Darren RyanZn Tan

Love can be simple!

2014-03-09T10:04:00.003-07:00

LOVE CAN BE SIMPLE!

Had a busy week and finally I could have time to date my babe just now. We went to her favourite Korean BBQ restaurant. I like the reserved seats that we were able to sit next to each other and enjoy the snowing from the window. The dinner was great because of her smile and the food. When we were ready to leave, I found out my car was almost buried by the heavy snow.

Actually that was her farewell dinner from me. She is going back to her own country end of coming march and I wasn't cool and moody with that before this It took me more than a month to get used and ready for the reluctance to accept her leaving. I hate changes and this month will be a month teaching me to learn to accept changes. When thinking she is leaving to somewhere far from me, I always recall the moment we first met and chatted.

She came long way from Thailand for a two-months visit to my university two years ago and we first met at a get-together. She left me good impression because she was pretty and hilarious. Let's say I had a crush on her. But that doesn't mean I would approach her because she was just a passerby in my life. After she left, my life goes on like nothing happens. By a chance, we met; by a fate, we met again. Never thought she will be back but it will be a lie if I say I never have a wish to meet her again. Thanks God, she returned to my university for the purpose of 1 year overseas study. The moment when I knew that, I was like hitting a jackpot, damn happy! But.. we were just normal friends until we first hung out last november.

Seriously, for me, it is still a dream to date a Thailand girl after a failed love 3 years ago that makes me think that I would be able to love again. Plus, I date a "foreigner" in Japan. We share different native tongues and cultures. And she is quite unique and different from other Thai girls that I know. To understand her, I have to be bilingual, we talk in Thai and English, and sometimes I feel stuck due to misunderstanding during texting. Sometimes I am too trivial and get pissed for the way she talks in text. Mostly, I need to make a phone call or meet her directly to solve the problems. But to be honest, her smile and voice do help a lot. As conclusion, dating a foreigner isn't a easy task. But it trains me a lot on how to handle misunderstanding.

Good thing is, she has a good temper and she doesn't make me feel burdened especially when I am busy. Bad thing is, she dates me for my kindness. Sad but used to it. What I know is that no one knows the future and treating her as good as I can is the only way I show my love and appreciation.

Chinese Language and Dialects

2013-07-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

China has undergone more than 4000 years of civilisation and undeniably the languages of China diversified into many branches of dialects as the rise and fall of various Chinese empires has culturally, linguistically and socially impacted China. Oxford Dictionary defines DIALECT as the form of language that is spoken in one area with grammar, words and pronunciation that may be different from other forms of the same language. Chinese languages have developed and have been classified into 7 major dialects of Chinese.

1. Mandarin Chinese

2. Yue Chinese, Example: Cantonese

3. Wu Chinese, Example: Shanghainese

4. Gan Chinese

5. Xiang Chinese

6. Min Chinese, Example: Taiwanese

7. Hakka Chinese

Many non-Chinese native speakers have no idea that there are differences between Cantonese which you may find in California Chinatown and Mandarin Chinese which is official language of People Republic of China. Both of them have their own pronunciation and grammar, the differences are just like that differences of Spanish and Portuguese. You may find overall Mandarin Chinese sounds "Sh Ch Zh" and Cantonese sounds "Ching Chong Chang". And actually the official language of China is a new modified form of Mandarin Chinese and it is called Standard Chinese. Ancient China has switched her official language depending on where the capital is located and the popularity of the language on that time, and of course China present government does also need it official language. Mandarin Chinese has been voted the most spoken by Chinese linguistic experts and they have standardised its pronunciation based on Beijing dialects and collects the vocabularies that are widely used in China (most of them come from Mandarin dialects of Northern China). Not to confuse you, Standard Chinese is not a newly-made language but modified and standardised language. Mainland China and Taiwan have their own standardized Chinese. The most significant difference between both standardized Chinese is the Chinese written letter. Mainland China has developed Simplified Chinese characters and Taiwan has preserves Traditional Chinese characters. Due to the development of economic giant, China has influenced Singapore to adapt Standard Chinese as its new official language and has made some changes to the languages as Singapore has almost of her population made up of Chinese descendent. Standard Chinese is again diversified into 3 groups. The difference is about the difference of English between US, UK, and Australia.

