My Travels in: Peru Part 1

So, I turned 24, and then I got on a plane for Peru. Vacation!

I originally planned a hike from ocean to ocean hike in Panama but it fell through for various reasons. While planning it, I asked a family friend what suggestions he had for hiking and he mentioned he was heading to Peru to hike and that was that, I bought my ticket shortly thereafter.

I gave myself two lazy days to acclimate to the altitude in Cusco. During this time I roamed the city and took pictures. I also have a side story I wrote about the joys of speaking the language while traveling.

Speaking the Language

In 2011, I headed to South East Asia for two months of backpacking. Before heading off, I was looking at travel quotes one day and quickly fell in love with "Traveling is like speaking with men of different centuries." One small kink in the quote, I couldn't speak to these men whose native languages included Thai and Vietnamese. I realized quickly upon arrival, and for the next two months, that I would have to rely on Pictionary, charades, pointing, and other means of communication that would make me appear as if I hadn't evolved the ability to speak yet.

Although I faced this amazing obstacle, for the most part I was able to enjoy myself while traveling. However, I was unable to delve deeper than superficial relationships with the locals that I met. How amazing the times I stopped to ask some men for directions and they invited me for drinks and food or the time I was invited to meet a book seller's family would have been if I could have spoken with them.

I got a second opportunity to speak with men of different centuries but this time, I had a grasp of the language, Spanish. Panama has been an amazing opportunity to improve my grasp of the language, and although there are many great examples in Panama, I believe an example while traveling in Peru would suit this article well.

Panama isn't known for their cold weather so I was unable to fully prepare for my trip to Peru before boarding the plane. To remedy this I made a list of items to purchase: gloves, scarf, hat, and thick socks.  A friend of mine told me to take the first days in Cusco slow to adjust to the altitude so I took this opportunity to explore the city and try and cross off my to-buy list.

My general method for conquering cities is to head out without direction, going whichever way seems most interesting. After walking for some time with sporadic turns here and there, I found myself in a clothing market. I found a booth with some clothing that appealed to me and proceeded to chat while looking at clothing.

The conversation started off slowly, with the lady assuming I didn't really speak Spanish. However, as we continued to talk, she realized I spoke a descent bit, and the conversation took off. Eventually we ended up discussing her major and she told me she was studying tourism. She'd be heading off in a few days with an Archeology professor to check out some ruins and she invited me along. The total cost? $4. I contemplated the offer but sadly realized that I already had plans that day.

As disappointed as I was after having the encounter, I was also excited. My chat hadn't occurred by chance, it was based in the fact that I could speak the language! This was the first encounter, but it wouldn't be the last. There will be many more men of different centuries to converse with and treasures to uncover.

Pictures!

For less than $2, a 3 course meal. These were absolutely amazing and everywhere in Cusco.

The Trek to Conquer the Mountain that is Language

Note: All Spanish words are italicized.

It all started back on a random September morning in 2012. The teacher wrote estar and ser on the board, two verbs that both mean “to be”. She then conjugated them for us starting with estar in the present tense. Estoy estás está estamos están. She then repeated for ser. That was a bit difficult but a little bit of memorization and then I’d be good. Little did I know, you don’t just conjugate to be and call it a language. Verbs get conjugated, and not just that, they get conjugated into different tenses! Ahh, my brain just about exploded and I found myself at afterschool tutoring many times.

I proceeded to spend the next four years repeating the process of “oh I got this, haha just kidding I’m screwed”, dragging myself until the first opportunity allowed me to call it quits with Spanish. And that was that with second languages, until I moved to China.

Preparing for China sparked an interest in learning another language again, except for whatever messed up reason, I wanted to go back to studying Spanish, not Mandarin. Why start a new language when I’ve still got work to put into my first second language, I reasoned. I could study all the Spanish I wanted in China and it’d never teach me an ounce of Mandarin, so reluctantly I put my Spanish aside and spent six months at about 20 hours a week on top of my internship learning, studying, and practicing Mandarin.

When I returned to the States I needed to finish my last year of college. My dean offered the choice of two Spanish or Mandarin classes to complete my humanities requirement. Deciding after a year of Mandarin and China, I wasn’t quite interested in going back and even after letting Spanish sit for almost six years, I was still far better off with it than Mandarin. And so I resumed my Spanish classes.

