Mother Tongue

This is a tricky book to review. It has a nice writing style that draws the reader in. It is an interesting concept, of traveling the world to different places to immerse in the languages. A lot of the descriptions of places, and particularly food, made me wish I could travel there right now. And I learned a lot about language acquisition. But there was something lurking in the attitude behind the adventure that sort of irked me. I also realize that this was an experiment for Christine Gilbert and her family, so I don't want to judge them too harshly; however, the way Gilbert approached her experience in China in particular bothered me. There can be really cool things that come out of dropping into a new place without knowing what to expect and figuring it out as you go, but it seemed like their family dropped into Beijing and then were shocked by the pollution and cold, which essentially trapped them in their apartment and they didn't actually experience life in China. Then the cultural barriers they experienced frustrated them so much that they just suddenly left. Cultural adjustment is always going to be difficult, but from the start, they could have had a much better understanding of even the climate they were moving into, and maybe that would have led to different choices and they could have had a better experience. And instead of seeing it that way, it seemed like Gilbert was just soured on China for the rest of time. I think there's some really interesting storytelling coming through that experience, but again, it was just sort of tainted for me by the attitude behind it.

Only two pages in I knew that I was going to deeply dislike the author, but I persisted anyway out of morbid curiosity. I have no energy to fully express how unlikeable and ridiculous this woman is - but a quick Google search will provide all you need to know about her lack of morality.

The story begins with her deciding to move with a two-year-old to Beijing in the winter, without researching anything about the country. She is then shocked to discover that winter in Beijing is cold (who would've thought!?) and that the city is polluted. Again, shocker.

She gives up and decides to move to Beirut, again, without bothering to Google anything about the location. Despite political unrest unfolding around her, and despite the fact that her toddler is barely able to string together two words due to the trauma of constantly hopping between cultures, she insists on staying so she can learn Arabic.

Finally, she goes to Mexico where she happily pays a housekeeper $2 an hour to clean her entire home and garden, as if not providing a living wage is just one of the “perks” of living in Mexico. Again, her child is traumatized by the lack of cultural stability and outright refuses to speak Spanish until the very end.

The entire book focused around the author's language learning experiment and barely touched upon the lasting effects it would have on her children. Her son barely interacted with anyone outside of her household until they moved to Mexico.

As someone who grew up in a bilingual and bicultural household, I read this book with shock and disgust. She chose these languages seemingly at random based on what would be the most impressive languages for her children to learn, rather than the most useful or enjoyable. They spend months each year in Thailand, but the thought never occurs to her to learn Thai until the very end.

What I found more grating than her utter lack of common sense or preparedness were her snide remarks about the cultures she was experiencing. For someone who wanted to raise a global family, she definitely had a lot of negative things to say. She seemed to harbor a bizarre hostility towards the Chinese and never bothered to learn about their culture and way of living, and expressed annoyance that they didn't understand her ways.

In short, this book was a waste of time and the equivalent of reading a hostile, slightly xenophobic Trip Advisor review from a spoiled American. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you want a quick rise in blood pressure.