1. China-Standard Chinese 普通话 Putonghua

2. Taiwan-Standard Chinese 国语 Guoyu

3. Singapore-Standard Chinese 标准华语 Biaozhun Huayu

Of course, as Standard Chinese has eclipsed many dialects of China, Taiwan and Singapore, it has also been influenced by the local dialects- the development of accent. So, Putonghua has different accents according to its region in China, and of course, Biaozhun Huayu and Guoyu do have their own accents.
I like different kinds of accent and besides accent, slang is part of a language. I am going to share some of the slang used by Chinese Malaysian next. Later!

Self-intro

2013-07-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

上小学时，我最害怕的作文题目就是“自我介绍”，长大到日本留学后，我依然还是不怎么喜欢自我介绍。因为中学六年毕业后，我就到日本留学去了。对日本人来说，像我这种在生于马来西亚的华人，不就是个中国人的后裔。虽然是那么一回事，可是有一件事日本人不了解的就是，我们长得像中国人，可是我们的思考方式混合了西方人和传统华人的思想。在日本，一些日本人会因为某些政治因素，对中国人或是韩国人抱着异样的看法。搞到我们持有特殊身份的中国人有时还挺尴尬的。所以每次的自我介绍，我都貌似有些冲动想灌输他们一些历史观，政治观，和大马文化。其实不只是日本人，中国的北方人其实也还真对我们的国家历史和我们的身份挺不了解的。这都无所谓。不过有件事我其实还蛮介意的是很多中国朋友老对我说“你们马来的”。我经常会建议他们使用“你们大马的”或是“你们马来西亚的”。原因是马来西亚本来就有很多民族，有马来人（他们的祖先是来自印度尼西亚），华人（俺和你们一样是汉族），印度人（来自印度），泰人（来自泰国南方）。当你说“你们马来”时，你就貌似在说马来西亚是属于马来人的同时，也在“否定”我们的华人身份。我们既不是中国人也不是马来人，我们是马来西亚华人，因为我们来自中国那片土地，而不是来自那个国家。希望中国人可以多了解了解海外华人。

Hi guys, please accept my apology for being late to introduce myself. During my elementary school, I hated so much to writing about self-introduction because I failed to make it interesting to read. Unfortunately, I still hate to do so especially to Japanese and Chinese people. It's hard to tell people from these two countries. They have hard time to understand the differences of Chinamen and oversea Chinese. Okay, let me make one thing clear. I am Malaysian born Chinese in the first place. I was born and came from a place where is influenced by both western and ancient Chinese culture. And, Malaysian Chinese started to migrate from Ming Dynasty (ancient China) and we have nothing to do with current China. We are different from Chinamen and also Malay people. We have our own distinctive culture. We speak accented English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese and so on... Some Malaysian born Chinese people can't even speak Mandarin Chinese like Chinamen. My dad can speak a little but not very fluent because those who able to speak Mandarin Chinese is because there was a new idea of sending children to study in Mandarin Chinese instead of English orientated school since 1960. Well, I was one of them. And I badly hate people call me Malay instead of Malaysian. I love Malay people so much but when people call me Malay, it seems like they thought Malaysia is a country of only Malay people. It's kind of calling the Welsh people English instead of British. Obviously, my intro is for those understand English and Mandarin Chinese.

What I am doing next is to explain about the linguistic branches of Chinese language and about Standard Chinese.

