Learning a Language

My first day of university. I’m sitting in the front row of the class, close to the door because I was a little late. It took a while to figure out exactly where the classroom was. My classroom was in the back building of the university, shoved to one corner along with all the art classes.I creaked the door open as quietly as possible, but a flock of heads were immediately drawn to my sudden interruption. I nodded apologetically to the teacher and took the first seat I could find. Front row, near the door. Luckily the teacher was busy quizzing students on the other side of the room. I had a chance to gather my thoughts and figure out exactly what the hell I was doing here and what was going on. 

There was something written on the board. I crunch my face up to see what it is. Six Chinese characters, with a question mark. Great. What the hell does that mean. I can’t read a single character. Never mind, say a word. I could say Hello, and beer. I knew that much. That’s two words. There were still four others written on the board and I doubted my teacher wanted to talk about beer on day one. Shit. Clueless and late. I’ve always given dashing first impressions. I whisper to the guy next to me, and ask him what she’d written on the board. 

“What is your name?” he replies. 

My name? Oh, that’s easy. I breathe a sense of relief. I know what’s going on now. I’m good. Everything is good. I unpack my books onto my desk and try to focus on the to and fro conversation with the teacher and the other students. She is going through each person, one by one and asking them their names. And they reply, well. Perfectly, and in full Chinese sentences. 

I jerk at the realization. I can’t reply in full Chinese sentences. I realize that they are giving their names, their Chinese names. Most of the students sitting to my right are from Korea and they all happen to already have Chinese names. I didn’t have one. It was almost my turn.

Late and clueless and without a Chinese name.

The teacher makes eye contact with me and asks the question, ‘你叫什么名字？’

What is your name?

“Mulan.” I repy. It was the only Chinese name I knew, and I’d always been a big fan of the Disney movie. 

“Mulan?” she asks. I nod. 

“Hua Mulan, ba”. She says. As she dubs me Mulan, on purpose. And gives me the surname Hua. I feel like I can breathe. She writes the name onto my notebook, 花木兰。

I look down at the name and feel a sense of accomplishment, as I have just been given my very own name. The name stuck, and I would respond to it when called. It was printed on my student card and official documents. I am Hua Mulan. It felt really good to have another name, another identity. 

Mulan wasn’t just a Disney movie, but a famous Chinese folk story about a woman who disguised herself as a man and took her father’s place in preparation for war. Her father was old and ill and the empire requested that at least one man for each family needed to enroll in the army. Mulan gave the resilience that was associated with being a man and was considered one of the great warriors at the time. A famous story, and an inspiring one. I found myself suiting my new name, as time progressed. I too, felt resilient.

About a year later I was sitting at Billy’s coffee shop, drinking my daily fix of iced coffee. Billy asked me whether or not I had a Chinese Name. We’d always spoken in English from the beginning, there had never been a need to know my Chinese Name. He knew my English one. 

“Hua Mulan”, I tell him. The coffee shop is quiet. A Korean couple was sitting in the back booth, comforted by the soft cafe’ music. The sun had carpeted it’s heat on the front pine tables in the shop. I was sitting at the table closest to the Barista bar, the sun teasing my back. 

Billy laughs. Laughs? I lift up my head from my iced coffee. 

“Billy what’s so funny?”

“No, no, it’s nothing.”

It’s my name, surely it can’t be that funny.

“It’s a very important, famous, name,” he says. I know, I say, I know all about the tale of Mulan.

“It’s like me going to America and introducing myself to someone and saying, Hi! My name’s Michael Jackson”. 

I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. And simultaneously realized how ridiculous Hua Mulan sounded, in a Chinese sense.

I spent a lot of time in coffee shops that year. Not necessarily Billy’s, but I had a few favorites and would rotate between them. I protested with my teachers at first, we were expected to learn how to write characters and had spelling tests everyday. I had to learn about twenty new characters a day. I couldn’t keep up. But eventually I succumbed to the inevitability of the importance of these stupid little things. I had to learn them, if I wanted to learn the language.

I bought the character practice paper, like I’d seen a lot of the Chinese kids use. And I sat in my coffee shops, writing the characters over and over. It started with 说。 

说 (to speak). My classmate described it as a little man watching TV. 

And so I sat in the coffee shop in the corner with ashtrays filled with coffee grounds and warm music. It was getting colder in Qingdao so the waiter gave me a blanket. I sat forever, writing it out over and over again, repeating under my breath, ‘a little man watching TV’. The next day we had a spelling test and my teacher asked us to write 说 , among other things. I drew my little man watching TV and beamed with happiness when she marked it right. 

And that’s how it began. I learnt that the coffee shop a straight 10 step walk from my apartment block made really good chai lattes and iced coffees and they really didn’t mind me sitting upstairs for hours. I would take the biggest table and cover it with all my papers. I learnt that I could read some things on menus and started to trust what I knew. I really was eating beef, and not risking it just because the picture looked okay. I learnt that I could ask for extra dishes, how spicy I wanted them and send letters at the post office. Every conversation felt like a riggity old tuk tuk hobbling along until it eventually found its rhythm and I could ask for things without having to search for the words. It was the most exhilarating part of the process, communicating. I was saying these strange words and when I said them, people understood me and responded in language that I could understand. And I sat in coffee shops and in classrooms learning how to do that. 

I’m on the other side now, I’ve spent years learning and I can understand a whole bunch now. I can watch series and listen to people talking and know what’s going on. I can try to debate about politics or the environment or history. 

“Say something in Chinese”. I’d get all the time. And it doesn’t feel like I can really put those four years of studying in coffee shops into a single sentence. My usual reply is, “What do you want me to say (but in Chinese)”. And I feel deflated. How boring. But it usually gets the opposite response. I’ve done my part, I’ve said a sentence and sold my truth. That I really can speak Chinese. The next part of the conversation is often followed by some form of racism or stereotype, the person finds the only thing that they have to grasp onto the conversation in a world unknown–racism or stereotypes. They giggle, I shrug it off. 

One of my favorite Chinese words, a favorite because of the story I gave it to remember it, is:

 蝴蝶。 

I’ll make that big.

蝴蝶

This word consists of two characters, and each character consists of radicals. Radicals are the parts of the character with meaning, that make up with character.

虫 means insect.

古 means ancient.

月 means moon.

虫 means insect, again. So we’re definitely talking about a type of insect here. 

世 means world.

木 means tree.

When I first came across this word, I was surprised at how easy making up its story was. Most characters I make up stories, and it all started with that little man watching TV. I love the little story I made for this one though. 

An ancient insect that comes from the moon.

An insect that flutters above the trees all around the world.

A butterfly.

And as I made this little story I could picture the butterfly fluttering past each radical, and I could picture the old wise man who created this character in its traditional form, thousands of years ago. 

That’s why I started learning this language, and started enjoying the process. Not to just ‘say something’ in Chinese. It’s always deeper than that, I hate splashing around in shallow puddles of conversation. I’d rather flutter about the trees and the moons of my mind. 

Spanish is next on my list, I can’t wait to see its butterflies and beautiful words.