When I knew I Had to learn Mandarin

I remember the first time the desire to learn Mandarin entered my mind. I was a Freshman in college at the time, and besides English, I had only studied Spanish in the past. My roommate introduced me to a lot of cultural aspects of China such as the food, climate and ways of living. I would always listen to her phone conversations that she was having and tried to pay close attention to the tones of her voice, yet the thought of actually wanting to learn the language never entered my mind until one specific day when my roommate entered our room one day in a very low mood. I could tell something was wrong with her because she was not her usual self. I didn’t ask her what was wrong. I wanted to be sure that I was reading her correctly. After a short while, my roommate quickly left out of our room and sat in the common area right outside our door. I could hear her talking on the phone in a low voice, and after some time, she began to cry. I went out and sat with her. She was in tears. “What’s wrong Lem?” I asked her. She looked at me, and mumbled something in English, then continued her conversation over the phone. She was in an argument with the person over the phone and that had led her to cry. I felt bad for her. She was my roommate, and being that she was in a foreign country, I wanted to help her in any way I could. I didn’t want her to feel sad or angry. “I wish I could understand,” I said to her as she looked up at me again. From that point on, I just knew I had to learn Mandarin. Not only to understand my roommate’s phone conversations, but also to communicate with her, especially when she had difficulties expressing her feelings in English.

"From caring, comes courage."
-Lao Tzu (Chinese philosopher)