Speaking Mandarin

Met 2 very interesting characters at the internet café today. Keith, an American from L.A. who’d lived in China for 6 years, dressed from head to toe in traditional black chinese silk clothing, and Tony, a Swedish man who’d lived in China for 5 years and just had a 4 month old baby with his very independent un-traditional Chinese wife from Guangzhou. Earlier, I met an Australian man from Melbourne who has lived in China for 5 years. All who spoke chinese almost like locals. It was refreshing and encouraging but mostly, amusing to talk to a bunch of foreigners in mandarin when we would've most probably be speaking the universal language of English if we had met anywhere else in the world. I just have to say that the experience of carrying on a 45 minute conversation in chinese with another American while being corrected by him about my Mandarin pronunciation, shown the chinese characters and coached on Beijing colloquialisms and phrases was the most humbling yet enriching experience I've ever had with a fellow American in a long time. It broke down all walls of impossibility in my mind. It was freeing yet mind blowing that the concept of mastering a language could be as powerful as that.