5/5 从黑暗中人民崛起吧！

2013-05-05T22:20:00.002-07:00

（）一觉醒起来，结果还是一样。我失望的不是那个玩肮脏手段的现任政府，而是那些被金钱和利益所蒙蔽了双眼的帮凶。你们的存在已经不能只用恶心这两个字来形容。我现在发的博客，不是为你们而谢，而是为每一位大马国民所写的。对不起，你们没资格，因为在我心中，你们称不上是大马国民。
（）这次的选举，让我们吸取经验，了解到世间的复杂与险恶，而感觉到身边的人其实都是爱国的。经过这一次的挫折，我们应该懂的如何为下次做更好的准备。我们要让执政的单位见识一下，能够决定我们国家的主导权，不只是我们的那张票，而是我们的智慧，你们可以花很多金钱拉票，可是你们控制不了我们独立的思想。罗伯特·T·清崎曾说过，路，永远不会是一道而已。我们要知道，改变一个国家，手中一票是次要，最重要我们团结一致的精神和智慧。
（）这一次的我们清楚了解到现任执政党抓住了我们的弱点才能取胜。比如说外劳就好，我们真的需要外劳来帮我们支持劳力的不足吗？然后，很多乡下的，农村的，他们都收不到我们所了解的讯息。试想，我们只要肯花时间去传达我们所了解的，来教育他们，问题不就解决了吗？还有人家说我们的新闻媒体被一些鸡群控制了。但有多少人了解到，我们明知道吸烟对自己没益处却拜托不了烟隐，明知道我们只要不给他们消费，他们就会消失与这个社会。
（）这个国家有很多问题，我们不应该天真的以为手中的那张票就能改变所有问题。其是我们需要的是国民荣誉感，对很多事情我们可以被利益所诱惑的，就是自己国家的未来不行，所谓的国民荣誉感。不是你在你自己的国家过得如何，而是你在外国人的目光包围下你是否台得起头。这次的事件让我清楚了解到，我们当中有很多大马走狗和那些来自落后国家外劳的朋友没什么差别，丧失了民族灵魂，只为当前的利益打拼。
（）我不想把话说得太清，免得我家人受不必要得牵累，花了事件阅读我的博客的朋友，反思反思吧。只能说，马来西亚得九零后和八零后，国家得命运就在我们手里，多关心政治，不要再受国家欺骗。我很相信当代的社会里最天真最娇嫩的是你们，最有奋志的和最有爱国精神的也是你们，不要浪费你们的青春，为的土地奉献吧。还有，槟城人，好样的！哇嘻槟城郎！

2/2 for 22

2013-02-02T05:28:00.003-08:00

Happy Birthday to Darren. I have few words for myself "Stay Cheerful, Stay Stronger". But I have many reserved for my friends. I would like to thank those remember my birthday and sent me wishes in the first place. Then, I would like to thank my store manager to treat me my favourite seafood. Last and the most important, I would appreciate birthday presents from you, you and YOU! Thank you, Jonathan and Stacy for the birthday chocolate cake, Miya, Mira and Q chan for the kimuchi, ice-cream and rice roll!

Happy New Year

2013-01-03T02:07:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year to my family, my friends and You! Thanks to great rumour and Maya prophecy, we managed to escape from the 21th! I hope 2013 is a lucky year for everyone. And I was so lucky to receive an instantly-burned Korean album from Saerom last night before I rushed to work. Know what, I love Saerom. She is a compound of Optimism, Temperature and Volume. Why Optimism? I guess those talked to her may feel Hope and Energy to move forward. Why Temperature? One time I saw her shed her tears, but poetically I felt the warmth inside her, she is always glowing brightly and warmly. Why Volume? Maybe due to volume of her voice, her existence is noticeable when she comes close. No, I mean volume of her existence beneath my heart, my thought! Hope she will be a cheerful girl for everyone love her.

Yay but sleepless.

