It's Greek, I mean, Chinese, to me!

Yesterday was the first session of the Beginning Mandarin class offered at my church. Totally different from what I was expecting, but not an unpleasant difference. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting—a more formal setting perhaps?

We met in the third grade Sunday school class, to the left of the kitchen still hot with the scent of friend noodles and to the right of the Library, where the children are conducting their own version of Beginner’s Mandarin. Only, I think they pick up things faster than the adult class.

I happened to be the youngest person in the class, along with my friend Grace, who is two years older than myself. Our other classmates were all women, all middle-aged and older. Most of them already speak at Cantonese, if not some Mandarin.

I grew up hearing the Cantonese and Toisan dialects at home and with my relatives, but despite my voracious consumption of Taiwanese dramas and Mandopop music, Mandarin is really a very foreign language for me. We’re using pinyin, too, which is very new to me.

We started out with the four tones of Mandarin, which was challenging enough for one day. I never realized how difficult it is to tell them apart, and to use them for syllables other than ma (depending on how you say it, “ma” could mean mother, horse, to feel numb, or to scold).

Our teachers, Auntie Janet, Auntie Sharon, and Auntie Nan are all very patient with us. Even though they all have a great sense of humor, they never laugh at us for our mistakes (saying “You smell me” instead of “You ask me” is pretty amusing if you ask me—no pun intended).

We split into two groups based on our level of fluency. After butchering the tones, my group moved on to basic conversation like, “How are you?” and “Have you eaten yet?” along with the appropriate responses. We even tried our hand at a simple poem. You wouldn’t believe how un-poetic it sounded after we got through with it, though.

Regardless of how bad I might sound at the moment, I’m still very determined to learn and practice and continue learning Chinese. I used to balk at the idea of studying such a difficult language. But it’s more fun than I thought.