Lessons from Learning Cantonese

Most of you know one of my latest hobbies is trying to relearn my Cantonese (mostly using this site). Its part of my 5 yr plan to hopefully learn conversational Cantonese, conversational Mandarin, then either reading/written simplified/traditional. I'd like to see myself in some type of full time Christian ministry one day, and I think they'd be valuable assets. It'll be a long road tho, so we'll see if I carry it out to the end or not.

One thing if I find about Chinese is that the characters and literal meanings are quite interesting, at times funny, critical and profound. So in Chinese there might be two characters that together mean "smoking" for example, but if you look at the literal translations its quite interesting. If I knew how to write and read I think it becomes even more interesting, as each word is construction with characters adding even more meaning. Heres a few examples:

食煙 sik yeen - "to smoke". Literal translation "eat smoke". haha

小心 siu sum - "to be careful". Literal translation "little heart"

有心 yau sum - "to care for". Literal translation "have heart"

龍蝦 loong haa - "lobster". Literal translation "dragon shrimp". Hm well I guess if you combined a dragon and a shrimp, haha.

On a more political side of things (with the upcoming election), my mom was teaching me that the character that can be used for politician or ruling is 管治, of which the first character has two "mouth" characters (the box). Meaning well, politicans can say one thing, and than another thing later.

One of the profound ones that has influenced me lately is the term for "relax" or to "put at ease". Its 放心 "fong sum". The literal translation for this is "release heart".

Wow - this lines up so much with what it means for us as Christians to trust and believe in God. I get so easily worked up about something - usually when something doesn't go my way. I want it so bad - it eats away at me. Its time like that we need to give up everything before God, lay down our burdens, and release our heart to its Maker. I don't know what's best, He does. I don't know tomorrow, He does.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -Matthew 11:28-29

Leaving in 72 hours...