Eric's Beijing Diary

My cleaning lady came to day. It is always a challenge communicating with her, because she really does not speak any English. Not even "Hello." I was studying as she was cleaning, and I was playing some music files on my computer that came from a Chinese CD called "Heavenly Father" that Mei-chi had given me. My cleaning lady came into the room and asked me if I understood what I was listening to. I said, "A little." She said, "Do you believe? I said, "Yes." She said, "I also believe."

It's at times like this that I really wish I could speak the People's Language. In one sense, my position is advantageous, because I have the luxury of being able to study Mandarin because I want to, not because I have to. It is not required for my job. But my situation is frustrating in another sense, because I don't have the time I would like to have to put into language study. I have so many other things to do, not to mention the fact that I need constantly to be studying the technology that I am teaching and the new technology that I am going to be teaching. Some of the stuff I will teach two years from now is technology that I don't even know yet, and some of the stuff that I am spending many hours studying now will be obsolete in the not too distant future. This is the constant frustration of a technical trainer. The advantage, of course, is that if you do take the time to remain current with the technology, you will be very competitive, because very few other people are doing that. But it means that my progress in the area of language study is painfully slow.

There is another issue. I have always worked with tutors. Next fall, I will probably need to give that up, and start taking a Mandarin class. The advantage of working with a tutor is that your pronunciation tends to be more accurate, because the tutor only has one person to pick on. But there is very little interaction, so it takes much, much longer to become conversational. The ability to pronounce words is of limited value if you can't use them, so at some point you need to strike a balance. Fortunately, I live in Beijing, where English is in many ways as important as Mandarin. When I contemplate the frustration I feel with not being able to speak Mandarin, and then think of my Chinese colleagues who cannot speak English, I certainly would not trade places with them. It would be very, very frustrating indeed to be a professor on a University campus in Beijing and not be able to speak English.