The first semester of Spanish went by uneventfully.

Second semester was a different story. First day the professor announces that the class will be taught about 95% in Spanish. Ooh boy here we go. Surprisingly, I’d already absorbed enough that this wasn’t the horrifying transition it originally appeared to be. That wasn’t the end of it though; classes were challenging and required a larger commitment than the previous semester’s class. I pushed through though until one fateful day when my acceptance letter to Panama collided with something my professor said. “Frankly, at this point your Spanish is going to plateau until you get yourself abroad.” And so I coasted myself to the end of the semester, sorry mom!

I arrived in Panama, ready to put the plateau behind me, and continue hiking up the mountain. Continuing on with the mountain metaphor, I felt as if Panama was a constant set of sprints, after which I’d fall over gasping for air and not move an inch for far too long. We were going hard with 4 hours a day 4 days a week of language training, only interrupted by scavenger hunts into the city, homework with the host family, volunteer visits, and other activities to continue improving our Spanish.

Finally, the giant mezcla, mix, in my brain was beginning to organize itself into useful bits and pieces I could use to converse. I was having hour or two hour long conversations with my host brother about various interesting topics, of course I was horribly burnt out after each conversation, but I was doing it!

Then I arrived to site where I hit a brick wall. I couldn’t understand campo, countryside, Spanish at all. My host dad would later tell my sister when she arrived (Dam her, I told her campo Spanish was horribly difficult to understand and she was chatting with my host dad in the first five minutes of arriving to my house!) that for the first two weeks, I just sat there and didn’t really say anything. True, I understood maybe 20% of what he was throwing at me.

But I used the great work ethic I developed while teaching myself Chinese, and applied it to Spanish with great success. After a few months, I was conversing rather well.

The last big hurrah, at least that I’ve experienced so far, came just last month, when we got the chance to return to our training community to get some extra language classes. It was my chance to finally organize everything that I’d crammed into my head in the last few months. I realized I’d gotten down most all of the tenses needed to converse and various difficult grammar structures including present, future, preterit, imperfect, conditional, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, conditional perfect, indirect object pronouns, and direct object pronouns. I even had the beginnings of subjunctive which is usually a pretty abstract tense for English speakers to wrap their heads around.

The climb was long but amazingly worth it. I remember traveling through South East Asia, relying on my ability to play Pictionary and charades, and the basic English of the people I met along the way. But now, I can stop to ask for directions, find a good restaurant, and delve much deeper into the rich lives that people live around the world.

Language: Final Draft

Some time ago I expressed dissatisfaction with the state of language learning in the United States. While the United States consists of much English and little else, the rest of world that I’ve been introduced to knows at least two languages. In China and India, it’s the native language and English. In Europe, it is three or more languages. Content with my conclusion that Americans made no attempt to bridge language barrier, I did no further research. It was not until weeks later that bits and pieces of conversations I’ve had with many people slowly started create a new picture. 

The first crack in my conclusion came at a dinner one night with a friend of mine who was born into a bilingual living situation consisting of English and Chinese. ­­­­­I made the assumption that because he knew two languages that he was interested in language learning. As I pressed on in a conversation about language he said to me that knowing different languages is merely a tool for communication and nothing more. While yes, this is in fact a way to define knowing different languages, my choices of words would have added more emphasis for the opportunity to be introduced to knew cultures and ideas. This led me to the conclusion that I might be sitting in the minority of those who have a desire to learn new languages. 

Some time passed and again language came up as a topic, this time with my friends from France. They expressed their frustration in learning the English language and having to pass an English test to get a chance to interview for certain jobs …a test .. what? I pressed on and realized that I naively believed that each company operated within their own language. To operate on a global scale, English is necessary. 

Sitting somewhat in a state of denial about this new conclusion I continued on with more questions. First I went to my Indian friend who informed me that a large part of India is fluent in English. Then it was onto a Chinese friend who knows most of the people in the company I work for. I inquired about the languages spoken within the company. Besides English, there is one Chinese person who speaks French and one who speaks German. And that’s it. 

