Saturday morning a little after 11 am, I was walking back to my motorcycle from Trio Beach when I met this elderly couple. They were visiting a relative here in Hong Kong for a month. Both of them wish that they could stay longer. Hong Kong is an amazing place they told me. There are so many islands and places to visit.
Reading Chinese
The gentleman pointed to above sign and said that he finds the characters very fascinating. By that point in our conversation, I had already told them that I have lived in Hong Kong for 7 plus years and that I love the language. I really wanted to be able to impress them by reading the sign to them. I decided to buy a little time by telling them that I normally read the English translation under the Chinese characters to get an idea of what is being communicated first. They waited but unfortunately there were just too many characters that I couldn’t recognize. I told them I struggle with this passage also. The gentleman’s wife said if he can’t read it and he has been here for 7 plus years there’s no way that we are going to read it. The man tried to comfort me by talking about how hard it is to read Greek text. But it was no use. We ended our conversation and said good bye.
Be Like a Child Again
I don’t know if anyone has ever done a survey on the number of foreigners who came to Hong Kong or China thinking that they were going to learn the language but then gave up. I imagine the number is super high. As adults we might be willing to afford ourselves the space to go back to being children again. But that doesn’t mean that our family, friends or work colleagues will. Emotionally it can cost a lot to learn Cantonese as an adult. The majority of foreigners that I have talked with started out with good intentions but then gave up. They speak a few words here and there for ordering food, going to the toilet, saying thank you, saying sorry, etc… but beyond that not so much. The Chinese characters are hard they say. Or I can’t get the tones. It seems that the biggest advantage that children have over us adults is no fear and lots of time.
Foreign Family Living in China
Years ago, I heard a story about a family in China who had invited a friend from the states to come visit them. China has a lot to offer so the friend love the sites, smells and sounds of China. One day he asked his hosts if they could go out to a particular Chinese restaurant. His hosts told him no. They said, we only go to restaurants where they can speak English or we how to order what we want. We have never been to that place before. If we went there, we would have to fumble around, be embarrassed and end up eating something we didn’t want. Sure we understand it would be a nice experience for you to take back to the states to talk about the language barrier, but this is our life. Basically the family recognized that they were living in a bubble and they were saying don’t disturb our bubble.
I think I am a little bit outside of this camp. Even before I became conversational with Chinese (my Mandarin is pretty weak now), I was always taking risks in giving places and using the language. Today, I communicate regularly with my wife in Cantonese and listen to social issues programs in Cantonese (I slow down the speed), but when it comes to Chinese literacy I would have to give myself a very poor grade. This is a sobering reality that I sure many foreigners prefer not to talk about. Like me, I am sure that there are many people out there who have poured hours and hours into learning materials and not gotten the results that they had hoped for. We don’t like to talk about that. It’s much easier to focus on our strengths. Still we do so at a tremendous cost. Our lack of language separates us from really knowing and being known by the local people.
I know it is sobering, but remember there is always hope. Next time, I plan to write about a strategies for overcoming vocabulary communication barriers.
