Challenge 8: Autobiography

13. You’ve just written a 300-page autobiography. Send us page 217. (University of Pennsylvania)

and I thought the first few days were easy-peasy.

The next few weeks to come were definitely a shock to me. Learning Chinese was a lot harder than I imagined it to be. Like the usual, my teacher, laoshi, taught me in the morning for three hours from 10am till 1pm. The first hour and-a-half went by swiftly, but the following 90 minutes were tedious. Memorizing word after word and trying to have a conversation in a language that I barely understood made me feel helpless. The moment the clock struck one, my eyes widened as we left for lunch. A traditional Chinese cuisine, in which everything was eaten using chopsticks, awaited us every day. “Even if my Chinese doesn’t improve, my ‘chopsticks using skill’ certainly will,” I told my teacher cheerfully.

“Don’t say that!”Laoshi replied encouragingly after a burst of laughter.

I always looked forward to the afternoon classes as my teacher felt it was necessary for me to experience real-life situations in which I could use and practice what I had been taught. This usually meant asking for directions, going into shops and buying things, and sometimes even talking to random strangers.

As Laoshi and I walked in the excruciating afternoon heat, she said, “Repeat after me, ‘duo shao qian?’ This means, ‘how much does this cost?’” I kept repeating that over and over again, making sure I got all the tones right. Oh, how I hate the tones. That is definitely the hardest part of speaking the language!

We walked into a 7-Eleven from which I got myself a bottle of water and pack of gum. As I stood by the counter my teacher nudged me and whispered in my ear, “Say it! Ask her how much it costs!”  For a second I completely blanked out. When I realized what she had said, I timidly asked the lady at the counter, “d-duo shao-" Without even paying the slightest attention to me, she cut me off in the middle of the question and told me how much it cost. I was relieved that she hadn’t heard me, just in case I might have said something wrong. While walking back my teacher was quite annoyed at me. With a sigh she said, “Don’t be afraid! If you don’t try and practice, you will never learn! You need to speak up!” I thought about it, and I knew she was right. Many more chances like this were to come, and I was ready to approach them in the right way.