Traveling to China Without Knowing Chinese

As a Chinese American born and raised in California, I’ve always had a desire to travel to different places in China. Although I’ve been there several times before, I was too young to remember or understand anything. It wasn’t until the summer of my senior year of high school when I finally had the opportunity to travel with my family to visit China.

The first destination was Hong Kong. Upon arriving, I was immediately able to notice drastic differences from my hometown San Francisco, CA such as the weather and climate. Then it struck me. Although I am Chinese, my understanding of the Mandarin language is limited at best. I realized that I could barely hold a conversation. I also didn’t know how to read or write.

My lack of proficiency in Chinese only became more problematic as we started to venture in Mainland China. At least in Hong Kong, there were many English translations on signs and menus that made it easier to navigate. On the other hand, I remember that the presence of the English language was significantly rarer in Mainland China. On top of that, there are many dialects within the Chinese Language such as Cantonese and Mandarin that added to the confusion as I didn’t know when to use the appropriate dialect. This severely limited my ability to explore places around the country on my own. I had to rely on my parents for the majority of the trip. The cultural differences were also vast. Even though I looked similar to everyone else, I still found myself feeling out of place. On top of that, my inability to speak Chinese fluently prevented me from communicating with my extended family who live in China. Although  I had many desires to reconnect and learn from my relatives, the language barrier put a strain on those relationships.

There’s no denying that I enjoyed my visit. Still I can’t stop wondering how my experience would have differed if I had a better understanding of the Chinese language and the cultural differences. I truly believe that it would have enhanced my experience as a tourist. I would have been able to immerse myself and explore places without the fear of getting lost. Knowing how to communicate would have also allowed me to develop the relationships I have with my extended family who don’t live in the U.S. I have no doubt that better Chinese language skills would have made my trip much more memorable and enjoyable.