I’ve been thinking maybe this article isn’t really about learning Chinese at all.
Im listening to Jden song where he says, “I write songs like these ones, simply as distractions to make me feel like im doing something bigger than my passions .. but im just lying to myself again”
Maybe this piece is my version of that.
Some days I feel like I’m writing this to inspire my future daughters.
Maybe I’m trying to understand why I even feel the need to write something like this.
Or who I’m becoming to even want to write something like this.
Or maybe deeper down im writing this just for an ego boost.
And there are moments when I wonder if I’m simply documenting a mind in transition.
But to understand why I’m here now — learning Chinese, thinking about eastern philosophy, crawling under tables with cheese — you have to understand where it started.
The Two-Job Life That Shaped Me
From 2021-2024 in Kingston, my life was split right down the middle.
Digicel 8–5. (more like 10 - 5 if im being honest)
Alliance Française 6:30–8:30.
IT by day. French by night.
That rhythm felt… right. Purposeful. Disciplined. Like my own version of that Japanese philosophy where you commit to one craft deeply until it becomes a pillar of your life.
IT was my career. French was my side hustle.
Kingston was my world — the taxi man dem and the driving, the heat, Red Hills traffic, and the long drives to Mobay where I met every kind of human: Jamaican, Cameroonian, French, Australian, Japanese, American, South American.
Those drives — 4 hours, windows down, music loud, everybody telling stories or arguing about politics or weed or football — shaped me more than I realized at the time.
And I thought that was it.
Those years were the first time I started thinking about China.
In tech, China was already big.
In Jamaica, China was everywhere — supermarkets, businesses, construction sites, the highway to Ochi.
Even in my stomach — chicken chow mein was bussing.
I remember countless rides discussing China, the wider Caribbean, Europe, and hearing people from all over the world share their versions of the truth.
Those conversations made me feel like the world was bigger than Kingston.
And maybe, just maybe, I needed to see it for myself.
Coming Back to France
(Not China but close enough)
Life moved. I moved.
I came to France for my master’s.
And that’s when the unexpected happened.
I enrolled in Chinese.
Tones, characters, Taoism, XiDaDa — none of it was part of the vision.
And after a year, I found myself asking:
Have I changed too much?
Guilt in Growth
Some days, I wonder if I’m helping Jamaica as much as I could be.
If I’m becoming too French. Too Chinese. Too “global,” whatever that means.
Sometimes I sit around the lunch table with 200 chinese and tell myself damn maybe Jamaica selling Goat Island was worth it. That it could symbolize the start of something bigger between Jamaica and China. A bridge. Opportunities. Education. Work. Philosophies meeting. Cultures mixing. Sometimes I feel hopeful about that.
Other times I feel like a traitor for even thinking it. Like knowing I havent contributed anything to the Jamaican economy in over 6 months while getting a notif that my Temu package is on route.
Have I betrayed the country that raised me?
The soil that grew the yam I ate for 25 years?
Did I trade callaloo and dumpling for baguette and noodles?
Or Am I just a slave to my own curiosity… and ambition?
Maybe I’m writing this to tell myself it’s okay to grow. To change. To experiment with who I could be.
Whatever the truth is, that’s only the beginning of this story.
The rest?
It’s about the people I met along the way, the moments that taught me, and the language that’s shaping me.
How I Learn Chinese
My first-year Chinese teacher was a small, energetic woman who walked into class smiling like she carried sunlight in her pocket. She taught with music, poems, stories about dynasties and her own childhood memories.
When she talked about emperors, traditions, classroom culture in China, it felt like she was opening a window into a world I had never seen. I’d sit there feeling like a little boy, hearing Anansi stories for the first time.
And the best part?
No conjugations. No tenses. No gender. No moods.
After French, thats how i know God real.
Same time around then, before leaving Jamaica, I met a Jamaican girl and a Belizean girl who both spoke HSK4 Chinese at Kingston Language Linkup. One of them told me she did it all in 1 year just wid her experiences — living, talking, being open.
