Al Rudaisat with his cross-talk master Bo Kaiwen during their weekly evening performance at a Hangzhou teahouse. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Journey to fluency

"My interest in learning Chinese began when I was still in Jordan," Al Rudaisat says. When he arrived in China for his studies, he soon began to practice his Chinese-speaking skills whenever he had the chance.

"Although I spent most of my weekdays in and around the hospital and medical school, I would try to speak and practice simple, mundane Chinese vocabulary everywhere, like in the supermarkets, on public transportation or inside my dorm room with my Chinese roommates," he says, adding that he acquired online dictionaries and listened to recordings to establish his linguistic intuition and learn Chinese dialect phrases.

"I feel like everyone can manage to speak understandable Chinese as long as they practice frequently," Al Rudaisat says. He says that sounding like locals is a major challenge, requiring "countless conversations and comprehension of the meanings of the same word in a variety of contexts".

He practiced Chinese everywhere — on the streets and on the shores of his campus lake. He says he was often so focused on practicing his Chinese pronunciations that he did not realize how loudly he spoke, and "people would look at me as if I was crazy".

Al Rudaisat laughed when recalling the time he first started learning the art of crosstalk. "It is very, very difficult to master Chinese, but my love of uncovering the dense and abundant cultural aspect of China is endless, and mastering the Chinese language has been the best gateway for me to achieve such a goal."