How do you explain the structure of the pattern "just because..., doesn't mean... " grammatically? I am not sure "just because..., doesn't mean... " is one of the grammatical patterns. I noticed the pattern in the sentences for the first time when I had seen it 'twice' in a couple of days in the discussion on italki. I can understand its meaning, but I can't realize why the structure forms this way. Is it a habitual or colloquial expression? Thank you.

An Amazing Feast For The Eyes When my son was in the former years of elementary school, we used to take him to a variety of transformed tourist factories, museums and galleries, and musicals with instruments playing or stage plays of fairy tales. But with his whole days in school increase, instead, we go camping only on weekends. Last summer, we have an opportunity to watch a stage musical adapted from a hit film with a classic scene of shaping clay. Have you guessed which movie I mentioned? Exactly, it is called “Ghost.” And at that time, we would go to see “Ghost the Musical.” We set off to Taipei on a Sunday afternoon and would attend the feast for the eyes at the National Theater. On the freeway, we were in a relaxed mood viewing the colorful clouds drifting through the immense sky at dusk. Later on, reaching our venue when the dark came, my son was astonished at the palace-style building and the magnificent decoration indoors every now and again. While puffs of warm breezes were ruffling our hair, we could see the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall not far away in the veil of the night. To start with, frankly I didn’t like the scenes of romantic love, tacky, histrionic. But I really enjoy the dance performances like Broadway Shows so that I almost couldn’t resist jumping from my seat to dance along. There were so many things to see that I never took my eyes off the dancers, just not to miss any glimpse. In fact, I wasn’t impressed by the leading actor and actress, but with the stunts from martial art of an actor playing a nefarious ghost, the nimble steps of the elderly actress as the young dancers did, and superb performance of the supporting actress as a psychic, the key in the whole play. Furthermore, I was amazed by the stunningly, magically special effects that made the actors on the spot freely through the walls in the audience’s attention, completely like the plots in the film. I also wondered how it showed the separation of the soul and body into two figures, and how the high-tech LED stage lighting could let the stereo-viewing of the rainy spot true-to-life. The modern version of Ghost gave me a spectacle and unique experience.

An Account of The Earthquake Before The Lunar New Year There was a shocking earthquake in Taiwan last month. At that time, I was just roused from sleep by the severe shaking that lasted for a while but seemed as if it hadn’t come to an end. After getting up the next morning, I watched the news on TV about the earthquake at midnight. Incredibly, there were a few tall buildings collapsing in Tainan, the cultural old city, about two and a half hour drive from my home. The ample rescue attempts continued plunging into. There were also a few Japanese experts coming to Taiwan for providing help and advice. I felt it must have been very helpful from their experience and expertise in figuring out the relatively best measures and accesses to rescue the people stuck in the overlapped buildings while keeping them from declining much more. The collapsed compound contained nine tall buildings with 17 floors. There were still over one hundred residents stuck in the ruins after the golden rescue 72 hours. It was indeed a disaster, especially on the day before the Lunar New Year's Eve. I wished everything would turn out well very soon. On the other hand, there were some miracles and inspirations happening. Waiting for the rescue from the collapsed building after the earthquake had occurred, a young man trapped in a cramped space not only kept a stiff upper lip, but also showed presence of mind to encourage two little girls not far away under the same circumstances to remain conscious by talking with them. Even when a rescuer intended to take him relaxed with humorous words that he would have almost reached 30 hours just like being in the campaign for experiencing hunger, he responded that he could stay more minutes up to it while he was eventually walking out from the ruins. He kept such an optimistic mindset that I couldn’t help but think highly of him. Finally, I would like to be thankful to many friends of mine on italki for expressing their concerns about the earthquake at the first moment.

