So, I made my own software for writing Chinese!

From early on in my learning of Chinese language, I decided to concentrate my efforts to the spoken language, not writing. One reason for this is the sheer mind-blowing number and complexity of the characters. Another reason to focus on speaking is that for writing (in the internet) various translation tools are available, but when we are face-to-face with Jinlin, speaking is a must. Finally, my busy life allows more time for listening to Chinese audio-lessons (eg. when driving or walking) than studying the visual appearance of the characters at home.

In the beginning when I translates from English to Chinese with Google translate used occasionally "round-trip" checking to verify validity of the translation. In this method one translates the translated Chinese back to English and checks that the result resembles enough your original intention. While this is useful method that I have used a lot, it has significant draw-backs. First, it is slow and clumsy. Especially when the result of the round-trip translation is not correct enough, one must make random structural variations to the original sentence in the hope of finding form that translates better. Second, if the round-trip translation does not produce good result, the Chinese translation could still be okay and the problem only in the translation back to English - but one does not know this, leading to unnecessary random changes.

Pinyin to the rescue

Today I have been getting sufficiently fluent in Chinese to be able to check the validity of the translation to both directions in most cases. How is this possible when my skills are only in speaking, not in the characters? It's made possible by pinyin, the way to phonetically write Chinese with English alphabet. For example following is a line written by Jinlin on our 4th October 2012 chat in Chinese characters (Hanyu), Pinyin and English:

Hanyu:  非常好.  我很开心. 我希望你来上海
Pinyin:  Fēicháng hǎo. Wǒ hěn kāixīn. Wǒ  Xī wàng  Nǐ  Lái  Shàng hǎi
English: Extremely good. I am very happy. I hope you come to Shanghai.

Because I am able to speak and understand these sentences in spoken Mandarin, I am also able to read and understand the corresponding phonetic pinyin. When translating between English and Chinese in Google translate, the resulting pinyin is also shown. By looking at the pinyin I am able to directly see if the meaning is what I intended without doing round-trip to English. While this direct checking saves time and improves accuracy of the translation, it is sometimes frustrating in different way. Often I know what sequence of Pinyin I want to get as outcome but I don't know what English sentence to write to make the tool produce that.

The obvious question is of course: couldn't there be a tool that allows me to write directly in pinyin and produce the corresponding Chinese characters? In principle many such tools exist: most Chinese writing tools are based on pinyin input. This is because it is clearly not convenient to make a keyboard with over 3000 keys for the different characters. Neither is is convenient to specify the intended character by drawing the strokes on screen (although you can try it at http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/mouse.html). Hence pinyin is the standard method to use: if you install Chinese input language to windows and start hacking or use online tool like http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/ime.html, you will write pinyin.

So what's the catch? Well, there are only about 400 different pinyin syllables but several thousands of characters in Chinese. So for each pinyin syllable there are dozens of different Hanyu characters. User of these tools must choose the intended Hanyu character from a list of matching characters and this requires visual knowledge of the Hanyu. You can see this if you try for example to use the free online Chinese writing tool above to write "I am" in Chinese. Pinyin for "I" is "wo" and pinyin for "am" is "shi". But for each of these syllables you get more than ten possible Chinese characters to choose from. Without recognizing the characters you can not select the right characters 我 and 是. Like I have discussed previously "ma" can mean, among other things, horse, mother or curse and "shi" can mean even more things than "ma".

Computer nerd strikes back

But wait! How about writing pinyin syllables and then choosing from a list of English -meanings the correct  intention and hence correct Hanyu character? That would allow person with written English and spoken Chinese skills to write full Chinese with full control and no translation errors. But alas, no such program seems to exist. Not until now anyway ;-) Since I'm a programmer both in my job and hobby, I made one today. Here's a screen shot::

With this tool one can write pinyin to the input field and select the desired matching word from automatically updated list of matches by pressing corresponding number. The selected character(s) are added to the sentence in the "Chinese" field and displayed as combined Hanyu-Pinjyn.

It's a small cute program done in C# using WPF and XAML for the user interface, LINQ for functional list-processing and XML database for the words. It was great fun to make! Here as an example is a key function that splits string of Chinese characters to chunks of words based on recursive dictionary lookup:

The program is of course only as useful as the database of words it contains. Today I have been adding the first 125 words and I have been already successfully using it to write first directly composed sentences to Jinlin. The program should be quite useful in everyday writing when I get to the ~500 word level that approximates my current vocabulary. I can also use it to comprehend Chinese written by Jinlin by copy-pasting Hanyu to the "Chinese"-field and inspecting the break-down of words produced. And while it's a writing tool, playing around with the words and expanding the database is bound to further also my primary goal of more fluent speaking ability.

I'm coming to Shanghai, Ready or Not!

Some good news and some bad news. But some background first. During the past three months our initial plans of Jinlin visiting Finland morphed into a plan of me visiting her in Shanghai:

2012-08-07: Jinlin: You asked if I can visit Finland in September. But in September I must be in school, learning my specialized courses. I will go to Shanghai, and then plan to go to Finland. In November will be China's National Day, I will probably have then seven days of the holiday and I can come to Finland.

2012-08-08: Robert: I have two weeks vacation left. If you come to Finland for one week, I have one extra week left. I thought, maybe, I once again came to visit China. I could come to Shanghai on October before your visit to Finland? I know that you do not have holiday then, but I can do sightseeing when you are in school in daytime and  we can be together in the evening. What do you think?

2012-08-09: Jinlin: I think such plan is very good. If I am at school at the time you visit China, I think you can also visit my school. To get to know my new study friends.