It finally dawned on me, the United States people do not learn new languages because there is little reason to. With my European friends, multiple languages could be found in their backyards. With my American friends, unless you’re sitting along the border to Mexico, you’re not seeing much language diversity. More importantly than that, which affects all international competitors, is the age of globalization. Sitting as the leader in this movement was the United States. For those wishing to reach the level of the United States, English was a required tool. Sadly, it would appear then that language learning is largely fueled out of wealth and necessity and not by a desire to enrich lives and experience new things.

Three Months Down Part 2

Night and Day

I packed my bags with several hygiene products that I expected to be in short supply upon arriving in China. I fully expected that China would be an extremely different place than America in all aspects. On my first trip to the food store I found that every item I packed in fear of not having could be found on the shelves. During the first few days I quickly discovered that almost all of my expectations of China were wrong. Another expectation that was completely wrong was that day to day­­­ life would be completely different. After three months, I’ve found myself waking up, going to work, coming home, showering, eating dinner, relaxing and going bed. As for the weekends, they’re filled with the typical fun and relaxation also found in the American routine. Because of this, I have come to believe that all people really aren’t that different, we go about our lives in generally the same way.

English and Chinese … and German­­…­ and French… and Indian… and … 

My feelings toward the language barrier are more dependent upon the day and less upon the amount of time I’ve spent here. I knew it was going to be a challenge coming into this so I’ve tried to be accepting of the fact that all my coworkers and roommates (no native English roommates) will tend to speak their native language and not the language I know. I’m lucky enough to already be fluent in the common language, English, that everybody knows a bit of. Thankfully, I’m not in the same situation as a French or Indian person coming to China who will only be in conversations where nobody speaks the native language.  My Chinese is progressing rapidly, sadly not quickly enough to be conversational before I leave, but at least I’ve got a good foundation so that if I ever return to China, the language barrier will be a non existent problem. 

Blurbs

Always Connected

Homesickness has not been a major concern and I think technology is somewhat responsible for that. In just twenty years, we've gone from post cards and scarce phone calls to so much more. Thanks to the internet, I can now make phone calls for pennies a minute anywhere in the world. At my disposal for free there is video chat, email and instant message. I feel that China would be a much more different experience if such devices did not exist. I'm not sure whether to classify the difference as positive or negative. On one hand there's the fact that I wouldn't get to talk to anyone regularly from the United States. On the other though, the immersion into Chinese culture and language would be so much greater. It is hard though because there is only so much Chinese I can digest before I need an outlet for English. Hopefully with passing of time, my knowledge of the Chinese language will grow enough so that I will not need to retreat so much.

Building a Bridge Over the Language Barrier

I originally intended this post for just one short message but I figure an update on my language journey would be very fitting given the previous topic. I've now been learning for about a month and a half and I feel I've come pretty far. My vocabulary sits at around 200 words right now with another 200 words being looked at in my flash cards. With these words I've managed to construct some basic sentences. I've had a few interactions solely in Chinese and have managed to get by successfully. My next step is tackle the tones so that I can understand people and they can understand me better. Once I'm over this hump it should be smooth sailing but until then it will be a bump ride. For example, in pinyin, the words "buy" and "sell" are both spelled mai. The way to tell the difference is in the pronunciation. It can also lead to trouble because the difference between asking for help and calling someone a stupid pig is rather small. However tough the journey may be, I'm going to stick it out until the end and hopefully a stupid pig will help me out in my journey instead of kicing my ass. 

Speechless

A few days ago one of my coworkers passed by my desk and made a remark that my health bar was in fact unhealthy and he wouldn't eats such a thing. He stated that he didn't know what path the food took to get to its final form and that there could be contaminants. I responded that the same applies for all foods unless you watch them grow and that there are lots of chemicals used in producing food. After five minutes of back and forth attempts at each of us explaining our points with him talking about contaminants and me talking about chemicals, he turns to my other coworker and asks, "What does chemical mean?"

Quiero un filete de queso.

