I was 14 when I first arrived in America to study at a private Christian High School in Lynchburg, Virginia. I only spent my freshmen year here before transferring to a Catholic high school in Palm Desert, California. Nonetheless, this first year taught me many valuable lessons that all shaped who I am as a person beyond my other roles as a student and, now, a young professional.
Overcoming the language barrier as an exchange student taught me the virtue of persistence. Here are two stories behind this chapter of my life that I'd like to share, especially with fellow exchange students.
Funny enough, Chinglish is actually one of the first few words I've learnt in my first month of studying abroad in America. Chinglish is used to describe English spoken with a Chinese accent. And that's what I spoke when I gave my first ever in-class presentation on the second week of school. My fellow American classmates was quick to chuckle, whisper, and make eye contacts. I didn't know what they were laughing at. So mid presentation, I paused and asked,
'What's so funny?' The class went silent for 2 seconds before Jonathan, yes I still remember his name, yelled
'Your Chinglish!' 'Oh my gosh!' 'Just kidding!!'
'JONATHAN!' Mr. Morris sounded upset.
'Just keep going, Geanna.'
I chuckled in confusion and kept going.
Later this day, Mr. Morris called me in to talk. It was during his words of comfort that I finally learnt what Jonathan meant.
Not going to lie, I'm blessed to not known what he meant at first. So instead of crying in front of the whole class, I got to cry in Mr. Morris's office in private. As I emptied out the last box of Kleenex, Mr. Morris ended our talk with the same advice,
'Next time someone laugh or make a comment like that, just keep going. Okay? Don't let them stop you. Tell yourself you're doing great, and just keep doing what you've already started.'
'Okay.'
And that's what I did. I just kept talking. In classrooms, in cafeteria, in Chick-fil-a, in the mall, I literally never shut up. It wasn't easy. But it was worth it: 3 months or so later, I don't have an accent anymore. Teachers stopped going out of their ways to check in with me after class to see if I needed extra help. I was able to speak my mind fluently and even lead discussions here and there. I no longer stood out because of my accent.
People can finally focus on what I'm actually trying to say instead of how I sounded. This might came as a given to kids born in America. Yet it was a huge accomplishment to a foreigner like me. And thanks to this accomplish, instead of making fun of me, the local kids started making friends with me. I got invited to sleepovers and homecomings. I went hunting with the guys and rode in the back of an ATV across their giant backyards. My girl friends showed me how to make cookies from scratch. I tried cheerleading stunts in the pool for the first time. English fluency was the first door I knocked open towards American culture.
At the end of freshmen year, I moved to Palm Desert, California. Unlike Virginia where the overwhelming majority of population is white, a major chunk of California's demographic is the Mexicans. So were the student demographic in my second high school. It was refreshing to go somewhere where there are more than one foreign ethnicity.
It's easy to embrace the best part of ourselves. But it takes courage to do the same with the rest.
Coming from an atheist country like China, I found Christianity to be a much stranger concept to grasp than English. The mandatory Chapels at every Wednesday noon in the church hall with fancy cushioned seats was basically a weekly music therapy session where I'd lay back and take a nap with live hill songs playing in the background.