Viewing Cherry Blossoms In February after Spring Festival, we had two activities on viewing the cherry blossoms at the last two weekends. The sites abundant in cherry trees during the blossom time whether in Japan or in Taiwan, always attract the crowd surging into. First of all, we went on a picnic at a downtown park. The activity organizer gave every child a pinwheel and cotton candy. There are many species of cherry blossoms for admiring. We sat on a picnic mat around the square, shared and had snacks and drinks, took pictures with cherry blossoms, played in the park, and enjoyed the time with our family while listening to the music that a violin musician and resident singers were playing. We also pottered around the park since there are a lake with a zigzag bridge and a glass gallery close to a city zoo. And then, last weekend, we had a consecutively three-day holiday, we went to the central county for camping once more, which is Taiwan's only landlocked county without coastline. Within this county, there are about five aboriginal tribes among the major nine tribes, currently the identified number of which is increased to 16 tribes. Therefore, there is a striking amusement park with diversely aboriginal cultures. One of its features is that it is equipped with the aerial cable cars to the top of the mountain within the ground of the park where even can connect to another line over several summits to the Sun Moon Lake. And most importantly, we can view the cherry trees in full blossoms throughout the park and everywhere is flooded with pink. During the nighttime, at the campsite, everyone took a hot shower using the water heated by firewood. As always we had a potluck party, and longan muffins with a topping of nuts for dessert. After dinner, the children held the torches that they made of bamboo by themselves.

An Amazing Whale Part II of II While on the yacht, the sky was getting dark, crawling with stars. We did not have any lights on board the yacht. We searched for a candle, and I found one. I lit the candle and to my surprise, in the deep dark ocean, I saw a bright smile looking up at me. It was a baby whale emerging from the surface of the water. The baby whale was close, very close to the yacht. I could see its eyes. I felt the whale was trying to tell me something. And not far away, the baby whale's mother seemed to protect him and I wondered if she was the same one as we saw earlier on. The huge mother whale swam closer to the yacht, curious. The baby whale was still looking at me, while I could see the mother whale’s gentle smile slowly emerge. His constant crying just sounded as if he wanted to lead us to somewhere. Zena was watching me holding the candle and the whale’s movements and intentions. She knew what to do. She steered the yacht in the direction, the whales were now swimming. We looked as if we were plunged into the immense universe in the ocean with only two people and two mammals. Zena drove the yacht into the night, lit only with the stars and bright smile of the mother whale. Suddenly beyond our expectation, a huge school of flying fish with shiny fins jumped out on the dark surface of the water around our yacht. The flying fish had a message for us. One, two now three, flew onto the yacht. They sang a song to Zena, and Zena understood their message. The message would be that we had rich food to eat. Zena thanked the fish for giving of themselves, and for being the catch of the day. While I woke up in the morning, I discovered the truth that I still had slept in my bed. ~The end Finally, I would like to be thankful to my mentor for his instruction. In fact, I don’t know how to describe this kind of learning activity exactly. It might be called “story fan-tan,” “story solitaire,” or “story relay” in English. Which one do you think is the best?

An Amazing Whale Part I of II The other day, my mentor encouraged me to create a story in English with a game of taking turns completing a story. It was a fantastic experience to apply what I’d learned to the writing. Besides, it combined the imagination and the writing skills. I have to say, it is a brainstorming but interesting activity. Apart from it, I wish my mentor wouldn’t have minded me to share this co-written story as follows: Today I walked along the beach and saw a giant whale in the ocean. That was incredible to see a whale so near/close to the shore. The whale was blue and had a big mouth. It looked at me and smiled. It must be in my dream because it was so amazing to see. I had to pinch myself for me to realize that a huge blue whale actually smiled at me. As soon as something unexpected happened, I couldn't see the whale any more. This is what happened. My friend Zena threw sand in my face and I was blinded for a moment. I grabbed a bottle of water close by and sprinkled it in my eyes. After I dried my face, the huge blue whale who smiled at me, was long gone. Zena was laughing at me and wondered if I was daydreaming. I told her I was not daydreaming, and that the blue whale did indeed smile at me. She sat down alongside me and viewed the sight in the sunset. The sight was of a beautiful red orange sun setting over an aqua green ocean, and in the distance we saw the water spouts from a whale. Zena kept her mouth open and jumped up with excitement. I asked Zena if we could use her boat to go and see, if the whale we saw was the same whale, as the one who smiled at me. And then, we approached her yacht by the wharf. It was a racing yacht, and Zena was a champion yacht captain. The yacht named Elizabeth was bright white using the background of the blue ocean. We jumped on board and headed out to find the whale. ~to be continued.

