(Continued from Plumbing and Blocks: A Metaphor for Language)
(Part 2/4: The Basics of the Chinese Language)
(Part 1/4: Why I Stopped Learning Chinese)
Why I Stopped Learning Chinese
In college, I had a Chinese professor, teaching a course on China, who boasted that Chinese has the easiest grammar of any language, and if anyone could write a paper identifying a language to demonstrate otherwise, he would give that student an A for the semester. Well, after living among the Chinese and hearing their language daily, also hearing their incessant boasts about how ancient and great their civilization was, how everything was first invented, done, or developed in China (even pizza, preposterously, of all things), and after losing patience with the Chinese way of life, I will offer some hyperbole of my own: Chinese is the worst language I have ever heard. Just the same as there might be some language spoken by a tribe in Papua New Guinea that linguists could contend might have simpler grammar than Chinese, there might be a language on this earth that sounds worse than Chinese, but my ears have not discovered it.
Now “heard” implies listening to spoken Chinese, and listening and speaking are only half of the major divisions of language (the other two dimensions being reading and writing). Based on what I have written already, I will leave it to the reader to imagine how inefficient and tedious it is, not to mention culturally exclusive, to use the Chinese writing system.
Those artful symbols seem so impressive until one tries to use them for all of life’s daily reading and writing purposes. Then, constantly stumped by the appearance of new words and having no idea how to pronounce them, and wishing that words could just be spelled out with a pen or keyboard instead of having to make an artful or sloppy piece of calligraphy with a regimented writing method, it dawns on the newcomer: using pictographic and ideographic symbols for all of a written language isn’t such a good idea.
English words may be irregular and their phonics flawed, but they work efficiently and they are very flexible and adaptable. There is a reason computer keyboards the world over use Roman letters, and it is not because an Englishman has possession of their patent. It is because those letters were developed through the millennia of several civilizations, and the result is language units proved by the furnace of culture and time. They work- very well.
Yes, Chinese writing also works (any extant written language can be said to work- people use it, don’t they?), but I would argue not nearly as well. The Koreans and Japanese, who developed their written languages from Chinese, both saw the need to break the written characters down and create alphabets out of them. The Chinese, who take inordinate pride in their history and tradition, have never seen the need to do likewise. Pinyin transliteration is the closest they have come to compromising with reasonability.
When using a word from a foreign language, something Chinese is hamstrung from doing, but something I think English does exceptionally well (English speakers, think of all the foreign words you know from languages like Spanish and Japanese, and all the French phrases you recognize- now, do you speak those languages?), Chinese has to use its existing characters and sound the word out- poorly. Remember, their smallest language unit is the word, not the letter.
Example: my home state, Iowa, in Chinese pinyin combines three unrelated words to form “Ài-hé-huá.” Those three words are literally “love,” “lotus,” and the adjective for “Chinese” or “Han” culture. So, basically the combination is gibberish, and a Chinese has to have familiarity with these quasi-phonetic combinations to know that the words are not lost but are pitifully trying to indicate a place name. In America, place names popularly use words from Native American languages, and Roman letters do a better than decent job of retaining the sound of the original language, though it takes an awful lot of k’s, vowels, and sign space to do so.
The written Chinese characters are what beguile foreign eyes and entice them to think Chinese must be such an exotic and esoteric language, but that is not the case. Once the alluring bait is taken, the sucker realizes the truth- that the incredible visual symbols are masking childishly simple words that mostly sound like “cheese” and “seizure.” I am almost serious. Chinese has so many sounds similar to “sh-” and “ch-” and “j-” that learning their language made me think I was in a speech therapy class meant to manage the way I pushed air through my teeth.
On the topic of the spoken word, I have to admit I am not much of an authority. I never heard Chinese spoken. I heard it barked, shouted, growled, blurted, hissed, sputtered, ejected, muttered, whined, scolded, chided, coughed, screeched, yelled, howled, whispered through closed lips, called out impatiently by a screeching woman, sung in a thin, tinny falsetto voice, and histrionically recited by a man for an audience, but I never heard it spoken. If one’s only exposure to spoken Chinese is a foreign film, it goes without saying that those actors were speaking stylized lines clearly enough for the boom microphone to pick them up. If one has heard the clamor of a kitchen in a Chinese restaurant, that is more like what I am referring to.
