From the Vintage Archives:

Mother Tongues and Other Tongues

By Rick Horowitz

Call them what you will, those demonstrators filling Tiananmen Square -- courageous or naive, idealistic or foolhardy. But whatever you do, you've got to call them considerate.

For one thing, they've set up shop enough time zones ahead of us that it's already tomorrow there by the time the evening news comes on here. That way, all of today's good stuff from China has already happened by the time the show starts, and it can go right on the air. Sometimes they've even got some of tomorrow's good stuff, too, which is really great, seeing how it's still only today here, or from where they're sitting, not even today, but yesterday.

The other thing is, they're doing it in English.

Not entirely in English, mind you. Most of the banners and chants and leaflets are in Chinese. But you can hardly turn on your TV without seeing one demonstrator or another looking earnestly into an American TV camera (well, a Japanese TV camera, probably, but with an American reporter) and explaining what's going on, and what the latest rumors are, and what the demonstrators are hoping to accomplish. And all of this in language that's thoroughly understandable to you and to me.

Maybe you've been tempted to giggle at some of the accents, or at the stresses that land on odd parts of certain sentences, or even at the occasional struggle to come up with precisely the right word.

Giggle away, Joe. But first, why don't you just look into this camera here and tell the curious people of Beijing what you've been doing and thinking lately. In their language.

Your jaw drops. Your mouth goes dry. Your tongue sits motionless. The only Chinese words you've ever uttered in your life came with steamed rice. "Mandarin?" you say. "Isn't that an orange?"

It's so nice to live at the center of the universe. We've got English, and each other. If those other folks -- those foreigners -- want to join the conversation, let them learn it, too.

Meanwhile, back at Tiananmen Square, the demonstrators are chatting away for the USA, Jefferson's thoughts in Jefferson's language. True, not all of the Chinese taking to the streets are multilingual. You can bet that before the network cameras start rolling, the producer shouts to the milling throng, "Anybody here speak English?" The thing is, somebody always seems to say, "Yes."

And it's not the same somebody, either; I've been checking. It's not as if there's one kid making the rounds of all the networks, answering all the questions. These are dozens, hundreds of different kids, and older people, too, and each one of them is speaking English!

Yes, I know: There are lots of university students, the country's elite, out there in the crowd. Fine. Do you really think that if some Chinese TV crew suddenly showed up at your local institution of higher learning and started shouting for volunteers, they could come up with enough Chinese-speaking students to fill a viewfinder? It is to laugh.

It is to worry. Back when the sun never set on the British empire, we English-speaking types could make the rules: You want to do business with us, you'll do it our way. If we couldn't understand it, it wasn't worth knowing.

The empire's gone -- maybe you've heard. We don't make all the rules anymore, and there's plenty out there worth knowing. Very considerate, those Chinese -- and those Japanese and those Russians and everyone else -- to keep explaining things to us in our very own language.

But what if they decide to stop?