The Universal Language
Traveling China and interacting with local people reminded me of a poster I used to pass every day in my old elementary school. Smiling, it said, was the universal language. After traveling through China, however, I have to say that while that poster was on the right track, it doesn’t give fully explain the true universal language.
For starters, if any spoken language was universal it would certainly be English. Just about every person I interacted with in China knew some amount of English. Walking down a street or into a store I would be greeted by many “hellos.” Often people would ask me to take a picture, as a 6'5" (or 195 cm in China) American boy was not a common sight. With most people, however, the ability to communicate in English was severely limited, and my Chinese was nothing to brag about. The way I communicated with people outside of the lab was limited mostly to what I believe is the more accurate universal language — nonverbal communication.
Throughout my time in China, I communicated almost entirely silently. By the time I left China I only had a small handful of phrases I knew in Chinese, and even fewer I was comfortable pronouncing in public. The only ones I used with any regularity were 谢谢 — Xièxiè, pronounced “shi-shi”, meaning “thank you,” and 你好 — Ni hao, pronounced “ni how” and meaning “hello.” Outside of those two phrases I barely spoke a word. If I was separated from my mentor at the lab I had to make do with what I could communicate without words, and I learned that it’s surprisingly easy to communicate without language. One such example is ordering at a restaurant. A typical interaction involved me walking in, pointing at a menu, paying, and walking out saying “thank you.” I found myself avoiding areas that didn’t have an easy way for me to communicate. Pictures worked well, since I could see what I was getting without knowing the language. Simple gestures such as a thumbs up, head shake, and a nod can give another person plenty of information, regardless of the language barrier. Not everyone in the lab knew English as well as my mentor did. We would commonly communicate by example and gestures, and in the rare cases that didn’t work we always had the backup of translator apps. Throughout my time in China, I always felt like I could communicate with the native people, even though it was silent. Even though I had gone to China expecting to learn Chinese, I was surprised to find that not only was it not needed, but it was actually easier to not use words at all.
Overall, I was surprised by how well I was able to communicate in a foreign country without any language. It helps remind me that even though we may be far apart and culturally different, the daily lives of most Chinese people are not so different from what we experience in America. Every person around the world is equal, and the similarities in nonverbal communication help drive that point home. It’s also reassuring to know that no matter where you go in the world, you will always be able to have some level of communication using the true universal language — the lack of language itself.
