Chinese Lessons Quotes

“I liked the way it felt to speak Chinese—the elegant rise and fall of the tones, the sensuous way my tongue flitted about my mouth and the economy of a language that needed very few words to say a lot. Speaking good French demands control of one’s lips; American English relies on an open mouth; but Chinese can be spoken perfectly even through clenched teeth. “Picture your tongue as a butterfly,” one of my instructors would say, and there it would be, flapping against my mouth and banging against my teeth as I sought to harness it and speak Chinese.”
― John Pomfret, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

“1977,”
― John Pomfret, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

“Like all Chinese youth, the first sentence he’d learned in school was “Long live Chairman Mao!” To be carrying out the chairman’s orders gave the precocious eleven-year-old a powerful sense of purpose and self-worth. “The more ruthless we are to enemies, the more we love the people,” the team would chant together.”
― John Pomfret, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

“The idioms also revealed that Chinese shared a barnyard bawdiness with American English. My favorite was “taking off your pants to fart”—wasted effort.”
― John Pomfret, Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China