2012-09-14: Robert: Dear, you told me that you can visit to Finland in one week in November, because you have school holidays, then. See when I looked at the Chinese calendar is the festival. I do not see any public holiday in China in November. Do you have a holiday, like you told me, in November? I hope you have a holiday in November, so you still have time to arrange VISA.

2012-09-29: Robert: I worry that you do not have much time left now to arrange your visit to Finland in November. What do you think? You have not told me how your travel plans progress. In any case, I have a visa ready, I can come to Shanghai, if you tell me when is the right time.

2012-10-04 Robert: Honey, do you know if you can come to Finland this year? Although I hope you can come, I understand, if this is not possible. But I need to know.
Jinlin: I also hope to be able to come to Finland but I'm very busy studying. I hope I can have the time to come.
Robert: I have my visa valid. Therefore, it is easy to come to Shanghai. So, if you do not come I can come to visit you.
Jinlin: Very good. I hope you come to Shanghai 

2012-10-08 Robert: I am planning now my visit to Shanghai. Because it turned out you do not have any school holiday, I will choose the time according to what best fits my schedule. I intend in Shanghai from December 2 to December 8. Tomorrow I will buy tickets. I try to book a hotel near your school. Can you give the address of your school? 
Jinlin: My school in Shanghai Jiading District Jiahang Road 851

2012-10-09 Robert: Tomorrow, I will buy a ticket to Shanghai.
Jinlin: Good. How long will you stay in Shanghai?
Robert: I will be in eight days. I will arrive on 1st December.
Jinlin: Good. But I will not have much time to accompany you.
Robert: I understand. Would some other time be better? Do you have any holiday in the coming months?
Jinlin: Maybe. I am busy studying at daytime.
Robert: I know. But I prefer to come anyway, even if you are busy during the day. Otherwise, we can not see each other at all.
Jinlin: Okay. Thank you for your love.
Robert: Thank you dear for your lovely words. If you get some holiday later, I can come again.

Now to the good news: I got quite good price for Finnair flight tickets to Shanghai. The Stockmann department store had it's yearly "crazy days" rebates at a very suitable time for my plans. In co-operation with Finnair, Stockmann was selling Shanghai flights with 560 euros compared to the normal 800 euro price. Of course Aeroflot has even slightly lower price at 480 euros, but that includes 12 hour wait in Moscow on both ways. The extra 80 euros is definitely worth the extra 24 hours of time (and rest) gained. So I was happy to tell Jinlin:

2012-10-15 Robert: I have good news. I now have a ticket to Shanghai!
Jinlin: Well, you can send the information to my mailbox.
Robert: Sent! I will be in Shanghai for two weekends and one week.

Then come the bad news:

Jinlin: In fact, I am very sad the airport is very far from my school. And I can not leave. I'm sorry, but I think you should not come at this time. You can consider meeting me in February in Zhengzhou.

Well, that felt bit of a let-down, I must say. But there was no way I would be cancelling the trip at that point with the non-refundable ticket in my pocket, with the plans that we had been discussing before and with the postponing our earlier attempts to meet:

Robert: Dear, I have bought an expensive flight ticket. So, I'll come to Shanghai whether you want or not. You should have told me earlier if you do not want me to come now. You do not have to come to the airport. I will take care of all my travel arrangements. I will be in Shanghai for nine days. This includes two weekends. I can do my own sightseeing. But surely you can see me on some evening or weekend?

Fortunately it turned out that Jinlins main worry was her not being able to come to meet me at the airport. Quite unnecessary worry indeed. So things turned out to be quite okay after all and earlier plans nicely back on track:

Jinlin: I estimate I cannot come to the airport. My school is in the suburbs, too far from the airport. I will be late from school when I come to the airport.
Robert: Do not worry about the airport. I'll come to your school. I reserved at a nearby hotel. I can arrange these things.
Jinlin: Okay. I have classes on weekends also but I can arrange time on weekend afternoons.
Robert: Thank you dear!
Jinlin: Tell me your hotel. We can meet at your hotel.
Jinlin: I can also help you to plan your sightseeing routes for the days. We can use our time together to visit the Shanghai Bund. 

It will be interesting to see in the end how much time we can have together during the trip. A Pessimist might say that I'm travelling 6000 km to see my girlfriend and then she's not even with me most of the time. But an optimist might say that I'll get to travel for an interesting sightseeing experience to an exotic city and, by the way, there is the bonus of having lovely and dear female company every evening for free ;-) Now that sounds to me like a glass half full :-)

Anatomy of a misunderstanding?

So how is it possible that she was even temporarily asking me not to come after I told her I had bought the ticket? Didn't we have clear agreement about the plan? When re-reading our discussion I noted there might have been misunderstanding on my part in a critical point in our planning discussion above:

2012-10-09 Robert: Tomorrow, I will buy a ticket to Shanghai. [...]Jinlin: Good. But I will not have much time to accompany you.
Robert: I understand. Would some other time be better? Do you have any holiday in the coming months?Jinlin: Maybe. I am busy studying at daytime.

I automatically interpreted her answer "Maybe" to my most recent question: "Do you have any holiday in coming months?". So I though: "She does not even know whether she will have any holiday in the foreseeable future, no use waiting and hoping for that. Hence better to go now as planned, holiday or not."

But after re-reading this chat now, I realize the "Maybe" might well have referred to my first question "Would some other time be better?" This would make more sense in the light of "I am busy studying in the daytime" which makes sense to the question of the suitability of this time but does not make sense to the question about possible holiday times. Furthermore this exchange took place in text chat which has usually considerable temporal overlap between each others writings. So she might have started to write the answer to the first question before even seeing the second one, whereas I would have seen her answer to the first question only after writing the second one.

