Gao Huan

If I needn��t to be too accurate, I will say that I started to learn English very early.

Even when I was in kindergarten, English had been given special importance by parents in general. English for Children. ABC English. Such books and TV broadcasts abounded. I was urged to learn English. But I found it not funny at all. What was the sense to call that red sweet fruit ��apple��? What did it matter to me? The boys and girls speaking English on TV looked so affected anyway. I reluctantly learned some words but I kept forgetting them. In a word, I had no drive whatsoever to learn this language.

But the time came when we had to study English in the primary school. I have always been a hard-working student and I am not slow in mind. Now I can��t figure out my ultimate goal of study at that time. Maybe everyone said hard-working was good, so I thought it was good. We had tests and exams. Certainly I didn��t want to score badly. So only when English-learning was compulsory, forced on me by someone outside my family, did I really get to learn this language by heart.

In my junior high school, I encountered a very memorable English teacher who was also in charge of my class. She was a despot to most of the students except those disgusting apple-polishers. Her sole goal was to win in every possible aspect over others, no matter how senseless it was. She wanted everything under her control and to develop the way she wished. If anything she didn��t like happened, she would by no means tolerate. She would chastise a student for hours only because he/she failed to sweep the floor spotless. (She hated me very much because I was outspoken and I stubbornly refused to say sorry for the wrongs that I didn��t do and still dared to stare at her when I was in a fury.) The overall academic performance of the class was of prior importance to her because it posed a comparison between her and other teachers. She pressed us hard to study and study for her own sake, rather than for our future.

Early every morning, half-asleep, we rushed to school to read English aloud. We must commit everything in the goddamned textbooks to memory. We had dictations every day. With one mistake you got 90, with two you got 70, with 3 you got 50 or lower. Unless you got 90 or higher, you had to go through the dictation again and again in the afternoon until you made less than one mistake. This was tiresome. But in this case you didn��t have to eye-contact her, so it was not the most horrible thing. What I abhorred most was to recite the texts, most of which were dull and stupid. I could never remember them exactly. In every English class, she would randomly pick up some students to stand up and recite the text. The atmosphere froze. My blood ran cold as if I were waiting to be shot dead. When I was unfortunately chosen, my head went blank as I saw her big eyes and fake smile. I recited the text slowly and tonelessly and expressionlessly. If you made over one mistake, you would have to recite the text to her in the noon. The mistake could have been neglected indeed. For example, you said ��he left the room in anger�� instead of the printed ��Bob left the room in anger��. If I was not chosen that day, I felt that I was a prisoner in a concentration camp carried to the execution field but was sent back to try my luck the next day as there were not enough bullets (no enough time for class actually).

However, with this special English training, our English scores were the highest among the four classes in the grade. I did pretty well in English. Thank God that I could still distinguish the she-dragon with English itself. As we later reminisced of the 3 years under her control, we objectively commented that her high-pressure policy had laid a very solid ground for our future English study, though it could have ruined our character-building but for our in-born care-freeness.

Then I went on for senior high study in the same school. The new English teacher was reputedly cynical and humorous. (He once observed, ��There are only two people forever correct in this world. One is Mao Tse Tong. The other is your Ms. X.�� (I finally got out of her hands happily.) His English was good and he never forced us. He told us a lot besides what was in the still-silly English textbooks. We liked English class.

At that time, it was an in thing to go to evening schools and study New Concept English or even TOEFL. Everybody was learning English somewhere else, so I did. New Concept English was more interesting. And most of the teachers there were not bad. But the best thing was that you could still meet friends, with whom you could talk to during class and go home together after class. I felt easy and free to go outside in the evening. I did learn something from these extra lessons because I was a responsible person. Once I got started, I��d better do it well. I felt a secret joy when I found many elder students�� English was poorer than mine. It turned out that my English was quite good in my day-school class, too. The exams and tests appeared easier than before. I even got a No.2 in a middle-school student English competition around Shanghai, which just fell short of adding 10 points to the scores of my College Entrance Examination.

Then I was in my last year of high school. It had been a difficult period for me with much pressure as a result of the sense of uncertainty. But actually my parents were more apprehensive than I. I can��t say that I did too badly in the exams, especially in English, with the written score 137 and oral 98. (A magazine editor even asked me to write an essay on how to learn English well. How she got to know me still remained a mystery to me till now.)

