Yes, it was Jörgen Persson that was in China for a China Sweden Table Tennis Festival that we arranged in order to celebrate the Swedish National Day! Some 200 players from different Swedish companies battled in an elimination tournament throughout the day, and then the winners (one man and one woman) got to play Persson in the final game. A long day of great fun, Persson proved to be not only a great player, but also a great person, open and happy and up for posing for photos, signing shirts and rackets and answering questions from media as well as random spectators. What a great athlete! I admire someone that can be so professional and high level, and still so friendly and down to earth. Also, I got invited to the Table Tennis: 2011 China Open - that takes place in Suzhou in the end of August. Can't wait to see Persson in real action (no offense to the competitors of today's tournament, but I think he has more to give). Being 45 years old this year, Persson should have retired many times around but he's still playing, he's even qualified for the London Olympics in 2012. That will be his 7th Olympic Games. 加油！
Some videos of Persson in action to come soon!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI stumbled across your blog and spent the last few days catching up from the beginning.
First of all, WOW! What a journey you have been on, even prior to China. You are a great writer and it has been a joy following all the stories and experiences so far. I look foward to reading more, whatever happens next!
In fact, and I mean this most sincerely, it has actually inspired me to make some changes in my own life. Being a young guy already stuck in the rat race for the last few years, reading your blog has made me reconsider the path I've been heading down, not only career wise but personally also.
I've always wanted to learn another language, and I have now decided to start taking lessons before taking some time to go and study in the country of origin itself for a period. This has always been an ambition of mine but if it wasn't for this blog, I don't think I would have made this choice for a few years yet, if at all.
Last, but not least, I want to thank you again for allowing myself and countless others to follow everything you've seen, heard and experienced so far and I wish you all the happiness in the future wherever your journey leads.
Alexander -wow! Thank you so much for your comment. I don't think u understand how wonderful it feels to read that someone enjoys your stories/writing style (especially since my childhood dream always was: "to become a writer" -not quite there yet, but on my way!). But even more so, to hear that this blog and my shared experiences might have inspired you to get out of the rat race and follow your own dream -well that's just fantastic! I'm obviously extreeeeenly curious (one of my flaws, although sometimes I also see it as a good thing: if you never ask how are you ever going to find out anything?!) about where you are heading and what language you are learning?! Will you start a blog yourself about your journey?! Would loooove to read it!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks again for your kind words. Sometimes I think of trowing in the towel when it comes to blogging, especially when I go through rough patches with little or none sleep at nights, but then when I start to feel better (my sleeping has picked up again, yay! Melatonin did it!), and on top of that get comments like yours, I remember how great blogging is. So thank you for reminding me of that! Wish you all the best of luck and hope to hear about your progress. All the best to you.
Jonna,
ReplyDeleteI think being curious is definitely a good thing, you never know where it can lead you.
I've always had a interest in Italian so that is where I'm planning to begin my language adventure, although I must say Mandarin has always appealed to me, probably because of the challenge it involves as well being interested in chinese culture (hence me arriving at your blog lol!).
Still, I have always thought it would be easier to learn another language closer to english first before attempting something like Mandarin.
I would be interested to know your thoughts, if you don't mind, on this subject though. As someone who learnt a more similar language first (English after Swedish, right?) do you feel it helped the Mandarin learning process?
As for my own blog, I'm not much of a writer so I haven't considered it that much, but if I do I will let you know. Either way, I'll post here from time to time to keep you updated.
Glad you're feeling better!
Alexander -Italian is a beautiful language! Would love to learn it myself one day. And going to Italy to study must be amazing. I'm just thinking about all the food, the fashion, and the people... ahhh, belissimo!
ReplyDeleteAs for learning languages, I've had a few different experiences. Learning English was never hard for me, it came very naturally, it was almost as if I already knew it. I think it's because we watch so many American TV shows in Sweden as kids. I mean, I remember being 5-6 years old and already knowing quite a few words. It became much harder when I had to learn how to write (well!) during my university degree in Australia. Then I realized that speaking Eng and writing in Eng are two different things. So that was a little bit of a struggle for me, especially since I was a good writer in Swedish, but obviously sucked in English. All those years in Australia (and my degree, of course!) did wonders and really helped.
Since Mandarin is such a different language having learned Eng before Mandarin hasn't helped at all. I mean, with English you can almost guess. With Mandarin... eh, no way! You either know a character or you don't. It was definitely a challenge to learn.
However, when I was in primary school I also studied French for 3 years. I sucked at it, and when I started high school I switched to Spanish. Spanish was so easy to learn after having attempted French. The two languages have some similarities (Spanish being much easier, though!) and after 3 years of high school (which means some 3 hours of classes every week for 3 years -so not that much actually) I could communicate quite well. I went to a holiday in Austria, made friends with some Spanish guys and chatted in Spanish only. It was awesome. Then came Australia and now I've forgotten everything I've learned.
However, I noticed one thing when I went to FI a couple of summers ago, and was in the middle of my Chinese studies, and that was that I suddenly could understand some Finnish. I started recognizing some words, the sentence structures made a little bit sense etc. I couldn't speak it, but I understood maybe 30% more than before (when I understood 0!). At first I couldn't explain why, but then I started thinking that it must have something to do with the fact that I have been using the "language part" of my brain so much lately, that it is alert and turned on.
So I sometimes think that it would be awesome to learn yet another language now when I'm already actively using 3 different languages on a daily basis. But when to find time to do it... ya, well that's another story!
I'm not sure what my point was but maybe something like: if you learn one language, learning another one might be easier if you do it straight afterwards. But then again, I have to put that theory to a test to be really sure.