I'm not even sure... I don't even notice it but some people do I guess

[ongaku_oniko]

maybe everyone has perfect pitch in ur city, and they hear the inconsistencies in your speech

[littletune]

Hmmm... I'm not sure    Maybe I should record myself talking and post it and then you'll see... I mean hear! 

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

@ ongaku, yes, its not exactly like singing, but when you speak with tones, you are changing the pitch of your voice. So in a way, you are making music

When you ask a question, the pitch of your voice goes up... and when you are answering, your voice goes down. I actually have a lot of fun in English class, relating language to music  
When you sing in Chinese, you have to consider the tones of the words and of the music, that's why it gets distorted.
 
@littletune, its because you're too musical  
 

[pianowolfi]

Portuguese...

But in Catalan too. 

[ongaku_oniko]

you should totally post you speaking, lil

and I can learn some common phrases in ur language too.


Anyway, you hange the tone when you are asking questions in english too, you know...

[littletune]

@littletune, its because you're too musical  
 

Thank you!!   

you should totally post you speaking, lil

and I can learn some common phrases in ur language too.


Anyway, you hange the tone when you are asking questions in english too, you know...

I have been thinking about making a teaching video for Slovenian  but then I always forgot or didn't have time... But I really should! 
Yes I thought it was like that in all languages that you change the tone a little when you're asking questions.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

you should totally post you speaking, lil

and I can learn some common phrases in ur language too.


Anyway, you hange the tone when you are asking questions in english too, you know...

Yeah, I'm not sure how to pronounce a lot of things that you've taught in the Slovenian School thread... oh and when you learn Chinese you should record yourself speaking that too!!

I wasn't just talking about Chinese, I was just giving an example of how pitch changes in speech... except in Chinese it happens for every word... and your general pitch also changes depending on if you're asking a question.

[ongaku_oniko]

anywya shouldn't you be in school? didn't u say spring break was over and you'll never come back to pianostreet ever again?



...back in highschool i never spent over 5 mins per term working on school related activities outside of school... I wonder how people manage to find so many things to do for school. It baffles me

I just realized yesterday that all along I've been pronouncing a whole slew of words wrong. I'm so shocked. And it's so hard to change it to the write sound, I can't really even pronounce the write sound.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I just got home from school...
I'm giving myself 15 minutes of free time ...
38 seconds left and Pianostreet is blocked

Sometimes I change the pronounciation of words depending on my mood
had to rush typing this

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Exactly. I always loved that song, until just now when I digged it up again and listened, and realized how communist it is. Sort of pissed me off, seeing as my great-great grandfather was a landlord, but he was so nice! They provided children from the whole village FREE EDUCATION! (that's why he wasn't killed; he was a big landlord so would've been executed, but the villagers all liked him and "allowed" him to escape, sort of) But in the end because of the pressure the state put on people, he eventually couldn't bare it anymore and commited suicide T_T

That's horrible
My parents never talk much about stuff like this... family history, communism, their life in China, etc. All I know is my great grandparents opened some sort of fabric company but it closed down after the communists got rid of private businesses. :/ And they told me a bit about their experiences with the cultural revolution... how kids tattled were threatened into tattling on their parents, how they didn't learn much in school...
But that's pretty much it. And they never relate it to their views on communism, I don't even know what they think about it

[ongaku_oniko]

That's horrible
My parents never talk much about stuff like this... family history, communism, their life in China, etc. All I know is my great grandparents opened some sort of fabric company but it closed down after the communists got rid of private businesses. :/ And they told me a bit about their experiences with the cultural revolution... how kids tattled were threatened into tattling on their parents, how they didn't learn much in school...
But that's pretty much it. And they never relate it to their views on communism, I don't even know what they think about it

O_O O_O O_O O_O O_O

My great grandfather did the same thing!!! Opened a fabric company, and a few others, started earning money (I bet it'd be a multinational coporation worth hundreds of millions by now if Jiang JieShi won)
and then the communists came and it was abandoned

[emill]

@thinkgreenlovepiano - who said this?