In September 1995, I became an English major in Fudan University. English was my alternative intended field of study. I immediately found myself immersed in a heavy atmosphere of this foreign language. It initially looked as if that all the teachers only spoke English. So it would be very silly if we spoke Chinese in answering them. However, it was just not easy to express ourselves in English fluently and we simply didn��t have big enough vocabulary. The teachers were warm and encouraging but I couldn��t help feeling silly when I spoke English in a relatively slow and broken manner. This must be changed. I continued to be a good student, perhaps even more hard-working than before. So it seemed that the more I am pressed, the more resentful I get. When no one presses me and it becomes primarily a self-responsibility for me, I will press myself and drive myself forward.

I saw two videos every week regularly. I liked the way the native speakers spoke English. I guess my English was gradually getting better both in listening comprehension and speaking. I worked as an interpreter for a young Danish guy on an international exhibition in a winter vacation. We talked about music and culture. We laughed over jokes. After that I no longer felt awkward to speak English.

I read books in English. I found many of those famous lengthy works uninteresting. However, I enjoyed The Gadfly, Catch-22, Animal Farm, half of 1984, one-third of Women in Love and Interpretation of Dreams which I am reading at present. Actually I enjoyed Dostoevsky but I read the Chinese translations. I am quite ashamed for having read so little as an English major, but I have been nonetheless fascinated by the great works, more by the ideas than the language itself, though. But I know it is through the language that all these ideas are conveyed.

I like writing in English. In most cases, the writing assignments delighted me because I could express my ideas and thoughts then. I even enjoy my writings. If I happen to be a writer, which seems very improbable, I brazenly hope that they would be published as a comparison to my later works. I read much about Freud and I have found his theory unique and applicable in understanding human thoughts and behaviors. The notions of id, ego and superego, conscious and sub-conscious, etc. are really illuminating. The philosophy of Existentialism has also influenced me. I secretly wrote a lot in English to analyze myself, and sometimes others, to examine the underlying motivations of our actions and the meaning of our existence. I am frank and detached in the analysis and probation. These writings are for my eyes only. I am not yet ready to show them to anyone though sometimes I regret that no one is going to read them. No one will be interested in knowing me so deeply, I say to myself. It requires so much patience and might cause so much displeasure. If I were Rousseau, these writings would provide materials for The Confessions. If I somehow became famous, maybe some time after my death, someone would hit upon these writings and begin to study what kind of people I was.

Anyway, I think my English is getting better with my everyday experience with it. However, I usually only do better when there is something in my mind. I hate to arduously convert the iota in my mind to something big. Yes, I got some prizes in the composition competitions sponsored by Professor Anna Lincoln, but I really didn��t like the topics. So I felt awkward in preparing to write about things that I didn��t feel. I took part in a speech competition, again sponsored by Anna Lincoln. I always find it quite meaningless to ��recite�� a speech to the audience. (Maybe I love impromptu things.) It is merely acting no matter how natural you look. In my humble opinion, the purpose of such speeches is to impress but not persuade, since they have no practical effects on the audience��s future thought and behavior. But I nonetheless ��delivered�� a speech. I didn��t like the topic and what I said was subtly ironic. I appeared not serious and people laughed. It was all over. Whenever I see the certificate of the third prize, I think of this ironic episode.

It��s good that I have met so many respectable teachers. I enjoy the lectures they give. I have learned so much from them. I am grateful. Some of the teachers are really interesting. One suggested me be an animal-feeder in the zoo. Another said he would imprison me because I spread witchcraft.

So it seems, throughout my experience of learning English, the factor of teachers always plays a considerable part. Without them, perhaps I would never get started with English or every other subject. I could have been an illiterate no matter how hard my parents urged me to study. But if the teacher interfered too much, I felt sick and tired. Only when the teachers encouraged me properly could I find the real drive to learn more and improve myself. This aspect of human relationships is subtle and interesting, not merely between teachers and students. I see this from my English learning autobiography.

Soon I will graduate and start my first job. I am feeling sorry for having to leave Fudan. I love the freedom of being a student here. I enjoy the joy and pain in learning English. And I must continue to study English.