I was in yoga class the other morning trying to do something I find very difficult and suddenly saw that learning Chinese and learning yoga have something in common.
It’s a challenging class, with some extremely advanced astanga practitioners, but we practice individually. The teacher comes around to assist and was encouraging me to do a […]

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Gerry Sperling, a contributor to Guanxi issue 1 and a friend since we met in Rome last December, sent this encouraging note: Che dao shan xian, bi you lu!–If you get the cart to the foot of the moountain, there has to be a way around it.
I’ll keep this in mind as I study […]

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Survived my first lesson. Liz (Steffey) is a gentle teacher, and does not perceptible flinch at my pronounciation. She’s our young project assistant for the GUANXI newsletter and a tremendous enthusiast for what we’re doing. Besides that, she’s quite confident that I–and everyone else on staff, over time–can learn Chinese. And she is determined to […]

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This is the day I start, seriously, to learn Chinese, and I’m scared. I am really not sure I can do it. This is a tough admission, because I speak Spanish fairly well, and can converse a little in French and Italian. I can read those three languages and also some German. Linguistically, you see, […]

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