Over 7 years of experience as a Confucius Institute certified professional Chinese teacher with a Master's degree in Education. More than 5000 hours of experience teaching Mandarin online, and 100% of

Find out more about Qingyun

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I am a native Chinese speaker born in Shanghai.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  I would consider Confucius to be the emblematic representative of Chinese language and culture. Not only because I am a certified Confucius institution mandarin teacher (lol), but also because he was an ancient Chinese philosopher, educator, and the founder of the Confucian school of thought. His principles and sayings—such as 'Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you' and 'In education, there should be no class distinctions'—have profoundly influenced China's social norms, values, and educational systems for over two thousand years. Even today, the wisdom of Confucius is woven into everyday idioms and social conduct. He is, without a doubt, a fundamental figure for anyone seeking to understand the roots of traditional Chinese culture.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behavior in the language that you particularly like?

  I especially love the Chinese characters for “雨 (rain)” and “飞 (fly)”. Chinese characters are pictographic, so when you write them, it often feels like you are drawing a picture. For example, doesn’t “雨” look like four drops of rain falling outside a window? And doesn’t “飞” look like a tiny insect with a pair of little wings flying? When I was in primary school, our teacher didn’t allow us to draw during lessons, so I treated writing Chinese characters as my opportunity to draw.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  Speaking Mandarin matters to me because it's the key to my heritage. It's the language my grandmother used to tell me folk stories, the language of the poetry I learned in school, and the language I use to connect with my family back home. On a broader scale, it’s a language that opens a door to over a billion people, a rich and continuous history spanning thousands of years, and a fascinatingly complex culture. For me, it's the vessel for my identity and my connection to the world.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  I believe that for many people, Chinese characters are the most challenging part of learning Chinese. In my classes, however, I break each character down into smaller components and turn them into vivid pictures. At the same time, I share the historical stories and cultural background behind the characters. This helps students grasp them more easily and naturally. I also use a series of classroom games to reinforce newly learned characters and vocabulary in an engaging way.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  I remember a lesson in primary school where we learned the character "家" (jiā), which means "home" or "family." To help us remember it, my teacher explained its components. The top part is "宀," which represents a roof, and the bottom part is "豕," which originally meant "pig." She explained that in ancient times, a family was a group of people living under one roof, and their wealth was often measured by the livestock they kept, like pigs. So, "home" is literally a "roof over your pig." This simple, visual story connected the abstract concept of "family" to a concrete image of ancient life, and I have never forgotten how to write that character. It taught me that every Chinese character has a story, and learning them is like becoming an archaeologist of human history.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  It is widely known that China is a vast country. The distance between different provinces can be comparable to that between different countries in Europe. In Europe, different countries have different languages. In China, however, quite remarkably, the whole country speaks the same language — Mandarin.
  
  That said, the accents of Mandarin vary greatly from region to region. I am someone who has moved between cities quite often. My hometown is Shanghai, a city in the southern part of China, so the Mandarin I grew up with was the version commonly spoken around Shanghai.
  
  It was not until I moved to Beijing that I realised how many differences there could be within the same language. For example, when I went to see a doctor in Beijing, the doctor asked me what I had eaten that afternoon. I replied that I had eaten “hong shan yu”. To my surprise, neither the doctor nor the nurse understood me. I later discovered that this is a uniquely Shanghainese way of saying “roast sweet potato”. In northern China, people usually say “kao di gua” instead.
  
  Gradually, I became accustomed to the Beijing accent. Now, whether I am interpreting in northern or southern China, I can both speak and understand the regional variations of Mandarin with ease.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  Since graduating from the University of Glasgow with a Master’s degree in Education in 2019, I have gained seven years of experience teaching Chinese. My students range from six-year-old children to retirees in their sixties. Despite the wide age range and varying levels of Chinese proficiency, I am always able to confidently design personalised lesson materials tailored to each student’s needs.
  
  Over the past seven years, my students have achieved a 100% pass rate in the HSK examinations, and my courses have consistently received 100% five-star reviews. I have developed my own engaging teaching methodology, which allows students not only to learn a new language, but also to explore its history and culture. My lessons are lively, immersive and highly interactive.