2012-08-02T12:41:00.001-07:00

Finally, finally, finally, the toughest exam preparation week has ended. And I'm going to write down things kept running though my mind for past few weeks with my lousy English. 1st, let me start with school stuff. I have really hoped so bad I can master Japanese language just like the native one because I met a lot of obstacles due to gap of language. Compare to many, maybe I am still the lucky one, but to push me forward, I cant but only look for the better. 2nd, it is about self-consciousness. I just found out some of friends or people around me are lack of self-consciousness even some hints were given. The thing is, don't annoy people around you with that. 3rd, I hate to say but it is about religion. Don't even share again those religious opinions to people around you twice if they are unpleasant about those ideas. You can share it publicly but please never ever share it 1 to 1 because what is holy to you isn't matter to him or her and you may freak him or her out. 4th, it is about politic. Please read some news and do some survey and think what you can contribute to your country, if you want to have a good country. Remember, there are always methods and solutions to make things better. Stop saying "MALAYSIA TAK BOLEH". 5th, if you want to gain respect from other, don't be selfish! Especially Chinese, you know what I mean, we all have it within us. I am sure we can survive even without selfishness. So please learn to share. 6th, stop complaining like me. Learn to influence people around us with your better idea instead of complaining about them.
Ok, going to take a nice sleep. Goodnight buddies.

回忆

2012-02-22T09:37:00.001-08:00

期末考试终于结束，假期迈入了第三天。可能是太空闲了，突然想把自己的感觉写下来。看到这张照片不禁让我回忆起以前的朋友。还记得，我是多么的喜欢大家。由于不善于表达自己，不善解人意，而惹怒了身边的朋友。不过，每个朋友在我心目中都很重要，虽然不平等，不过，我真的太心软，就算因为某事讨厌了对方一段时间，不过之后还是想挽回那段友谊。所以呢，记得我的朋友有空就联系我吧；讨厌而放弃我的朋友，记得我还是很珍惜你们。

最近我发觉本来是我用来联系旧同学的面子书已经不管用了。我一直努力的和大家保持联系，不过最近我真觉得我已经力不从心。可能是因为我太贪心想把这份思念平分给大家，或是因为大家（包括我）有了新生活，都把精力花在建立自己的新圈子。所以我打算把这份心意收在心里，淡然地面对这一切。只希望当曾经一起制造了许许多多回忆的我们再相聚时，一切还是有如当初。

接下来，我会把时间花来打拼，所以我很可能时没时间去联系你们。记得，不是因为我放弃你们，而是因为我觉得我们之间成熟的友情已经达成默契。而且对于那些因相聚时间太短而无法了真正解我的朋友，你可以冷漠我拒绝我，不过我从没想过放弃努力建立这段友谊，有机会我还想努力改变你对我的看法。

就这样吧，朋友们。友谊万岁哦。

積もった！

2012-02-15T01:54:00.000-08:00

今朝の通学路に雪がめっちゃくっちゃ積もって、歩きにくくなった！！

Snow Festival

2012-02-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

Back from Sapporo Snow Festival. Ruffy sculpture in Odori Park, Shiroi Koibito Park of its Sapporo chocolate manufacturing park, and here and there, knackered but fun.

Happy Birthday to ME!

2012-02-02T04:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks for birthday wishes from everyone and Choppa's bin and Fried Dumplings from my dormmates, and skype's video from Nami, Tomomi and Aina. Thanks and thanks. All of you are meant to me. Love you all.

2012 CNY

2012-01-21T06:25:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year, no matter what race you are. Again, I celebrated CNY in Japan. Well, I do miss my family, friends, seafood steamboat but it is fine. Know what, CNY of this year did make different. We have participants from all around the world and we have Chinese dumplings and Mandarin Orange together. What a fair play. At last, I would like to say, 祝大家新年快乐，万事如意。