And with the Chinese politeness considered, "Maybe" to the first question would most certainly mean "Yes".

Well, my bad if I misunderstood her comments in this way. But if that is the case, I am still happy about my misunderstanding. Because otherwise I might have been kind enough to postpone our plans once more and seen her next time earliest in February, three long cold months later. That would have been a let-down. So it will be Shanghai in December or bust :-)

P.S. She has a new haircut and sent me nice new pictures. Without and with some make-up:

    

Me gusta

It's so nice she likes my boys!

Me and Ilkka chatting with Jinlin

Ah, Jinlin has her internet connection finally working again! We are back to our cozy video chats - what a nice and happy relief from weeks of forced low-bandwidth communication! She is living in a student dormitory with five other girls, so there can be quite much noise and chatter to be heard in the background. But in the evening she can sit on her bed with a curtain drawn around it to form a nice little "tent" for some measure of privacy.

Last Wednesday evening and now again on Friday we had the possibility to revive another nice and warm habit: my son Ilkka having a funny chat with Jinlin. Ilkka is 9-year old humorous and sporty boy. He has just started English classes in his school, but he has learned quite much already beforehand from computer games and from his 12-year old brother Arttu. Arttu and Ilkka spend with me every second weekend, Wednesday evenings and few weeks in the summer.

The funny pics extravaganza

While my boys are not yet quite able to carry out directly a meaningful English conversation with Jinlin, I can occasionally translate between them. But the more funny and unexpected way of communication is via emoticons: Jinlin and Ilkka have quite spontaneously developed a habit of sending each other great volleys of emoticons and similar funny small pictures. They laugh at each others creative combination of funny and naughty pics available at QQ messenger and compete who can get the best reaction from the other :-) It's great fun to watch them and laugh together with them (example screenshot from their exchange below)

From my past experience I am very aware that one should not take for granted that new spouse gets along, accepts or is accepted by ones children from previous relationships. So it's been a great relief and joy that both Jinlin and my boys have had only positive things to say from each other. She likes children in general and starting from her first reaction in our first "falling in love chat" her attitude has been very positive:

2011-10-08. Robert: I have two boys, Arttu and Ilkka, age 12 and 8. They are sweet. I have divorced already some years ago 

Jinlin: I love children! I don't mind 

My boys are equally generally accepting towards almost all adults, spouses or companions. Of course Jinlin was still concerned in the beginning about my boys acceptance of her:

2011-10-21 Robert: Ilkka is here with me. My boys are here for the weekend
Jinlin: What he thinks of me?
Robert: I can ask later what they think of you :-)
They do not know much about you yet
They just know I am writing letters with a nice Chinese woman :-)
They find it amusing that dad has a Chinese girlfriend :-)
Jinlin: I see. They are very cute. He is very handsome. Like you
Robert: He likes to play with me :-)
Jinlin: He is very lively.
Robert: Yes, he is! He likes sports and climbing to trees!
Jinlin: He loves you
Robert:  I think so :-) I love my boys as well :-)
Robert: Arttu is more interested in reading and writing and science
Jinlin: That will be fine. Can cultivate his interest

Jinlin chatting from her bed "tent"

At some point in the past when we were able to chat more frequently my boys were even talking enthusiastically about Jinlin to their mother (my ex-wife). This has prompted their mother to develop positive attitude for Jinlin and declaration that she is happy for us and happy on the prospect of Jinlin moving to Finland to live with me. Quite a feat of constructive attitude there! This, combined with my other ex-wife having even higher level of praise towards Jinlin and encouragement for my relationship with her has at times resulted in almost surreal opposite to the stereotypical negative attitudes that ex-spouses are supposed to have towards current spouses (according to web discussion forums anyway).

Fathers lost and gained

My father died when I was seven years old. Jinlin 'lost' her father in divorce when she was four years old:

2011-10-17. Unfortunately, I was very small when my father left me. He and I go far from each other, I wasn't close to him. For many years I even do not call him daddy. But in fact, my heart is the love for my dad. But when I met him I could not express my feelings. My half-sister and I were alike, but I did not take a photo. I regret that.

With these losses of fathers, we both appreciate my good relationship with my boys and she understands the need for me to stay geographically close to my boys at least until they are adults. So although in principle we could solve our getting-to-live-together problem by me getting a job from Shanghai, we both understand that because of my boys the only acceptable way currently is for her to move to Finland.

As the planned date of Jinlins moving to Finland, or even visiting here, has been pushed further to the future, by boys have been also sharing some minor part of the disappointment. But children are luckily quick to adapt and forget, so when the planned Finland trip was first moved from September to November and then dropped completely in favor of me planning to go to Shanghai instead, the boys have been understanding.

Of course, we have also plans, though currently seemingly distant ones, for our own kids:

2011-10-10 Jinlin: You and me: mixed-race children 
Robert: Yes! they are cute 

2011-11-12 Robert: That was Arttu
Jinlin: Your lovely son
Robert: Yes, they are both lovely in their own ways :-) Arttu likes to make imaginary stories and fantasy worlds.
Jinlin: Very good, has the very good imagination.
Robert: When we have baby together in the future, I will be good father and you will be good mother and we will be happy together! :-)
Jinlin: Yes. I hope our child same color eyes as you have, because I love your eyes.
Robert: I hope have same color as you! :-)
Jinlin: Yes. Ha-ha, why?
Robert: Because I love your dark eyes! But because you like my eye color I am happy with that for our children as well :-)

It's been a year of changes

Today is Sunday 7th October 2012 and I am sitting with my laptop at my summer cottage at Tammisaari. This is not really any more the time of the year to have enjoyable holiday here but instead the last visit before the winter to do preparations for the house and the jetty before the long winter break.