It is not the people’s fault that the language comes out so rushed, so clipped- that is the natural tendency when speaking the short, friction-filled sounds of Chinese. If the context ever demands enunciation, like in the narration of television commercials, and spoken Chinese is put on display, then the resulting sound is absurd and buffoonish. I expected viewers to crack up at the overdone, pompous voices on television- the voices having to fall up and down and flit erratically like a dollar bill in the wind in order to precisely hit the jarring tone changes between every Chinese syllable- but my Chinese friends’ faces were unflinching. They could not hear the ridiculousness of the language because they were native to it and the sounds could not be heard, only their meaning.
Those clownish Chinese voices were artificial, not representative of the voices I suffered in my daily experience. Those voices spat out the harsh, static sounds of the language that made me wince. Even though I had attained a base level of Chinese that would have allowed me to speak to shopkeepers and ask for directions, had I felt brave, I almost always avoided opening my mouth to get the locals’ attention. I didn’t want to be shouted at in return. When I took a taxi and had to communicate, I would mutely hand the driver a slip of paper with my destination written on it. Sometimes that wasn’t enough. The driver would badger me and try to get more money out of me, and I would testily mutter in Chinese, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand…” over and over until the driver would give up in frustration of I did and exited the cab.
It was a surprising contrast to my experiences traveling in Thailand and speaking to the rare Thai person met in America. In those cases, I was giddy to try out what few phrases I knew, and I was pleasantly satisfied when the happy stranger would smile and pleasantly reply to me in a clean voice. Most of the Thai people I have attempted to speak to really were friendly and accommodating, and the experience showed me how common humanity could bridge the gulf of culture and language.
In China, the people did not speak anything like a friendly, clear, accommodating voice. Even when a sweet young lady wanted to say something smilingly polite, the sounds of Chinese are so pinched and abrupt that the message sounded like she had a mouth full of food. I felt no compulsion to talk to the Chinese in their own tongue; I had a distaste for the exercise that bordered on revulsion.
I would put it like this: in English, there are three moods: the indicative mood, for statements and questions; the imperative, for giving commands and advice; and the subjunctive, to express conditional statements or wishes (e.g. “If I were rich, I would buy a new house.”). In Chinese, I observed only one mood: angry. Every interaction was quickly spoken and short-tempered. Several times an English-speaking Chinese student or friend would excuse a violent-sounding scene to me by saying, “Those people sound like they are arguing, but they are just talking” or “She just asked him what time the bus arrives.”
I could sense mild embarrassment in my Chinese apologist, and could not but question to myself when Chinese culture at large was going to take the hint from foreigners’ faces- white(r) with shock- and stop excusing the cacophony inherent in their speaking voices and make heartfelt reforms in their language and the way they spoke it.
I do not need to understand Japanese, by contrast, to pick up on the great politeness and reserve the Japanese speak with. Body language, tone of voice, and the sound of their words reveal it to me. Being around Chinese speakers in the many and various chaotic, crowded, and disgusting settings of a real Chinese city, I was struck by the intensity of volume and spirit the Chinese would begin speaking with in the blink of an eye. I could read in their voices and body language that they were agitated and distressed, at once bound close enough in community that strangers could quickly strike up a conversation as if they were a married couple resuming a paused feud, and distant enough that no one received strangers with a kind smile, a slowly spoken reply, and a gentle nod of the head. If felt as if the whole country was composed of stock brokers, always chattering and shouting- never speaking- and shoving each other to get to the front of whichever line they were in.
It dawned on me then, that I found no innate appeal in the Chinese language. The visuals of the written characters had worn thin and let me down, and I could not bring myself to adopt the people’s hot, quarrelsome way of speaking. I have often heard other languages spoken and found much beauty and appeal in them. Hearing the acrobatic lisps of Spanish speakers, the fluid friction of German, or the low, flowing syllables of Japanese attracts me and makes me curious about the depths their language conceals. I find I have a thirst to know their treasures of language and culture.
