The Classics

增广贤文 弟子规 唐诗

Bought these CDs from Popular recently.. and I LOVE them! And so does Jiale! I play them in the car and most of the time while we are at home, and now Jiale would ask me to play the CD (point at the hi-fi and say '鹅鹅') when I forget. He's often dancing to the songs and recitation, which are in very lively melodies and voices. The melodies are lovely, and the singers are good!

Listening is supposed to be one of the best ways for a young child to learn, especially since they can't read much yet. Furthermore it doesn't hurt to have the CD playing in the background while we go about our usual activities anyway, so why not? : ) I don't know about Jiale, but I have definitely picked up a few more poems since I started playing the CDs. If even my old brain is learning from the CDs, I'm sure his young fresh brain is learning much more! (but I did cheat la, cos I would refer to the lyrics as I am a very visual person. My hearing is usually affected when I can't see well, ie when I'm not wearing specs/contacts.)

But then, so what? Why need to know what chinese classics at all?? Good question. I also don't know the answer. I guess if you want to link it to some academic goal in terms of PSLE etc, they are pretty useless. Personally, though my knowledge of chinese classics is sadly lacking (no guts to take Chinese Literature in secondary school cos I was very scared of the memorizing), I am loving all the sayings.. so meaningful.. the poems are so beautiful.. I am also very pro-Chinese, as in I think it's VERY important to learn Chinese well, Chinese should be my children's first language and main foundation, and Chinese is a beautiful language (which I did not fully appreciate while I was in school).

I also truly believe that it is waaaaaay more difficult to learn Chinese than to learn English. I came from quite a good secondary school and a very good JC and there were many good students (good as in good results) around me, and I have only met people who were good in both Chinese and English, or good in English and bad in Chinese. Never met anyone who's good in Chinese and bad in English.. China scholars not withstanding (but then, even China-Chinese manage to do well enough in English to get top government scholarships!)

Ending off with one of my favourite poems (very hard to make a choice!)

日照香炉生紫烟

遥看瀑布挂前川
飞流直下三千尺
疑是银河落九天

I can visualize Li Bai looking at the waterfall!

(OK, OK, I admit the CDs are for ME. My boys only 顺便 listen!)