When people ask me why I’m learning Chinese, I usually offer superficial answers. I think I have never answered by explaining my deepest, truest reason – I want to grow up again. I want to grow up into a different person, using a different language.
This article in the Economist notes that being a foreigner (by choice) is a bit like returning to childhood – the world is new and fresh. This is true.
It has also been noted that when one takes up a new language, it’s like becoming a child again – not knowing how to speak or read, not being able to articulate mature thoughts, having to listen the adults/native-speakers/teachers tell you about what you did wrong. This is also true. However, in language learning circles I have usually seen this expressed as a frustration “Ahhh! I’m like a child again, I’ll never grow up, gahh!” I, on the other hand, think that this is part of why I find language learning so rewarding.
I have been able to articulate and decipher complex thoughts in the English language for a long, long time. The language is no longer fresh to me. Well, sometimes English feels just a little fresh to me when I’m with people learning English. To them, English is still a new way of expressing thoughts, and the feeling rubs off on me.
My own ‘real’ childhood was a mixed bag. There were times when I was happy, but there were also times I was very unhappy. Some of that unhappiness came from my lack of power over life. My ‘current’ childhood is much happier. I have a lot more freedom, and I am much more in control. Even learning Chinese is going much more smoothly than when I learned English (then again, I have expressive language disorder, which made learning how to speak English a bit tougher for me than most native speakers).
Sure, I didn’t particularly like being a beginner in Chinese – I actually do not find basic Chinese that interesting, and not being able to read a simple street sign is quite frustrating. But once my Chinese got to an intermediate level, I appreciated more and more of the language’s subtleties, and could start to feel a sense of wonder about it. And discovering Chinese language novels – particularly the wuxia genre – has brought back the feelings I had when I first discovered English language novels – particularly the fantasy genre. I’ve written a bit about this in my posts about Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero.
Eventually, if I keep studying and praticing Chinese, I’ll grow up an function in the language like an educated adult. Then there are the other languages in the world … I could keep returning to childhood for centuries. Obviously, since I don’t have centuries, I have to be picky. Maybe I’ll find another way to return to childhood.
However I do it, I do intend to keep returning to childhood for as long as I live.
The Notes Which Do Not Fit 
Great insights! Would love to link to it from my site..if that is ok…?
Sure, you can link to it from your site. I’m flattered 😀
That sounds really believable to me. I think that may have been part of what I liked about learning English (another was the fact that my favourite media were originally all in English and I found that German translation takes away from the impact).
When I consider my online persona and my real life, I prefer being my English-speaking online persona more – I guess my use of English is an escapism: I may have lived in the UK for a few years but I didn’t put down roots there and returned to the mundane, but better known German social system. Hmm.
Yeah, that sounds like the relationship I have with Chinese. I’m not planning to put my roots down in Taiwan.
My mother, on the other hand, went a lot further – she wanted to get away from her family and society she was born in, so she moved to the United States and made a new family with an American man. Heh.
Kudos for living her dream! I’m safe with the known now, but sometimes I wonder if that was the right choice. The UK isn’t such a huge cultural difference after all.