Sweet Persistence
If I told you that my mom has been learning English for thirty years, what would you assume? That she must be really good, right? But the truth is, she never went beyond the entry level, and has been forever a happy beginning English student.
Ever since she started learning English through a television program (yes, we have those in China), I became her free tutor for several years until I left China. When I was home, she’d always grab me for help with her English homework. A typical question of hers would be: “Why do they put locations at the end of a sentence? Why is it different from Chinese?” My typical answer was: “Why do you always ask me “why” questions, I can only answer “how” questions.” But life went on and I immigrated to the US, finally escaping my English tutoring career.
A month before my daughter’s birth, my mom came to the US. She was so excited. Before the trip, she put herself through her very own boot camp to absorb as much English as possible so she could impress the officer at the US visa application window. By the way, this is not the visa credit card application. After a long time standing in line, she finally reached the window. Before her first well prepared English word popped out, the officer started questioning her in Chinese.
Immediately, she thought: why is his English so easy to understand? After she realized he was speaking Chinese – and poorly at that – she decided: if we’re going to speak in Chinese, that visa might as well already be mine! After a few routine questions from the officer to my mom, she seized an opening and jumped right in with:
“Do you remember that China and the US used to be allies in World War II?” Without waiting for the puzzled officer to formulate a response, she continued: “So we’re old friends, right?” The officer nodded slowly. How could he shake his head now, without knowing where my mom was going with this? She certainly knew how to talk her way through things. “The museum where I work is having a big exhibition on World War II, how about I save you some tickets. Here is my business card and please call me when you get there. You’ll receive a very warm welcome.”
The poor officer was completely perplexed. He hesitated, trying to figure out what his next words should be, but he was so thrown off by my mom that he just couldn’t continue. With nothing to say and no reason to reject her application, he finally put a smile on his puzzled face and said: “Here is your visa.”
There was no time to celebrate the victory. A month later, my mom was already at her second tollgate, the US customs at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. The officer pulled out a plastic bag from her luggage, looked at her with a suspicious expression and asked: “What is this?” My mom got really nervous but still put on a smile: “It is good food for my daughter, she having a baby.” It was a bag of dry fruit, the traditional Chinese food for new moms. They looked like smashed rotten cranberries. The officer was not convinced and was about to throw it away. My mom grabbed the bag and put a piece into her mouth, chewing with a smile. She then pointed to the officer and then pointed to the bag: “It is good!” With a huge bout of courage, the office finally took one himself and ate it. He liked it, so he nodded to my mom and waved to let her go.
My daughter is 19 years old now. My mom’s English is still at the entry level. It never gets better, and it can’t get any worse. When you do something you like though, you don’t really care about the result. You enjoy the process, no matter how long it takes.
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