The Day Had To Come …

… when one of my victims spake up. I was just sitting around writing a blog entry the other day when: Wallop! Kristian, who’s currently in Norway working on the Norwegian Coastal Express (Hurtigruta) and who has been studying business economics in Hong Kong for a year, popped up in my gmail chat window.

“You should tell people what they are going to be talking about in any given lesson. People like to feel safe, knowing what’s going to happen.”

I realised he was right. I’ve been too solipsistic in my dealings with students; basing my lessons on what I would have liked to learn if I were a victim (student) learning Cantonese…

When I first started teaching Cantonese, I thought everybody would be like me; that they, armed with some new words of this wonderful language, would immediately rush out, gagging to practise what they’d learnt on any innocent passer-by. Then I realised that not everybody is like me.

People! remember this: Most problems in this world originate from one thing and one thing only: People being under the insane illusion that other people think exactly the same way as they themselves do.

This epiphany had actually happened (struck me) years ago when I was teaching “corporate” (yeah right) Cantonese to some Swiss people. “We want drills!” they complained, after I had taken them to several bars, expecting them to practise their newly acquired Cantonese on bar people and customers. After all, that was how I had learnt it.

“We want drills!” “We want exercises!” All right, so I made drills and exercises. They loved it. So, after a few sessions of drills, which they loved, praising me for making it seem so easy, I naturally said: “Now you can go out and communicate with Chinese people!

And did they? Hell, no. What they wanted was to sit in a room, a corporate meeting room in fact, 37 floors above street level, doing drills. When faced with a REAL Chinese person, they immediately slipped into much more comfortable (for them) English.

Since then, I’ve been making drill follow-ups to every “practical Cantonese as spoken in markets, taxis, bars and restaurants” with the same result. “We love these drills! Give us more drills!” only to see students (victims) right in front of my face, turning around to the lowliest non English-speaking waiter in the cheapest cha chanteng, saying (in English) Could I possibly trouble you for a cup of milk tea … old chap? (Okay. Not “old chap.” But you get my drift.)

They are my customers so I must do what they want. And what hundreds of my customers have wanted is this: “Is there a CD-rom or DVD I could buy to learn Cantonese?” So many people said that that I was compelled to make the DVD they had been clamouring for: Cantonese – The Movie.

Do you think they bought it? Some did. But do you think they watched it? No.

“We need real, live lessons to force us to learn Cantonese” was the cry after they had bought and not watched the DVD.

So I’m back at the famous 第一號方。 Number One Square.

When I, this week, tried to implement Kristian’s idea of telling people what was going to happen in the lesson, however, it was met with great applause. So he was right. And I will do that from now on.

He then went on to say I should “write a textbook in Cantonese.” Fine. Maybe I will do that too. But I must mention here that I’ve already written about 700 pages of Cantonese learning material. Anyone who signs up for my Canto-course gets these pages sent by email; we talk about what’s in the text, analyse it, then go on to – practical use.

That’s right: using what you’ve learnt on Chinese people.

No?

You see, people, as much as I agree on following a plan, having some kind of discipline in the learning environment and doing millions of drills: As long as you’re not willing to take things to the next and natural level, which is “Actually talking to Chinese people in their own language, ” it doesn’t matter how marvellous my or anyone else’s course is.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in your life you’ve learnt so far, you’ve learnt by DOING. Whether it’s swimming, driving or knitting; it doesn’t matter how many millions of books you’ve read on the subject. Only one thing will catapult you from knowing hundreds, thousands or millions of facts about that subject and actually knowing it, and that’s DOING.

All right, so I will write the Cantonese textbook. The bet is on! But then I also have the right to expect, next time one of the readers of that textbook is faced with a normal Chinese in a normal setting, for example being in a restaurant, ordering a cup of tea, that he or she will order that particular cup of tea IN CHINESE.

Is that too much to ask?