第一真好
Feb. 16, 2010
writer: Eunice Lam
In the TVB Chinese Language quiz show, Book of Words, (正识第一) Steven Ma and I as partners won the championship. My Chinese is not #1, (playing on the word ‘#1’ in (正识第一 ) it was only #1 during that month of competition. However, among the artistes, Ma Zai’s Chinese should be considered #1 indeed. I did not expect his Chinese to be this good.
Actually, we are not that well-acquainted; we only met last year in an awards function, and we chatted. He gave me some books. Turn out he has already published five so far. (Ms. Lam also wrote an article on Steven)
When Book of Words was launched, he invited me to be his military counselor. For some questions we could discuss before answering. For the last level in the final round, he had to answer alone. As his military counselor, he could only ask me one question; if counseled wrongly he would not be able to answer the remaining scoring questions.
I had no idea beforehand that the questions were so profound. It began with an oracle script (an early form of Chinese script written on bones). I know that the Chinese language started off as pictograph to be looked at not to be read. The character looked like 「雨」(rain)，and sure enough it turned out to be ‘rain’ indeed. Actually, I have never studied oracle script, so the one good thing about quizzes is that it forces one to think on one’s feet.
Steven and I were very compatible, cooperated well, and had fun together. During the question grabbing round, I said to him: “Your hand is longer than mine; you’re in charge of hitting the bell.” In the last level, Steven performed extraordinarily well. My son came up and said: “How come so profound? I didn’t even know any of the characters.” His Chinese, no matter how much tutoring, remains poor. The 4th (sic 6th, total 8 questions in all) question was a passage from an article deliberately written with erroneous characters that needed fixing. The MC asked Ma Zai if he needed my help. I suggested him to forfeit the question because the chance of being wrong was way too high. Go to the next question. Sure enough in the following question, he could not come up with the two correct characters. After consulting me he went on to successfully sweep through the rest of the remaining questions. I had to commend Ma Zai for his composure and effort.
source: steven-ma.org
asianfanatics 100
Showing posts with label news 2010 Feb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news 2010 Feb. Show all posts
Friday, November 5, 2010
Steven Ma Crowned King of Orthography in a match.
posted 07 February 2010 - 07:45 PM
The duo team of Steven Ma and Eunice Lam Yin Nei went on high attack; with Ms. Lam backing him as the counselor in a culture game show, Book of Words, Steven triumphed over his rivals to become the champion of this show, thus earning the title, “King of Orthography”.
In the final round, Steven Ma- Eunice Lam team went head to head with Evergreen Mak – Elaine Yiu team. The battle spirit was high in MaLam team plus being fully prepared, they ultimately won a grand prize of over HK500,000 (note: exact total - HK$550,000) in cash and goods.
“I’m very happy to win the prize. More so, I’m very grateful to Ms. Lam, who, despite being sick that day, still came to support me in my battle.”
Steven expresses that he has already given away his prizes to friends and relatives. He says: “The cash prize was not much, and the goods were not very suitable for myself.”
To prepare for this final round, Steven studied the Chinese literature for more than a month. He laments that only through learning did he realize just how much he lacks in knowledge. He says: “The more books I read, the more I realized that my knowledge standard is not high. Besides the knowledge gained during school days, my grasp of Chinese classics was all basically acquired from the scripts in my ancient drama series; their dialogues were all very cultured. All these years, unwittingly, I’d actually imbibed quite a bit of Chinese culture.” “Now my dictionary is constantly by my side, if unsure of tough words, will consult my mute teacher.”
----------------------
eta:
definition of orthography
1 : the art of writing words with the proper letters according to standard usage
2 : the representation of the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols
3 : a part of language study that deals with letters and spelling
Why am I not surprised by Steven’s win?
Sources: Takungpao & Singpao 2010-2-7
Credit repost: Steven-ma.org
asianfanatics.86
The duo team of Steven Ma and Eunice Lam Yin Nei went on high attack; with Ms. Lam backing him as the counselor in a culture game show, Book of Words, Steven triumphed over his rivals to become the champion of this show, thus earning the title, “King of Orthography”.
In the final round, Steven Ma- Eunice Lam team went head to head with Evergreen Mak – Elaine Yiu team. The battle spirit was high in MaLam team plus being fully prepared, they ultimately won a grand prize of over HK500,000 (note: exact total - HK$550,000) in cash and goods.
“I’m very happy to win the prize. More so, I’m very grateful to Ms. Lam, who, despite being sick that day, still came to support me in my battle.”
Steven expresses that he has already given away his prizes to friends and relatives. He says: “The cash prize was not much, and the goods were not very suitable for myself.”
To prepare for this final round, Steven studied the Chinese literature for more than a month. He laments that only through learning did he realize just how much he lacks in knowledge. He says: “The more books I read, the more I realized that my knowledge standard is not high. Besides the knowledge gained during school days, my grasp of Chinese classics was all basically acquired from the scripts in my ancient drama series; their dialogues were all very cultured. All these years, unwittingly, I’d actually imbibed quite a bit of Chinese culture.” “Now my dictionary is constantly by my side, if unsure of tough words, will consult my mute teacher.”
----------------------
eta:
definition of orthography
1 : the art of writing words with the proper letters according to standard usage
2 : the representation of the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols
3 : a part of language study that deals with letters and spelling
Why am I not surprised by Steven’s win?
Sources: Takungpao & Singpao 2010-2-7
Credit repost: Steven-ma.org
asianfanatics.86
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