“Dreaming in Chinese,” by Deborah Fallows

This book…… It was great. (I feel like I say that about every book I read, and I probably do enjoy most books more than most people do, but I’m just being honest. Read back into some of my reviews and I promise you’ll find some that weren’t raving.)

It’s not like most of the books I read. My dad suggested it to me, knowing how I love culture and language and the adjustments required when someone is transplanted into a world very much unlike their own. I studied in Spain for a semester in college, and the culture shock (and reverse culture shock, but that’s another story) that I experienced surrounding that experience stick with me still today. The language challenges of entering a culture before being fluent in the language…well, that’s not something you forget, nor is it something you can experience without growing and changing exponentially.

(Side note: I remember emailing my parents at one point during my tenure in Spain and telling them that I had “made it.” I had dreamed in Spanish the night before, and that – as any serious language student knows – is a terrific indication that a language has shifted from being vocabulary lists on a page to being a living, breathing language. It’s pretty neat, and made the title of this book hit home.)

If you, too, have an interest in culture and language, you’re bound to love this book. It’s a memoir, of sorts, of a woman who moved to China with her husband and, subsequently, struggled for several years to gain a working, functioning knowledge of the Chinese language. She pairs her strategies for learning the language with her observations of Chinese people and culture, making for a fascinating study of the expatriate experience. Going into this book, I didn’t know much about either Chinese culture or languages; when I finished, I felt like I had enjoyed a cup of coffee with someone who had just lived the experience and passionately shared their stories. Really, there’s no better way to learn……as the author, who knows more than she did but still admits limited knowledge, will tell you.