Chengdu, China Study Abroad: Day 53 -- July 16

Well I hit the language wall today. Where you realize that you know just enough of a language to get it utterly confused. I hit this wall for Japanese in my second year second semester. I was not expecting it to hit this early in my Mandarin learning, but this language is by far the hardest I’ve learned so it’s no surprise. The key now is working through this point and trying not to get frustrated. I am going to devote more time to grammar and speaking the language. I was so focused on the vocabulary I feel I might be a little bit unbalanced. One of the interesting parts of learning language is you can know a lot in one particular area but have absolutely no clue about another aspect of the language. As they say in Mandarin 慢慢來 (lit. Slow Slow Come. Meaning, slowly it will come, a reminder to be patient and slow down.) For some reason the first paragraphs are turning into introspection...

    In terms of interesting events there was one today in the morning. An American woman happened to be attempting to patron one of the breakfast places in Gong Guan, however, none of staff speak any English as they are all older Taiwanese women. I had a few problems the first time in this shop just because of the language barrier, but I have since worked through it. They taught me how to read some of the menu and I wrote it down (it was a literal point, say, write situation). I come into the shop and this girl is hollering angrily at them (something about her trying to order I don’t know exactly what was going on before I arrived) and in her words of frustrating she asks them “why don’t you speak English?”

    I think in that moment I was more offended than I have been since arriving here. I found it so incredible how rude and ignorant she was. She had come to Taiwan expecting people to understand her native tongue, a country whose official language is Mandarin and native language is Taiwanese. She at some point had noticed my arrival turned to me and asked if I could believe ‘this’ (by ‘this’ I assume she meant the lack of English which funnily enough I could) I was so upset by her that I ignored her and walked up to the Ayi and ordered my food in Mandarin. Apparently my refusal to confirm her indignation was enough and she left in a huff. I then apologized on behalf of my fellow America. I enjoyed my meal and as I left the Ayi came up and gave me a big cup of iced tea to go for free.

    Language barriers are incredible difficult to deal with. There has been many times when I have been in a situation that was overly frustrating and all because neither party knew the three or four words that would bring understanding. If you travel to another country please do not expect everyone to understand you because you speak English. I always thought situations like that were examples on how not to act but now I have seen it in real life. Patience is key in this situation. Pointing and gestures will eventually work you through the problem as long as you stay calm then they will stay calm and it will become a funny story.

    Well That’s really all I have for today, no pictures of things unfortunately I left my camera in the room today. I might fill up the bottom of the blog with some random stuff that I haven’t shown you yet. Enjoy!