When faced with a strongly entrenched traditional way of doing things that made it way harder than necessary to serve God, e.g. re the Sabbath, Jesus did NOT just accept it and go along to get along.
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) January 15, 2023
As Jesus followers, how do we respond to the Great Wall of Chinese characters? pic.twitter.com/I0qf8OUhFC
(Wordnik defines “go along to get along” as “conform in order to have acceptance and security”.)
The purpose of 3-line, _Pīnyīn_ Plus, etc. material was never to compete with the organization as a source of spiritual food (which is ideally in one’s mother tongue). Rather, it has always been to help Chinese field language learners get past the Great Wall of Characters. pic.twitter.com/nrFOdSRlnu
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) December 9, 2022
E.g., Chinese field language learners whose mother tongue is English ideally get their spiritual food in English. For them, publications in Chinese characters are generally tools for working in a Chinese field—not spiritual food—but the characters make them really hard to use.
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) December 9, 2022
The world treats characters like sacred cows, but writing systems are actually technologies—systems for reaching practical goals.
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) December 9, 2022
For many Chinese field language learners, _Pīnyīn_ Plus, etc. material is better technology for showing what Chinese speech to use in the field. pic.twitter.com/UaFuJQqh3L
Picture links have begun to be added to the Pīnyīn & Pīnyīn/Sidney Lau-English web & EPUB resources. These picture links will send users of these resources to where the indicated official pictures and diagrams appear on the pages of jw.org and the WOL.
Here is an example of a picture link:
Note that:
The first resources to be upgraded with these new picture links are:
I hope to be able to add these new picture links to other resources as well going forward.
A new information page has been posted:
Here is one of the screenshots used on this page:
Here is the Introduction of this page:
This information page contains instructions and screenshots showing how to add icons for web pages to the Home Screen of an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
As of this writing, more than half of the visits to the 3lines.org website are being made using mobile devices, and all signs indicate that this percentage will continue to grow rapidly.
About 70% of the visits being made to 3lines.org using mobile devices are being made using iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches.
In view of this growing majority of users who are using mobile devices, some Chinese language-assistive material is being made available in the form of web pages for which a primary design goal is to be highly usable and legible on mobile devices—instead of being contained in PDF files that can be cumbersome and difficult to read on smaller mobile devices, and that need to be downloaded from web pages, the Pīnyīn, etc., is right in the web pages themselves:
- Step 1: Load the web page, which is designed to be highly usable and legible on a wide variety of computers, including mobile devices.
- Step 2: There is no Step 2!
One easy way to access these web pages is through the tiandi.info/links-based short links. Additionally, the information below can help iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users to quickly and conveniently find and launch these web pages using icons on the Home Screens of these devices, just like they are used to finding and launching apps on these devices.
The content of the Jehovah’s Will brochure Pīnyīn web pages is now available in EPUB format at this download page:
Here is an excerpt from the download page re the advantages of the EPUB format:
Advantages of the EPUB Format
Being in EPUB format allows this material to benefit from the advantages of this format, including:
- Broad hardware and software support
- Easy enlarging and automatic reflowing of the text to accommodate displays of various shapes and sizes, including those of many mobile devices
- Offline use
- Since EPUB files have been available from jw.org for a long time, many people in the Chinese field are now familiar with how to download EPUB files and use them offline.
- Annotation (notes, highlighting, etc.) support
- Hyperlinking that is familiar and expected, and that thus will get used and benefitted from
- Taking advantage of this, scripture references in the main text are links to the full text of the cited scriptures. There, links are provided for returning to the referring citations in the main text.
- Hyperlinks are also provided for “teleporting” from the table of contents to the chapter headings and back.
- As well, hyperlinks are provided for going to footnotes and for returning from them to the main text.
- Producibility with simpler, more accessible, more mobile tools
- This Pīnyīn-only EPUB material, being less complex than 2-line and 3-line material, can be prepared more quickly and easily, with simpler, more accessible tools, even partly with an app running on a mobile device like an iPad, while still providing in a high-quality way the most important raison d’être (reason for being) of the 2-line and 3-line material.
EPUB annotation in iBooks
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
He helped us in the Chinese field too, in many insanely great ways.
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
Gūgu gàga? Let us grow up and learn to ride our “bicycles” well instead!
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:
Was Jesus a “coolie” or was he a “quarterback”? Yes.