Dejavu, just like year ago. It was in this same place, coming here for the same pre-winter preparations, sitting with the same laptop, on Friday 7th October 2011, when Jinlin and I exchanged our first messages. So I thought I would do some reflection on one of the core questions of our relationship: When and how will be be living together?

There's been lots of love, lots of learning and lots of good moments between us, in the net and during my trip in China. I am glad we have found each other. Unfortunately, the topmost feeling in my mind at the moment is still a mild melancholy from not knowing - or even having a plan or estimate - on when and how we could finally upgrade our remote relationship to a close-up one. In the beginning it seemed much more clear: we had a plan, we talked a lot about the plan and refined the plan. But according to that plan we would have already been married and living in Finland together for two months now. So the original plan did not come to being.

In our first month, the plan of Jinlin coming to live in Finland in summer 2012 was going strong. I wrote her of possibilities to study interior design and other arts in Finland and she was:

2012-10-10 Robert:  Do you want to move with me to Finland to live with me? :-)
Jinlin:  Yes. I want to, but it is difficult to leave my mother. Because I love her. I go to Finland with you. But you want to see my family, to my home for a few days. We can always later go from Finland back to China. Can also take my mother to visit Finland.

2012-10-17 Jinlin: I want to go to Finland to contact your country's characteristics. I like your country house design. I'm very interested. I would like to study in your country. I love Finland. Ha. This is a wonderful thing. I 'm going to Finland. You take me to the forest. To a more beautiful place.

2011-11-05 Jinlin: After going to Finland there are many complex things to do, I am not afraid of difficulties, because I have you, I think we can solve, I really think a lot of things to be discussed, I like to discuss with you, learning.

2011-11-07 Jinlin: Applying to go to Finland with you life? Will that be ok? I'll be there for you, love you.

2011-11-13 Jinlin: I am graduating high school in June next year. I plan to apply to go to Finland next year. I said to my mother: 'I want to go to Finland'. She says to let me go, but later life can only rely on my own. She wants me to study in Finland to enter the University. [...] But I do not worry, because I think we can overcome these problems, I love you, dear.

During November it turned out that the Helsinki Aalto University design courses were only available in English language only for students who have already bachelors degree from some foreign university. Alternative plans started to pop up in our discussion but summer 2012 was still the main option:

2011-11-14 Jinlin:  I contacted a abroad intermediary agent. They and some schools in Finland have cooperation. Contact me. IELTS study in Shanghai, then abroad. I will ask for the specifics. I think it was good. 

2011-11-19 Robert: So it seems that in order to study interior design in Finland you must first learn Finnish language quite well. So then I propose following. Lets get married in China in autumn 2012 and then come to Finland together!  The first year in Finland you study the language with me and with the many available courses. Then in spring 2013 you apply to Aalto university or some other school for programs starting in autumn 2013.

2011-11-20 Jinlin: I think we can get married in Finland and then went to China to tell my mother. Ha, so she can rest assured, ha. We wait wedding in China until the age that we can hold the wedding in China. Then we have two weddings, that is good thing. I was so happy, and happiness. I love you is so excellent. Every time I think of you, I so happy, like song so wonderful, that is love. The force.

2011-11-25 Jinlin: But I also worry about, is that I didn't apply successfully to Finland, I only in China's University, so how to do? I know in Chinese university can exchange students. We can see the result of the examination. If I can't apply for the past, I think I will go to Finland to travel. Even so, we also want to apply to, ah, do not worry too much, time is long, I will only love you more and more.

In December it become clear that Jinlins mother was not any more so supportive of her daughters Finland-plans, and there was also other tensions between them. But still we tried to keep to the "together after summer 2012":

2011-12-06 Jinlin: Honey. You know I don't want you sad. There may be very obvious cultural differences. Marriage in China is a very important thing, so you can rest assured, I asked my mother. I told her, how you perfect. I let her know, how you worry about me and how I can feel you care about me. I think we don't have to give up the idea, in life if the best thing to lose, what a pity, even if we have a lot of difficulties! We should be able to find a good way to solve, but yesterday I feel your sadness, I feel sad, I was worried about you. So you know, even after she really against it, I will go Finland with you. I don't think I will regret, regret my mother would not support me, but I must have the achievement with university. I want to succeed, so she would have pride in me.

2011-12-06 Robert: It is good when we return together to Finland next July I do not have to go to work immediately. I can be with you all day for some weeks first. So you get good start!
Jinlin: Very nice. I love you baby.

2011-12-14 Jinlin: Dear you is my best gift, this is very good.  I said to you I want to escape from my mother. It's not kidding, now you probably should know. I'll be very sad in such situation, I will work to, I will also love her. When I have the ability of time, I will let my mother be happy. She and I almost no quarrel. When she shouts, I choose silence, I think this is a good way to avoid. I also understand her heart, so dear when we go to Finland?

2011-12-15 [My mother] said I never let her feel proud. She was envious of others, and it makes me sad, so I'm sick. Today I rest at home. Although my mother and I have a lot of different opinions we still love each other. So I want to escape her management. Go to Finland! Strive. Want to let her know, I was actually very good, but I don't like her way of education. I want to have you to accompany! Later I will be very good.

