unaccustomed

Unaccustomed

“I love you”, “ jet'aime”, “s'agapo”, “ jeg elsker de”, “wo ai ni”. The actor expressed love in five different languages to his girlfriend. When I watched that Chinese romantic movie, I suddenly realized that the languages play an important role in our lives. Language is the first way to make us start getting in touch with the new country. When I graduated from high school, I made an important change in my life when I came to the United States without parents, friends, or even communication skills. I tried to start adapting this strange country. However, I am Chinese after all, and I am still unaccustomed to the ways of communication in this country.

 I find it strange that people in the U.S have communication habits where they repeat phrases all the time. I have notice people say “I am sorry” many time to me, even if they didn’t make any mistakes or say any bad sentences. I remember the first day I worked at the nail solon, I did the pedicure for a woman, and she looked friendly and nice. When she came into the nail solon, I said “Can I help you?” to her, but the first time I said it she didn’t hear clearly, so she said “I am sorry”. I repeated my sentence to her. She answered me with what she needed done. Then, I told her to pick a color for the polish for her toes. At the same time, I walked her to the pedicure chair and turned on the water, and she quickly said, “I am sorry”, and moved to the side to let me pass. When she was seated in the pedicure chair, I started to do her feet and I patted her left foot, but she didn’t feel it. As soon as she came to realize that she needed to put out her left foot, she said “I am sorry” again. The last time she said “I am sorry” to me was because she didn’t know what color was better for her. That day, I felt so strange because of one sentence “I am sorry”. In China, people just say “sorry” when they make mistakes. However, in the U.S, I can hear “sorry” five times from one person even though she didn’t make any mistakes. The phrase “I am sorry doesn’t have only one meaning in English. There are many meanings of “I am sorry” depending on the context.

            When I came to the United States, I felt too shy to make good cultural greetings to American people. I was afraid of saying “How are you?” I am just used to saying “hello” instead of “How are you?” It was also very uncomfortable for me to answer the questions that people asked me “How are you today?” In China, people usually say “hello” and sometimes they just smile at people when they meet a stranger. If people meet a person that she or he knows, they will ask “How are you?”, but the other people will answer them according to their real feeling about life. Such as, “I have been tired recently”, “I feel bad “. I have lived in America for one and a half years, and I never heard people say “I am bad” or “I feel tired”. They just answer “fine”, “ok”, and “good”. I know these sentences are just a greeting for people. I also know it may be just a format for people to communicate. However, I feel so unaccustomed to asking “How are you?” and answering it. This is just part of the communication culture in America. People want to greet other people, but they don’t really want to have a real conversation. Even though I am from China, I think I will eventually try to fit into the culture of this country.

                                              

            In addition, one of the hardest parts of communicating in the U.S is that sometimes I can’t even communicate with Chinese people here. It is so terrible that I am Chinese, but I don’t understand what the Chinese who speak Cantonese talk about in America. I am proud that China is one of the biggest countries in the world, but to my surprise, I don’t know what my friends who speak Cantonese are talking about. I am from Xi’an, China, so I just speak Mandarin. When I came to American, I found that there are many people from China, but from different regions. A half year ago, I had an English class at school where we introduced ourselves. There were four people in my group: three Chinese and one from Korea, but the other two Chinese students were both from Guangdong, China and they spoke Cantonese. They talked about something, but I didn’t understand anything. The Korean classmate asked me what they were talking about, but I just answered that I didn’t know either. He was surprised to find out we were all from China, but I didn’t understand what they were talking about. It made me feel so bad.

                                           

            While I am in this strange country, America, I should try my best to completely adapt into its culture. However, I was born in my home country, China where I spent almost twenty years. I am habituated to communicating with people in Chinese with a specific communication style, and I still feel unaccustomed to the habits and ways of the communication in the United States. Nevertheless, this is just the beginning in America and I will overcome this unaccustomed feeling in my new life. In the near future, I really hope that will have a handsome man will use five different languages to express his love, and not always say “sorry” to me.