If you have studied Chinese in Taiwan, chances are you’ve used the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese textbook series. It’s a decent series of textbooks, with a number of supplementary learning materials. If you were lucky enough to have access to the VCD versions of the textbook conversations then you’ll be familiar with the American character Gao Wei Li and the astonishing number of Chinese classmates he has in what is purported to be an East Coast American University. This is his picture here.
I watch the VCDs on a semi-regular basis as a way to enforce things I have studied before. I often find myself wondering about the ‘actors’ (I use that term very loosely here) playing the roles of the textbook characters. What are they doing now? Do they have these VCDs at home? Does Gao Wei Li still use his Chinese? I’m not even sure if the Chinese we hear him speak in the VCDs is actually his voice, as the audio is obviously dubbed. Maybe his Chinese is actually pretty crap. Who knows? I’m sure somebody does, and I want to find out. WHERE IS GAO WEI LI? And furthermore, what is his real name? The VCDs don’t have any real credits letting us know who plays who, so I can’t even google the guy.
Most of the footage is shot on the Shida campus in Taipei. The guy who plays Gao Wei Li was likely a student at the Mandarin Training Center. I remember his former teacher saying that his Chinese absolutely rocked. However, they had a huge faculty debate about whether or not to dubbed Gao Wei Li. In the end they decided that although he sound almost like a native, he still had a bit of an accent. So, they dubbed over him… such a disappointment… my hero!
Judging from the style of clothing, and a few other hints dropped within the films I’d say they were produced in the early nineties. Let’s say 1991-1992ish. So by my calculations and estimations that puts the guy who played Gao Wei Li at about 40 years of age. He looks like an American. Could be Canadian. I’d bet a lot against European, but it’s possible. If you’ve seen this man, please report back here. If you know his name let me know. I’ve no idea why I care, but every time I watch these VCDs I find myself wondering about him. Maybe he’s stll in Taiwan? Maybe he’s become wildly successful? Maybe his brush with acting in Taiwan spurred him to pursue a career in the performing arts? Maybe he cut his hair. I hope he cut his hair. I had similar hair in the early-mid nineties. It looked as bad on me as it does on him. I never consciously did that weird curly thing on my forehead though. That’s just creepy. Too much like Michael Jackson in a lumberjack shirt.
So please keep the feelers out for Gao Wei Li. I doubt I’ll be successful in my quest, but sometimes the internet can be a wonderful thing…
I never studied any of the Practical Audio-Visual books - I was already at an intermediate level when I came to Taiwan - but in my class this term at Shi-Da, I kept hearing the teacher talking about some guy called Gao Wei Li, and guessed that he was some Taiwanese celebrity or something. I asked who he was, and they all laughed at me…
The thing is, I have a copy of one of the Practical AV books, and have used it to revise on occasion, but never took note of the names of the characters in the dialogue!!
One of the teachers at Shida who helped write the first edition of the practical AV textbook claims they used gao wei li because nobody else could be arsed.
Edit: Isn’t that just typical? Choose a guy based on his chinese ability then dub over him. Silly Taiwanese.
Thus negating the idea that Mandarin Chinese could ever be any kind of global or East Asian lingua franca. The attitude of “only ‘we Chinese’ speak Chinese properly. Foreigners can never achieve the ‘right’ pronunciation: even if their tones/phonemes are correct, they still ‘speak funny’.” holds back the idea of Chinese as an international language as English is.
Most forward thinking English coursebooks use a variety of different accents of English accents, both native speaking and second + languages speakers, particularly the ‘business English’ products because more and more the publishers and the students recognise that students learn English to communicate with other second language speakers as well as or instead of native speakers.
Taiwan should try to promote Chinese in this way for obvious reasons…
[quote]Thus negating the idea that Mandarin Chinese could ever be any kind of global or East Asian lingua franca. The attitude of “only ‘we Chinese’ speak Chinese properly. Foreigners can never achieve the ‘right’ pronunciation: even if their tones/phonemes are correct, they still ‘speak funny’.” holds back the idea of Chinese as an international language as English is.
Most forward thinking English coursebooks use a variety of different accents of English accents, both native speaking and second + languages speakers, particularly the ‘business English’ products because more and more the publishers and the students recognise that students learn English to communicate with other second language speakers as well as or instead of native speakers.
Taiwan should try to promote Chinese in this way for obvious reasons…[/quote]
Great points, Buttercup.
Taiwanese seem to have a thing about “correct” (ie mainland) pronunciation. I noticed that they dubbed a mainland accent over gao wei li rather than a taiwanese accent. Weird, coming from a taiwanese university. Some local film companies do the same thing. Very odd.
If mandarin ever does achieve international status I hope it’s the taiwanese accent that wins out. Mainland chinese is ugly, ugly ugly.
My friend she saw “Gao Wei Li” in the audience at a speech contest a few months ago at Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall. We were watching him on video every week in class and she swears it was him, so I am inclined to believe her.
