The 22nd year of being Ryan Hartley, documented.

Predictability is good in small doses; it protects the soul from too much disruption. It is a good feeling, opening up a copy of Die Matie knowing that you’re going to enjoy a few Campus Quotes, perhaps read this column if you’re English and you’ve got the time or the one above if you’re Afrikaans and then look at the pictures in the rest of the paper. It’s consistent and comforting. Too much predictability is not a good thing. Too much predictability is boring.

These days you can’t mention the year 2010 without someone indulging in what has so charmingly been labelled “Afro-Pessimism”: South Africa won’t have enough stadiums/electricity/points to see the second round or alternatively South Africa will have more than enough crime/ unethical kickbacks/prostitutes. With all this negativity about, I thought it might be a nice change to take a look at another country about to host a major sporting event: China and the Olympic Games.

As usual the Chinese are (metaphorically) head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to mobilising a nation. The Beijing Olympic Commission has issued The Olympic Taxi Handbook; a 312 page compendium on communicating with the rest of the world. This handy little novella not only contains useful English phrases such as “Take me to the People’s Hospital, I have a javelin in my back” or “Explain to me the benefits of Communism”, while it presumably does not contain phrases such as “Tell me a little bit more about Tiananmen” or “Why don’t you just leave Tibet alone?” In addition, the Handbook contains tips on how to deal with the quirks of other nationalities (Shake a Frenchman’s hand softly and lightly; Don’t rub a Taiwanese baby’s head) and useful tips like “How to Escape from a Burning Cap (Break the window with your belt buckle). In addition to this marvellous guide to hospitality the Commission has employed Li Yang to teach it’s volunteers how to speak English. Mr Li is something of a celebrity in China; thousands flock to his English Rallies, some selling their blood to be able to afford a ticket. This is not your ordinary English teacher. Li encourages learning through shouting. “Shouting is the way to unleash your international muscles” says Mr Li. While I’m pretty sure the Taxi Handbook might have something to say about shouting at international visitors, Mr Li remains a national hero to many.  His memoirs were originally entitled “I am Psychotic I Succeed” until someone pointed out that this was slightly disturbing and unlikely to lead to the aforementioned success.  Nevertheless, Li Yang has succeeded, so much so that he is now spear-heading the movement towards a more English-enabled China.

While the idea of two billion psychotically successful, English-phrase-shouting Chinese is a little disconcerting, I quite like the idea of the most populous nation in the world learning to speak English. This is because deep inside the heart of every English-speaker is a tiny English voice that says “Hey, I speak the most widely spoken language in the world. Why can’t everyone else just get on board?” While this may be incredibly politically-incorrect it is a thought that has occupied the minds of English-speakers for hundreds of years:  After hacking through a Congolese jungle, English explorers would still insist on speaking English to the bemused Congolese people they found there, berating them on their failure to have developed the capacity to produce a decent cup of tea. An English-speaker’s only concession to the multitudinous languages of the world is to speak more slowly when confronted with a foreign tongue as if the tendency to speak another language was merely the sign of an inferior mind. To the English it was quite apparent that everyone else was just not pulling their weight and if they just tried a bit harder they could jolly well figure out how to communicate like the rest of the world (i.e. Us English fellows).  

In today’s enlightened times, we’re not supposed to think like this and nor should we. Multiculturalism is the way forward and there are many tangible benefits to speaking more than one language. Those who are multilingual are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s and more likely to understand what goes on in a Stellenbosch Accounting Lecture. Even so, there is a tiny, terrible part of me that just wants to say: I’m English: Get on board, it’s a world language.