Journal of Sinology

A Brief Study Report on the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation

2023-11-19T14:57:42+07:00

With her full length of 2703 miles, the Lancang-Mecong River connects the Southwest China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam all together into a development area of multinational economic cooperation—the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, i.e., the LMC. Established by the Lancang-Mecong River, the LMC allys China with the Southeast Asian countries who share the river as natural partners, and their cooperative partnerships are mainly through the management of agricultural water resources. The LMC has been developed for many years and achieved some remarkable successes for the Greater Mekong Subregion Economy, and the current cooperative area of the LMC has already become part of the Belt and Road Initiative from China—with more potentials, energies as well as bigger activity space for all Mekong countries, the LMC has integrated their industry chains, the supply chains and the logistics chains efficiently enough to push forward a sustainable development for the Mekong regional economy, building a Community of Shared Future along the Lancang-Mekong River.

The Belief in Three-Legged Toads and Their Influence in Thailand

2022-10-06T02:35:42+07:00

This research is qualitative research. The objectives of the following research are: 1) To study three-legged toads that appear in ancient documents and Chinese folklore. 2) To study the belief and faith in the three-legged toads and their influence in Thailand by utilizing the Diffusion Cultural Theory as a study method. The following research is qualitative research that implements an evaluation of both documentary analysis and conducts an in-depth interview of specialists in the field.

Research results reveal: 1) It was found that the belief in the three-legged toads in ancient Chinese texts contains three characteristics: the belief that toads are a symbol of longevity, that toads symbolize and represent the moon, and that they are a symbol of wealth. 2) Thailand was influenced by the belief in three-legged toads as a symbol of wealth in one way, namely from the legend of “Liuhai playing with the Golden Toad”. Two pieces of evidence were found to support this: the first piece of evidence was found in the worship of auspicious artifacts that represent or portray the legend of “Liuhai playing with the Golden Toad”; however, the statues of three-legged toads in some areas have transformed into completely different legends when compared to the Chinese original, where narrative was transformed to better suit the area. The second piece of evidence was discovered through activities where it was found that Thai people would place three-legged toads in accordance with Fengshui methods in order to build faith and confidence in matters of business and commerce.

The Use of English and Chinese Predicates by Thai University Students

2022-10-10T14:27:02+07:00

This study aims to examine how well Thai university students could cope with English and predicates, and to investigate the possible causes of difficulties in English and Chinese predicates. Nineteen university students took a predicate test, and among the 19, six students participated in a structured interview session. The statistical findings reflected and showed no difference in their performance in both languages. To be more precise, their performance on the test did not provide a clear-cut answer on which language students performed better (p>.05). The interview was employed to elicit the information with regards to why certain structures posed some difficulties on the Thai learners. The findings revealed that in English, their body of knowledge on parts of speech and sentence structure such as imperative sentences and the complex sentences were inadequate. In Chinese, a lack of understanding of certain Chinese predicate structures and lexical items caused them to misidentify which one was a phrase or a complete sentence on the test. Instructors in both languages should pay closer attention to these problematic areas and find appropriate teaching lessons and materials to enhance their students’ language performance.

A Study of the Power Relationship of the Jia Family's Daughter-in-Law Group in The Dream of the Red Chamber《红楼梦》

2022-10-25T11:42:25+07:00

This article aims to study and analyze the power relationship of the main character's daughter-in-law and the secondary daughter-in-law, including the daughter-in-law's relationship with other characters in the Jia family that appear in The dream of the Red Chamber. By studying The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin and Gao'e, totaling 120 chapters, the researcher uses the principle of power relations of people in society according the basic social relationship principle and ethical principles to treat each other as the conceptual framework of this research. The results revealed that the model and method of building power relationship discovered from the study of the daughter-in-law character in the Jia family had 3 types of relationship patterns: Society 2. Building power relationships through kinship 3. Building power relationships based on superiority. For the model of using and expanding the power base of the character's daughter-in-law, there are all 3 types: 1. Power base expansion through the blood system 2. Power base expansion through the patronage system that the daughter-in-law provides care and support 3. Power base expansion through giving you punishment which the model of such power relationship it illustrates the power-changing dynamics that the daughter-in-law needs to adapt to the life of the Jia family under the feudal society. However, the powers that the daughter-in-law try to maintain and inherit to the heirs must inevitably be tied to the husband and attached to the patriarchal system of relations in society.

A Comparative Study of Chinese Idiomatic Expressions Containing the Words “jī” with their Thai Equivalent /kai/

2022-10-25T21:34:07+07:00

This research aims to study the meanings and reflection of Chinese idiomatic expressions containing the word “ji”(chicken) with Thai idiomatic expressions containing the word “kai” (chicken).This is a qualitative research which use descriptive analysis method. The research collected data from books and related documents such as Chinese idioms dictionary, Chinese-Thai dictionary, Thai idiom book and Thai online dictionary. The researchers collected 73 idioms including 45 Chinese idioms with the word “ji” (chicken) and 28 Thai idioms with the word “kai” (chicken).

