Voices

The teachers who are all around us

By Sam Kestenbaum (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-08 07:54

 

When you're learning a new language, anyone can be your teacher.

In Beijing, I've been taught by bicycle repairmen, taxi drivers, cooks and migrant workers.

I'm not enrolled in a study-abroad program or an intensive language immersion course; I don't have a formal Chinese instructor or someone teaching me social customs and traditions. I don't have a guide here; I have many guides.

Like an increasing number of foreigners in Beijing, I am here primarily to work. I made my move to China with - embarrassingly - almost no knowledge of the ancient, tonal language. But the minute I stepped off the plane, I started learning.

There is no way I can't learn. Everyone wants to teach me.

I moved in with a Chinese family soon after arriving in Beijing. In exchange for room and board, I agreed to speak English to their four-year-old son. I live in one of those rare Beijing neighborhoods where there are no foreigners.

Wherever I go, people stop and stare. Construction workers scratch their heads and laugh.

I return the looks I get, and smile. And then I take these opportunities to make a fool of myself.

With my infantile command of the language, I make conversation. I speak with anyone - with the street vendors who sell my breakfast of doujiang or my lunch of dao xiao mian or with my bicycle repairman - and in turn, they teach me.

When I run into a word I don't know, I pantomime. I become an actor; I wave my hands in the air.

My bicycle repairman squints at me as I try to explain myself. Wringing my hands back and forth in a twisting motion, I point to my brakes.

"Can you, can you ... ?" I ask and point. I don't know the word for "tighten".

He squints, looks at me, at the bike and back again. He nods. Rummaging through grease-stained tools, he finds a wrench and with a few quick turns, tightens both my front and bake brakes.

"That's much better," I say. "Thanks."

He laughs and says something to me. I don't understand. My repairman speaks quickly and with a thick, garbled Beijing accent.

"I don't understand your Chinese. You speak too fast!"

Smiling, he repeats himself, punctuating each word by stamping his forefinger on his calloused palm.

"I ... will ... teach ... you ... something. The word ... in ... Chinese ... is ... ning jin."

He claps his hands together. He has just taught how to say "tighten" in Chinese. I sound out the new word, repeat it twice, and say thank you.

"Take care," he says and waves me off, a proud smile on his face. I may not be enrolled in a university, but I have teachers all over the city, eager to instruct.