I think it’s funny that they dubbed over his voice, and that, for instance, in the textbook (PAVII), we see his “diary”, providing us with experience of reading authentic handwritten Chinese. I guess it doesn’t have to be believeable to be of pedagogical value.
It depends on what Taiwanese accent you’re talking about. That of younger, well-educated Mandarin-speakers in Taipei City, then yes, I agree wholeheartedly. That of older, 9th-grade-educated, Taiwanese-speaking hicks from the southern sticks (not that there’s anything wrong with that), then no! In other words, I like an accent that properly distinguishes juanshe from non-juanshe and “f” from “h”, but has the soft lilt of Taiwan speech and not the harsh sounds of mainland speech!
My teacher told me he was back in Taiwan a few years ago and the only other information that she gave us is that he is now double the weight he was in the VCDs.
A former classmate of mine, last year, said he saw Gao Wei Li at Shi-Da one day, and that he looks much better than he did in the videos. I can’t even look at his face, he reminds me of a serial killer, totally gives me the creeps. Sorry, dude, if you read this forum, but all those years ago you were completely scary.
I’ll confirm he was Hungarian, I was at Shr Da (1992-1993) when they first used the materials. My teacher also told me he was paid for his performance (I think it was a very low amount) making it an illegal video since students weren’t allowed to work at that time under student visas. Therefore all videos should be seized and destroyed immediately (ala Traci Lords) since they also violate numerous WTO agreements. I doubt he has a SAG card either.
he’s going to sag whether he has permission or not. undoubtedly many parts of him already are.
and on another vein, my chinese teacher back in australia asked me why the hell i was pronouncing things the way i was in class (which was not good but not bad either for a beginner)… when she learnt i had been to taiwan she asked me why on earth i wanted to learn to speak like a country bumpkin, and not in the ‘proper’ Beijing accent she was carefully trying to teach me.
things got out of hand when i asked her about traditional versus simplified characters ( i was learning both) and why she had not explained to the class that there were two writing systems, and things got further messy when i mentioned simple characters for simple people. needless to say, i did not go back.
For AV Chinese, the audience is not high-intermediate or advanced learners, but beginners. You wouldn’t want them being confused by any more non-standard accents than they already encounter on a daily basis in Taiwan! (Seriously, at that level you want to provide the best model possible, and for a recorded artefact like a VCD, I can see why they would choose to dub over any foreigner (non-native speaker’s) voice. Obviously a voiceover artist with a standard accent would be chosen for the job.
Later there is plenty of time to introduce non-standard pronunciations and accents. But when students are already being forced to learn all four skills simultaneously on new material, let’s not complicate things needlessly.
[quote=“urodacus”]why the hell does he need a SAG card?
he’s going to sag whether he has permission or not. undoubtedly many parts of him already are.
and on another vein, my chinese teacher back in australia asked me why the hell i was pronouncing things the way i was in class (which was not good but not bad either for a beginner)… when she learnt i had been to Taiwan she asked me why on earth i wanted to learn to speak like a country bumpkin, and not in the ‘proper’ Beijing accent she was carefully trying to teach me.
things got out of hand when i asked her about traditional versus simplified characters ( i was learning both) and why she had not explained to the class that there were two writing systems, and things got further messy when i mentioned simple characters for simple people. needless to say, i did not go back.[/quote]
If Mandarin ever does achieve international status I hope it’s the Taiwanese accent that wins out. Mainland Chinese is ugly, ugly ugly.[/quote][/quote]
My, my, aren’t we a bit elitist? The 22 million Taiwanese people’s speech is acceptable Chinese, but the 1,300 million mainlanders’ speech is just “ugly, ugly ugly”. It doesn’t matter if they’re from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Harbin, Dalian, or elsewhere. They’re just “ugly”. Heck, a quarter of the world is just ugly. According to you.
If Mandarin ever does achieve international status I hope it’s the Taiwanese accent that wins out. Mainland Chinese is ugly, ugly ugly.[/quote]
My, my, aren’t we a bit elitist? The 22 million Taiwanese people’s speech is acceptable Chinese, but the 1,300 million mainlanders’ speech is just “ugly, ugly ugly”. It doesn’t matter if they’re from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Harbin, Dalian, or elsewhere. They’re just “ugly”. Heck, a quarter of the world is just ugly. According to you.
Ugh.[/quote][/quote]
Personally, I prefer the more standard Chinese accent (or Taipei accent) to the southern Taiwanese accent. Especially where the accent more clearly differentiates between the “Sh” (ㄕ) and “s” (ㄙ) sound.
I don’t think any accent is ugly (even differences in English accents), in fact I think it adds to any language. What a horror the world would be without some women speaking in an oh so sexy (to me, at any rate) English accent. The same goes for Chinese. Accents are all good IMHO. Where I might be a bit of an “elitist” is between simplified and traditional characters.
There I would have to agree with Urodacus. Simplified characters are for simple people. I mean, what’s the world coming to when many foreigners can read and write your language in traditional text, but a native speaker needs a dumbed down version? Kind like someone from China capable of reading and understanding Shakespeare, and an Englishman being lost in the same text…