When February 2012 come, Jinlin had already bent on the pressure from her mother and abandoned the "together in summer 2012" plan in favor of starting university in China and coming to Finland after half year:

2012-02-05 Jinlin: In the past my thoughts have not been mature, I think my mother have a lot of ideas I do not like, now I know it is my fault, my mother for me, love me.  Plan in the future will have some changes, my art school in China for half a semester, then go to school in Finland, this is very convenient, we will save a lot of time looking for the school. From Chinese university I can apply directly to the Finland school to go to study, it is convenient. 

Robert: Ok, I understand. Then we will live together bit later than I had hoped :-( But perhaps it is for the best? I think the biggest challenge to study in Finland will be Finnish language. That is why I had proposed to be in Finland to study the language. 

Jinlin: Yes, my dear, don't worry, I think this is the best plan. Don't worry, in China's Beijing province they teach Finnish language, I plan to go to Beijing to study at the school and study Finnish for half term, then apply to Finland schools.

We still continued to plan for her to visit Finland in the end of the summer after my visit to China in June 2012. This did not happen either due to her university starting in September and preparations for that beforehand. Some hope existed to get her to visit still later this year:

2011-08-08 Robert: Let's then plan for your visit to Finland some time in autumn 2012. You said September is too early, then perhaps October? My children are asking: When is Chen coming to Finland? I do not know what to answer.

Jinlin: I will plan, what time to travel to Finland. Rest assured that I will let your child play with me. So do not worry. I will let you tell your kids when Chen will come to Finland. I can in November, China's National Day, likely there will be seven days of the holiday, I can go to Finland.

After beginning of the university, the level of communication we have managed has been low, first due to her military training month and in the past week her not having internet connection to her laptop yet. But because November is approaching fast, I did try to squeeze answer about her. Few days ago she managed to tell me: "I would like to come visit Finland but I do not know if I will have holiday". Well, this I already now understood to mean "I cannot come" so I proposed for myself to come to Shanghai still before end of the year. Even if she does not have any holiday from her school we can be together in evenings and I can do sightseeing in Shanghai at daytime. She agreed and that's what I will start planning now. If mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed shall go to the mountain.

Discussing difficult things, Asian style

Jinlin does not seem to be very direct in telling bad news, things that might disappoint other one. This is understandable of course, but still I would very much prefer to be disappointed early on if there are changes in plans affecting our future. Take can take the hit, get over it, adjust my course in the light of the new information. That is the Finnish way, but perhaps not the Asian way. In my previous work with Chinese and Indian software developers I have noted that they too are eager to present positive status reports even if there are problems so that the problems are discovered only much later creating much more hassle.

Now I am not the kind of person who insists on fixed plans. From my work in software development and from my past relationships I know that plans must be flexible and refined or updated together as needed when situations change. But if two people have a shared plan and other person realizes some impediment that will disrupt the plan, I think it would be fair and just to let the other party know as soon as possible that the plan needs to be abandoned or changed. And if a plan aiming for some target needs to be abandoned then it would be fair and just to make a new plan together rather than just let things hang in gray twilight of no plans.


Still, at the moment, I feel there is no current plan of how, when and where we will be living together with Jinlin. The old plans have been fading away. The latest agreed plan about her doing half year of university and then applying to Finland cannot obviously happen any more. But nothing concrete has been coming to replace it. No dates, no years, no names of schools. From all our past discussion I do not doubt that Jinlin wants to come to Finland to live happily ever after with me. But I cannot avoid some measure of worry when her answers are mostly: "don't worry, I will let you know" followed by days, weeks and months passing with no new information or thoughts on the matter.

In a stereotypical western relationship the woman wants to discuss the details and plans of their relationship and marriage and future together while the man wants to have sex and drink beer with buddies and watch football and avoid any kind of "relationship discussions". It is ironical that now in my relationship with Jinlin we now seem to have opposite situation: I would be more worried and hence more eager to discuss practical matters related to the development and future of our relationship.

Patience and flexibility are virtues but determination and planning ahead are also virtues. I aim to live peacefully and happily in uncertain situations and I try to avoid being control-freak who must know all of present and future (obviously futile attempts). I am willing to proceed step by step without knowing the long-term future. But I still do respect long-term planning in important matters.

"Future will be good"

Few days ago we had a joyful and rare (in recent times) possibility to chat with each other properly when she was able to go to an internet cafe. The best news was that she is supposed to get her own laptop connected to internet finally on Monday 8th October, that is tomorrow. We also discussed the longing for each other in times of limited communication:

Robert: I miss you every day. I look at your photos, I write my blog about us, I read your old messages and I listen to your music so I stay connected to you and my love for you. 

Jinlin: It is sad that since the starting of my school I have not been able to have much time with you. But the future will be good. I hope you understand. 

Indeed I hope and also want to believe that our future together will be good. But in the silence of the evening, when cold October wind is blowing outside in the trees, a little melancholy is difficult to avoid.

Why did I seek a Chinese woman?

Jinlin

Recently I wrote about the beginning of our relationship with Jinlin. I will now explore the earlier "time before beginning", my path to seek a Chinese companion from international dating sites.

For a Finnish person, I have had higher-than-average level of contact with people from non-Finnish cultures. When I was four years old, my family moved to Oregon, USA, for two years, with my father working as researcher in the University of Oregon. Those were happy years and left good memories of foreign living. In my teenage years, from 16 and 18, I attended the Atlantic College in Wales. AC had students come from over 80 nationalities and I ended up being quite close to our students from Japan, China and Hong Kong - probably partly because my dorm mate Masahiko was Japanese. I even had a short fling with one of the Japanese girls until she sadly decided she does not want a boyfriend. And after the college ended in 1992 I did a five week trip to Japan and Hong Kong to see my friends there.

