Editor’s note: David Pinck is currently a Sac State graduate student in Criminal Justice, and has been since Spring 2004. He is studying Mandarin and Chinese culture at Beijing University for one year, and is conducting research for his thesis which concerns the Chinese Police system.

He grew up in Tracy, Calif., and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Americans have throughout history managed to meet resounding consensus on only one issue: more is better. There is, however, one major exception to this American motto ?” language ?” and I have never noticed it so much as right now, in China of all places.

The idea of more is better strikes at the very core of what our nation stands for. We shop at the Costcos, the Wal-Marts, and (if there by some miracle happens to be one around us) the K-Marts. We look for the most product for the least amount of money, the best deal, the greatest bang for our buck. We do this faithfully and without error, often without any regard for the impact our decisions will have on the world economy. Why? Because it is implicit to our very nature as Americans.

While bats navigate by their very design the darkest corners of their many caves, Americans just as deftly maneuver through the murky world of rebates and discount sales, always smelling out the kill of the next purchase, always calculating the cost of each individual square of toilet paper before doing so. We are consumptive carnivores. We are the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the free market.

An ironic juxtaposition to our predatory shopping habits is how we communicate with one another. A person might spend 15 minutes finding the best toothbrush for his needs (I’ve been one of them), sometimes going so far as to employ the use of algebra, trigonometry and, yes, even calculus in the process, but this remains impressive only until he opens his mouth and speaks. Usually, at least in Sacramento, a flurry of “ums” and “uhs” will ensue, followed often by a whirlwind of “phat” and “pimpin'” and a veritable orgy of, “damn skippy”.

This toothbrush-buying individual, as it turned out once, was capable of earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering but incapable of satisfactorily describing a toothbrush. If more is always better, why don’t Americans have larger vocabularies?

I mention all of this because, as I’m studying in China for a year, I find myself surrounded by people from nearly every country, many of whom speak English far more concisely than most of my friends in California do. In one class ?” I swear to God ?” I sit behind two Kazakhs, a Laotian and a Zambian, across from a Spaniard, a Congolese and an Icelander, next to a Bulgarian and a Korean, and in front of a Japanese and a Netherlander. All of them speak two or more languages.

The classes in which I find myself are, in other words, teeming, diasporic Petri dishes of transcontinental, intercontinental, and supracontinental proportions. They defy my Caucasoid upbringing with swift finality. Sure as the sky is blue, I have found myself ousted from my element, linguistic and otherwise.

It is interesting to me that in such an environment the only people who don’t speak at least two languages fluently are the two Americans, myself being one of them. I can’t even rationalize away my apparent shortcoming by claiming a superior grasp of my mother tongue, as several of my classmates have me bested at my own language in one case, my rival’s fifth acquired language was my first. Coming from a culture where more is always better, I feel somehow robbed.

American culture teaches us to value a good deal when we see one, to weigh our options intelligently, and to search out the cheapest and, ultimately, best product for our money. We, however, have failed to apply this lesson to our communication skills ?” ours and those of our children as well. We, as a nation, are not getting a good deal when it comes to language curricula. Our people, many of them, speak but one language, and they do so poorly. If we knew nothing else, we should at least be able to communicate effectively, because it is primarily through language that we learn, and it is especially through language that we teach.

That’s the straight dope from China. Peace out.