In China, I heard what seemed like endless boasting about their civilization, but after living in the real conditions of China, submerged in the torrent of choppy spoken sounds, I lost interest in their culture. I knew it was all a sham. The Chinese can school me in Confucian social order and harmony when their drivers learn to yield to traffic lights and pedestrians, when their people learn to form a line at the cafeteria, the train station, or of all places a national monument or museum, like the one dedicated to the Nanking Massacre, where all solemnity was broken during my visit by the mass of inconsiderate boors who would barge in with their elbows and stand to take pictures in front of others.
I realized this epiphany in real-life experience: language and culture are so intricately connected that it can be said language is culture. It was no accident that people who yelled at each other as a matter of course also honked their car horns nonstop at each other, pushed each other in all public places, and showed no shyness when spitting or having their children defecate in front of each other. Chinese culture had me disgusted, and its language had done little better. I wanted a part of neither.
Language, if one does not speak it, is an incredibly vast and deep system, seemingly impossible to conform one’s mind to. If one does speak the language, it is nothing at all. It takes no special effort for me to think in English. Learning Chinese though, or any other foreign language, would require great effort and that I took the time to live in Chinese-speaking society. Learning a foreign language then is a great compliment. The learner is declaring that this language and culture is worth his time, so much so that he is willing to make it a singular pursuit. The end goal is participation in a new culture and society. Again, it is nothing for me to visit a local restaurant, peruse the menu, and place my order, but for a foreigner dreaming the American dream, this is an impressive feat and a big step towards integration.
Integration became the furthest thing from my mind in China. I wanted relief; I wanted to leave. As the second semester waned, my Chinese studies all but completely ceased. I would still talk to Aunt Fong in Chinese, but I bitterly left my Chinese workbooks to gather dust. I did not want to be part of Chinese society. I did not want to remain in their country. Those are the real motivations for learning Chinese. Not wanting to remain in China, I no longer had those goals. Therefore, I stopped learning Chinese.
A Lesson and a Concession
Going through the effort to learn Chinese, and especially the exercise of thinking about language, has made me think differently than the common views on language. My perspective is this: when I hear someone explain a feature of a foreign language, I do not treat it like a rule, I treat it like a proposal. So, for example, when someone shows me that the written character for the Chinese singular pronoun “I” or “me”: 我, takes seven marks of the pen, I do not stroke my chin and say, “How interesting. Your writing system must contain much meaning within these complex symbols.” No, I open my eyes widely in a bewildered stare and ask, “Are you serious? Do you realize how tedious and time-consuming that will be to spend seven strokes on such a basic word? Not to mention, you’re going to have to design these abstract symbols of yours for every single word– every concept, function, feeling, action, and object.
‘Your stick figure makes sense for the word ‘man’ (人), but how do you propose to make an iconic representation for a word like ‘discontent’? No, stop. Don’t draw your symbol for me. Inventing it is the easy part. How do you propose you will teach every literate person in your society how to read and write each of your thousands of symbols? Your schools will be little more than factories where robotic children are forced to learn by rote to such an extent that they will lose all aptitude for critical thinking or creativity. But if that is what you want, carry on with the symbol making.”
And again, “You are proposing to make every word a one-syllable sound? And because your language units come as simple, solid words, you are going to do away with an alphabet altogether? No, no, no, that will never work. Think of what will happen when you try and introduce a new sound, when you need a new word to describe a new thing, or to incorporate a foreign word. How will you do it? How will you pass along to everyone the pronunciation of the new word? Your language units are already fixed, and there are no phonics or other universal standards of word sounds, so how will you solve the problem of making new words? You say all new words will be compound words? And foreign words can be approximately sounded out with your existing word sounds? Well, that sounds like an awfully broad use of the word ‘approximately.’ Listening to you say ‘Washington’ (Hua-sheng-dun) sounds like a man speaking with a frozen jaw.
