Yingyu, or English, is big in China. After China 's entry into the World Trade Organization, the whole nation was motivated to learn English. First-graders are offered English classes in school. Seniors in big cities get together every morning in their English corner to practice. Even state leaders like to drop English words into their speeches or sing songs in English to impress the public.
English workshops make millions of bucks, especially those TOEFL, GRE, LSAT, GMAT preparation classes. Every teacher there is a millionaire. The biggest English-teaching millionaire of the lot is Li Yang, whose English language course is called Crazy English. He teaches students to learn English by screaming out English phrases at the top of their voice!
What these courses are selling is not only English but also meiguo meng, the American dream. Everyone wants to learn English to get a job, preferably at a waiqi, or foreign company, or to get the chance to study in the United States.
In this year's special gala variety program made by CCTV for the Spring Festival, people, from kindergarten kids to old grandpas, parade in front of the camera shouting "ABC," Crazy English – style, as if they were shouting old revolutionary slogans. My friend, a French journalist at AFP, is amazed at this scene: he can't figure out why an entire country is so obsessed with a foreign language – particularly if it is English!
People from different cities in China like to compete with one another over their English skills. Shanghai people think their English is better than Hong Kongers, claiming "Our education system is better than theirs!" Although I don't buy Shanghainese arrogance, my experience in Hong Kong was worse.
When I was visiting Hong Kong on business, I was in a store and I wanted to ask for help, so I decided I had better use English. When I spoke, the young shop assistant waved her hands and said, "No English!" So I said in Chinese, "Do you speak Mandarin?" The girl replied in Cantonese, "Siu-siu – a little…" It was hopeless; I had to give up and walk out of the store. So I tend to believe that people in Shanghai can speak better English than people from Hong Kong.
Beijingers believe their English is the best: "If southerners can't tell the difference between n and l, s and sh, even in Chinese, how can they speak better English than us?" they say. "We are especially good at American English because of our er-hua, We even speak Chinese with an American accent!"
Little Fang speaks perfect putonghua. She tutors CC's boyfriend, Nick. She offers Nick free Chinese lessons. When Nick doesn't understand Little Fang's Chinese, he asks her, in his perfect Oxford English, to explain. "It's my way to pick up the Queen's English," Little Fang says. This sort of huxiang xuexi, or language exchange, is common between Chinese and foreign students in China. Often more than just language is exchanged: many romances have blossomed through language exchange relationships.
But because Little Fang only teaches Nick Chinese and never goes swimming with him like his other female Chinese "tutors," CC trusts her and the two become friends. After CC's introduction, Little Fang is considered a member of our gang. We often play sports or go dancing together.
One day, at a bar called People, Little Fang introduces a girlfriend named Yu to CC and me, and begs us to speak some English to her. When Yu goes to the bathroom, Little Fang tells us Yu's story.
Yu's only dream is to speak beautiful English. At first, she tried to memorize words from her English-Chinese dictionary and tore each page out as she memorized it. Her dictionary had almost nothing left except the cover, but she still got an F in each English examination. So she started to eat the pa ges she had torn out. It was traditional Chinese logic: Men believe they can be more virile by eating the penises of bulls and tigers. Yu thought that she could remember all the English words by eating a dictionary.
After everything failed, Yu got desperate. She went to hotel lobbies to meet native English speakers in order to improve her oral English. Last week, she was punished by her school because she was caught by the police with a Canadian man in his hotel room alone around midnight. The man was not wearing a shirt when the two were busted. Apparently they thought she was a prostitute. There are a lot of rumors in Beijing about university students prostituting themselves to earn a little money – but doing it in order to learn English? Surely, this would be going too far!
Little Fang brings Yu to us, hoping to help Yu out.
Yu admits that her biggest dream is to speak English twenty-four hours a day. So we chat to her in English.
But she simply doesn't have a natural talent for languages. She cannot tell the difference between the sound s and the sound th.
CC and I feel awkward because we can't understand what Yu is saying when she speaks English. We don't know whether we should say, "I beg your pardon?" or "What was that?" We are afraid of hurting Yu's feelings, so we just smile and nod, and say, "Uh-h uh" and, "Oh."
Little Fang notices, and says in Chinese to Yu, "Tell us about your boyfriend, Ching."
"I just dumped him!" Yu screams.
"Why?" Little Fang is surprised.
"I can't stand Ching's clumsy spoken English. When he speaks English, he sounds like an idiot!"
"How come?"
"To him, s and th sound the same!" As she says this, both sounds come out as an s and we try not to laugh.
"But he is a nice guy. How can you dump him just because his English isn't so good?" CC asks. "You only speak to him in Chinese!"
Yu has her theory: "It do not matter whether someone Chinese good or bad. But if he speak no good English, he have no future. Good English good job, and lots of money, but good Chinese no use!"
YINGYU: English.
MEIGUO MENG: American dream.
WAIQI: Foreign enterprise; a Sino-foreign joint venture company in China.
ER-HUA: The distinctive er suffix added to words pronounced in the Beijing accent.
PUTONGHUA: Standard Mandarin Chinese.
HUXIANG XUEXI: Learning from each other; mutual-exchange language lessons. Many romances between foreigners and locals seem to sprout up through these relationships.