It Is Not An Assignment Anymore

        This week, my professor assigned my class an essay.  He said that we should write something about our understanding of language of culture.  As soon as I heard the topic, I decided that I will start this essay by describing my trip to Japan when I was a child.  In the following paragraph, I kind of just picked out the part I think is worth putting on my blog because by doing some amend, I tried to trim this essay to really express the real feeling inside my mind instead of just an assignment.

        Prismatic light shone from the crystal I was going to insert to the keyhole.  Satisfied with the intricate grooves I forged, the metal gate swung backward automatically with surprisingly silence.  Iridescent streaks stream toward me triggering my instinct to hold up my arm for the protection of my eyes.  Tentatively, I peeked out from behind the gate.  My nostrils flared with the smell of lavender as the early morning sunbeam and cool wind soothed my face with their gentle touch.  Stunned, I gaped at the room with a view.  Stretching out from the exit was a field of lavender with various patches of colors: purple, indigo, lilac, sapphire, pink, red, yellow, green, to what seems like the endless.  They picked up with the resemblance of gemstone glittering to life due to the sunlight. Suddenly, my cell phone rang, and I stood up leaving the journal kept my trip to Japan on the table.  Language and cultural as I just mentioned are key and the gate of view.

To further illustrate, I shall explain language ── the key and the culture ── the view, respectively.  To begin with, the key is made from a rough metal, which is like the mind that once was occupied by biological need.  As we grow up, and experience the world around us, we chisel the metal trying to shape a way to open a door toward the society.  However, in the era of global village, we cannot always use the same key and that is the reason to learn the second language. To learn it means to accept the culture of the people who speaks it: that is to say, to embrace a different perception toward the world from another group, their way of thinking, their point of view.

Recently, I have been reading a series of fantasy novel, The Secret of Immortal Nicholas Flamel, by Michael Scott.  In the book, there is a word drawing me a lot of attention──Awaken.  Aside from its meaning in the novel, there is another definition to me in my brain.  It is just like a sudden understanding of something.  People just understand without any reason.  To me, as a native Mandarin speaker, I suddenly understand the pattern of English when I read Fly Away Home.  It just came to me. My five senses are triggered and attention are drawn into the another land created by the author who carefully notch the words onto his bow to shoot on the right target.  When the sudden understanding comes or I am Awakened, it like being soothing by a cool wind; the images the thought flow through and poured into the body as well as mind  and he blood is rushing circulating the whole body.  It's awesome and comfortable. 

        "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache sind die Grenzen meiner Welt ", said by Ludwig Wittgenstein.  I started to attend a German class, recently.  My German teacher wrote this sentence on the blackboard on the first day of my first German class.  He explained the meaning is "the limit of my language is the limit of my world".  Right at that time, I made a wish to myself── I want to be Awakened again.

 

A Sudden Understanding
drawn by Angel Pao