Exactly. I always loved that song, until just now when I digged it up again and listened, and realized how communist it is. Sort of pissed me off, seeing as my great-great grandfather was a landlord, but he was so nice! They provided children from the whole village FREE EDUCATION! (that's why he wasn't killed; he was a big landlord so would've been executed, but the villagers all liked him and "allowed" him to escape, sort of) But in the end because of the pressure the state put on people, he eventually couldn't bare it anymore and commited suicide T_T

It would seem that you and ongaku_oniko's grandparents or great grandparents left China due a lot to the communists.  But generally I think people do not want to talk about their bad experiences in life especially to their relatives.  It is probably good to talk to them about those experiences (if they will open up) as it forms part of the story of one's family.  My parents and grand parents also behaved exactly that way, never mentioning except in general terms their terrible experiences and deprivation during the brutal Japanese occupation of our country from 1940-45.

When finally my father opened up (he was almost 80 then) he was in tears as he described the brutality of the Japanese as they retreated from Manila at the end of WW II. History records that  retreat with almost 100,000 civilians murdered ( a lot of women raped and children killed). Then the unthinkable happened, the other senior members of our family, one by one in the succeeding months told of their harrowing experiences during that time. I could sense that after they had unburdened themselves, they seemed so relieved that finally they are rid of some darkness they have carried and suffered for decades.  On my part I understood them better and gained a broader perspective of how man can be so kind and yet so hideous at times.  My unsolicited advice ....  talk to them about those times in China, but be patient and be a good listener. 

how kids tattled were threatened into tattling on their parents, how they didn't learn much in school... 

The mother of all tattles was probably what happened to the heir apparent of Chairman Mao, Lin Piao, then the minister of defense.  Lin Piao shrewdly used the Red Guards against his competitors for Chairman Mao's position especially premiere Chou En Lai.  However on realizing that Mao will live very long, Lin Piao became impatient and began planning for a coup.  It was his daughter who spilled the beans "for the party and mother country" so to speak.  The plane of Lin Piao and his co-conspirators were shot down as they attempted to flee.

Yes kids those days probably did not learn much as the educational system was too politicized in favor of the communist party ..... and besides the youth were the vanguards of the Red Guards and the cultural revolution and spent so much of their time not in the classrooms but in the streets, farms and factories.

SORRY for being out of topic .... as many are too!!  yes much bla...bla... about nothing!!

[ongaku_oniko]

I would like to correct you, in that what happened with Lin Biao is pure speculation, and there has been many theories surrounding this issue, none of which is clearly more likely above the rest, except that probably the plane was sabatoged in some way.

The quote was from me

I don't know, but my grand father has always been very open, telling us a lot of stories of his childhood. The story of his father's generation was only told to me last summer, when I went back to China, when my grand father deemed me old enough to take in the information. I asked him if he planned to eventually tell this to my cousins, he said "of course, this is an important part of our families' history". There is no one else I respect more than my grandfather, and should I ever have children, I will be sure to pass on the tales. There are tears in my eyes as I type this, the history is so cruel, what I know is only a fraction of what they suffered, and what I wrote is only a fraction of what I know. It really is unthinkable what people back then went through.

Our family was fortunate enough not to suffer from the Japanese, but what they did back then was unbelieveable. Nan Jing Massacre, Unit 731.. what they did the the phillipines was bad, but what they did in China was unbelieveable (pardon me for being biased).

I am learning Japanese now, and a part of me understands that the Japanese people now are not the Japanese people back then, and that we should forgive, but another part of me will never be able to forgive the atrocities that the Japanese commited in those years.


