Why I started studying Chinese

I have wondered how Chinese works for a long time. The character system is much different from an alphabet, and I had been read incorrect information about how the language works, that lead me to believe that the language should not work. For example, a 1965 World Book article said that every word in Chinese is one character, and with tones there are 1600 or so different sounds. I could not imagine how a useful language could reuse those 1600+ sounds to cover tens of thousands of words. I worked with some Chinese and asked them about the language, and things started to make some sense.

In 1998 I learned that the 2000 Unicon would be held in Beijing. Unicon is the world unicycling championship meet. I had gone to a number of US national meets but not the international ones. China sounded like an interesting place to visit, though, so I decided to go. I hate going somewhere, though, where I don't know the language, so I decided to study Chinese.

I then had to figure out where to study Chinese. On Thanksgiving my brother suggested Berlitz. I called them the next day but they were closed for the holiday. I then looked in the phone book and found the American Institute of Languages in Hammond Corners, OH. I found that they teach Chinese, and have been studying it ever since.

Since then I have learned that the World Book is wrong. While most characters can function as words, not all words are one character, especially in spoken Chinese. They have since fixed this in the encyclopedia. Also, I didn't end up going to the unicycle convention. My interest in unicycling was flagging, and I wanted to spend my time in China seeing the country. In the end I went with REI Adventures and had a great time. Knowing Chinese made the trip a lot more fun, and it was especially helpful when I spent the night in a rural hospital.