Quest for the holy grail at a snail's pace

Learning Chinese is like exploring a Raiders of the Lost Ark-type underground tomb. Fire lanterns hang on tunnel walls, and between each lighted area is frustrating darkness.

In the beginning, the Chinese beginner spends most of their time in the dark, and then wonderful moments of clarity light the path. The four tones actually start sounding different, new words learnt weeks before leap to mind, and even some of those strange squiggly lines make sense. Then it's back along the dark trail of twisted sentence structures and de and le and ne.

Like Indiana Jones, I'm searching for treasure, and my Holy Grail is the Chinese language. I've been learning intensely for three months, and it has been one of the hardest and most interesting learning experiences in my life.

I'm deep in the cave, but I see a light. I know there is a long way to go, but the treasure is near. I'm starting to hear it on the streets, and see it on those big neon signs that light up Beijing.

Learning anything well always takes time, which seems to be the most valued commodity among China expats. Time spent here and Chinese language ability (which is all about time) seem to sort out the expat pecking order, and the two attributes normally match one another. The longer the expat stays, the better the Chinese speaker. There's something fair about all of this, because these treasures cannot be bought. They have to be earned. Everybody has to do their time in the long, dark tunnel.

Speaking Chinese requires thousands of hours. Money can help buy the best teachers, but no matter how much an hour I spend on a super language instructor, I have to spend hours each day on my own, saying words, listening to tones, and memorizing characters. There is no trick to studying, no secret method. I just have to do it.

My need-to-speak-Chinese turning point came after my first year. I had not progressed beyond 100 words and was sick of not knowing how to speak to 99.9 percent of the people here.

China had been so much fun up until that point. Most of my Chinese friends could speak English, and they explained how things worked. I could see it all in 3D, but I couldn't hear it for myself. It was all second-hand news. Traveling around China made my isolation even worse. Every time I explored a different part of this beautiful country, my experience was always limited to mountain views, not points of view.

China isn't only about its breath-taking gorges, its serene mountains or life-giving rivers. And it's certainly not about its expat bars. China is about its people, and I couldn't hear the stories they were telling. Now, I am starting to hear and can understand a deeper level about the marvels of the Middle Kingdom. By the time the Olympics comes around I will be able to speak Chinese, if I keep searching in the darkness.

The other really cool bit about speaking Chinese is its long-term value. As China continues to rise, so will the opportunities for us foreign Chinese speakers. The treasure awaits all who venture in the tunnel.

(China Daily 09/26/2007 page20)