Masahiko and me at Atlantic College 1992

Later I have been travelling in 20+ different countries in different parts of the world, the most notable here being a five-week trip to Russia and China in 2007. We took with my friends the trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Beijing and down through China to Hong Kong. We spent three weeks in various Chinese locations and I was impressed with the scenery, the culture and the people.

My previous long-term relationships was with a Dutch woman studying in Finland. Although not culturally very different or geographically so far away, there was still personal growth and learning from living with an immigrant, speaking daily in other than mother tongue and working out issues concerning distance and travel and cultural differences.

Migutse and Haidee

I should also mention the encouraging example of my friend Migutse, who was travelling with me on our 2007 Far-East trip. He continued his trip from Hong Kong to Philippines and met there his future wife Haidee. After a one year remote relationship she moved to and now they have been together for four years and have two kids together. She has many friends in Finland and seems to be happy here.

The positive expectations

Given this background, I definitely had nothing against possibility of a relationship with a foreign woman. Still, it required some more inspiration before I made a profile to an international dating site and started to seek a serious relationship with a Chinese woman. Such act requires some positive expectations, some ideas and thoughts about "what Chinese women are like", in other words stereotypes. So like my earlier post on "sugar daddies" and "trophy wives", this is one about stereotypes, though mostly the positive ones.

Stereotypes are interesting beasts. They can't be fully avoided, but they can be hopefully understood for their limitations and used as wisely as possible. When a stereotype is based on true correlation, understood in proper context and applied wisely, it might sometimes provide useful "rule of thumb" in navigating your way through complexities of life. Harvard graduates are smart, women like flowers and Nigerians willing to give you million dollars might actually want your money -  these are not always true, but they are definitely based on true statistical correlations and can sometimes be useful as first approximations when there is need to do decisions on limited information. But when stereotype is not based on true correlation, or when it is is applied blindly, out of context, with limited understanding and too wide generalization, it can constitute a negative prejudice:

Prejudice (noun). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice. "Prejudice (or fore-deeming) is most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, nationality or other personal characteristics. It can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence."

Even in a world where the word "stereotype" has a negative ring, it is important to admit that there are many significant statistical differences between groups of people. Some stereotypes are simply false, but many real statistical differences exist between boys and girls, men and women, between Finnish, American and Italian people, between young and old, between rich and poor, between western world and Asian cultures. In the noble pursuit of full equality and acceptance, some relativist philosophers have gone as far as claiming that there are no significant differences between groups or at least dismissing all discussion about such differences. I think such denial is an overreaction and counter-productive to their goals. We do not need to dispel statistical differences between social or ethnic groups to value equality and respect individual differences. A more productive approach is, I think, the "celebrate the differences" attitude that seems to be getting more common.


Equally importantly, one should never infer individual properties from any stereotype, even if based on true correlation. We humans have strong tendency to do so, but I think we should actively fight against it. Even if women are statistically (and in stereotype) more likely than men to like flowers it does not follow that Jane likes flowers because she is a woman or Jack as a man does not. Individual variance within groups is usually always wider than the differences between averages of groups so in any group known for attribute X there are likely to be many individuals who are very non-X.

Stories of Chinese women and WM-AF relationships

After my previous relationship ended in the end of summer 2011 my background and curiosity lead me to search for internet articles and discussions about experiences and opinions on Asian dating. Various Western-Asian dating sites are very popular nowadays and they are advertising their services rather aggressively. What do their users say of them and what kind of experiences they have had later in their cross-cultural relationships?

There is no lack of opinions and experiences reported on these topics in the net. Some were negative, but great majority of stories and comments draw a very positive image about Chinese, Philippine, Korean and Vietnamese women and relationships of western men with such women. I gradually gathered large collection of writings which draw a stereotype of these women as caring, loyal, honest, hard-working, family-oriented, deeply loving, polite, intelligent, independent, happy and beautiful in mind and body. Here is some small fractions from small selection of stories I read:

Jerry: "I was married for thirty years to a American woman who bore me two wonderful children. Then she divorced me, It was the luckiest day of my life. Before I married my Chinese wife I never really knew what true happiness meant. My Chinese wife is everything a man could want. She is independent and always in a good mood. She is very intelligent and helps me avoid mistakes in almost everything we do in our life together. She is so beautiful that I find myself staring at her all the time and wondering how I could be so fortunate to be with her. Every day we tell each other "I love you". Its not just words, we mean it. We demonstrate to each other in words and deeds every day how we love each other. I can say without any doubt that Chinese woman are the most beautiful and desirable of all woman. Its not just physical beauty, its what's inside that makes the difference. With that kind of love and caring a man can accomplish anything."

Ed: "Many western woman want possession, or what we call "keeping up with the Jones's", wealth, and fame/notoriety. Most western women have lost the value of family and love between husband and wife and put their own personal wants / needs above the family and for me it makes western women very unattractive. I sought my Chinese wife because after an extensive search, knowing I no longer had the commonality with western women, of other countries and cultures and realized the Chinese culture was more in line with my feelings of family and what it means to me. I married my wife after corresponding over the internet after 5 months of daily letters and have not had one regret." 

Gino: "What I see [in a blog post of western man and young Chinese woman] is mutual feeling reflected in two happily satisfied people. The magnetism that got them together is what makes them happy. There is nothing wrong with that, whatever the reasons are. The fact is that the divorce in such a relationships between westerns and Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine woman almost does not exist. Considering that they are in it for love. Whereas in the west in 50% of the "in love" marriages love lasts 2 to 7 years. The bottom line is that the truth and honesty is what will make most couples happy and the Chinese woman are more likely be honest with their man then western women."

