Princess of ancient Chinese characters
Print Edition
While her peers are consumed by things like video games and movie stars, Wu Qianni, 14, marches to a different drummer. She is devoted to ancient Chinese language and literature.
The eighth grade student at Wenlai High School in Minhang is going to participate in Chinese Central Television’s National Chinese Character Dictation Competition as part of Team Shanghai.
“I feel quite nervous about it,” said Wu. “I just hope I can it give my best.”
The competition is no cakewalk. First held in 2013, it requires contestants to know the meanings and character composition of ancient words and phrases that have passed from common usage. Not many grownups, if asked, would know their meanings.
To Wu, however, that’s no problem. The daughter of a Chinese primary school teacher, she has grown up with ancient texts.
Outwardly, Wu looks like an ordinary if gentle, quiet girl. Her love of reading makes her a bit of an oddity among classmates. Her curiosity about ancient Chinese writing makes her an anomaly among Chinese people in general.
“I love to read classic Chinese books such as ‘Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio’ (‘Liao Zhai Zhi Yi’) and the ‘Ultimate Collection of Ancient Essays’ (‘Gu Wen Guan Zhi’),” she said. “They are all really just storybooks, but written in ancient Chinese. I don’t think they’re boring at all.”
Wu reads with a dictionary at hand. Whenever she comes across words or phrases she doesn’t understand, she looks them up to try to find the origins.
“Chinese idioms usually have references or background stories,” she said. “Knowing the stories helps me memorize the idioms. It’s much better than just learning by rote.”
The road to the competition was difficult enough. The selection process starts at the school level. As she made it to each next level, Wu thought it would be her last.
Her odyssey was helped by the fact that Wenlai High School, compared with other schools in the district, lays more emphasis on traditional Chinese cultural education.
The school has pitched in to assist Wu. Teachers at the school have been collecting materials they think might help prepare her for the finals, which will be held in the city of Anyang in central China’s Henan Province.
Wu said she watched the last competition on TV and felt the pressure on contestants. She has spent almost all her after-class time, including the 10-minute break between classes, trying to absorb every new classical phrase her teachers present to her.
Xie Xiaohua, Wu’s teacher, said the whole class is proud of her achievements. Other students no longer look at her as if she were some kind of nerd.
“Many people may think that Wu doesn’t do anything but read books and that the only thing she’s good at is ancient Chinese language,” Xie said. “But that’s not true.”
Xie said Wu also excels at mathematics and science, and she is active in school events.
“She is responsible for the blackboard newspaper for the class, and she has written scripts for drama contests at school,” said the teacher. “She is both talented and hard-working, and she is developing in all sorts of directions.”
Preparation for the CCTV contest ruled out Wu possibly entering the Odyssey of Mind competition in the US.
“I don’t regret that I choose the dictation competition over Odyssey of Mind,” she said. “It is my hobby after all, and I hope I can help more people realize how beautiful Chinese characters are.”
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