The results showed that 1. The meaning of idioms is divided into 2 issues: 1) There are 9 Chinese idioms and Thai idioms that have the same meaning, divided into 3 categories: living environment, human behavior and actions and human punishment 2) There are 64 Chinese idioms and Thai idioms with different meanings: (1) 19 idioms expressing a positive meaning, divided into 6 categories: human relations, time, treatment, human behavior and actions, human personality and society (2) 45 idioms expressing negative meanings, divided into 7 categories: human behavior and actions, society, value and significance, human relationships, prostitution, human personality and chaos.2. There are 11 aspects of reflection: human relations, human behavior and actions, living environment, social, human punishment, value and significance, time, treatment, prostitution, human personality and chaos. The similarities and differences of meanings and reflections depend on the context of each society, such as perspective, way of life, social and tradition.

The Development of Teaching Process by using Blended Learning in Elementary Chinese 2 course for Students Majoring in Teaching Chinese Language

2022-10-28T16:28:41+07:00

This research has two objectives 1) To study blended learning results of Elementary Chinese 2 for students majoring in Teaching Chinese Language and 2) To assess the process of blended learning management in Elementary Chinese 2 class by experts and stakeholder. Study participants consist of 92 Teaching Chinese Language major students, 5 lecturers and 5 experts. This study collected data by using 4 choices achievement test and the evaluation form with 5 rating scales. The qualitative data are analyzed by Content analysis, and quantitative data are analyzed by using median (Mdn), interquartile range (IQR), mean(M), standard deviation (SD) and percentage (%).

The result of The Development of Teaching Process by using Blended Learning for students majoring in Teaching Chinese Language reveals that the blended learning management process was evaluated by students, the lecturers and the experts, and passed the assessment criteria. There is a consensus opinion that the learning management process is a process that has accuracy standard, propriety Standard, feasibility standard, and utility standard.

The Image of Chinese tourists in Thai Online News from 2017 to 2021

2022-11-02T16:43:14+07:00

This is qualitative and quantitative research. The research aims to study the image of Chinese tourists in Thai online news from 2017 to 2021, understanding the behavior of Chinese tourists and inform the information to develop tourism in Thailand. The data was collected from 3 popular online news in Thailand, namely, Thairath Online, Sanook and Posttoday Online, which appears from the keywords “Chinese tourists”.

The results revealed that there are 191 news were shown from the keywords. There are 85 news show the image of Chinese tourists. There are 10 aspects of the image of Chinese tourists in Thai online news: (1) rewarding and helping others, (2) dare to express opinions, (3) having the power to pay, (4) help to conserve natural resources, (5) negligence that caused an accident, (6) damage natural resources, (7) basic crime, (8) making others suffer, (9) disrespecting religious places, historical sites and historical monuments, (10) narcotic drug offences (Marijuana), 1-4 aspects shows as the positive news (30.59%), 5-10 aspects shows as the negative news (69.41%). The images originated from the concept, cultural, economy, law or regulations respect and communication. In the other hand, there are the news did not show the image of Chinese tourists which shows the impact of Chinese tourists in Thai economy. Moreover, the research provides the possible opportunities that help to develop Thai tourism, such as promote the cognitive about Thai-Chinese cross cultural, promote communication with Chinese tourists and promote tourism through online media.

An Enlightenment that Rejects Pleasure

2022-12-09T12:09:34+07:00

Su Tong is a famous contemporary Chinese writer whose works are mostly tragedies. Su Tong's tragedies have both breadth of life and depth of thought, and a profound exploration of the reasons for their occurrence, reflecting his humanistic concern in many dimensions. This research is a qualitative research. The purpose is to prove that Su Tong's tragedies are not written for the purpose of artistic "pleasure", but to inherit and carry forward Lu Xun's spirit of "enlightenment". This study selects eight representative tragic works of Su Tong from different periods as source texts and summarises the five dimensions of his tragedies: (i) the physical dimension; (ii) the spiritual dimension; (iii) the cultural dimension; (iv) the social dimension, and finally, (v) the fate dimension. This breaks the convention of studying only a single work or character of Su Tong's tragedies and expands the depth of research of Su Tong's tragedies. The five dimensions of Su Tong's tragedies present a progressive and closely integrated situation, and for the analysis of these five dimensions, we use Zhu Guangqian's theory of "tragedy pleasure" and Lu Xun's theory of " almost nothing in tragedy ". The study found that Su Tong's tragic writings reject "pleasure" as the goal, but continues and expands on Lu Xun's concept of tragic writing for the purpose of "enlightenment". This study summarises the line of development of Su Tong's tragedies from the external to the internal, and presents a panoramic view of the profoundly enlightening connotations of Su Tong's tragedies.