“But your compound words idea- are you forgetting that using only single-syllable sounds is already going to force you to overlap and border similar sounds to the point that you will have to rely on those awkward, ugly tones to differentiate between the sounds? Even then, many of the words will still have the exact same sound and tone. There are more things in heaven and earth, Hu Rui-Xiao, than are dreamt of in your language units. Your words and sounds are far too limited. Combining your monosyllables into compound words might be a solution to the problem of making new words, but it only compounds the original problem of having too many words with similar sounds or the exact same sounds. It’s indistinguishable.
“Imagine this scenario: you are on the phone with your friend and you ask about the ‘ma’ vehicle. It’s spoken over the phone, and it’s in Chinese, so your words are doubly indistinct.
“Your friend asks you, ‘DID YOU SAY “MAHN” (慢)? YOU WANT THE “SLOW” VEHICLE?’
“You impatiently correct him, ‘NO, CAN’T YOU HEAR? I SAID “MA,” NOT “MAHN.”’
“He then rightly defends himself, ‘BUT THE TWO SOUND IDENTICAL. BOTH ARE SPOKEN QUICKLY AND THE VOWEL ISN’T FULLY FORMED, SO “MAHN” SOUNDS JUST LIKE “MA.” IT IS ONLY THE DIFFERENCE OF ABRUPTLY CEASING THE SOUND WITH AN OPEN MOUTH VERSUS LIGHTLY AND IMPERCEPTIBLY TOUCHING THE TONGUE TO THE ROOF OF THE MOUTH, CUTTING THE FULL SOUND OF THE WORD SHORT.’
“You proceed, ‘LOOK, I DIDN’T CALL YOU TO ARGUE ABOUT HOW UNCLEAR OUR LANGUAGE IS, I JUST CALLED TO ASK ABOUT THE “MA” VEHICLE.’
“Your friend again says, ‘DID YOU SAY “MA” (马) AS IN THE BEAST OF BURDEN WITH LONG LEGS AND A FAST GALLOP, OR DID YOU SAY “MA” (妈) AS IN A WOMAN WHO BEARS CHILDREN AND RAISES THEM?’
“Fed up with the runaround, you repeat yourself, ‘I SAID “MA”!’
“Your friend, no less confused, replies, ‘I STILL CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU. I WOULD ASK YOU TO SPELL IT OUT- “D” AS IN “DOG,” “B” AS IN “BOY”- BUT WE DON’T HAVE AN ALPHABET. HOW DO WE EVER EXCHANGE EMAIL ADDRESSES WITH ONE ANOTHER?’
“You, by this point screaming, not just loud-talking, repeat again, ‘I SAID “MA”!’
“Your friend will say, ‘STOP SHOUTING!’
“And you will say, ‘I’M NOT SHOUTING! I’M ONLY SPEAKING CHINESE TO YOU. BRING THE “MA” VEHICLE!’
“Your friend finally compromises, ‘I’LL JUST ATTACH THE HORSE TRAILER TO YOUR MOTHER’S CAR AND DRIVE THEM BOTH OVER TO YOU.’
“Now, my friend, is this the kind of interaction you want to set yourself up for? Then please, be reasonable and develop some phonics, an alphabet, and a wider range of sounds. It will require that you make something new, that you innovate rather than repeating and venerating the works of the past. So, I will leave it to you, my Chinese friend, to move toward the path of sensible innovation or remain where you are in the haphazard slough of fixed civilization. I know which option you should pursue, but I fear which one you will stubbornly hold onto.”
I may sound exceptionally jaded to the Chinese language and its culture, but my dissatisfaction is in due proportion to the height of my expectations and the depth of my real disappointment. I had so much hope and time invested in Chinese, and what was the result of my labors? I could use a spare Chinese word or phrase in a discussion with a bilingual friend, but hearing and seeing the Chinese language in public had become too wearisome.
