Yanli Zhang
The holidays are coming one by one. All the senses of this city are almost the same as the day I came to this country.
Nearly two years ago, I flew from Shanghai, China, to reunite with my husband.
I stood in the crowd at Los Angeles International Airport and looked around, feeling lonely.
The surrounding people were all talking in foreign languages. All I was worried about was my visa interview.
When the officer said “Hello” to me, I didn’t know what to say and how to react.
I smiled to be polite.
I was too nervous to know and remember what was going on at that time.
After a two-minute interview, I got my visa. I ran out of the airport to a totally new life.
Still, I have problem with the answer to, “How are you?”
In China, people don’t greet others with a question like, “How are you?”
We just say, “You are fine,” as a wish and a greeting. The response will also be “You are fine.”
I asked my English teacher, David Miller, what is the best answer to “How are you?”
I was surprised that he said “I’m good” is not the correct answer. However, it is the most frequent answer that I’ve heard.
Now, I try to answer “fine” to the question, “How are you?”, but sometimes, “good” jumps out before “fine.”
During the first year I was in this country, I taught myself English at home. I hope I can keep improving my English. On the contrary, it’s impossible.
For anyone who is learning a foreign language, the improvement always steps forward and then a little bit backward.
Last spring, I came to Pierce College to put myself in an English environment and learn something that I can’t learn at a library. I chose journalism classes to learn culture fast and have a chance to talk with people.
Like an infant, curiosity, confusion and excitement are my loyal shadow during these two semesters at Pierce.
In fact, only when I met with problems, did I learn. Sometimes it hurts.
My classmates think I’m shy because I seldom talk.
Actually, I’m not shy. I can’t catch up with the speed in which they talk.
When they were talking, my brain was busy making sure each English word that I heard, translating the English words into Chinese, making a response in Chinese silently in my brain, translating the response into English and then gave the translation out.
But normally, before I finished this process, they have talked about the next topic.
And then I went into the process for the following topics.
Another reason why I can’t join their conversation is the way they talk is very different from what I am used to.
Many different customs exist between America and China. Not many people realize that what they do will conflict with other’s customs. But, it happens very often.
“I never met a person who doesn’t want his name to be printed,” said one of my advisers, Rob O’Neil, the chair of media arts department, once in class.
I didn’t raise my hand to say, “I don’t want my name to be printed.”
Chinese journalists used nicknames until March 2005, when a law was enacted to require them to use their legal names.
I’d rather to use a nickname instead of my real name on publications, so that I can hide behind it.
I don’t want anyone know my history or any stranger to recognize my face.
People are lost in my culture very often, but they don’t know.
When people know I’m Chinese, they ask, “What do you speak, Mandarin or Cantonese?” The answer is Mandarin.
Actually, Mandarin is the official language in China mainland.
Cantonese is the official language of Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.
Besides Mandarin and Cantonese, there are hundreds of dialects in China. Some of the dialects could be understood by Mandarin speakers, but most not.
It’s very common that people from different places are not able to understand each other’s mother tongue.
Sometimes I want to teach people Chinese, such as my name.
At first when people pronounced my name wrongly, I would say my name once or several times again.
But people can’t tell the difference between their pronunciations and mine.
Now, I have to get used to all kinds of “names” of mine.
Compared with Chinese, English is easy to learn, but very hard to be right every time. I think I just need more time to practice.
Once, I was very upset about the problems I met.
Later, I realized that I don’t need to be upset. Life is moving forward very fast, so I don’t want to waste any second.
Moreover, it’s good to have chance to learn how colorful life can be.
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