Feasibility Analysis of Offering Chinese+Thai e-tandem Course in Applied-oriented Undergraduate

2022-10-18T10:28:43+07:00

Taking Nanjing Tech University Pujiang Institute as an example, this paper analyzes the feasibility of offering a Chinese and Thai e-tandem course for Thai major. Firstly, this paper describes the theoretical background and types of the Tandem Language Learning method, which is not widely popular in China and explains its effectiveness in foreign language teaching. This paper discusses the importance of collaborating with the Chinese section of the general education department or the business Chinese majors at the Panyapiwat Institute of Management to set up Chinese+Thai e-tandem course based on the effectiveness of this learning method and the problems encountered in the construction and development of the Thai major at this stage. Secondly, it demonstrates the feasibility of setting up a Chinese and Thai e-tandem course from the aspects of orientation, starting a Thai major, curriculum arrangement, international exchange and cooperation, a guaranteed online learning platform, and so on.

An Overview of the Development of Chinese Language Proficiency Test in Thai University Entrance Examination

2023-01-05T23:28:20+07:00

Based on conducting relevant information and data released by the official website of higher education institutions in Thailand, the National Institute of Educational Testing Service (NIETS) and the Thai University Central Admission System (TCAS), this article presents a comprehensive review of the development of the Chinese Language Proficiency Test (CLPE) in Thailand. Influenced by the reforms in the national examination system, the CLPE has gone through the phase of Entrance Examination from 1998 to 2005, the phase of A-Net from 2006 to 2008, and the phase of PAT 7.4 from 2009 to 2022 chronologically. According to the numbers of the students who has taken the CLPE over the past years, it has always had a large candidate base. In the light of different universities’ admission statistics in recent years, the CLPE has obvious advantages compared with other second foreign languages tests. It has been valued and affirmed by quite some universities and majors that related to humanities and sciences in Thailand. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the test content differs from high school Chinese language teaching, with overall difficulty levels surpassing the actual language proficiency of many candidates, resulting in consistently low scores. Due to ongoing reforms in the Thai national examination system, starting from March 2023, the CLPE will enter its fourth phase of an applied-level examination, referred to as A-Level 87 Chi. The new version of the test paper will place greater emphasis on assessing candidates' practical Chinese language skills. This reform has the potential to drive the CLPE in Thailand towards an entirely new stage of development.

The Re-Examination of an Expression of “Cardinal Meaning and Ordinal Meaning” from the Perspective of Linguistic Typology

2023-01-16T07:41:53+07:00

In many languages, the structure used to represent cardinal and ordinal meanings is not determined by word order; that is, the positions of cardinal and ordinal numbers are on the same side of the noun, forming "Ordinal + N., Cardinal + N." and "N. + Ordinal, N. + Cardinal" word order. In addition, the two most typical ways to add the ordinal meaning are to add suffixes after the cardinal number or to add a word with the ordinal meaning before the cardinal number. However, the positional conversion between numbers and quantifiers can distinguish cardinal and ordinal meanings in a few minority languages, including the Palaung, Wa, and Dai. The investigation's findings revealed that the structures "numbers + quantifiers" and "quantifiers + numbers" convey the meaning of the cardinal and the ordinal numbers, respectively. The researcher believed that the Identifiability Principle, which states that the word's meaning and function are changed by its frontmost position, and the frontmost position is the most identifiable component, causes this phenomenon.

A Study on the Idiom Selection of “Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education”

2023-02-03T08:48:56+07:00

Since the publication of the "Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education" (hereinafter referred to as the "Grading Standards"), the related research results have continued to emerge. Idioms are an important part of Chinese vocabulary and an important indicator reflecting the Chinese language proficiency of Chinese learners. This paper takes the idiom selection in "Grading Standards" as the research object, adopts the research method of statistics and comparative analysis, and conducts a comparative study on the meaning range and quantity increase and decrease of idioms between "HSK Level Outline" and "Grading Standards"; The usage frequency of " Grading Standards " idioms in the CCL corpus and HSK dynamic composition corpus; finally, it summarizes the innovations and discussions of Grading Standards" in terms of idioms and puts forward relevant suggestions. This study found that the has put forward new requirements for Chinese learners in terms of the quality and quantity of idioms. "Grading Standards" At the same time, there is a positive correlation between the frequency of use of the "Grading Standards" idioms in the CCL corpus and the HSK dynamic composition corpus. The "Grading Standards" idiom has made innovations in three aspects: the quantification of Chinese idioms, the increase of idiom entries, and the expansion of the meaning of idioms. However, there are also problems in the selection of idioms and the arrangement of grades. This paper discusses less about the basis and scope of word selection of idioms in the "Grading Standards" except of the use-frequency. Follow-up research can conduct in-depth research on this aspect and strive to formulate new idiom grading standards.