Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MONTHS IN CHINA
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China is a fascinating and rapidly changing country. Old customs and habits hang on as modern skyscrapers go up
every second, the country becomes more of a global powerhouse, and people from around the world move there.
Last year, my friend Scott Young, best known as a learning hacker who learned MIT’s entire computer science
program in one year, said to me, “I’m going to travel the world for a year and learn languages.” I was thrilled with
the idea! Today, he shares what he learned while living in China for three months — and how the media portrays
countries is often very wrong.
Recently my friend Vat and I finished a three-month stay in China. The plan was, with minimal preparation, to
arrive in China and speak as little English as possible, in order to learn Mandarin Chinese.
The trip transformed my perception of China, from the unfair image it sometimes has in the West. In this article, I
want to share the biggest lessons I learned about China, life, and travel from that experience.
Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the intonation doesn’t just change emphasis but also what words
mean. My friend went to a restaurant and attempted to order “shu? ji?o” (boiled dumplings) but instead ordered
“shuì jiào” (go to sleep).
Finally, few English words borrowed into the language survive unscathed, often sounding completely different from
their original. McDonald’s, which is available throughout China, adopts the Chinese name “Mài dàng láo.”
While the Chinese language, like China itself, may seem daunting, it hides one of the most interesting linguistic
systems on the planet. Chinese words have a tendency to be built up out of simpler pieces, like building a sentence
out of Lego:
Panda = “bear cat” (xióngm?o)
Chameleon = “color change dragon” (biànsèlóng)
Pumpkin = “south melon” (nángu?)
Potato = “soil bean” (t?dòu)
University = “big learn” (dàxué)
Movie = “electric shadow” (diàny?ng)
With great difficulties also come great rewards. Learning Chinese may have been mind-bending at times, but it also
allowed Vat and me to interact with completely different people in China than an English-only perspective would
allow.
Near the end of our stay, I conversed over tea with a tattooed Buddhist. Together we talked about Tibet, religion,
and cultural differences. That conversation would never have happened had I refused to learn any Chinese.