I did not care to cross over with both feet and become familiar with a language that rushed out in such hostile and harsh sounds. I did not want to talk to someone using a voice like that, and I felt no personal trust with a person who spoke to me like that. We would sound like two dogs fighting over a bone, and any fluent onlookers would have to interpret for foreign ears that we were just commenting on how lovely the weather was going to be for our upcoming holiday.
At least, if I had learned a language like Russian, I would have sounded nefarious and arch. People would hear me and either think I was scheming something or lamenting my woeful place in this world. Almost any other language, and people would say what a charming and alluring accent I had. Speaking Chinese is seductive to no one. When Chinese speakers use English, the Mandarin speakers speak ploddingly, breathily, but with not much of a flavorful accent, and the Cantonese speakers, who have nine standard tones in their language, sound like banjo strings being plucked, tightened, and unwound.
And as far as I know, no Chinese words or idioms have proven themselves worthy to use in English, other than food names (e.g. “bok choy” or “chow mein”), and the simplified phrases “Chop, chop” and “Long time, no see” (this is a common Chinese saying, but it is not for certain that the English phrase came from the Chinese parallel).
Contrast that with French, a language whose artful phrases seem tailor-made for flourishes in English sentences. It sounds so much more sophisticated to say “C’est la vie” instead of our plain “That’s life.” The only advantageous Chinese words I have found are their numbers (credit for this insight is owed to Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success). Chinese numbers are pronounced quicker than English numbers, so they are easier to speak and remember, and there are no irregular numbers like “eleven.” In Chinese, that would be “ten-one.”
After my studies and my time in China, I was left with a smattering of simple, practical knowledge of a language that I did not want to use in its homeland, and which is mostly useless to me in America, where Chinese is a lingua franca to no one, and where the first and second generation Chinese immigrants can either speak English to outsiders, or if incompetent, can keep up a cold, distant front with those outside their group. I am not denying that Chinese people can be friendly or work and speak with others. I am not interpreting language fluency as friendliness. I am saying that in my experience with foreign immigrants and visitors, I have found it easy to talk with the Japanese and Thais, for example, but difficult to approach the Chinese, get on their wavelength, and establish trust.
When I spoke Thai to the Thais or talked about Japan to the Japanese, they smiled and talked back, but when I have gone against my better intuition and dared to speak Chinese to the Chinese in America, they mostly seemed shocked or uncomfortable with it, uninterested in talking to me. That is in America though. In China, there were times when my white face attracted a crowd, and many Chinese students eagerly peppered me with cheerful questions.
I do not feel vengeful toward China and its people, mostly I feel disappointment and exasperation which I issue in the form of real observation and rebuke. If the Chinese were humble about their language, if they disfavored boasting about their country and culture, I would see no need to be critical. I have no quarrel with the bashful, modest languages of the world, however absurd and unwieldy they may be. My problem is with pride and pretense, especially when it is undeserved. A language that sounds like ice dropped into a deep fryer should be more embarrassed of itself. Instead it proclaims itself and pretends it is unknowable, not able to be understood by outsiders. No, the problem with China is when it is seen and known, when it is exposed to outsiders and they are able to comment on it.
Lastly, my concession, which is only necessary. I have made quite a few censorious remarks on the Chinese language. I need to remember my place and keep things in perspective. St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, wrote that “Even things without life, whether flute or harp, when they make a sound, unless they make a distinction in the sounds, how will it be known what is piped or played?” At this point, the pride and vanity of my flesh smile and say, “No distinction in the sounds? Surely he must be talking about Chinese.”
But then I am corrected by Scripture, later in the same chapter: “There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without significance.” There I am shown, there my whole argument is tempered: Chinese is not without significance. It still has great beauty and use among a great number of people. I found it unpalatable, and I have my reasons for disliking its modern form and practice, but these are after all entirely subjective opinions.
My problem is not really about the essence of a language, but the way it is rudely and irrationally practiced today.
I am one displeased individual who must remember that Chinese has its significance and purpose apart from me. I do not care to speak it or study it, but it is still worth speaking and studying in itself. I will leave it to those at peace with Chinese culture to do so.
I still love China.
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