Sitting around with my roommates one day back in the United States, discussion of Philly cheese steaks popped up and shortly thereafter we were on our way to Philadelphia to have ourselves a taste of the city's  most famous meal. After a short drive, we parked the car and made our way to spend the next  half hour standing in line, standing slave to the delicious smells of the kitchen. As the line moved, I took the chance to observe all the interesting pictures and signs that filled the windows of Geno's Steaks. One last sign stood as a warning to those about to order food: "This is America, when ordering, speak English." While such a phrase is an example is of an extreme nature, I still feel that a decent amount of Americans to some extent agree. It's almost as if the nickname the "melting pot" was given to the wrong country. 

Leaving the melting pot, I headed for a country I expected to be in a similar if not homogeneous state. To my pleasant surprise, my coworkers proved me very wrong. Every single coworker of mine speaks very good English as well as Mandarin and at least another Chinese dialect or two. Even more surprising than this was the discussion with my fellow foreign roommates. The average language count in my apartment sits at around two fluent languages with some knowledge in another one or two. It would appear as if the United States is actually looking into the melting pot, but only from the outside, not wishing to take part.

In the process of discussing language with my fellow foreigners and coworkers, I have been led me to realize just how bad the state of foreign language in America is. Starting with six grade we were sat in front of a TV for video language lessons. The only things these videos managed to do was turn me away from foreign languages. Seventh and eighth grade didn't hold much promise either. A select few managed to find their way into the Spanish or French class but the majority of students were unable to begin progress on a second language. High school followed this theme and only required two years of language for college bound students. On the other hand, my coworkers and roommates are leaps and bounds ahead.

In my attempt to search for a means by which to conclude this post, I will take the lazy way out and present you with a request. Respect others, try and understand their culture and beliefs and where they come from. Listen to what they have to say, if you disagree, feel free to offer your own thoughts but please don't try and shove it down their throats. Let us do our best to live up to the reputation and be able to proudly claim that it's just a misunderstanding and we are in fact the melting pot. 

Sorry, could you please repeat that?

I've been rather busy with lots of stuff right now and thought I would leave you with a quick Chinese lesson. The entire language is based on these four tones and saying the wrong tone can completely change the meaning of the word!

The English Corner

Can you tell the difference between "listen" and "hear"? I can't, but still managed to get picked as the resident English teacher at work. Two weeks ago, the idea of the English Corner, was first introduced to me. Two hours a week, after lunch, I would co-lead my colleagues in improving their English. With no proper training of any sort, I went into it the best I could. The first meeting went rather awkwardly with no real direction but each subsequent meeting has show great improvement. At first I didn't take initiative but quickly realized, as the native English speaker, the harder I try the more I can help them learn. To assist in advancing their English knowledge, this upcoming Thursday I'll be introducing the "American/Chinese Culture Exchange," where I introduce my coworkers to the likes of Caddyshack, The Terminator, and other fine works of art that America has to offer.

I came, I saw, I never tried.

I can see it now, sitting down to an interview and the interviewer notices an eight month stay in China, "So what do you know how to say in Chinese?" and my response is "hello and thank you." Luckily, Monday marks the start of my first Chinese lesson and only six weeks late! To prepare, I have taken it upon myself to drastically reduce the amount of time spent surrounded by English. It started off with saying goodbye to my music collection for an indefinite amount of time. To still make use of my iPod I found a nice collection of underground Chinese hip hop to listen to. During work tomorrow I shall collect suggestions for Chinese musicians to sample. Secondly, and more importantly, I've found some rather good podcasts on iTunes which I can download for free and listen to so that during my hour and a half commute I can get some lessons. Along with my music collection goes the stupid things I waste my time doing on the computer. If the websites are not related to Chinese, they don't get a visit. Luckily this blog falls in the "Chinese" category and will still receive attention but  far removed from my Chinese immersion. How I go about that I am not sure yet. Finally, we arrive at the most important point, Chinese roommates. I am rather comfortable with my current living situation but my coworkers have notified me that there awaits an apartment at half the price I pay now and right next to work. This cost and transit time reduction would be amazing and is rather tempting. If Chinese goes well I may just end up living with non English speakers.

Lesson Learned: If you're going to live somewhere at least make an attempt to learn some simple vocabulary it's amazing how many times I've wanted to say things like no thank you, sorry, and excuse me but couldn't because I never bothered to learn them until now.