This past weekend, my friend and I went to the East Asian Market on 11th street. The store is right next to our dorm so it is very convenient for us to go here to get some snacks or food to make for dinner. The sign outside of the store looks like this:

The sign reads 亞洲龍 (亚洲龙). The first two characters are Yàzhōu, meaning Asia, and is specifically written in Traditional Chinese characters. The final character, Lóng, means dragon and is also written in Traditional Chinese. Firstly, this is a great example of how Chinese characters are monosyllabic and disyllabic in nature. The first two characters are disyllabic, there are two characters to pronounce but there is only one meaning to the “word”. The final character is monosyllabic and has one pronunciation as well as only one meaning.

Some meaning of this could be derived from the pictures on both sides of the word and can symbolize the cultural icon of the Chinese dragon. In China, the dragon is a huge part of the culture, so this sign may appeal to the sense of home and culture for any people from China living in the Eugene area. The traditional Characters will also be able to draw in more people because although simplified Chinese is more common, many people who live in the south of China or Taiwan will be able to read these characters and enjoy the experience. (an interesting and funny fact about the Chinese characters is that there is a Toyota model of car that is also called 亚洲龙 in China. )

So far, class has been very interesting. I think that it is easiest for me to read before the class and take notes that way I can reference them while we are talking in class. I like to be able to check that I wrote everything down and make sure that I am getting the key points. Right now, I am very interested in the metaphors that we are looking at from both the Chinese and North Korean media. Now that I can understand some Chinese and Korean, it was very shocking about how they were speaking about other people. I think that this class has been pretty cool so far and I hope that it will only hope to get better.

– Hanna LaPointe