Day One
This challenge began when I changed my MSN status (in Chinese obviously) to: “I’m not speaking Chinese for 5 days! Please forgive me.”
Mrs Guo, one of my teachers in China, saw my status and began chatting with me in English.
We had always chatted in Chinese, previously, for many years. This was an unexpected brilliant start to the challenge. Mrs Guo’s encouragement gave me the initial courage to carry on.
However the very next morning I met my first hurdle. I had arranged to teach my friend Sunshine Chinese.
We’ve been doing a language exchange class for several months, meeting weekly to practice our speaking.
Now I have a confession to make… I half failed my challenge, by speaking English for only half the lesson.
I was so relieved when it was over but then on my way home, I met two friends who I hadn’t seen for a long time.
We immediately began chatting oh so naturally, in Chinese. I didn’t realise I had broken the rule until several hours later.
Then I paused and asked myself; is it really weird for me to insist on speaking English with all of my Chinese friends?
There was also the question of Chinese culture and etiquette.
I was concerned that people from my native country may have thought I was being disrespectful or proud, putting them down by responding to them in English and not in our native language.
I was especially worried about my long standing friends and older Chinese acquaintances.
So yes. Day one ended up on a massive dilemma; should I continue?
Day Two
I woke up and instantly decided to continue with the challenge.
There were two things worth mentioning today.
One was a really tricky situation, which actually happened last night.
My friend Yang Zhijun asked me on MSN;
“Well, you are not speaking Chinese for 5 days. But what if you speak Chinese in your dreams?”
I burst into laughter. To be honest, there was absolutely nothing I could do about this.
I wish I could speak English in my dreams though.
I wondered if I will ever dream in English or speak English in my dreams.
But it was the start of day two which astounded me most.
I woke up realizing that in my dreams I hadn’t spoken Chinese.
But I hadn’t spoken English either… I had spoken French.
I know it sounds unbelievable, but I’m not lying. Perhaps it was because I had learned a little bit of French a week ago.
Sadly, the only word I can repeat now is ‘bon jour’.
But back to the real world, I would never have made it through the day without my friend LI Wei, who blurted out the moment I saw her, “I know you cannot speak Chinese, I saw your MSN”. My friends have been so encouraging and I was moved by their support.
Overall, day two was a success.
Well done me.
Day Three
Today is the 3rd day. I answered calls from two of my best friends, in which they spoke Chinese and I spoke English.
To my surprise, they didn’t laugh at me and weren’t angry at all.
On the contrary, the calls went quite well. What was more, several friends chatted with me on MSN throughout the day.
They used Chinese and I managed to respond in English. It was fantastic.
I am getting used to this. In addition, my sister, who is in China and can speak a little English, chatted with me online.
She was so supportive even though she sometimes had to Google my English sentences and translate them into Chinese to fully understand what I was saying.
Such determination to support my efforts on this tricky five day challenge was amazing.
There were some moments it was painful to hear her struggle with the translation and I came so close to speaking Chinese to her, but I didn’t.
It made me feel postive and certain that I could keep up the challenge for five days, but definitely not forever.
Bug report: I spoke Chinese in my dream last night, but I’m powerless over this!
Day Four
The hardest part of today was when I visited my friend Xiupeng Sun.
Given that we were roommates for four years, it was very funny speaking English to him.
He tried many times to persuade me to speak Chinese, but I knew this was just for fun, and I survived the test.
Later I made a call to another friend for a long chat.
I began feeling almost natural speaking English, despite my friend responding in Chinese.
At the end of the day my friend told me that I have made huge progress since I came to England.
I took that as a real compliment. In the evening, two friends were even influenced by my challenge.
One spoke English in a phone call, and the other one chatted in English online with me.
Oh, and the last thought for the day, I didn’t dream at all last night.
Or at least I can’t remember my dreaming.
Day Five
Finally, my five days have come to an end. At the very beginning, I didn’t expect time to go so quickly.
But time flies, whether you realise that or not, and you can do nothing to stop it.
Looking back over the past week, I have gained much more than I thought possible.
I’m not saying that I’ve made colossal progress in my ability of speaking and listening.
But the most fantastic point is that in these five days, I have begun to feel natural speaking English and I’ve gained so much confidence.
To celebrate my final day, Rose (my English housemate, friend and mentor) cooked me a traditional Bristish meal of steak pie, jacket potatoes, cabbage and gravy.
It was the perfect way to end my tricky, but rewarding, five day challenge.
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