Come to think of it, my grand father (on my dad's side) would never tell his stories. I asked my dad about my grandfather, but he would never tell me a thing, and he says that he doesn't know anything about my grandfather's past either, not even where he was originally from. Surely my grandfather on my dad's side (who is a lot older than my grandfather on my mom's side, so has a lot more experience during those times, and have fought in the korean war) has many stories to tell, and more hardships than you or I can ever imagine. I've always wanted to hear those stories, to understand the history of my family, and to relieve the burden from my grand father. Unforunately it all went to the grave with him last winter.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Yes, ongaku and I started a long off topic conversation in the thread Learning Chinese : ) that became off topic so we moved it here.
I'm not sure about ongaku_oniko, but most of my family is still in China. My parents came here on scholarship, and then decided to stay.
Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure if they don't say much because they are not open to it, or if it just never crossed their mind for them to tell me all the details. Whenever I ask them, they are vague. Maybe they just don't know what to say. I get the feeling they have very mixed feelings about it all  . Almost like how I don't know whether Stephen Harper is really good or not  
 
I don't have many opportunities to talk to my family as they are all in China. Most of what I know about world war II, and the Cultural revolution, is from reading books, and other people's experiences. But I don't know much about my own family. I wish they would tell me more. Maybe over the summer, my parents and I could spend more time talking about it.

Because there's so much you can learn from history, it's pretty valuable in my opinion.
One often forgotten part of history is the Armenian genocide... and one thing Hilter said while making his own genocide plans was something along the lines of "who today still thinks about the Armenian genocide?" He felt he could get away with killing all these people (6 million Jews and everyone else!), because they would be forgotten anyway.

I don't know many details about my family in WWII, but I think my grandparents do have bad memories, they don't say specific things but they always mention how brutal it was. All I know (from my mom) is that my grandpa worked at a bookstore back then as a kid. (@ongaku, he was even younger than me! (: ) One day, he was delivering a book, and when he came back to the store, it was gone- bombed by the Japanese, and everything was in flames. If he wasn't making the delivery... he would have still been in that bookstore....

As for forgiveness, well, maybe it's easy for me to forgive, because I never experienced it. I've read books, watched movies, done research, but I wasn't actually there. I can understand if people are angry, even when I read and watch I get extremely upset, but idealistic as it sounds, I seriously don't think hatred can be countered by more hatred. And I really hope I can still say that if I ever go through something so terrible.  

PS: when I went to China, some of my relatives' neighbours kids taught me a game. I forgot how it was played, but basically, if you lose, you are called Jiang jieshi... Now that is more subliminal messaging... !  

[ongaku_oniko]

My aunt is in france, I have uncles in the US, but most are still back in China.

thinkgreen: What if the pages in my note books are not the same size? And what if I always just scribble on a few lines and use another page?

and you played Chanson Treste and mysterious summer's night eh... I played The nocturne by field and Milonga d'el angel (I think the name was something like that)

[emill]

There is no one else I respect more than my grandfather, and should I ever have children, I will be sure to pass on the tales. There are tears in my eyes as I type this, the history is so cruel, what I know is only a fraction of what they suffered, and what I wrote is only a fraction of what I know. It really is unthinkable what people back then went through.

Our family was fortunate enough not to suffer from the Japanese, but what they did back then was unbelieveable. Nan Jing Massacre, Unit 731.. what they did the the phillipines was bad, but what they did in China was unbelieveable (pardon me for being biased).

I am sorry if I provoked some sadness in you ... I hope in time we will be able to forgive but never to forget the atrocities committed by men against men.  We are so full of horror stories of the what the Japanese did to our country .... leaving us with about 1 million dead by the end of the war ...  and so many more yet to die from the destruction they left behind.  So many lives destroyed!!   

YET the saddest part of all is the unbelievable attitude of the Japanese government and its people in general of those atrocities. The generations after the war are kept in blissful ignorance of what their military did. I am told that the Japanese educational system glosses over their crimes against humanity and seems to give the story that their country was forced into it by unavoidable circumstances ....  that they were not really aggressors as depicted by their Asian neighbors. I feel the Germans did so much much better in the area of atonement.  Ahhhh ...... it is a long sad story which seems to be distorted by the Japanese ..... there seems to be no atonement .... it is blissful ignorance.    but we must move on....

