Language Matters
Photo by Griffin Wooldridge on Unsplash
I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.
-2 Samuel 6:22
People often ask me “How long does it take to learn Chinese?” Having lived there for 11 years, I feel that with concerted effort you can survive after studying 1 year, be conversational in 2-3 years, be proficient in 7 years, and walk with confidence in 9 to 10 years. Rarely does anyone reach native level fluency in a language and culture not their own, but the concept of seven years to reach proficiency seems to make sense to me.
The seven years is a painful process, which many will abort before reaching the end. You just keep making mistakes, day in and day out. Some days you think you’ll never reach the end, never feel normal in this new culture. I’ve seen quite a few foreigners in China who gave up one or two years into the process. They find a comfortable stopping ground and cannot move forward. They create a safe space for themselves. Though they may be geographically “in” another culture for as long as decades, they have only been immersed for several years or shorter.
It takes determination to learn another language. The cultural gaffes pile up over time. You play the fool, the one who doesn’t speak so well. The humiliations are the cracking of your old self, making space for a new identity.
Some folks in America scold and shame about how language matters. Often these are the same people who speak only one language - English, but with hyper-precision. Real language learning necessitates room for errors and unintentional offence. It requires improvisation. Just as “kids say the darndest things”, so do language learners cross the line. I once intended to ask a man in Chile if his restaurant was open, but instead inquired if he wanted to have sex. As children begin to speak, the fastest learners are often the boldest and most curious. They need guidance, but also the benefit of the doubt.
***
One of the invisible victims of the pandemic has been the small bladdered community. Those of us in this group have suffered in silence as we jiggle the knobs of community restrooms, only to find them locked due to safety concerns. In this regard it has been a particularly difficult year for me, but I’ve also grown cynical over the years when it comes to the availability of toilets. I remember one harrowing incident that occurred in the summer of 2007. I was in a remote area of the Chinese countryside, far from the safety and familiarity of areas in the city I would frequent.
When I moved to Jingzhou, China in January 2007 I arrogantly believed that everything would be alright. I had studied almost none of the language beforehand and what ensued over the first 6 months in country was a cultural-linguistic train wreck. To enter into a new culture is like being born again, you are at the mercy and whims of others, you cry out for your needs to be met hoping that some kind stranger will take pity on you.
You are like a baby, trying to get fed. In those early months I had a sheet of paper with pictures of different animals and vegetables printed on it. When I’d go to a restaurant, I’d point at the picture of what I wanted to eat – “Eat chicken!” “Eat potato!”
Above all else, food mattered and language was the vehicle to getting fed. When you’re sitting in a comfy classroom, securely in your home culture, foreign language study is an optional nuisance. But when you’re hungry, you’ll study those vocab lists. The first three phrases I learned in Chinese were ‘hello’ (ni hao 你好), ‘thank you’ (xie xie 谢谢), and ‘goodbye’ (zai jian 再见). The fourth was ‘please put less hot peppers in what you’re cooking’ (xiao fang la jiao 小放辣椒).
My employer gave me a placard to show to people if I became lost, like when your mom would write your address on a slip and hang it around your neck. And I became lost a lot. I was so lost I didn’t even know which bus to ride to work. A man who worked near the station would direct me through hand gestures and grunting. I imagine it was a lot like babysitting a toddler in those early China days to be around me. You had to make sure I didn’t run out into the street or burn my apartment down with some crazy thing I was working on. The locals must have thought, “Boy, the foreigners that come here get dumber and dumber every year…”
For me, those first six months were a difficult, often miserable, time. To know the language and the culture mattered. The amount of respect you received from others was directly proportional to your knowledge and proficiency in the culture. I knew next to nothing and feared the daily interactions I was having. It was a real wakeup call, a detox from the mono-linguistic comforts of America. By the summer I had reached a breaking point – either learn the language or leave.
***
I signed up to attend language school in Changsha, Hunan Province. The day before classes were to start I bought a bus ticket and was directed by the grunting man to the bus I would ride. Before departure, I was told (I think) it was a 5-hour bus ride.
