If you speak to Benjamin K. Hammer on the phone, you would think you were talking to a person who had lived in a Chinese-language environment since childhood, as he uses Mandarin's four tones correctly.
But Hammer started learning Mandarin when he was a high school senior in San Jose, California. Since there were no Chinese-related courses at his high school in the 1990s, Hammer studied Mandarin at a community school's night classes。
"In the United States, people are curious about Oriental culture and history, such as the culture embodied in religions, kung fu and traditional Chinese medicine," Hammer said。
Hammer is one of the US citizens who show great interest in Chinese culture. In addition to Mandarin, he learned kung fu from a Chinese teacher when he was a student at American University in Washington. He got his Chinese name, Meng Weilong, from his kung fu teacher。
"I use the same family name with my kung fu teacher, as there is a saying in China that the teacher is like your father," Hammer said。
At American University, Hammer majored in international relations, and selected Chinese as his foreign language without any hesitation. Since then, Hammer spent more time and effort on learning Chinese than he did on his major。
"Chinese and English belong to different language families. Learning Chinese is a great challenge, but I do like the language。
"It's rare that a Western foreigner can speak very good Chinese. I believe Chinese, rather than Spanish, can make me stand out among my peers," he said。
Hammer received his master's degree in Chinese classical philology at Shandong University and spent four years getting his doctorate in the same major from Peking University。
Now the 37-year-old works as a teacher at the Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies of Shandong University in Jinan. He is also the assistant editor of the English version of the Journal of Chinese Humanities, an English-language offshoot of the well-known culture and sociology journal Wen Shi Zhe, created in 1951.
Hammer spends hours each day enriching his knowledge。
His desk is covered with piles of books and paper. Two bookshelves besides his desk are stuffed with dictionaries and Chinese classical works such as The Four Books. The wall to the left of his desk is covered by a picture that shows the history of China。
"Being a teacher, you have to know your major very well, and then you have to have the ability to educate students," Hammer said。
In his classes, Hammer discusses with students in Mandarin the translation of Chinese classical works into English。
《中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)》9月30日電，在電話上聽本杰明·K·哈默(Benjamin K. Hammer)說話，你大概會(huì)認(rèn)為那是個(gè)自小在漢語(yǔ)環(huán)境下長(zhǎng)大的人，因?yàn)樗哑胀ㄔ挼乃姆N聲調(diào)讀得太準(zhǔn)了。
其實(shí)，哈默是高三才開始學(xué)習(xí)普通話，那時(shí)他在加州圣約瑟一所高中上學(xué)。20世紀(jì)90年代，那所中學(xué)還沒有開設(shè)漢語(yǔ)相關(guān)課程，哈默只好在一所社區(qū)學(xué)校上夜課來學(xué)習(xí)普通話。
“美國(guó)人對(duì)東方文化和歷史非常感興趣，比如宗教、功夫以及中藥所體現(xiàn)的文化。”哈默說。
哈默是對(duì)中國(guó)文化有濃厚興趣的美國(guó)人中的一個(gè)。除了學(xué)習(xí)普通話，他在華盛頓的美利堅(jiān)大學(xué)上學(xué)時(shí)還向一位中國(guó)老師學(xué)習(xí)了功夫。他從他的功夫老師那里得到了他的中文名字——孟巍隆。
“我跟我的功夫老師用同一個(gè)姓，因?yàn)橹袊?guó)有句俗語(yǔ)‘一日為師，終身為父’。”哈默解釋道。
哈默在美利堅(jiān)大學(xué)主修國(guó)際關(guān)系，輔修科目毫不猶豫地選了漢語(yǔ)。自那以后，哈默在學(xué)習(xí)漢語(yǔ)上花費(fèi)的時(shí)間和精力比在本專業(yè)上還要多。
“英漢兩種語(yǔ)言屬于不同的語(yǔ)系。漢語(yǔ)學(xué)起來很難，但我就是喜歡漢語(yǔ)。”
“西方人很少有漢語(yǔ)說得非常好的。我覺得漢語(yǔ)能讓我在同輩中脫穎而出，而不是西班牙語(yǔ)。”他說。
哈默在山東大學(xué)[微博]獲得了中國(guó)古典文獻(xiàn)學(xué)專業(yè)碩士學(xué)位，又花了四年在北京大學(xué)攻讀這一專業(yè)，獲得了博士學(xué)位。
今年37歲的哈默在濟(jì)南的山東大學(xué)儒學(xué)高等研究院任教。他還是《中國(guó)人文雜志》英文版的副編輯，這是1951年創(chuàng)刊的著名人文社會(huì)科學(xué)類學(xué)術(shù)期刊《文史哲》的英文副刊。
哈默每天都會(huì)花好幾個(gè)小時(shí)豐富自己的知識(shí)。
他書桌上堆滿了書本和紙張。書桌旁的兩個(gè)書架上擺滿了各類字典以及《四書》等中國(guó)古典作品。書桌左邊的墻上掛著一幅圖，那幅圖展示了中國(guó)的歷史。
“作為一個(gè)老師，必須要對(duì)專業(yè)了如指掌，才能把學(xué)生教好。”哈默說。
課堂上，哈默還會(huì)用普通話與學(xué)生討論將中國(guó)古典作品翻譯成英語(yǔ)。
