Three adults and eight children (fourteen years old and under) sat around a table, eating pizza at my sister’s house two days ago. I posed a Table Question to learn more about the people with whom we were dining for the first time. What is one thing that is unique about you, that no one around the table can match? If someone can match it, the person have to keep scanning through their memory box to find that one thing.
Abuzz with excitement to tell their own tales, the children ( with the exception of one little guy) all wanted to go first. They shared their various skills; sports they played, foods they have eaten and places they have been (my niece went Italy nine times, and someone went to Alaska). Pearla, one of the adults, went last and shared a skill no one at the table could outdo.
Pearla speaks five languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Wen Zhounese, Spanish, Italian and English. With the exception of Italian, which she learned from her five years of living in Italy, she learned the other languages, from her friends. She did not go to school to learn these languages, paid for private lessons, or forked out hundreds of dollars to Rosetta Stone. She learned these languages only through her interactions with a diverse group of people in her friendship circle. Each group communicating with their own mother tongue and linguistic abilities enriched and gave Pearla the ability to understand and communicate in various languages.
There is wealth in languages — as is diversity in friendships.
