One a half years ago I had an opportunity arranged by my university to pursue a double degree in China. Though studying in China had never crossed my mind before, I decided to take the chance hoping to experience what it feels like to study abroad.
It was quite an impulsive decision for me, with how I didn't know how to speak the language at all, but I was sold with the idea of finally living abroad just how I've always wanted.
I couldn't lie, the first year was awful. I was so stressed out and intimidated by the fact that I didn't speak Chinese very well. For months I was struggling in class, refusing to talk to any of my local classmates because I wasn't confident enough. With my local friends' inability to speak fluent English, Google translate and local translating applications were basically my saviors.
However, things changed when I started my internship. By that time, I have studied basic Chinese but still not fluent enough. I was still terrified, but the thing with an internship is that you will be forced to interact whether you like it or not, especially when you're interning in a hotel like me.
Not only was I forced to talk with my colleagues, but I also had to communicate daily with local and international guests. I was confident in my ability in conversing in English, but boy was I not prepared to have a full conversation with Chinese people.
I still remember the very first time I met a guest, and all I could do was smile and said a proper welcome before letting my Chinese colleague took over. Being a front office trainee in the Executive Lounge, I had to learn how to do the system as well as serving food and beverages to the guests.
Still, I needed a couple of days to learn how to properly say and ask questions regarding service, such as offering drinks and food, and I also had to learn how to pronounce cutleries and silverware as I was unfamiliar with those vocabularies. It took me many failures and a few funny looks from people before I abled to serve guests on my own without any help.
The same thing also applies whenever I had to help someone check in or check out of the hotel. It stressed me out for sure, but over time, I was able to adapt and learn new vocabularies, therefore increasing my Chinese speaking ability.
Though I was definitely improving, there were also moments that definitely punched my barely-existing confidence. One of those moments would have to be whenever I had to help or serve children. Having a job in a resort hotel undoubtedly means you will have tons of guests that brought their families along, which includes their children.
Although children are generally cute, they are also tricky to handle. They couldn't understand the fact that I wasn't from China and how sometimes my pronunciation was wrong.
There are times where I had to speak the same sentence over and over again, but with a different tone hoping that I finally get it right, but those children would only look at me funnily and ran to their parents.