Richard: "I am 55 and have a very deep relationship with my 24 year old Chinese girlfriend. I was married for 30 years to my wife , 3 grown children but I have never experienced the connection that I have with my Chinese friend. She knows how to understand a man and take care of a man unlike western women. I will spend the rest of my life with her. Go for it guys, yellow fever is best!" 

Zak: "I'm Australian. I promised my Chinese (Anhui) wife that if we were to be together and I touched her as a virgin, inexperienced with men - that we must become married. We lived together for 3 years and married in Nanjing in mid-2007. Yes, of course she is a glittering prize working for a multinational corp, as a project manager, 20 years my junior: but... she doesn't have "issues". "Issues" mar relationships with Western women. She has balls, got her own bank mortgage on a new apartment here in Suzhou. I pay the rent on our current apartment. In short - I'd never re-establish a relationship with a Western lady. 6 years with my honey. I'd never go back. Not yellow fever, just mutual care, respect - holding and being held at night. It's funny. I don't think of her as being Chinese, I just think of her as my wife. And I'm very tender with her. That's the key."

The statistics of Dating and Love

Still, given the earlier point of great individual variance within all ethnic groups, one might validly ask: could one not find a perfect spouse from more local surroundings? In the end we will be in a relationship with an individual, love and marry an individual, so in the end only his/her individual qualities matter, not the average attributes of their group. And with wide variance between individuals, surely an optimal match will be found from any group, including the local one? Well, this might be true in a situation of perfect information and perfect choice: If man in Helsinki would have full enumeration of all local women in the town and knowledge all of their attributes and he would have the power to simply pick single one at his discretion to be his loving companion, the averages might not matter. I am sure that a quite amazing woman and perfect match could be found.

But we know that finding good relationship and love does not work that way: it is not deterministic exact process with full information and choice available. No, the game of human courting and love is a fuzzy, complex and very random game of luck in a field of limited information and limited possibilities. And in a game of luck the averages, statistics and expectation values make a big difference. By extending ones search to a group with desirable average attributes one can improve the probability of "scoring high" in these attributes. So although no one has godly power to guarantee a good companion for him/herself in a deterministic manner, we can all affect our own possibilities of finding one by choosing which actions to take, what events to participate and what places and forums to attend. We cannot control life but we can affect the probabilities that luck operates on. If lake A has more trout than herring than lake B, it makes sense to fish in lake A for trout - even if it is still possible for catch a very big trout at B.

The End of the Game, the Beginning of a Couple

Of course the aim of all dating games is to end the dating game. In the past I remember having many simultaneous exchanges of messages going on with multiple women from different dating sites. When such discussions go on, it is a common to ponder at which point one should try to start focus on one of the ladies and whether or not one should keep the profile up just in case someone even better comes by. It is a good sign when one can write, just after one day of getting in touch with someone, like I wrote to Jinlin:

I love you Chen! <3 We will be together!
I'm closing my profile in ChineseLoveLinks, my search is over :-)

She is indeed cute, sweet, caring, unselfish, deeply loving, hard-working, polite, funny, sexy, interested, artistic, children-loving, idea-rich, talented, optimistic, brave and loyal. And like Zak writes above, I am beyond of thinking of her as a Chinese woman but rather my dear darling. And though I do value here attributes, in the end I value even more her love for me and her touching words:

"You are too perfect. In my heart in you, I see picture you was small and cute doll, I want you, my dear you. [...] I have you is the biggest happiness, marry you is the greatest happiness, and you are the true love. [...] I can give you a home, I become your wife, to the doll wrote a note, I want to tell you at the wedding, I made a wish on a piece of paper, I write: Chen and Robert married, happy life, forever love."

Breakfast on the street

I have written earlier about Hot Pot and other dinner habits during our July trip in Yunnan with Jinlin. When it comes to breakfast, the cultural differences between the western world (including Finland) and China are perhaps even greater.

In Finland people eat breakfast at home. If they are staying away from home at a hotel, they eat breakfast at the hotel restaurant. In China, much more of everyday life happens "on the street" and this often includes breakfast in one of the thousands of tiny street-side restaurants all around cities. Most of the hotels at Zhengzhou and other to cities we stayed during our trip do not even have a restaurant of their own because there are so many breakfast restaurants everywhere. Contrast this with Helsinki city centre where all restaurants are closed before lunchtime with the recent exception of Mac Donalds selling their Mac Muffin breakfast. But I must say that advantages of street-breakfast are clear: prices are cheap, no shopping required, no dishes to wash, no mess at home.

Jiǎozi pans and eggs in Lijiang

Typical breakfast items include steamed dumplings (饺子, Jiǎozi) with some meat or vegetable filling. Jiǎozi are collected to metal or wooden pans with holes in the bottom. The pans are then stacked to high stacks on top of boiling pot so that steam is passed through the whole stack. This allows simultaneous cooking of great number of Jiǎozi with very little space and simple equipment. When a client buys Jiǎozis, one pan is taken from top of the stack and the remaining stay in the hot steam.

Eggs, dumplings and soy-sauce

Jiǎozi have very tasty filling and this is enhanced with various dipping sauces like soy-sauce. Quite same can't be said of the rice porridge or congee that is another common breakfast item. Quite watery, it has only mild sweet taste in its base form. Another common sweet side dish are the bread sticks that are cooked in oil like doughnuts. Their Chinese name (油条, yóutiáo) means literally oil strips.

