Chinese lessons « Cloudy in Beijing

6Nov/08Off

Chinese lessons

It’s a bit ironic, but when I was young I hated learning Chinese.

Like many of my Chinese friends at the time, we all went to the local Chinese school on Sundays to learn Mandarin. I must have done this for at least a dozen years, until my parents finally relieved me of “the torture” when I was around 16; too much homework at the “real school” was my excuse.

For more than a decade I did this, and I can barely remember it; part of me must have purged the memories. Like some of my peers at the time, going to Chinese school felt like a burden. A boring one at that. A perfect Sunday and I was at school, learning Chinese for three to four hours. I remember sometimes dreading the moment when the clock would turn half past noon. It was that time again, time to go to Chinese school. Sigh. One moment I would happily be watching TV or playing video games at home. The next I was in the car, slouched over in my chair, lamenting at how I’d be wasting the next few hours of my young life.

During class, often times I would draw pictures in my textbook, not remembering a thing my teachers would say. There were a few years where I actually tried and did well in the school. But for most of part, I was pretty unmotivated student, my doodling more important to me than remembering a Chinese character.

Last Friday I was thinking about all this as I sat in a classroom at the University. On that day me and two other students were sitting together, learning Chinese of all things. “Man,” I thought. “These guys are so lucky to be learning Chinese.”

One other reason I chose to come to this University to teach was because they were offering free Chinese lessons for us. I finally had a chance to come to one of the classes. Unfortunately it was too easy for my level. We spent half an hour re-reading one section of the textbook, when I could breeze through it in minutes. I could see the other two students struggle to accurately pronounce the characters. But all I could think was how I wish I had my own Chinese class everyday. Then I felt guilt, realizing how such a terrible student I was back then.

When I was young, I remember there being a few times when I wondered if I could quite Chinese school. Not just wondered, but secretly wanted it. But I knew that wasn’t a possibility. I had heard this from my family before, how embarrassing it would be to say your Chinese and not yet speak your own native language. Hearing it so many times, I must of psychologically adopted it as my own reason to save face and stay at the school. (Mainlanders have a special term for Chinese who can’t speak their own language. They that person is a “banana.” Yellow on the outside, but white on the inside.)

There was another time when I was maybe 8 or 9, I actually cried one night because I was doing so bad in Chinese school. I cried so much my parents came to my bedside. I wanted to learn Chinese, but didn’t quite know how.

But most often, during my youth, I often felt annoyed with Chinese school. Annoyed at how hard the language was to learn. I went to Taiwan in the summer of my sophomore year, thinking I would magically become fluent in Chinese within a few months. That, of course, didn’t happen.
It was very easy for me to grow frustrated with Chinese school. But to do so, was also to grow frustrated at myself. Frustrated at my own heritage. Frustrated that I was supposed to be something that I could never be.

I think this is why I was never motivated to go Chinese school. I just wasn’t good at it. I was going nowhere. In college things drastically changed. I was a great student in my Chinese classes, eventually going to Beijing in 2004, where I learned even more. And now I’m here in Xi’an, working so that my language will get only better. Why things changed in college I’m not sure. Maybe I was just fed up with the language and wanted to finally learn it. Maybe the teaching was better. But I’m glad I didn’t give up.

Still, I wonder, what if I didn’t learn Chinese. Would that be so bad?
After the junior year of my college, I returned back to Chinese school. I hadn’t been there for maybe four years. But I did not want to come back. God no. Mainly because my mom forced me to give a speech to some students there about why they should learn Chinese.

I remember giving the speech and now knowing what the hell to say. I frankly could not come up with a good reason why. I even didn’t know why I continued learning Chinese. I blabbed about how it can help you get a job, and you can talk your grandparents, but that was about it. Then for some reason started talking about getting college internships. The worst part was my Chinese at the time had gotten rusty. I felt I barely could pull a coherent sentence together. I was the last person to give this speech. I flailed my arms around as I spoke, hoping some brilliant idea might flap into my head.

I’ve thought about this from time to time. If I had been honest at the time, I would of said you don’t have to learn Chinese. If you don’t want to do it, then you shouldn’t do it. Not exactly the dose of inspiration my mom would have been looking for. But realistically, I don’t think you can force someone to do something they’re not interested in. I also don’t believe there’s anything wrong not learning Chinese. Being a so-called “banana” is not only rude, but doesn’t mean you’re less of a person. And certainly that doesn’t mean you’re any kind of embarrassment.

I’m not sure why I’ve made learning Chinese a life-long goal of mine. Or why I was invested in coming to China. You’re getting back to your roots a friend once said. I suppose that’s what this trip is about, trying to understand more about myself. Assuming I do “master” Chinese and become more fluent, then what? I have passed some sort of benchmark in Chineseness?

The funny is thing, I think about my own experiences in learning Chinese and can see the parallels with my own students, especially the ones who are struggling to learn. I hope I can help them somehow.

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After finding that the classes were too easy, I thought I’d probably have to find another outlet to learn Chinese. Well, Friday was my lucky day. I talked with one of the teachers about trying to find a tutor. Her English name is Jasmine, and she wanted to help. We came to an arrangement. Every week we’d try to meet and she’d teach me Chinese, while I would teach her English. All for free. So exciting, now I’ll have my own Chinese class.