Internships Abroad, GRIP Breaking Down the Language Barrier in China

GRIP: Keru

One of the most surprising challenges I faced when interning and living in China was the language barrier. A little background on me: I am Chinese-American and grew up in a Chinese-speaking household. In fact, I learned Mandarin Chinese before learning English. Why? My mom didn’t want me speaking Chinese with an American accent. I was even placed in ESL class in kindergarten because of this. 

From my earliest memories, I remember attending Chinese school every weekend. I wasn’t the most attentive student, but I completed over 10 years of classes, culminating in a 5 on the AP exam. In my freshman year at Penn, I continued my language studies in CHIN 0500: High Intermediate Chinese. I practiced whenever I could: at home with my grandparents, in Philly Chinatown with my hairdresser, and at school with my friends in Chinese Student Association. All in all, I felt pretty confident about my language skills.  

However, all of that confidence completely disappeared during my first week in China. It’s hard to put into words all of the emotions I felt, but I can narrow it down to three main struggles: 1) stilted conversations 2) loss in identity and 3) language fatigue. First, the conversations I had were stilted and awkward because there was so much vocabulary that I didn’t know. It would take a few seconds for me to find the words, and those seconds felt like eternity. Sometimes, I would get the words out, only to be met with blank stares due to mistranslation. These instances destroyed my confidence and made me scared to start conversations. Second, I felt a loss in identity. I love chatting and connecting with people, so the inability to do so made me (dramatically) question, “Who am I?” Third, I felt mentally drained after speaking, reading, and writing Chinese all day. These struggles frustrated me to the point of tears (dramatic, I know), and I felt like a fish out of water. 

But don’t worry, readers. This blog is not about the challenge, but rather overcoming the challenge, and here are the steps I took to break down the language barrier. It started off with a mindset shift. I was frustrated because I felt like I should’ve been good at Chinese, due to all those years of language lessons. However, once I let go of that idea and simply accepted the fact that my Chinese was bad, the frustration lessened. Like sure, that elementary schooler over there is better at Chinese than me, but that’s okay! I didn’t grow up in China, and no one—not even my relatives—expects me to be at a native’s level of fluency. 

After this mindset shift, I embraced the practice of speaking loudly and proudly, even when I sounded bad. Exposure therapy is what one might call it. The more I practiced, the less I cared about the occasional looks of confusion. And the more I practiced, the less I received those looks because, get this, my Chinese was improving! In the face of a challenge, you can either hide away, or you can embrace it with confidence. The latter is obviously the way to go. 

These two strategies went a long way, but two other methods also accelerated my skills. The first was translating for foreigners. As part of my GRIP internship at Keru, I led a group of American high schoolers to volunteer at grassroots organizations around Shanghai. By having to lead, navigate, and translate for these high schoolers who had no grasp of the language, I realized that my skills—though limited in vocabulary—were absolutely sufficient enough to make a meaningful connection with native Chinese speakers. 

The second was scrolling on native speakers’ social media. I especially loved 小红书, or RED, which I’d best describe as a mix between Instagram and Pinterest with an AI algorithm that’s even more targeted than TikTok. By watching videos and reading captions about topics I like such as travel, food, and fitness, I naturally built up my vocabulary and learned some slang along the way. This also helped with my original “loss in identity” because I felt comfortable discussing the topics that my “American” self always talks about.  

With a combination of all of these strategies, my Chinese improved dramatically. By the end of my eight weeks in China, I no longer felt anxiety or frustration while speaking Chinese, but rather an eagerness to connect. Better yet, my enthusiasm was reflected by those around me. Since I was excited to speak Chinese as a foreigner, those around me—from shopkeepers to taxi drivers to fellow college students—were too. I’d like to end off this blog with this final reflection: Learning a language is a lesson in humility, but it’s also a lesson about the wonders of everyday kindness for yourself and from others.