In
the city of Nanking, China, lies a grand memorial dedicated to the Chinese
Nationalist Sun Yat Sen. At the foot of the tall memorial is a gate that
everyone crosses through with a dedicatory inscription at the top. After
passing through the arch you are presented with a wide span of stairs that
continue up over a 1000 steps with a monument at the very top lined with hundreds
of people. Despite my friends’ and my foreign appearances, we were soon
integrated with the crowd. Eager as I was to practice my Chinese, it took less
than two minutes for me to find a trio of college students to talk to.
At first I felt a
little confronted by students as they gathered around me to talk. I felt my
mind’s two years of learning Chinese abandon me as fear managed to clog my
throat and brain. After an awkward 20 seconds of open mouthed gaping I managed
to utter a weak “ni hao.” Inwardly, I felt so ridiculously conspicuous and
foolish standing there, obviously a foreigner, with my mouth just hanging open.
I simply turned around and tried not to make eye contact with anyone so I could
be shrouded in inconspicuousness. But as I turned back on my heels, I had an
odd epiphany as I realized that nothing could be more foolish than to travel across
the world and learn a language for two years just to hide myself in the
shadows. So once again turned around, but this time I faced the 1000 step scene
and found different people to converse with. My mind still stuttered from time
to time, but I simply shook it off, determined to not be deterred.
The topics were
endless and the opportunities unlimited, for I could converse with these
crowds. Some people I spent a matter of minutes with, while a few others I
spent over an hour. The relationships I formed with people were certainly not
typical, as they found me a strange curiosity to be speaking their language and
I found them to be equally interesting. Often I would stumble with my Chinese
and feel slightly flustered, but they were polite and deft enough to help me
continue. When we finally reached the top of the monument I was by far and away
isolated from by comfort zone of friends, and instead was journeying by a
different group of college students, and yet I felt at ease.
The memorial
explained the enduring life of Sun Yat Sen, a Chinese politician that had time
and time again got up after being pushed down by challenges in an attempt to
establish democracy in China. The journey had certainly been worthwhile as I
now felt great reverence for a man who always proved tenacious. By the end of
the day I had met so many different people through my Chinese, I felt fairly accomplished.
I had done what I had wanted to do in taking and studying Chinese. And it was
this monument on this tall mountain that had taught me that there are countless
possibilities for me to keep trying again and again.
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