First day of Classes

So today (actually yesterday now, but I had trouble getting online to post it) was the first day of classes on all sides of the globe. It went pretty well here: I felt pretty good about my language skills and got some big helpers on pronunciation. I think that in the near future I’m going to try and switch to private lessons in order to cram more into what’s seeming like an increasingly limited time here—is it really possible to get a decent grasp of a language from nothing in 2-3 months? I’ll keep you posted. But they were talking about how by the end of the semester (in January; I’m not staying for the whole thing) we might be all the way to reading sentences, and I guess I’m hoping for a little more than that. But we’ll see.

My class was about 50-50 Westerners and Asians, which is apparently high—most of the classes are dominated by people from Southeast Asia and Korea, with a few Japanese and Westerners sprinkled in. It was kind of interesting, too: for the most part, the Westerners had less trouble with pronunciation than did the Asians. The Laotians in my class especially had a lot of trouble making some of the sounds, though by the end they were doing well. Came as a little surprise (though it probably shouldn’t) considering that we’re only a couple hundred miles from the Laotian border, while Europe and Meiguo are considerably further away. And a big illustration of the fact that despite the beliefs of much of the United States, Asia is in fact a hugely diverse continent and it’s peoples are no more similar to one another than are Inuit, European Americans, Mexicans, and Jamaicans. Or pick any four nationalities, and really I’m feeling sort of uncomfortable about grouping people like that, because all those societies are totally diverse in themselves… so the point is that just because they look the same to you doesn’t mean they’re at all alike in any way, even in appearance, your eyes aren’t trained very well.

The other thing was that while talking to some of the students, I met not one but two people who have been in China off and on for about six years, and are still just starting to learn the language. I’m impressed that you could do this, given how many people speak pretty good English and how enormous the demand for English teaching is, but it’s kind of crazy that it seems to be so common. We’ll see if I avoid it; I hope so… In general I don’t really like traveling to places where I don’t speak at least a little of the language, because it feels like I’m missing most of the point. I’m still not sure if I’m going to be able to get that here or not, but I really hope that I can. Just from living here for the past week I’m impressed that this is a huge, diverse, vibrant, lively society, and once you have the key of the language all that is unlocked, and it’s enough to fill 3-4 lifetimes at least. I’m working on finding that key.