A keynote speech for the Multilanguage Learning Students Symposium at China Institute in America, February 12, 2025
by Shenzhan Liao/廖申展
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Thank you. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.
I want to share my story as a speaker of two languages: Chinese, and English. It’s the story of a Chinese immigrant who made her way to New York City through learning English and finding her way in New York City through her native language of Chinese.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
This is a quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein. I learned about Wittgenstein when I was in college. I was studying Education Administration at Beijing Normal University in China. I only knew he was an Austrian philosopher. His theory — that language is not only a tool for communication but fundamentally shapes one’s mind and thinking, — had a profound impact. But, I quickly moved on to other readings, literature, music, hanging out with friends, you know, the usual things that would interest a college student…. The internet was not much of a distraction at the time, the iPhone wasn’t invented until a decade later, but still, a foreign philosopher born in a different century wouldn’t interest a college student in China much longer.
Until two weeks ago, I was on my way to China Institute to celebrate the Chinese New Year. 700 people registered to come; I was sitting on a 4 train on Sunday, a couple all bundled up were reading a NYC map in a language I don’t know; an Asian-looking girl sitting next to me was on her WeChat; and a skinny young man got on the train, carrying a music box and announcing “It’s show time!”
I have lived in NY for over a decade, so I was just observing and minding my own business, that is, in my mind preparing for today, talking in front of you. I was in fact thinking of my teen years when I was on my way to a secondary school in my hometown, a small town in Sichuan province, southwest of China. In the town center, there was one tree-lined main street, a few side streets, and a small river going through the town. There were no buses and very few private cars. The transportation faster than walking was bikes and rickshaws, peddled by one single human.
All these flashes of memories came back to me while I was sitting on the train, and I thought to myself: what have I journeyed through? As I was taking a moment to think how I could be between these two worlds: a small Sichuan town, and New York City, drastically different geographically and culturally, I couldn’t help but come to realize: for me, it all started with learning one foreign language, English.
Like the majority of students in my generation in China, my first English class took place in the first year of junior high school. An older teacher in Mao’s suit, (do you know Mao’s suit? blue/grey color, four pockets, stiff standing collar) sitting behind the teacher’s desk, asked all the students (46 of us), to open the English book to lesson one, and the first two English words I ever learned were: “face” and “bee” (as in bumblebee) By the end of the first lesson, all children in the class managed to memorize a dialogue, both question and answer:
“How are you?”
“Fine. Thank you. And you?”
I did not know that these words, seemingly disconnected and irrelevant to my life in the small town, would eventually open the world for me to NYC. Neither of my parents spoke a single word of English and had never been anywhere outside of China. But I almost fell in love with English instantly. In junior high schools, every morning before the first class started, all students had a 45-minute “read-aloud” session. I was reading out aloud the English textbook word by word, line by line, to practice pronunciation to the best I could (there was not a single English native speaker in my town). Before I knew these words could open up a new world to me, I was drawn to them already, as if they each were a small window to a whole new culture. In the end, 脸, is not only 脸, it is also “face”； 蜜蜂 can also be “bee”, and 你好 can be “How are you” or “How do you do”! Outside the classroom, Chinese was still almost the only language one could encounter, HOWEVER, learning a foreign language did show other possibilities: "What kind of life do people have if they speak such a different language?"
I shall also add that in my years of studying English, China started setting forth on a path where the entire country is changing economically, and culturally at a rapid pace. Besides feeding my curiosity, learning English was a requirement to do well in school and simply meant more doors would open. In the years to come, more and more Chinese students attended American universities. At its peak in 2016, there were over 350K. In 2002 there were a total of 65K Chinese students in American universities, and I was one of them.
Once I came to NY for graduate school, my relationship with English and Chinese completely changed. Before Chinese was my native language, and English was a foreign language opening to a new, different world. Now that I am in that world, English is prevalent, the very essential that you are expected to master to be functional daily and successful academically. Chinese may be used only among my fellow Chinese students in school, friends, sometimes in Chinatown, or over the phone back to China.
I had a good foundation in English. But despite spending 13 years learning English and getting high enough scores in TOFLE (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and GER (Graduate Record Examinations), after my first “Urbanization and Acculturation” class in graduate school here, I freaked out. I missed at least 30% of what the professor said; I was at a loss when I was trying to take notes since he was talking too fast, and on top of that, the exchanges among students seemed even more challenging to follow: as I was struggling to come up with the right phrases, the discussion had gone to a completely different topic.
In New York City, when I walk into the streets, hearing people speaking languages I don’t know, or English with some accent, I know in this city there are millions of people like me, trying to figure out how to live while they didn’t speak the language in the first place. In 2022, the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs reported, there were 3.1M, around 38% of NYC’s population are immigrants. 200 languages are spoken across 5 boroughs. Over one million children, that was (is?) about 62 percent of all children in New York City, live in a household with at least one foreign-born family member.