But the most tasty breakfast item by far on our journey was the noodle soup. I and Jinlin both like noodles and noodle soups come in huge variety in China. Nor are they limited to lunch and dinner but are available as a common breakfast course. A breakfast noodle soup can have dozens of different hacked ingredients from meats to vegetables to tofu to spices in addition to the soup base and the noodles themselves, bringing very rich taste. And with ample concentration of crushed chillies, it can be very hot both as in high temperature (热, Rè) and as in very spicy (辣, Là). Really kicks your body up for action of the day! :-)

Very spicy noodle soup in Xishuanbanna

Dough for bread sticks in a Zhengzhou breakfast restaurant on the street

Buying breakfast in Zhengzhou

Jiǎozi, rice porridge and bread sticks for breakfast

Steamed sweet buns in Xishuanbanna

More photos from Zhengzhou and Xishuanbanna.

I'm back to school too

It is over 15 years since I previously had a "student" status in my life. But now I am a happy to be a part-time class-room student again. I have just returned from my first Chinese language classes in the adult education centre of Helsinki ("Helsingin aikuisopisto"), one of the inexpensive state-sponsored evening schools in Finland.

When I was searching for Chinese courses from the schools web pages earlier in the summer, I found both beginner-level courses and intermediate ones that were aimed at students having "already some proficiency at the language". Well, I did not know how much my humble mumblings count as "proficiency" and the courses were cheap so I enrolled on both. It's convenient, since both are in the same location on Tuesday evenings, the intermediate-level class from 6 PM to 7 and the beginner class immediately after that. So I do both now side-by-side.

It was very nice experience. Our teacher Bái Lì has been living now 15 years in Finland, speaks quite good Finnish nowadays (though finding the strong tongue-vibrating Finnish 'R' sound as impossible as Jinlin!). She favours interactive teaching style with lots of discussion practice I like.

I am happy to say that the intermediate-level course does not seem too tough to my current skills. So my stubborn listening to Chinese audio mp3 lessons has had some positive effect despite my struggle with the language during our China trip. And although the basic level seems now quite easy, it is always good to repeat the basics and enjoy more nice social learning atmosphere with another larger group.

Repeat aka bang-your-head-against-the-wall-and-still-be-happy

Before this course I have been self-studying Chinese for the past 10 months. I wrote previously about translation and communication tools that have been invaluable for Jinlin and me so far. But when it comes to really learning speaking and really actively remembering, I must say my brain is not what it used to be :-) Although research tells us that children do not have such an advantage in language learning as is usually thought, I still remember how easy it was as a pupil in comprehensive school to memorize by heart whole chapters from our English textbook. Now I have to listen and repeat, repeat and listen, again, again and again to have some hope of loading some Chinese words to active use.

My main self-learning material is the excellent ChinesePod podcast which has several 100's of 10-minute audio-lessons on various levels from "newbie" through "elementary" and "intermediate" to "advanced". ChinesePod is produced by Praxis in Shanghai and features English-native teacher Ken and Chinese-native teacher Jenny. Their teaching technique is very much inductive: instead of enumerating items of grammar and vocabulary they speak out concrete real-life discussions with complete usable sentences. This is the "language shower" way of learning that seems to be suitable for most people: learn large number of complete examples of the language and your brain will follow in the end to generalize grammar and vocabulary in a natural way.

Early on I downloaded 250 newbie-level episodes to my phone and have ever since been listening when driving, walking or waiting for something. I have my Bluetooth headphones always with me so I can take advantage of even small breaks to listen some more. During the past 10 months I have listened to all of the 250 newbie episodes at least 5 times over, which adds up to 200+ hours of listening. When I am listening alone in the car I also make effort to speak all the sentences out loud (well, I sometimes do that in my thoughts in the public as well...) Now I have been slowly starting to include some "elementary"-level episodes to my listening menu as well, although they present a big step from the newbie-lessons and are often frustratingly difficult to comprehend. I can just imagine my frustrated neurons trying to reach our for connections. I am sure if I would be 15 instead of 39 I could get the same results with quarter of the time.

The love for learning, the learning of love

It's nice to be back on "school bench". I have always been quite learning-oriented person and I used to have both good memorable moments and reasonable success in my long path through comprehensive school to high school in Atlantic College and later in University of Helsinki and its laboratory of Physical Chemistry. Only when getting stressed out about repeated failures on different attempts for PhD projects I jumped out from the academia to work as a programmer in the industry. But I still enjoy the continuous learning possibility (and indeed need of) in career of software development as wonderfully discussed by Andy Hunt in his book The Pragmatic Programmer. And I do occasionally enjoy participation in conferences and workshops that have been the closest thing to sitting in a class since my school times.

Still, I have been never very language-oriented in my love for learning. I learned good English during my high school in Wales but with that I've remained quite one-trick-pony in the language arena. Relationship and love combined with lack of good common language gives more than enough motivation to boldly go where I have not gone in many years in terms of new languages. And it's fun and interesting at times. But I still find it admirable that so many of my classmates have enough motivation to face the enormous challenge of Chinese with motivation simply described as "I though this would be a nice new hobby."

I'm very glad Jinlins surreal army-training-at-the university ends in few days. Studying alone and with the class is nice it's still lonely to have a remote relationship in the times when there is not even the remote connection present. And how lovely it is when we chat and she speaks beautiful Chinese and I can feel the sweet juice of understanding and smile! Meanwhile I try to find more black humour in the absurdity of listening to a ChinesePod episode five times, still not remembering the words, listening to sixth time and finally getting the click.