‘You’re going to have the world at your fingertips,” I’m often told when I say I’m studying Mandarin. The practical virtues of learning the world’s most spoken language are widely acknowledged — but I think there’s more to it than that.
There’s a little cluster of high-rise buildings not far from where I live in Johannesburg. Because I study at Rhodes University, 900km from home, I always enjoy seeing how the city has changed in my absence.
On one clear July morning in 2009 I noticed a new and large shadow lying across the road on which I was driving. Glancing up, I saw an impressive new structure — a 17-storey building capped by a large sign reading, “Sinosteel Plaza”.
It was official: China was in Sandton. With the rapidly developing Asian nation firmly on my mind and cruising past the headquarters of several prominent banks, I began to think. News of the R36-billion ICBC-Standard Bank deal, one of the largest foreign investments by a Chinese bank, was still doing the rounds.
Then there were the frequent newsletters I received from the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University. Detailing China-Africa relations and highlighting major transnational deals, these newsletters served to confirm the speculations surrounding China’s economic boom. Suddenly this whole China thing was becoming more real.
With a smile, I thought about my own pursuit in studying the language. I had by then already mastered some basic conversation, so maybe it was time to delve into a little commercial vernacular?
I arrived home with a busy mind and, tired from the day, settled into the couch and flicked on the television. Somewhere behind the shimmering box an unobtrusive little sign read “Made in China”. But economic prosperity was by no means my initial motivation in undertaking an academic journey into the intricacies of the Chinese language.
There is something else about China and its tongue, something much harder to put your finger on. Like so many other Westerners, my interest in Chinese derived from an inexplicable fascination with the Orient.
So when a brand-new Mandarin course at my university caught my eye, I was quick to jump at the opportunity. It was the writing that grabbed me first. The intricate network of strokes forming elaborate characters and sentences seemed more like artwork than anything else.
I later read in the Wall Street Journal that the practice of writing and learning Chinese characters could help increase cognitive abilities and memory. Deciphering Chinese is not unlike reading hundreds of little stories, the meaning of which is to be found in the representation of individual characters (the symbols used to form words).
To illustrate: the character for female derives from a pictographic representation of a kneeling woman. Even more interestingly, the character for good is depicted by pictograms of a mother and child next to each other. Chinese logic sees the harmony brought about by maternal care as analogous with what they deem as “good”.
It is the process of creating these little stories for every character that suggests the Wall Street Journal may have a point. Then there is the spoken language itself: the first word you learn, the first sentence you string together and the first paragraph you recite. It was about this time I decided to change my major. It’s a funny thing, having Chinese in my life.
On the one hand I learn the language of the degenerate, fuelled by television and blaring billboards — my English is constantly dumbed down into the barely comprehensible lingo of the cellphone. What I text to my friends or scribble in my books is no longer English but the abbreviated and abridged versions of words, the origins of which are being lost in a world of convenience.
On the other hand, my nights are filled with hours of concentrated practice. Bent over a notepad with pen in hand, the language with a history of more than 3 000 years is spilled on to every empty corner of my page. These are the times I realise I am not merely reciting a word but preserving a culture.
So why learn a culture that is not my own? I remember the times my blood used to boil when I saw the black lines of an Asian tattoo splayed across a lower back or bulging chest. The stupidity of marking yourself with the culture of another never failed to astonish me. But my views have changed some over the years — and besides, what is a globalised world without a dash of cosmopolitanism?
I have walked into the informal settlement of eRhini and engaged with underprivileged yet eager schoolchildren. To them, China was the man who sold sweets at a corner café (they call him Jackie Chan). Yet now they have a new view of China — not as the smiling shopkeeper with his funnily shaped eyes but as a growing superpower with a thriving culture.
They seem aware that its presence in Africa may very well become part of their own adulthoods. This community outreach project attracted some criticism from my colleagues. How could we impose a foreign culture merely for the convenience of fulfilling a community engagement project?
I feel the teaching of an ancient text whose central premise is moral righteousness, filial piety and above all the love of learning can hardly be called an unjust imposition. After all, if the youth of China are widely regarded as the smartest and most studious in the world, surely our own children may find some benefit in the scriptures that motivate their Asian counterparts?
China has the second-largest economy in the world, the largest population and a dynastic history stretching as back as far as Ancient Rome’s. So, for me, to study Chinese is to take a voyage into history — or to study an art form. It is a strategic move — or an inexplicable passion. It is a cognitive workout — or a means of global understanding.
For me, it is all of the above. But most of all it is a journey and I am eager to see where it takes me as I pack my bags for Beijing.
Daniel Charvat is a student at Rhodes University’s school of languages majoring in Chinese studies, a programme offered by the university’s Confucius Institute