Some Opinions about Simplified and Traditional Chinese To be honest, sometimes I am not able to figure out what few of the simplified Chinese characters are, since they are totally different from traditional Chinese. Take the word 叶, I have difficulty in finding it relevant to the word 葉whose meaning is a leaf in traditional Chinese. The word 叶 seems to have nothing to do with leaves. There is neither 木-wood nor 草-grass in it so as to form a Chinese character. As I can see, simplified Chinese includes as diverse as standard traditional Chinese, the ones from the wrong-chosen words and the variant forms, or even the simplified ones(体, 应) we use in informal writing, and others I don’t know at all, etc. It might be convenient and save time to write, but it also doesn’t have a regular rule for learners to follow. On the other hand, I have to say that I haven’t learned about simplified Chinese as a whole. Generally, I can read it just because I am capable of speaking Mandarin to help me take a guess when I meet entire new but weird words, but the truth is that I don’t know every single simplified one. Thus, I can’t realize why a few people confidently claim that they who not only refer to an individual but also implies the public are able to read both of the traditional and simplified , and look as if there are no obstacles between them. As for the disputes about which is the beautiful font and whether there is the need to learn traditional Chinese or not, they might be off the point to calligraphy, classical Chinese, politics, and so on. Even for that reason, they reject to touch anything related to it. Personally Chinese calligraphy itself is aesthetic, but not due to it written by traditional Chinese, and similarly I can understand classical Chinese also not just due to the same excuse. In reality, I like calligraphy script in English as well and once in a while I tend to express my thoughts and feelings precisely. And yet, if native Chinese speakers don’t study well in their own language and culture, then they can only speak colloquial conversations all the time and get influenced easily by others though. It’s imperative to emphasize the basic education in language and improve the knowledge of our own culture. One has good point of not being the one that always accepts anything passable.

Jottings on Daily Life (7) Nowadays, there are some strange but special phenomena in elementary school quite different from my school days. Do you still remember how you got back home or somewhere after school before? Most of the pupils in Taiwan go to child-care centers either doing homework there or having their own enrichment. As a result, when I see schoolchildren getting on a sightseeing bus in a row, somehow I have a pity on them who take a bus not for a trip but for another lesson after school. In fact, pupils do have the chances to go on a field trip by bus at least once every session. This year, my son went to the National Palace Museum as their field trip. After the visiting, he asked me a riddle about the most famous three antiques, Jadeite Cabbage with Insects (翠玉白菜), Meat-shaped Stone (肉形石), and Bronze Ding vessel with Mao Gong inscription (毛公鼎). The answer to the riddle is about a famous Chinese dish. Do you guess what it is? It is called "酸菜白肉鍋" ( Manchurian pickled cabbage and pork hot pots). Aren’t you amazed at the imagination of these schoolchildren? In modern society, most parents pay attention to the quality and style of children’s schoolbags. However, few of the students can keep the same one until graduation from elementary school, no matter what price they are. My son’s only one schoolbag is unforeseen to have been using so far less than five months before graduation.

Chitchat (7) - Ideas and Sharing Most people may tend to stay away from their unfamiliar things. As you know, the people I’ve met from Taiwan are not often willing to read any simplified-Chinese content, even though they know the fact that nowadays there are many Chinese speakers using it. On the contrary, some of the non-traditional Chinese learners just simply regard traditional Chinese as a type of complicated one and further ignore the formation and meaning of Chinese characters. In my opinion, it is the thing that we don’t know so we have to communicate with each other. However, I don’t suggest that Chinese learners including foreigners and native Chinese students, like my son learn both simultaneously. That’s because it might confuse them quite a lot. For example, there are a few simplified characters equivalent to the wrong chosen characters from the homophones in traditional Chinese. Take 旅’游’ in simplified Chinese, which would be corrected and change into 旅’遊’ due to the accurate and meaningful radical. In traditional Chinese, we also use the diverse radicals to form the subtle meanings of some specific words that results in advancing in meaning, such as ‘睏’-‘sleepy’, which is added the radical ‘目’-‘eyes’, what set apart from ‘困’ in simplified Chinese. The different suffixes in English between imaginative and imaginable might somewhat explain the situation in the two cases above. If my son misspelled the character ‘內’ as ‘内’, or couldn’t tell the words’ difference between 在and 再, 的 and 得, he would be regarded as being careless about studying in school. ‘內’ means inside, so one has to go 'into' a room that is why the part of 內 is ‘入’-enter rather than 人-a man. Some might say that it would make sense when the word replaced with 人-a human, and yet, it could be another word 囚-a prisoner to refer to a man in a room. In addition, I recently figured out that the more competitive environments, whether social ethos or workplaces, the more direct and exaggerate expressions in language. Thus, if you would like to involve yourself into a particular setting, you may weigh your words and modify the approaches to people that you used to speak with.