When I speak about the hardships of the small bladdered community, it’s difficult to capture the desperation attached to our lived experiences. We all know the feeling of sitting down somewhere and immediately knowing we should’ve used the restroom before leaving the house. At that point you’re locked in to wherever – an airplane during takeoff, an end of the year meeting, a counseling session with a weeping client. Your legs start to shake and your brow begins to sweat.
Several hours into the trip, I was really feeling it.
“Are we there yet?” My child-like question, asked to the driver in the broken, indiscernible tones of an illiterate foreigner. He gruffly replied to me, though I have no idea what he said. I like to imagine it was something along the lines of what a driving parent says to their child in the backseat, “We’re almost there can you hold it?”
But this bus driver was not my parent, so he could not interpret my muffled groans, my dancing body language. “You’re wiggling around a lot white man, do you have to go potty?” “Yes! Mr. busdriver, I have to go potty!”
We were two grown men, one doing his job and one finding out just how much language matters. He gestured me back to my seat and I returned feeling defeated.
Another hour passed and I had reached a point of desperation. I might have spoken like a Chinese baby, but nobody was going to change my diaper when we arrived at the bus station in Changsha. Looking around for any creative solution, all I had was an empty plastic grocery sack I had put some snacks in for the trip.
By this time the sun had gone down and the bus was nearly empty. I found a quiet spot in the back row of the bus and discreetly knelt down over the bag.
***
If one day you happen to be on one of those survival TV shows, where they drop you off in the middle of the arctic circle with nothing but a pocket knife and plastic bag, let me give you a little hard-earned wisdom. No matter what you end up using the plastic bag for, first ensure there are no holes in it.
In the darkness of the bus I discovered the hard way how useless a holy bag is. My pee was in the bag, on the floor, on the seat, on my clothes. In a panic I opened the window of the bus and chucked the pee filled grocery sack out. We were pulling into Changsha by that point and the bag splattered across the windshield of a parked taxi, the driver looking up in confusion and disgust.
I gathered my belongings and quickly rushed off the bus at the station. Hopping in the first taxi I could find, I handed him the placard for the hotel I’d be staying at.
We rode in silence. The odor was conspicuous.
He may have thought to himself, “Boy the foreigners that come here get smellier and smellier every year.”
***
The next day classes started and I learned the fifth phrase – please stop the bus I need to use the restroom (qing ting che, wo xuyao shang cesuo 请停车, 我需要上厕所). It was the beginning of a montage, cut scenes of me working through stacks of vocab cards, having conversations, making flubs but continuing to try. The progress followed the shape of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
Year 1 – utter lostness
Year 2 – over inflated confidence
Year 3 – despair that I’ll never learn the language
Year 5 – making noticeable progress
Year 7 – attaining proficiency
Year 9 – walking with confidence
Learning a language is not just saying words but adopting a different mindset. The shaking up of the old self makes room for a new identity. This happens best when risks are allowed and mistakes are expected.
In the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, one of the characters, Zhu Ba Jie, is constantly getting himself into trouble. Every chapter feels like Groundhog Day with him misbehaving, getting captured by a monster, and having to be bailed out. He and his companions are journeying to the west, to India, to attain enlightenment and become Buddha’s.
But rather than attaining enlightenment, it feels like Zhu Ba Jie kind of stumbles into it. He reaches his goal in the end, not because of some innate goodness, but because he was willing to keep stepping forward on the journey.
***
As our family moved out of China in 2018, we transitioned into Detroit early last year. Again, we entered into a culture not our own. In many ways transitioning to China was more difficult – a completely different language, a truly foreign culture, and very few markers of familiarity. It was a world unto itself. In other ways the move to Detroit has been more difficult – the loss of identity, the projection of others, the sinking feeling that while everybody is speaking English, you’re not really comprehending. I am like a child again, overhearing the words of the adults and trying to decipher what it all means.
While the parallels between Jingzhou and Detroit are not exact, the concept of seven years to proficiency still holds. I am making all the same mistakes you’d expect of a year 2 learner. As the errors continue to increase, so does my curiosity. I give myself time and the space needed to grow.
And like a child, we always go potty before leaving the house.