XIII (Suzhou's Gardens: Part 2)

Linguistic relativity, popularly known as the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," is the idea that the structure of language determines thought. So as, there is an English way to think, a Chinese way to think. etc. that is either entirely determined by the possibilities of a given language (e.g. it's vocabulary, grammar, and other structural features), or at least influenced by it. By the 1960's this idea had largely been debunked through experimental research; tossed out by linguists, applied linguists, second language acquisition researchers, cognitive scientists, and others. Wikipedia can tell you more if you're interested. That said, the idea remains popular, and there is something about it, at least to me, that feels like common sense, that if I don't have the language for a thing, that I can't talk about the thing. Of course the "hard" version of Sapir-Whorf doesn't feel like common sense, that thought is determined by language, but the "soft" version does, that there is interplay between thought and language. Last Fall, my Chinese teacher, as well as others, taught me about some of the common taste words in Mandarin: 咸 (xián) salty, 甜 (tián) sweet, 辣 (là) spicy hot, 苦 (kǔ) bitter, etc. And though I had a general sense of what these words mean, of course, translating from English, I wondered how different my sense of what these words meant was from say, my teacher's sense.

Take for example 苦 , or bitter. I understand bitterness as something that leaves a particular aftertaste in my mouth, somewhat "sharp" and "dry." I don't know why these connotations come to mind. When I was a kid I remember biting into a pill I was supposed to swallow. I was maybe four years old. I didn't know how to swallow the pill without chewing, and so my mom wrapped it in a piece of bread. I remember when I bit it, there was a yellowish stain on the bread and it tasted so terrible, and strong, and I remember my mom asking me if it tasted bitter, or perhaps I asked her what it tasted like, and she said bitter. Or maybe I said it tasted like metal. I have a memory of a memory of this event. Regardless, this is my earliest association with the word bitter. Since then, I've come to use it mainly to describe two things: a Japanese green tea (煎茶), and the metallic taste that sometimes follows a pilsner style beer. Yet, I don't feel confident that I truly understand the flavor of bitter. Growing up I don't think it was a common taste, and it wasn't until I came to enjoy green tea that I also came to enjoy the bitter taste. There is dish in China called 苦瓜 (kǔguā), or bitter melon. It's not really a dish but a plant that can be cooked, green and innocuous. When I tried it in the cafeteria one day it I was unable to eat more than a single bite. If that is bitterness, I thought, I don't understand what bitterness means. My tutor told me she loves to eat 苦瓜, especially in the summer.

A few days before the new semester started, a co-worker came into my office and we started chatting about Suzhou's gardens. I told her about my experience, about my difficulties finding a means to appreciate what I was looking at. She told me that each window and each door was a like a picture frame. That as one moves through the garden, each position's view might also be a point of observation, the architecture framing and shaping one's sensory experiences. One views three-hundred year old bonsai through the circular opening, the curled and gnarled root of the tree frames the pagoda, or you're suddenly struck by the shadow of the window on the stone floor: every angle a result of an intention one part human, and one part the changing seasons. The tree that only blooms in the winter and its small yellow flowers is also part of this sensory composition, its scent barely legible but present in the cold air, as well as the echo of the water splashing. Thus one way, an immediately accessible way to understand and appreciate these gardens, is not through history, but through the senses. According to Sapir-Whorf, this could be a problem, that my senses must be pre-tuned to notice these features, to appreciate a particular kind of beauty, or recognize the smell of the little yellow flowers that only bloom in the Winter. Yet, this also means that in learning these new tastes, these sight and smells, I am also developing an experiential base from which novel ways of being in the world become possible. This, I believe, is one reason why being foreign is appealing.