I have lived abroad before, but there was something different about this one. Well, actually there were a few things different about this one. Where I was going was a country with an unfamiliar language, food, culture and way of life. A perfect opportunity for some life lessons. I landed in Beijing on the 10th of June 2019 and I returned to Manchester airport on the 10th of August 2019. In hindsight, a short period, but it did not feel like it on the 10th of June. This short period taught me some very useful lessons.
Some will define the two as different concepts. One being negative or more negative than the other. However, I cannot think of a time when generalisation is considered positive or accurate. It always leads to inaccurate conclusions, which can, in many occasions, be negative.
Before embarking on my short Chinese journey, I went with some preconceptions about the country and more specifically about its people. I believed that the Chinese are well travelled as it is extremely rare for you to travel to a tourist destination and not see a representative of China. This assumption led to a couple of different sub-misconceptions. I assumed they would be able to speak or at least understand the English language and I thought they would not be alarmed or amazed at seeing “foreign faces”.
To my surprise, English was a rarity, in speech, understanding and writing (on menus and ingredient lists). As a result, it was a painful experience trying to do day to day tasks like ordering food or buying groceries. This was in the capital of the country, Beijing. However, I am not going to be your typical obnoxious and arrogant English speaker complaining about the world not being able to speak English. I was in their country and therefore it was my deficiency that I could not speak their language. I will return to this point in lesson three.
My second assumption was that they would be used to seeing foreign faces. Unfortunately, this was not the case. This realisation was shocking and disheartening at times. Any non-Chinese face would get stares (not just looks) on each and every outing. Whether it is in a busy subway station or a mall or a restaurant. On the odd occasion these stares would turn into secret picture taking or even blatant in your faces ones. In their defence, these actions were innocent and no malice were ever intended. However, they forget that everyone has feelings. No one likes this kind of overwhelming and what at times felt like hostile reception. It would deter the strongest of characters to venture out for routine tasks.
In China, much of the internet is not available to access. Websites and applications like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp are on the banned list. Basically, the whole internet if you come from the West. One cannot access these while in China, except via a VPN. Whether foreigners can use a VPN or not is still a bit fuzzy to me, but this was the only way to remain sane and somewhat connected with back home. However, the VPN services are very poor and inconsistent. This would result in hours of no internet or during one period a week and usually nights would be bad. Watching a short 10 minute YouTube video would take hours (on a good day), communicating with family back home would be difficult (to be fair WeChat was a saviour) and planning lessons would be unnecessarily time consuming. So, this had an adverse effect on my personal and professional life. Eventually, I did overcome this though and more creative methods were sought to deal with this inefficiency, but the initial weeks were tough. It made me realise how reliant I was on the internet. Twenty odd years ago the internet was not used for planning lessons, communicating with family or entertainment. Today, it seems we cannot live without it.
On a side note, I would like to mention that I am not against the Chinese government banning all of these websites and social media. Speaking to the locals, they do not seem to be too bothered by it. The government should do whatever it feels is right to keep the people happy, safe and out of trouble. Social media is the biggest reason for the unrest, bloodshed and total carnage in many countries around the world in the past few years. So, I am all for preventing that.
As alluded to before, I do not know Chinese and English is not spoken or understood by most in China. This led to a very tough experience. The feeling of helplessness, uselessness, lowliness and embarrassment is common with even the absolute mundane tasks. This was a powerful lesson for me, probably because I am a language teacher. This is my profession and this is my passion. And this only proved the effect of language and how it can totally make or break an experience in a foreign country. Language gives one confidence, comfort and just the ability to do things. Truly, language is power.
1 generalisation is overgeneralisation
2 our overreliance on the internet
3 language is power
