So
anyways, because my time is winding to an end and all I have left is my finals
week, I have a smidge of time between studying and keeping myself together for
writing in this blog. So without further ado, I would like to write about my
first big adventure (since the others that I have told you about). It was this
particular adventure that for some reason seemed to be the kick start to a
completely different Kunming experience. Life after that was no longer slow
moving, but rather fast-paced and the adventures kept coming and coming and
coming. Here was my experience of the Chinese Bridge Competition (in Chinese,
the Hanyu Qiao Bisai).
One
day, early in the term, my teacher suddenly asked the class, “So, every year
the school has a competition for foreigners speaking Mandarin Chinese…so who
wants to volunteer?” We really didn’t get much more information than that,
which made me hesitant. I was like, “Dude, my Chinese isn’t good enough to be
competing with other people, let alone to be competing IN CHINESE!!” So I
didn’t want to do it. But then it occurred to me that I haven’t really done
anything exceptionally interesting quite yet, and that it would be wise to jump
on every opportunity that I received. So, after a moment’s pause, my hand went
up to volunteer, along with another friend of mine from the class. The teacher
was delighted and made the class clap for us, which made me even more nervous.
I really had absolutely no idea what I had signed up for and what I was getting
myself into. NO IDEA. Actually at the time, I felt like my hand was not
connected to my brain when it went up, and to be honest for quite a while afterwards
when I was doing competition-related stuff I definitely felt like my actions
weren’t connected to my brain, like I was just aimlessly doing things, the
entire time thinking, “Oh my gosh, I can NOT believe I am doing this.”
We
didn’t get much information about the competition for a couple weeks and then
the teacher tells us there will be a meeting for the contestants in a few days.
At that meeting…I didn’t understand A LOT of what was said…at the time, my
listening skills were HORRIBLE. Yes, it was all in Chinese. I was lucky to have
my friend translate it for me…gosh, I was lucky. But anyway, we went through a
series of meetings which ultimately explained the object of the competition,
the content, advice on what to do, and then they had us for groups of 3 to 6
people in which we would ourselves find a skit in Chinese, memorize it,
practice it, and then perform it for the performance. Throughout that time,
MANY people up and left the competition…they either were busy or just
overwhelmed by the stress of the competition and ultimately my friend from my
class also left. But I met another girl who helped me translate what was said
as well (but at this point I didn’t need it too much because my listening was
getting better).
This
girl was actually a Jamaican Chinese girl, and I had never met one of those
before! I’d only heard about them, and known that they were actually quite a
decent-sized population in Jamaica. It’s funny, because I found that even
though she was Chinese and I was black, she was just as Jamaican as I was! Her
parents both grew up in Jamaica and moved to (well…the Jamaicans reading this
can easily guess I’m sure) FLORIDA, haha. So she was an American citizen like
me. It was so strange being able to talk to her about ackee and saltfish, patty
and bun and cheese, or about my personal favorite, JERK CHICKEN. She was also
acquainted with the Jamaican terms just as much as I was, hahaha. I remember
one time we were talking in Chinese about the Chinese culture, and she threw
out the Jamaican term “duppy”, HAHA! (For those who don’t know, duppy means “ghost”.
We had been talking about ghosts.)
Anyway,
back to the competition. To be perfectly honest, the REASON why my listening
got better was because this competition SCARED ME TO DEATH. It was not on my
mind to WIN this competition, or to even place. I was not even concerned about
that. It would’ve been nice, but trust me, if you had seen the competitors, you
would have done what I did and put that thought out of your head IMMEDIATELY.
Of the levels participating in this competition, I was in the second lowest,
and from my level of Chinese I had the least experience and the worst listening
skills. There was only one girl from the level lower than mine. So basically
that made me the second worst contestant in the entire competition…and not even
that, because the girl from the lower level had already been there for half a
year, I had only been there for two months at the time. I was by far the least
experienced with communicating Chinese at the time, knowing that I did not
practice speaking very much in America at CMU.
Now
if you had seen these contestants and had been at the level I was (which was
VERY low), you would have been shaking in your shoes. These contestants were
speaking with long sentences and words I didn’t even know. They were not
stumbling over their words or pausing to figure out how to say something. Apart
from their accents, they sounded almost fluent. They were talking with the
teacher and laughing at the jokes she made and making jokes themselves. At the
time, I didn’t understand any of it. I just sat there trying to keep my poker
face on, but I definitely think the fear may have shown through the poker face.
I was terrified.
So
ultimately, as I said before, winning was not even a consideration. My goal was
to NOT EMBARRASS MYSELF on that stage in front of all those people. I was so
scared that I was going to be standing there, the judge would ask me a question
that I couldn’t understand (as I said before, IT’S ALL IN CHINESE), and then I
would stand there babbling like a fool or just having a blank face in front of
all those people. That would be embarrassing. So I threw myself into studying
and watching Chinese movies, TV shows, interviews, and just random clips in
Chinese. At the time, I had also just began my Kung-fu classes, and so that
gave me some extra practice with my Chinese speaking and listening skills as
well. I threw myself into it like no other, fueled by probably the most
effective motivation a person could have: fueled by fear. I studied, studied,
studied yes because I wanted to become fluent in Chinese, but more strongly
because I was terrified of not being able to effectively participate in the
competition because I couldn’t understand what was being said.
And
in the end, I am happy to say that my studying was able to get me where I
needed to be. My listening wasn’t as good as the other people’s, but it was
enough I guess. And I was lucky to receive some valuable information about
Chinese culture from a Chinese co-worker of my dad’s. And then…the competition
day arrived.
