Why You Should Never Stop Being A Student
What I learned from attending a class that was NOT taught in my native language.
This past weekend, I attended a capoeira workshop in Taipei, Taiwan. I’ve been practicing this art for almost a year. After attending a workshop in Hong Kong two months ago, it sparked my interest to do more of these so I can learn the perspectives of other veteran capoeiristas, as well as the social benefits of meeting new people from around the world.
The host for this recent event was a Contra Mestre from Japan. Given that all of the attendees (excluding myself) were Taiwanese or Japanese, I assumed that the workshop was most likely going to be conducted in [Mandarin] Chinese, Japanese with some Portuguese.
Even though I’ve been in Taiwan for a year, my Chinese speaking ability is probably the equivalent of a toddler that knows survival skills. Other than a few words that I picked up from anime, I have zero understanding of Japanese. As for Portuguese, even though I never studied or had any exposure to the language growing up, I have a decent command of the language because of its similarities to Spanish, a language that I studied in grade school.
