Prior to arriving to China, I did not expect to have anyone to help me with my studies besides my teacher and fellow classmates. My expectations were easily exceeded once I dared to use my choppy Chinese to engage a taxi driver in a simple conversation. After he asked me what I was doing in Beijing, he took it upon himself to help me with my pronunciation and my grammar; a few sentences into the conversation he realized I mixed up the proper order of a sentence, and he proceeded to tell me what the correct order was. He went above and beyond in his teaching abilities when he fixed my “r.”
For those who don’t know, people from Beijing, unlike other cities in China, often use “r” at the end of words, and, for non-native speakers, this can be difficult. After meeting that man, I didn’t think I’d meet any other civilian on the rest of my trip that would bother to stop and help me with my pronunciation. I was mistaken, because in one of my many visits to the Pearl Market, the store clerk happily sat down with me to help me with some of the common mistakes I made while I was bargaining with her.
I am very grateful to the people that would waste their personal time just to help me, a random person, with the difficult language. Those are just a few fascinating encounters that I’ve had on my trip thus far. I hope to have many more before my time in Beijing ends!