第一步

2012-01-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

2×1000+12, 这个号码我喜欢，因为它是给了我多一个24小时。我可以利用它来好好地睡一觉，不，是休息，我想积蓄更多精力，想给自己更多的第一步。

不舍的过客

2011-12-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

仅仅两天的相聚，这位过客却能让大家舍不得她。太短暂，真的太短暂。一个不会蒙语的蒙古族，凭着开朗的性格，一口浓浓的内蒙口音的普通话和流利的英语，凡人不及的勇气，来到了北海道。她的勇气让我十分佩服，她的不备让我十分焦急，她的性格让我十分欣赏。对于她的出现，我稳住了自己，却稳住不了自己的心。若不因为心中的抱负，我早已追随她去，随着她奔放，随着她提着背包，勇敢的奔向世界各地去体验真正的人生。12/12中午1点与过客的离别真让我陷入前所未有的不舍。只能说，奥兰，有缘再相聚。

After School

2011-12-05T01:28:00.000-08:00

6.00pm, -1 ℃, snowy, in front of College's Cafeteria.

After supper

2011-11-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

Last night after having supper, buddies and I went to labs at 2am. This photo was taken besides school library. Nothing else to do?! Yes and no. I am busy this week because of stupid tests. By the way, buddies in Malaysia, I miss you all.

Handicap

2011-11-16T07:02:00.000-08:00

Recently I figured out something, I can't even express my thought or idea easily even using my mother tongue. But wait, what is my mother tongue? Chinese? If it's Chinese, it is supposed to be no problem for me to make Mr.Chinaman understand me. English? I am born in a English speaking family. So, question, what language I use to soliloquize? No doubt, Chinese, but sometimes English. So, when someone says my Chinese is not correct, I think that comment totally means I am not correct. What a big shame for me. To be honest, most of the time when I tell something, the description is not like what I think. I lost a lot, friend, because of this problem. And Ok, if you don't know what I really meet. Let me give you a example. Imagine you don't use any language when you think. This can be the most serious handicap and not far from Down's syndrome. Any suggestion for those read this?

Winter comes, what next...

2011-10-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Winter comes and it's getting colder now. People say Winter in the north will get you depressed easily. I am not the victim, I doubt. Anyway, this is my second half semester, but heap of books are waiting for me to look through. But for sure, I am enjoying my school life.
Just lately, something annoyed me. I had conflict with guys around me. Your fault my fault, actually it doesn't matter. They have taught me one thing -- man has to feign ignorance, instead of giving a hand voluntarily. Cause this relates to one's pride. Cause sometimes, you may say something it seems helpful but it may bring one's shame into anger. So now, if one doesn't ask for help, I might let him/her keeps drowning.
Well, it's quite hard for me to get used in a short time as I have to turn a blind eye to many things. But I told myself, I'm not gonna pissed off by this, perhaps, from now onward.
By the way, I can't wait to see snow, can't wait to go skiing. Snow snow snow!

我在餐厅打工的日子。

2011-08-26T06:34:00.001-07:00

不容易啊不容易，打工真的不容易啊。不过，在酒店的餐厅里打工真的让我学到了很多东西。最明显的就是我的敬语，开始可以明确及快速地对客人使用敬语。在这里提供了食宿，也就是包吃包住，而且，吃得非常好，厨师和员工们也很亲切，很照顾我。厨师的年龄和老爸相差一两岁，特别搞笑，有时还会说黄色笑话。这酒店就坐落在日本第三大的湖畔，和大自然离得很近，虽然每天都在打工，不过在这里却能让我的心静下来。前几天和我个朋友在湖边拍了张照片，虽然光线不太好，不过景色还是很不错嘀。。好了，明天要早起，晚安，睡觉去咯。

Freshened up.

2011-08-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

Just came back from part time job this afternoon. What can I say, job in Spa hotel was a great experience I gained. Making new friends from nursing school, playing Billiard during free time with my Chinese friend, enjoying luxurious dinner after working for free, taking spa to freshen up myself. And I gonna go to a trip tomorrow and will record a video clip for the celebration of Msia Independence Day. ^^

コーヒー

2011-08-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

Having coffee while writing report.

After this, there are subject to revise/review.

A long night to go. \ω/