On being a Minority

Throughout my entire post-secondary education, and especially at Oberlin and Eastman, I've had many friends and colleagues from the Pacific Rim countries (mainly: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) that have been co-enrolled with me.  I now know what it really feels like to be "minority," where you really are a stranger in a strange place.  And, I need to remember that Mandarin is *the* most spoken language in the world.  

Now, after being here for almost a month, I have an even deeper respect and appreciation for how they have navigated their own transitions, and how they have handled the travel back-and-forth on a student budget.  How they have handled the academic work at either Oberlin or Eastman (which is no joke for a native-English speaker!) is also even *more* admirable to me now that I've been here. 

This is the Chinese I know:

Thank you, Please, Hello, How are you, Panda Hat, receipt, sweetheart, I'm full, Fantastic, Yes, No, Square, Avenue, One, Two, Three, Wheat. 

Zheng has been pushing me to learn more Chinese, but when he says something, and I have to repeat it, it comes out in a way which is apparently hilarious.  

To the ears and mouth of a linguist, hearing Mandarin on the streets has been a beautiful inspiration.  Since China is the size of the US, and also has an ocean on one side of it, it faces similar linguistic-isolation issues that the US does.  Add to that the ten thousand characters needed to read a newspaper, four "tones" within the spoken language, and vastly different ways of reading (print looks very different from cursive), and you have a linguistic maelstrom that I now determined to conquer.  I hope to be returning to China sooner rather than later.

Ellen and I have been a "hit" here, I'm happy to report.  Our class at Renmin University this morning (http://english.ruc.edu.cn/en/), and our last one of the trip, was fun.  I also met two Eastman alumni who are working at this university full-time!  

Kunming, the largest city in the Yunnan province, also boasts about how many "minorities" live either within its city limits, or in a collective of representative "minority villages" just outside the city.  On invitation from Mari, we went and had a great time visiting various villages.  Each village had its own dress, architecture, food speciality, performance and religious traditions.  

The picture I'm attaching is a candid of two Miao women, in traditional dress.  It was an inspiration to see such color.