https://en.writingisleading.com/english-from-a-privilege-to-a-disadvantage-d222cd581030
This is the story of a Chinese boy learning English as a second language while growing up and of how it changed from being a privilege to a disadvantage for him. The moral of the story? Privileges are relative in nature.
One person’s privilege is another person’s disadvantage, and one person’s disadvantage is another person’s privilege.
English as My Privilege
I was born in the seventies in China into an educated family. Both my parents had attended college, being the only children who received higher education in their respective families. In fact, all my dad’s four brothers were and continue to be farmers. Although my dad’s college education had been interrupted by the infamous Chinese Cultural Revolution, he had graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and started work as an engineer. My parents belonged to the so-called class of “Intellectuals” in China, as compared to the Working class.
I remember when I was in kindergarten, my mom used to read some “comic” books in a language that I did not recognize. I did not care much about the language at that time, but I was fascinated by the cartoons in the book. Later, I came to know of the book as the New Concept English, a very popular English textbook in China for over three decades.
My mom, who has loved learning all her life, taught herself English. At that time in China, the English language was accessible to only the highly educated. Even though my mom could not progress too much beyond the third book of New Concept English with her existing resources, knowing English was a privilege that she had. Naturally, I followed her path, and New Concept English opened the door to a new language for me, as well as to the exciting world that came with it.
Back in China, I was the best at English in my class, from middle school through high school. Due to my mom’s influence, I was ahead of my classmates in English. I won the first prize in the High School English Competition of Fujian Province and published an essay in an English magazine for high school students.
My advantage in English continued in college too. I passed all the English exams comfortably, including the CET, the TOEFL and the GRE — you name it! I also became confident with English in the academic world, reading academic papers in English and authoring my own paper in English.
So, was English a privilege for me in China? Yes. Even though a lot of the achievement came from my own hard work, I need to be grateful for the fact that I was born in an educated family, especially with my mom encouraging me to learn English since I was very young. Did I mention that she worked in a university? She sought opportunities for me. Once she signed me up for an English class that was meant for college students when I was still in high school. That’s an advantage that so many other school-age kids in China did not have. Many of them do not even reach high school, let alone learn English.
English as My Disadvantage
I was under the false impression that I was proficient in English as a second language until that morning, when the MIT admission office called me for an unscheduled telephonic interview.
Before I continue my story, please allow me to take a break and explain what learning English really involved at that time in China. When we talk about learning a language, there are four elements to it: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. My almost “perfect” learned-in-China English mostly involved the first two and a little of the third. I had never really spoken in English with a native English speaker, except for a few occasions at the English club, where the “foreigners” came to talk to us. For listening, I mostly used the test preparation materials and news channels accessible in China, such as BBC and VOA. I expected every American to enunciate like the presenters in news channels. I was wrong!
So, that morning, I struggled to understand the professor’s questions and could barely put my English sentences together. Realizing my struggle, the professor changed the topic and asked me about my hobbies. I handled that question slightly better, thanks to some prior practice I had in the club. Nevertheless, I did not go to MIT. I do not know how much of my fate was decided by my poor performance in the interview on that morning.
After college, I crossed the ocean and arrived in the States to pursue my mom’s lifetime American dream of freedom and independence. Well, it was too early to speak of independence. I had planned to support myself with a teaching assistant (TA) job at the Ohio State University, and I had to take an oral English test for the same. Unsurprisingly, I failed. As a result, I was paid only two-thirds of the salary, which was not much to begin with. I regretted not taking the Research Assistant role that Purdue University had offered me and which did not require any tests. Eventually, I passed the oral exams after taking the ESL classes.
This is how English changed from being my privilege to my disadvantage.
I realized that listeners who were not familiar with Chinese accents could only understand my English within a context. When I said a word without context or spelled out a word, such as my name, often they did not get it right. After many frustrating phone calls with banks and credit card companies, I picked up an English name, Leo, which was close enough to my Chinese name and short. I thought there was no way people would not understand my new English name — I was wrong again! Sometimes, the people on the other side of the phone line mistook it for Neo — yes, the Neo from the movie Matrix — because, apparently, I made a nasal sound without noticing it when pronouncing “L.” I should have just called myself “Neo”!
By the time I joined Microsoft, I was finally OK with my verbal communication — not great, but OK. There was a team member who came from an Asian country and struggled with every word when he spoke English. My team members laughed at him behind his back and called him “stupid.” They predicted he would not survive Microsoft. Indeed, he left later. I heard that he was managed out, for which I did not know the reason. To this day, I regret that I did not stand up for him, for I, as a fellow immigrant from Asia, had gone through the same struggle and clearly had empathy for him. He was just like me, but from a few years ago. I should have told my co-workers that poor English should never be considered a sign of stupidity and that he was just at a disadvantage. I could have been his ally! Years later, I heard that this co-worker was doing really well as a manager in another top IT firm. I am sure he would have overcome this disadvantage in English by working hard. I wonder what those who had called him “stupid” would have thought if they knew of this.
Though I have been living in the States for 20 years now, I am still at a disadvantage compared to native English speakers or my co-workers, whose native tongue belongs to the Indo-European language family. I can never speak English as fluently as they can, especially extempore. But I work hard to compensate for my disadvantage. I write down my speech every time before important meetings and practice repeatedly using a timer. As the Chinese saying goes, “Clumsy birds have to start flying early.”
Moral of the Story
Privilege and disadvantage are relative concepts. While my English is a disadvantage while working in an IT firm surrounded by the brightest minds from around the world, I am privileged when compared to my Russian cleaning lady, who does not speak English at all. My gardener who speaks OK but better English than his fellow Hispanic friends gets more jobs and is paid at a higher hourly rate.
I remember vividly that the first English saying I learned was from the New Concept English. It goes like this, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Borrowing from it, what I want to say is that one man’s privilege is another man’s disadvantage, and one man’s disadvantage is another man’s privilege. Only by understanding this, can the privileged realize that their privilege is merited not only by their sheer hard work but also by some advantage they might not be aware of when compared to the underprivileged. Such an understanding can enable the underprivileged to stop falling into the trap of thinking that they are the victims, to start working hard to compensate for the same, and to show empathy to the even more underprivileged.