千里之行, 始于足下

千里之行, 始于足下

Thousand mile journey begins with first step.

October 3, 2014

Houston TX

When I was seven years old, my grandfather sent me some toys he bought for me in Taiwan.  He included a letter to my mother, referring to the toys:"… unfortunately the instructions are in Chinese; a lot of good they will do him!"

I enjoyed the toys immensely, but after playing with them for awhile I perused the instructions that came with them. I found the writing FASCINATING! 

I got a piece of paper and a pen and began copying out the various ideograms that were neatly printed upon slick paper. 

I had no idea what these symbols meant, and there was no way to find out, yet I did the best I could to trace out the complex characters I saw. 

My mother came upon me, lying on my stomach on the living room floor, writing Chinese, and she asked me what I was writing.

"Mommy, just LOOK at THIS!" I exclaimed, showing her the pamphlets and instruction sheets. 

"Mommy, one day I'll be able to write like this!" I told her, matter-of-factly.

"Hmmm...That's very complicated" she stated, as she studied the sheet of incomprehensible hieroglyphics. "Honey, you can't learn to write something so hard..."

"Well," I retorted, "CHINESE kids can! And if THEY can, so can I!"

I had taken the first step!! 

Soon enough, I bought a "Say-It in Japanese" booklet from the local Acme Supermarket, and learned a few basic little phrases in that language. My grandfather taught my how to count to ten in Japanese. 

A man at our apartment building said hello to my mother in the lobby, then squatted down to my level, and, smiling, asked me:"so, what do YOU want to be when you grow up?"

As quick as thought, I answered:"A POLYLINGUIST!"

The years passed, and I confined my language studies to French, which I studied in grammar school, but I hadn't forgot my interest in Chinese and Japanese. I sometimes borrowed a Chinese dictionary from the library, and began to study the writing. 

One day, in early 1968, I went to Doubleday Bookstore on Canal Street in New Orleans. I went up to the sales clerks behind the counter and asked for a Chinese dictionary. 

THEY LITERALLY LAUGHED ME OUT OF THE STORE!!

One BILLION Chinese speakers in the world, and I am weird for wanting to learn their language?

That made ME laugh.

On a trip to San Francisco a few years later, I stopped into a Chinese bookstore in Chinatown and purchased my first Chinese dictionaries, along with calligraphy brushes, ink, and 3 posters of writing instructions. 

On the 3-day train ride home to New Orleans, I taught myself how to look up an individual Chinese character. This was a major milestone. 

At first, self-study was limited to the written characters, with little or no attention paid to the pronunciation. Later, in Paris, I purchased some texts for learning Chinese, with pronunciations written as part of the course. I worked through the texts, but reached a plateau.

Living languages should not merely be the objects of academic study - they should be SPOKEN!

Otherwise if what use is this learning?

One day while out of town on business, I stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. 

"Hey!" I thought, "Why don't I try out my Chinese on them and see how it goes?" 

I had never before uttered so much as a single word of the language to another living soul, but there is always a first time.

I swallowed hard, and walked through the door. I was greeted by a Chinese lady, and I said something in Chinese to her. The poor lady screwed up her face and said she could not understand me. 

I repeated what I had said, to no avail. 

"I'm trying to speak to you in Chinese." I said apologetically. 

"Oh," replied the bewildered waitress, "Is THAT what that was?"

[Well, that went well!] I thought to myself, now a bit embarrassed. 

I am sure a few fellow diners there that day got a chuckle at my expense. I wasn't laughing. 

I sat down to a delicious, spicy meal, and, while eating, I referred to my notes to see if I could improve. 

The waitress took an interest in what I was doing, and she patiently taught me the correct way to pronounce a few of the phrases I was learning.

The next meal I tried out my

freshly-tutored words, and was greeted warmly by a most surprised restaurant owner. 

Investing in phonograph records and later cassette tapes, I was true to my quest to learn some more Chinese!

FORTY years after my initial visit to San Francisco's Chinatown, I stopped into a Chinese restaurant, read the Chinese-language menu, and ordered my food in Chinese. 

I walked down those narrow streets of Chinatown where I first walked as a teenager, and looked at all of those signs in Chinese, and I COULD READ THEM!

It has been forty-six years since I received that box of toys from a land so far away, with those instructions in that strange language about which I was so curious.

My Grandfather had little idea that a few toys bought in a faraway place would have such a profound and long lasting  effect on his little grandson.

It all began when I took that first step.