#099 Teacher Mike - An American in China

I read an article that listed out the number of hours it would take a speaker, someone new to a language, to become conversational ... I think Spanish was lower—kind of in that 400-500 hour range with French and Italian. English was kind of 600-700 [hours]. And then Chinese and Japanese, I think 1200-1300 [hours].

I believe that if you don't travel somewhere and spend time there and talk to people and understand a place, which takes time, then I generally don't feel like it's wise to have a super-duper strong opinion on a country let alone the people in it.

I wish everybody from China could see America, and I wish everybody from America could visit China and see what it's actually like there because, like you said, without going there, you have all these preconceived notions.

My experience traveling around China, it's extremely safe ... I haven't been to a place in China where I wouldn't feel comfortable walking around at 3 AM in the morning by myself. I don't fear violence at all.

Outside of Beijing and Shanghai, you'll certainly get stared at a lot, no matter what your skin color is. As long as it's not Asian, you're going to get stared at.