Fluency in Chinese offers a window into a deep culture that Americans don't often experience directly and can provide insights and benefits to several fields of future study. Commonly, Buddhism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Qigong, and other aspects of Chinese culture are usually studied in translation, and sadly these translations are too often, poorly executed. This talk will focus on some of the insights to be gained from carrying out this study in Asia on original texts with examples from the Daodejing 道德经, the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine 黄帝内经, the Heart Sutra 心经 and a few examples of Chan (Zen) 禅 phrases to illustrate the benefits of studying these texts in Chinese.
Jonathan Krause 柯子纶, A. M. East Asian Studies lived in Asia for 8 years, including 5 based at a Buddhist center in Taiwan, and has been studying Mandarin Chinese since 1994. Currently he is a medical student at the Paul L Foster School of Medicine.