Why I used to hate Chinese (that’s changed)

For much of my life, I’ve been tormented by Chinese speakers. 

“He’s Chinese, how come he cannot speak Chinese?” – spoken in Mandarin, very loudly, by a service agent in Singapore who thought I was deaf, apparently

“Hello I’m not your Chinese teacher” – spoken by an adult friend who’s good in Chinese, after I asked about the definition of a word.

“Oh he jia kantang!” – spoken by certain university hostel mates (not friends), when I chose to reply in English.

That’s not to say that all Chinese speakers have been terrible to me. 

My JC Chinese teacher made me interested in the language again (after being tortured by my secondary school Chinese teacher). 

My army friends were really nice in trying to code switch for me when I spoke Chinese. 

I’ve also got friends who are good in Chinese, who will help me out when I need help understanding something in Chinese.

Needless to say, it has impacted my desire (and courage) to learn Chinese.

And actually, learning in general.

People don’t set out to be intentionally bad at something

The thing is – nobody ever intentionally sets out to be bad at something.

Likewise, I don’t set out to intentionally mangle my Mandarin words. Well, not all the time, anyway – unless I’m making a joke or trying to make a point.

I try. I figured out how to say scriptwriter, scripts, and generally production terms in Mandarin long ago because I thought that was important.

Also, I apparently sound normal when I talk about wuxia stories. Conversant, even.

I try to learn more words, try to increase my vocabulary, try to practice more – but it’s hard when you get slammed by Chinese speakers left and right. If I try, and I get slammed – what’s the point of trying? 

And I think many students (young and old) can identify when a teacher chides them for being bad at a subject.

Kids, by default, have very little knowledge and experience

I breathe very hard when I see an adult chiding a kid for being bad at a subject. Or for being bad at anything, really.

If you’ve never done something before, isn’t it likely that you’ll be bad at it? Isn’t it likely that you won’t do it well? And if you’ve lived very few years on this Earth – what other experiences are you going to draw upon? What common sense do you possess? 

That’s why I think it’s a horrible thing to chide a kid for being bad at something – be it memorising, be it Chinese, be it Maths/Science/English.

They haven’t done it before. Repeatedly emphasising that they’re bad at it is completely useless – how will they get better at it? 

Do unto others, as others have done unto you

This cycle of constantly getting slammed for my Chinese has had an insidious effect – which is that I’m starting to feel that I’m entitled to slam Chinese speakers when they have bad English.

After all, if it’s fine to slam an English speaker for bad Chinese – shouldn’t the opposite be okay? 

That service agent whom I’m sure cheated on their English language proficiency test to work here – I felt like shaming and reporting her.

That friend who’s good in Chinese but says “gossipS” and “stuffS” all the damn time – I felt like being a grammar Nazi to show her how it felt to be on the receiving end.

Those university hostel mates who can’t seem to string together a grammatical English sentence – I felt like asking how many times they failed their English tests in school.

Of course, an eye for an eye and all that – perpetuating the hostile Chinese speaker culture won’t help.

And if I – an adult, with presumably more life experience and better mental/emotional control – can struggle not to think this way…

Won’t it be worse for children?  

Assume the best of children

So whenever I see that a student isn’t as good as he or she would like to be – I always assume that they want to be better. 

They don’t set out to be bad at it. But remember – they have so few resources and experiences to draw upon. Of course they’re going to be stonewalled by this. Of course they’re not going to figure it out.

We should be there to help them figure it out.

That’s what we’re here for. That’s what we, as adults, should do. Not berate them endlessly for being bad at it. 

I give children the benefit of the doubt (surprise!). And I think it’s important to do that because they learn whatever we show them – and if we don’t show them kindness, how else do you think they’ll behave in the future? 

So the next time you want to tell a child off for being bad at something – remember that it made a person (me) hate a language for almost all his life.

Then I met a friendly Chinese community

Then I met a community of Mandarin speakers. 

They were friendly – willing to speak in English when I expressed that my Mandarin was poor. 

They were not haughty about their superior command of Chinese – they were more concerned that I communicate with them in a way that I’m comfortable. 

They were kind – not bashing my poor Mandarin when I couldn’t express the words I wanted to.

And it made a difference. It has made such a huge difference to me.

My headline changed from “I hate Chinese and what you can learn from it” to “I used to hate Chinese (that’s changed)”.

So be kind. Don’t make people hate languages, or anything for that matter.