On Knowing the Language

Part II

Is knowing the local language beneficial to doing freelance abroad?

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To put it simply, no.

Or, to put it more precisely, knowing the local language is not always as beneficial as I thought it would be. A problem I ran into yesterday is illustrative of the problems of knowing the local language.

I was at the Jin Tai coal market near my home in Beijing, researching an article for the China Daily. I was reporting on the replacement of coal heaters in the capital's historic hutongs in favor of electric heaters. The benefits are obvious: removing coal pollution from the center of the city and ridding the hassle of having to tend to the heaters.

At the Jin Tai market, I wanted to find out whether the initiative had affected sales. Yet before I could get past a couple questions, the two clerks I was interviewing steered the conversation to foreigners' perceptions of China as a backward nation. "You guys have coal in your country too!" the middle-aged woman, dressed in a simple, functional winter coat, countered.

"Of course we do," I said. I hadn't implied otherwise. Nor had I suggested anything negative about China, coal, hutongs, puppy dogs or daisies.

"Foreigners," she said, turning to the soft-spoken older man sitting behind the counter, "come here and look at how poor everything is, but they have coal too. Just last week there was a foreigner from--where were they from? Italy?"

"Sure, we have coal too," I said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. "What we don't have in my hometown is anything with as much culture and history as these hutongs."

My praise was sincere--I really like hutongs--but it was also a necessary part of the elaborate game of praise and flattery in China.

The conversation meandered around the various famous historic courtyard homes in the area and where I could go find the most beautiful ones. The whole time I made sure to continue my praise. After I felt it was safe to return, I brought the conversation back to the future of the market and the new initiative. The woman retained a bit of her suspicion and the man behind the counter seemed particularly reticent in front of the woman, but I did get the answers, more or less, for what I had come for.

In the end, knowing the local language can only help me so much. I may be able to read the People's Daily as expertly as the comrade next door, but any attempts to visit places and interview people will be marked by my status as a foreigner. Chinese people are almost neurotically tuned to perceive others as thinking China is a poor, backwards place. Thus, my actions tend to be perceived in terms of pointing out China's poverty. And this obstacle means learning Chinese just isn't quite as useful I thought it might be.