[ongaku_oniko]

I am sorry if I provoked some sadness in you ... I hope in time we will be able to forgive but never to forget the atrocities committed by men against men.  We are so full of horror stories of the what the Japanese did to our country .... leaving us with about 1 million dead by the end of the war ...  and so many more yet to die from the destruction they left behind.  So many lives destroyed!!   

YET the saddest part of all is the unbelievable attitude of the Japanese government and its people in general of those atrocities. The generations after the war are kept in blissful ignorance of what their military did. I am told that the Japanese educational system glosses over their crimes against humanity and seems to give the story that their country was forced into it by unavoidable circumstances ....  that they were not really aggressors as depicted by their Asian neighbors. I feel the Germans did so much much better in the area of atonement.  Ahhhh ...... it is a long sad story which seems to be distorted by the Japanese ..... there seems to be no atonement .... it is blissful ignorance.    but we must move on....

don't worry, it's good to remember these things rather than forget them, I think.

I am proud that despite suffering through so muc, my grand father lives a happy life right now, and his children, I can say, are all quite successful.

YES! to your second part. Can you believe, that a Japanese prime minister (Shinzo Abe, I think it was) actually tried to say that the comfort women were nto coerced into prostitution or the Japanese army, because there was no evidence? DOES HE THINK THEY WILLINGLY LET THE JAPANESE RAPE THEM?!!!!!!! that is just so disrespectful!!!!!!

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

 

@ ongaku....
Change now and stop wasting precious paper... The trees will thank you! And I guess you could put all the pages of the same size together... and make multiple notebooks!  
Did you just go through my entire youtube channel... ? What else did you discover about me  
 

[ongaku_oniko]

nah I only looked at what I thought was interesting, so the notebook thing, the 2 RCM 8 songs, and the russian song... how would you know the japanese katakana reading? O_O

DO YOU SPEAK JAP

and that song appeared in the new year's gala a few years back... they were singing it in chinese but with slurrs and stuff and it really sounded russian XD

the lyrics was hilarious... something like buy 4 carrots, chop chop chop, add 4 tofu, boil boil boil add some vinegar and sugar, swirl swirl swirl, sweet and sour drink drink drink

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

YES! to your second part. Can you believe, that a Japanese prime minister (Shinzo Abe, I think it was) actually tried to say that the comfort women were nto coerced into prostitution or the Japanese army, because there was no evidence? DOES HE THINK THEY WILLINGLY LET THE JAPANESE RAPE THEM?!!!!!!! that is just so disrespectful!!!!!!

Have you ever read the book Hana's Suitcase? I think they have a Holocaust education centre in Japan so that an atrocity like this will "never happen again". I wonder if they ever mention Japan's occupation of other countries... Because like I said, we should learn from history, rather than hide it, so all these horrible things won't happen again.

nah I only looked at what I thought was interesting, so the notebook thing, the 2 RCM 8 songs, and the russian song... how would you know the japanese katakana reading? O_O

DO YOU SPEAK JAP

and that song appeared in the new year's gala a few years back... they were singing it in chinese but with slurrs and stuff and it really sounded russian XD

the lyrics was hilarious... something like buy 4 carrots, chop chop chop, add 4 tofu, boil boil boil add some vinegar and sugar, swirl swirl swirl, sweet and sour drink drink drink

I thought we established this before in the French thread...
Je ne parle rien de japonais! In fact, my Russian is better than my Japanese    I only wrote the title in Japanese because the sheet music was arranged by a Japanese composer, and it was from a Japanese book.
I want to hear it in Chinese, that would be so cool! In my Mandarin class we did that with a Korean song, we made it sound like Korean but it was really Chinese and the lyrics were really funny
Speaking of songs, you got that song （听妈妈讲那过去的事情) stuck in my head! I only watched the video once yesterday, and it's been playing in my head all day...

[ongaku_oniko]

No, I'm asking you how did you know the romaji reading of the japanese katakana, not why you wrote the japanese name...

:|

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

No, I'm asking you how did you know the romaji reading of the japanese katakana, not why you wrote the japanese name...

:|

Well the song is still called Katyusha in Russian...