In a city where multilingualism is so essential, it helps me to feel not alone. But it doesn’t give me a reason not to improve my English. I wanted to explore what this opportunity of coming to NY would take me, and I had to get over the English barrier to study, work, and enjoy living here.
It is in this process, that I discovered a new relationship with the Chinese language, my mother tongue. I studied English to be able to come here, but it is the Chinese language, and the culture that I was born into, that became the reason for me to stay.
Before I came to China Institute, I was a Chinese language teacher. That started even before graduation: My first job as a Teaching Assistant at the East Asian Studies Department of Columbia University was to help students learning the Chinese language to practice. I was their official language buddy. Students came to the Chinese program for various reasons. Some had no prior experience but an abundance of curiosity; some wanted to be able to communicate with their family members from China and connect with their cultural roots; some sought after future career opportunities that could be related to China – indeed, at the time, which was more than 20 years ago, the golden age between U.S. and China in recent history had just started.
I saw the value of my mother tongue, and my ability as a native speaker to help students here was tremendously rewarding, plus it paid some bills for food and grocery shopping. Meanwhile, I quickly discovered that I had to continue studying and improving my own language. Surprisingly, speaking Chinese as my first language doesn’t mean I could teach it well, nor could I explain every aspect of Chinese culture. How in Chinese describe events in the past without conjugation? What does the Year of Snake mean in Chinese culture? Who are the most popular influencers on RedNote? As I was looking for answers for my students, I was learning about my own culture in both Chinese and English in order to be an effective Chinese teacher here.
It is a long journey, but the journey paved my way here, to China Institute in America. This non-profit institution was founded in 1926 to help Americans understand more about Chinese culture through its language, art, music, food, people, and more. Its founders include people like Hu Shih and Kuo Pingwen, who themselves were once international students in the U.S.. For generations, many Chinese immigrants like me found their paths here, to find a cultural home away from home, and share Chinese culture with people who walked through its door. Just ask any of my colleagues here, we are all connected to the Chinese language and culture one way or the other. My work, our work, includes engaging people to experience Chinese culture in a fun way [photo 1], through exhibitions with authentic fine art in our gallery [photo 2], joining the dialogue on U.S.-China business development after leadership shifted post-election, or this is my favorite, bringing students to China[ Youth Leadership Program]...
Since I joined China Institute, I have had so many trips back and forth between the U.S. and China that I couldn’t count. I brought American teachers to the Forbidden City in Beijing, where we learned on the spot the ancient history of China and its transformation in recent years; I took students to Chengdu to present with Chinese peers their ideas and thoughts for a better future together and visited some pandas on the way. Once, right above us on the second floor here, I stood in front of an Ancient Chinese King’s suit made of 3,000 pieces of jade from almost 2,000 years ago, and shared its story with visiting students and teachers; I also worked with Chinese language teachers on how to interest their students, students like you, and your classrooms to learn Chinese. Learning a language is indeed a key to a new world and I am a living proof. I believe it is worth helping others to achieve it. Just like when I was a Teaching Assistant in the first year I was in NYC, I felt so fulfilled, and I made a career out of it, for 17 years so far.
I consider myself very lucky and privileged, that I have this chance of living in both cultures. I now don’t feel as inadequate in English, and at the same time still deeply connected to the culture I was born into. It doesn’t mean I don’t need to learn more. My English is still not perfect. And when I travel back to China, people would instantly pick me out as someone who’s from abroad. And that’s OK. I know I have both worlds that enrich my life, and that gives me the confidence to embrace the new and the unknown, even maybe a third language! My brain was stretched once by learning two languages. It won’t be too daunting to get stretched again!
Now I want to come back to the quote: The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Or I could flip it: More languages enlarge one’s world. I am not here to promote learning the Chinese language only. Maybe you are speaking Mandarin, or Cantonese, or Fujianese at home, or you or your family members are speaking Spanish, Russian, Bengali or French. My point is many of us are already sitting on the wealth of at least two cultures. Of course, not all of us will become a language teacher like me. You may have a career that we couldn’t even foresee given how fast the world is changing by technology. But language is so fundamental for our human experiences. Even in an era where AI can easily translate, speak or write, it doesn’t replace us having a larger and more enriched life when we truly embrace the benefit of multilingualism as humans. We all have very unique relationships with the language or languages and cultures through which we find our own path to becoming ourselves. And in this country, in this city, it is more true than any other place in the world, that one has crossed the boundaries of cultures and languages, either personally, or through our families. And because of that, I’d encourage you to think more about your relationships with the languages and cultures that make you. It is part of being a human everywhere, and particularly resounding here.
Thank you for listening to my story. Thanks, to the Office of Multilingual Learners of NYC Public Schools and Career Day Inc. for bringing you to China Institute. Hope you have a great day today. And, since the 15-day traditional Spring Festival celebration ends today, I wish you a wonderful Year of Snake ahead of you.