I wish I remembered her name but 4 Red Stripes have erased it permanently — but I remember how she made me feel.
She mentioned Taoism and sent me down a whole rabbit hole.
That’s how I found one of the most important stories in this whole journey.
🍂 The Taoist Horse Story
A farmer’s horse runs away.
The neighbours say, “Bredda, dat wicked, a wah kinda crosses dat?”
The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The next day the horse comes back with four wild horses.
The neighbours say, “Yow boss, blessings a rain pon yuh! Big big luck!”
The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The farmer’s son tries to ride one of the wild horses and breaks his leg.
The neighbours say, “Lawddd star! Dis nuh look good at all!”
The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The army comes to recruit all the able-bodied young men for war, but the son can’t go because of his broken leg.
The neighbours say, “Yow boss, yuh lucky enuh! If him foot never bruk, dem woulda carry him gone!”
And the farmer?
“We’ll see.”
That story looked simple at first, but it came back to me in the weirdest, realest moments later.
🌾 一粒米天地
“One grain of rice holds the grace of all of Heaven.”
When I think back to those drives across Jamaica, the random conversations with foreigners, the jokes, the arguments, the box food…
all of that felt small at the time.
But looking back?
Those were the grains of rice.
Tiny moments holding the whole sky of who I became.
Even this week, I emailed that same Chinese teacher from last year, and she responded with another expression:
“One inch of sunshine is worth more than a pound of gold.”
一寸光阴 一寸金
It lifted me.
Made me feel seen.
It reminded me that we’re all just boosting each other in small ways.
Learning Through Life
But…today the electrician came. We talked in French. I made mistakes—still, after 15 years of French & 2 years in France—but it was fine.
Meanwhile me inside:
He did his thing fixing my stove then I asked him to help me figure out why the front door light wasn’t working. The man took out l’ampoule, put it in another socket, and it lit up instantly. He looked at me with that “yuh seet deh” smile and said:
“Voilà le problème.”
And my stupid self said:
“ Ahh bah oui, évidemment c’est l’ampoule.”
He laughed because I was completely wrong — the bulb was fine. It was the socket. I joined the laugh too because damn — it was obvious.
And then there was the plumber. He came to fix the dishwasher, changed les vannes, and somewhere in the middle of his speech about the importance of strong piping he threw out:
“Il faut vivre avec son temps.”
I asked him what it meant and he hit me with a:
“Bahhh… faut vivre avec son temps.”
Bro basically said the same thing twice like it was a riddle. But the second time? It clicked.
And I’ve been thinking about that line for two weeks now. I’m sure it’s one week away from becoming my ScotiaBank password phrase.
Évidemment.
Even just tonight, I crawled under the table holding cheese because I had just learned how to say “I am under the table with cheese” in Chinese — and if I don’t live the sentence, I won’t remember it.
Ridiculous moments, that’s how I grow.
And then life reminded me of the Taoist horse again.
The electrician left. Everything was working.
Suddenly the whole apt lose light.
My stove short circuited again.
My Crocs broke.
But right after that chaos, I got an email with an internship opportunity.
Bad luck? Good luck?
We’ll see.
So What Am I Even Saying ?
I guess learning Chinese wasn’t really about Chinese.
It was about the small things: a misdiagnosed lightbulb, a French plumber’s ass crack of wisdom in my kitchen, a teacher’s soft heartedness, a roommate’s “Did you eat?”, my girl’s laugh when I am under the table with cheese like a madman.
From Jamaica to France to China and back again, nothing big has happened.
Just a thousand tiny moments that changed the way I move through the world.
So maybe this journey isn’t about achievement or how much I bring back.
I’m not abandoning Jamaica.
I’m just widening the borders a little — enough for baguette and noodles to sit beside the yam.
But if I had to choose between yam, baguette, or noodles, we all know the real answer will always be:
Rice.