On (lab) work and the language barrier
 

So I'm a college undergraduate, and I want to be an M.D. or possibly a researcher (P.H.D/M.D.). This semester I decided to do the responsible thing and get into a real lab and get some experience. I landed a job with a islet cell researcher, and I was incredibly psyched to get involved with real cutting edge research. The principle investigator really hooked me in with an inspirational speach about how he wants to give his undergraduates valuable lab skills. He tells me that in two years I should have my own project, and possibly my own paper. There was only one catch: my mentor, the man I am to spend all my time with, the venerable M.D./P.H.D. Zhungyi Chan, only speaks "pretty good" English.

Dr Chan does not speak pretty good english. I would be surprised if he could order food from a restraunt or get directions to a public bathroom when in the general public.

Over the past few months, I've been incredibly conflicted. Chan is a really nice man. He works extremely hard, and is always affable. He's tried his best to include me in his research, but the language barrier is insurmountable. The language of science is universal, but only in the sense that it universally confuses the crap out of everyone. Now imagine, trying to learn an entirely new set of vocabulary while having to mentally reverse every L and R in your head. "The prolein Rusiferase Leacts"

The moral of the story is I haven't learned much science under the tutelage of Dr Chan. I've learned some lab techniques by mimicking his demonstrations, but I have effectively hit a wall. I think my P.I. is to blame.

I think these emails at the end of my semester with Chan sums up our relationship well:

> Dr. Chan,
> I have to start studying for finals, and then I must return home for
> summer. I will hopefully be back next year. Thanks for including me in your
> research.
>
> Thanks again,
> Reiii


His response:

>Welcome your back.
>
>Thanks
>
>Zhungyi


My back has never felt more welcome, but I'm still frustrated. Anyone else have a similar story?

I was in a fairly similar situation in a quantum physics lab class many moons ago. The laborations were "lead" by whatever postgrad students the institution had at hand. Many of them were from abroad, so we had to communicate in English. This was no problem until the Chinese guy came along. We had had some problems with the results of our final lab and the nice French guy who had lead us on that went home, so Chinese Guy had to take over. And he was no help at all, because we could not speak to eachother. He'd point at a plotted curve in our report and say "Wrong! Wrong! Do over!" and we'd say "Yes we know, but we've been over our calculations ten times at least and can't find where the error is. Could you perhaps give us at least a hint about where we went wrong?" and he'd answer "Do over!". I don't know if he was too busy to deal with us, or didn't want to help us for some strange didactic reason, or if it was the language barrier.

Between exam periods, the death of my lab partner's mother and Unhelpful China Man it took us five months to get passed and I don't think we ever figured out where the error was. We just "polished" some measurements so the plotted curve looked acceptable. A learning experience, for sure.

That response letter is pure poetry! How does he write reports and articles?

Aaaaahaaahaabuwahhhaaaa....welcome your back.

I'm going to adopt this as my new response to everything.

He doesn't write papers (he has co-author credit on all the lab write ups) but he does lecture post-docs. I hear he uses a lot of power point, but his presentations are absolutely incoherent. Sadly I think the p.i. mainly keeps him around because hes the only person in my University who is able to perform the microsurgery necessary to transplant islets into mice. They keep him at the lab till like 12:00a.m. most nights and hes in at 5:45. I found him asleep on his key-board last time I went in. He's kinda like a M.D./P.H.D. sweat shop worker.

Bio Med research is a weird world

Sadly, the answer begins in elementary school. Unfortunately we can't home-grow enough qualified scientists to fill our needs and so we need to go abroad for them (homeland security anyone?). The catch is, if we don't we fall behind.

It's really our own fault for not educating our kids better. Heck, we're not even willing to invest in our education. Education funding is always getting cut.

So instead, our universities, research labs, think tanks are flooded with Russians, Chinese, Koreans, Israelis, Indians etc who do have the skills (but not necessarily the language skills) and exasperate undergrads.

Hang in there reiii, get the skills so we can "reclaim" the glory for our country and prevent future undergrads from communications disasters. As funny as your story is, there are very real ramifications and root problems that can come back to haunt us.

Oh, a good response to "welcome your back" is:

"All your base belong to us". Try it. E-mail him.

Sounds like you could have learned a bit more had you not been so caught up in the symantics ;).

I've had MANY similar situations such as this. I did a course in theoretical mathematics with a chineese prof. who knew almost no english at all but I swear to you that in one semester with him I learned FAR MORE than in any other class - bar none.

Language is what you make of it - education is no different. I found that a language barrier forced me to take more into my own hands and to develop a more refined skillset on which to base our comminications.

Well .. I guess my experiences were kinda 180' to yours ;)

I don't think a Chinese person would want to be told that his base are belong to the Japanese authors of the game.

I bet he doesn't get paid like one though.

I dunno. As a former tech writer, I had to work with engineers and programmers from other countries whose English skills were minimal, but I did get along. On the other hand, the approach wasn't teacher/student, but rather consultative. They'd explain something, then I'd confirm it. They'd say "No," and then we'd try again. And of course we'd use diagrams and visuals. Maybe that approach doesn't work so well in the lab/academic environment?

You should talk to the PI. I'm sure he'll understand your problem.

It might also be useful to collaborate more with postdocs and graduate students. Most of them will probably speak adequate english.