The land and language of many

My China travel posts were more in-depth than my Vietnam ones, so I don't think a full China retrospective is very necessary. Suffice it to say that Auberon and I both really enjoyed our time there. We both had expectations about what "China" would be like (he had visited 9 years ago on a very organized tour bus trip) and some were true and some were not. For one, it's a lot cleaner and more orderly than I thought it would be. I think Westerners have a tendency to stereotype mainland China outside the powerhouse cities as poor and dirty, and perhaps the people as rude or uneducated. Nothing could be further from our experience. Everywhere we were greeted with gleaming streets and amazing hospitality, and I've already written about the excellent people we met. Americans can easily apply and obtain a ten year multiple entry visa now, and I'm glad I have mine.

Now for the language. People say that Chinese is very hard. It is. But it's not impossible. I started my self study of the language in January 2015, and then a year later started classes at the intermediate level in college. The classes were immensely helpful and I worked hard to catch up to my classmates, focusing really on pronunciation. When I finished classes I didn't really self study much during the short break before travel, instead cranking up the study of Russian and Vietnamese.

Arriving in China, I initially felt way out of my depth. I could communicate much easier than in Vietnam, but my knowledge of the written language was limited to the most common characters in the textbook dialogues. But there's an interesting thing I've learned about immersion in country. Dear reader, if you've ever studied a foreign language, try to think of a few words: Wet floor, to pull, caution, garage, repair, exit, center. A strange list, but these are the type of words that you see every day, a dozen times or more, when walking around a city. They're not really what the beginner learns in a phrasebook or classes, but instead what is so common to the native speaker that it blends into the background. Thus as a language minded tourist, I noticed this repetition and then noticed myself acquiring the words without ever studying them.

Of course I studied too. I got the excellent Chinese learner's dictionary app called Pleco, and filled several pages in my tiny notebook with characters and pronunciations. Forcing myself to try and read Chinese around me day after day got me used to it, and (though it took me longer than I expected) I eventually became relatively literate in terms of signs and menus.

Speaking was interesting. Once I came to Chengdu I really started using a lot more Mandarin* throughout the day, and it came more naturally by and by. Every day I used Mandarin to buy food, ask directions, use public transport, and chat. I rarely asked whether someone could speak English, and in any case the answer was usually no. The locals loved it, praising me for using the simplest of words and always being generally patient while I spoke.

I'm still not fully satisfied with my conversation performance, because I quickly grind to a halt when I'm not sure of a word or I mishear something. I was also surprised that I got frustrated and disheartened (and tired!) when I couldn't keep up, I guess because I felt a certain pressure to be able to say more than the basics.

But the constant practice did have an effect. At the end of my last Chinese class we made a video, and I showed it to my Chengdu hosts for a laugh. Laugh they did, but they also said that my Chinese had improved since the video - even after the classes stopped and I hardly thought about Chinese until I arrived. Language learning takes time, and skills like speaking and listening settle into muscle memory in a process that can't really be rushed. Consistent, regular practice is the best path to good results.

Pictured: A sign in Xi'an advertising milk of all things.

*I use the words Chinese and Mandarin interchangeably here, though some people make a distinction. Mandarin refers to the standard spoken language of China, based on the Beijing and northeast accent, used on TV and in school and understood by everyone. The written language is Mandarin save for some special usages too detailed to write about here, though I could fill hours on the subject. I, like all university students outside of special programs, studied Mandarin.
Though there is a common language, there are also innumerable dialects and local varieties. They all fall under the broad banner of Chinese, though most of them are mutually unintelligible. Therefore on the train from Chengdu to Xi'an, I sat next to a woman from Beijing who told me in Mandarin that she couldn't understand the man across from us at all when he spoke Chengdu dialect to his friends. He overheard and began to speak with us in Mandarin.
Or a specific example: on a Hohhot bus, a woman was asked a question and replied meidei, which I had learned was Sichuan dialect for I don't have any. Her questioner was confused until she repeated the answer in Mandarin: meiyou.
The concept of so many different local languages is fascinating to me, especially how different ones get used in different social contexts. Most Chinese people can speak two or three varieties of Chinese, and more if they've spent time living in different cities. You can see why this country would appeal to me.