To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.
A couple of updates have been made to the New World site, mentioned in the previous post:
This is only indirectly related to the Chinese field, but maybe some of you will find it interesting. The title of this post refers to a fictional short film that depicts a Chinese-Canadian youth praying to Jehovah God for the first time since he truly developed faith in him. I and a few others shot it a few years ago, but having been busy with various things since then, I only recently finished editing and rendering versions that can be streamed or downloaded from the Internet.
While the dialogue is in English, and the subject matter is not unique to the Chinese field, the main characters are Chinese-Canadian, thus the indirect link to the Chinese field. Click on the picture below to go to a web page that contains links for viewing Small, Medium, and Large streaming versions (streaming works in Safari on the iPod touch and the iPhone), a download link for an iPod/iPhone-compatible video file version, information on requesting DVD copies, and also some additional background information regarding this project:
Click on the picture to go to the New World web page.
I hope you like it. If you have any questions or comments, you may email me at waynerj@shaw.ca, or you may post a comment at this parallel post at tiandi.info. (Email me for the login information if you don't already have it, providing information such as what group or congregation you're with, who referred you to this site, etc.)
As shown on the current Links file, I have started a new blog over at tiandi.info. Here is a quotation from its About page:
“Matthew 13:38 says ‘The field is the world’, and ‘田地’ (tiándì) is the Chinese term used there to translate ‘field’. The Chinese field is indeed worldwide, reflecting the presence of Chinese people all over the world. ... This blog will contain original content that I hope will provide a deeper look at this worldwide Chinese field and at what is involved in being in it. Some of the thoughts expressed may be relevant to other fields as well.
“Some of the themes I am thinking of exploring regarding how they relate to the Chinese field and those involved in it include:
- Culture / Pop Culture / Media
- News
- Technology
- Language
- Experiences & Interviews
- History
- Travel
“You may also find it interesting to check out the list of Chinese proto-groups (not official groups yet), groups, and congregations that I know of around the world. It can be accessed by clicking on the List link in the Navigation section at the right side of each page. The Map page contains links and information about how to view the locations of these proto-groups, groups, and congregations in the amazing program Google Earth. You might be surprised and delighted to find out where in the world fellow workers are active in the Chinese field.
“...I hope you fellow workers will find this site to be a good alternative to worldly web sites, magazines, etc. It is meant to be a source of information and commentary on topics like the ones listed above, but written specifically for you, not worldly people.
“...there will be a certain amount of personal observation and personal opinion on this blog. Commenting will be enabled, so feel free to contribute to the discussion in an upbuilding and encouraging way. Note that Comment Moderation is enabled, so anonymous comments will not appear until they have been cleared.”
Notes:
I have recently come across a couple of interesting blogs written by fellow students of Chinese, who happen to be from Florida, USA. Here are the links, along with some excerpts from their About pages:
http://stephenanddianna.com/
“This website is dedicated to providing useful information for preparing, traveling and living in Taiwan. Hopefully, this online blog will answer alot of questions and mysteries about living in Taiwan. Plus we wanted a way to keep in touch with our family and friends. Send us an email if you’d like and just drop a comment. We hope you can live and enjoy this experience with us.”
http://pandagator.info/blog/
“This blog is dedicated to those learning Mandarin Chinese. Learning another language is not just about vocabulary and grammar, it’s also about the people who speak it. Their language is inextricably tied in with their history, their food, and their land.
“I also write about my own experience learning Mandarin as someone who lives on the other side of the world in Florida, USA. I comment on the unique challenges this sometimes presents.”
(Note that there is other content on this site besides the blog. It is listed in the Blogroll section on the right.)
Adam & Rebekah McBeath, from Victoria, BC, Canada, are currently serving where the need is greater in the Chinese field in Trinidad. They share their experiences with us on their blog, McBeaths in Trinidad, at:
http://trinidadorbust.blogspot.com/
Fine experiences especially abound in the most recent posts—they are about the very successful Chinese Memorial meeting they just had, which was attended by 103, including 63 Chinese.
Do you know of any other blogs published by those serving in the Chinese field? If so, please let me know. Also, remember, whether you are publishing a blog or reading one, always exercise appropriate discretion.
Update: If you are interested in reading the McBeaths in Trinidad blog, email me and I will forward your request to Adam, who must arrange for access.
