The Tea Party

Posted by Victor Mair

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[This is a guest post by Mok Ling]

I happen to know a few students (of varying ages and learning experiences) who want to learn (or re-learn, for some of them) Mandarin the "right" way (that is, focusing on speaking and listening before reading and writing, unlike what is prescribed by most HSK courses). Right now, I've got them chewing on the revised Pinyin edition of Princeton's Chinese Primer (which is in pure Pinyin — not a single sinograph until halfway into the course), but they obviously need something outside of a textbook to read.

I'd planned on giving them a Pinyinized Kong Yiji as a "goal text" to read once they have a firm command of the spoken language, but thinking back this seems like a bad idea because of how flowery Lu Xun can get.

My question is, are there any books I can give these students that are:
1. In sayable Chinese or 白話, NOT in the regular style of written Chinese (半文半白);
2. Interesting and distinct enough in style from the Primer.

My mind immediately went to Chao's Readings in Sayable Chinese (中國話的讀物), but I haven't been able to find ANY electronic copy thereof, much less a Pinyin edition. I also thought about the pure-Pinyin books printed for the ZT experiment but could not find any of the original materials — are those little storybooks still accessible?

As for online materials, the Pinyin Lit site you set up for the Pinyin Literature Contest has been very helpful, but I need something with a little more depth and length that I can go through with these learners.

VHM note:

From the time I started going to China in the early 80s, I tried to convince Chinese scholars, educators, and publishers of the great value and compelling need for the publication of pinyin reading materials of all types and at all levels.  I published a journal of romanized Chinese called Xin Tang.  I held an international contest of writing in pinyin in memory of my wife, Chang Li-ching, who collaborated with me on many pinyin projects, and, with the visionary assistance of Mark Swofford, published her memoirs in pinyin, and so on.  I have faith that, in the not too distant future, increasing amounts and kinds of pinyin reading materials will become available for those who are interested in them.

Selected readings

• "A radical proposal for sinographs" (5/23/25)
• "Pinyin resurgent" (3/7/24) — see the last paragraph for a description of the Z.T. experiment (“Zhùyīn shízì tíqián dúxiě 注音識字提前讀寫” [“Phonetically Annotated Character Recognition Speeds Up Reading and Writing”])
• “How to learn to read Chinese” (5/25/08) — see the last paragraph for an explanation of the Z.T. experiment
• "How to learn to read and write Chinese" (8/13/19) — with a long bibliography
• "How to learn Mandarin" (7/17/18)
• "How not to learn Chinese" (4/16/17)
• "How to learn Chinese and Japanese" (2/17/14)
• "Pinyin literature contest" (6/30/16)
• "Sayable but not writable" (9/12/13)
• "Sayable and now writable" (7/1/16)
• "Pure Pinyin" (10/15/16)

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