No English Allowed

Xi'an, 2011

My second trip to Xi’an, China was vastly different than the first. I wasn’t going as a tourist. I wouldn’t be staying in a hotel in the middle of the city. And, I wouldn’t be speaking English. I was back for intensive Mandarin language study complete with classes every day, Chinese roommate and peer tutor, and the infamous language pledge.

The language pledge made China a very different place. It wasn’t just this foreign land I was visiting. It wasn’t simply a fun trip or travel story. I was much more integrated than I had been as a study abroad student in Shanghai or an expat interning in Beijing. Mandarin seeped into every aspect of my life—the walk to class, chit chat with my roommate, asking the time, saying numbers out loud, meal time conversations, etc. The only break was contact home. And even that was mostly by email so my speaking and listening was almost exclusively Mandarin.

It may seem silly that a pledge would make so much of a difference. I mean, isn’t the point of going to another country to learn a language actually speaking it? Surprisingly, that is not often the case. When you get a bunch of English speakers together, no matter the country, they tend to revert to English. It’s about comfort and ease. It’s also about embarrassment in speaking the native country’s language. Why go through that when English is such a nice alternative?

The Chinese also are very nice and accommodating people. They see it as a sign of respect to use English, especially if you’re struggling. Also, many Chinese are learning English and see foreigners as an excellent chance to practice. Without the pledge limiting you and even your Chinese peers (roommate and tutor) to Mandarin it is surprisingly difficult to have fully Mandarin conversations inside your peer circles. Basically, if your friends, Chinese or foreign, know English, it will get spoken. (Especially since their English is usually much better than your Chinese)

An unexpected side effect of the pledge is that it forced you to get creative. If you didn’t know a word or how to say a word you couldn’t just revert to English. You had to talk your way out of your problem—in Mandarin. With some words that was near impossible. Pantomimes and long narrations for simple anecdotes became commonplace. When you were telling a story it wasn’t a huge deal if you fudged the details, said the wrong punch-line, or messed up a little. You were among friends and the stakes were low. In the classroom, however, when accuracy was more important, we often had hilarious sessions of Charades or Pictionary (with Mandarin words allowed) to get our questions or points across.

We also got over feelings of awkwardness pretty quickly. I mean, a bunch of Americans chatting and joking with each other in Mandarin (without a Chinese participant in sight) looks pretty weird. This led to many silly encounters. There were the conversations with other American students not in our program and thus not on the language pledge; they spoke English we responded in Mandarin. The was the encounter with a English traveler on one of our excursions; when one classmate started speaking Mandarin the traveler assumed he was Chinese, that is until the rest of us joined in. There were also our excursions and tours; small crowds of Chinese tourists would gather around at the oddity of a tour group full of Americans listening raptly to a Mandarin-speaking tour guide.

No English allowed means no fear allowed, no embarrassment allowed, no hesitation allowed. But it also means, new adventures allowed, fun stories allowed, and a great experience mandatory.