Huang Lizhi with traditional performers of a rite of passage ceremony in Nkandla area, South Africa, in January 2020 (COURTESY)

Coming to study Zulu language in South Africa was a new goal for me after I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation and gained a teaching position in Beijing Foreign Studies University. I had always heard that language proficiency and area studies should go together if research on international relations is meant to be original and explorative. Every year, thousands of field researchers embark on their journeys around the globe to carry out serious area studies. In 2018, when I landed at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, I was harboring the same curiosity and romanticism that sparked my imagination and motivation for learning this then-seemingly mysterious language.

The first ever lesson I learned about language at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg was that learning is a collective and joyful activity. Not only teachers of the entry level courses tried their best to make the class as engaging and lively as possible, the tasks of understanding and memorization also involved collective encouragement from and friendship with people sitting at your neighboring desks. Trying to offer a helping hand to a foreigner was one of the first acts of kindness I received from fellow South African students. There, I felt the compassionate hearts of local students, and got a better understanding of joyful collectivism, which later became a vivid example and was theoretically analyzed in the African philosophy class in the second year.

When I mastered a certain amount of Zulu vocabulary, I was eager to engage in a lively conversation with local people. I first started talking in Zulu with cleaners, librarians, taxi drivers, shopkeepers and whoever I met in the campus. They usually responded with amazing shocks and beaming smiles, and then continued to help me develop further understanding of the language. Everyone was so delighted to be my language teacher.

I remember a day when I entered a garage tuck shop near the University of the Witwatersrand and decided to purchase a Zulu newspaper. The shopkeeper was startled to see me holding a Zulu version. I happily started talking about my Zulu learning experience all the way from China to a South African university. She was so excited that she gleefully shared this information with her colleagues. Within a minute, the small shop was full of laughter, with customers there approaching me to ask for more details, and curiously checking my Zulu level through conversations.

They were quite satisfied that the tide of learning finally came to their language, which not only brought them a sense of pride, but also helped them realize that the ongoing globalization was of great importance to the Zulu culture. A sense of global togetherness was reflected through my learning of Zulu. I always remember that tuck shop, that cold winter night and the exciting encouragement from those pairs of genuine eyes, which injected me with endless sources of inspiration and joy for learning Zulu.

Learning a language is also a gradual process to avoid perpetuating cultural prejudices. “Zulu myth” is a typical cultural misunderstanding. King Shaka is the founding father of the Zulu nation back in the 1820s. He was great in improving and innovating the warring weapons and united the Zulu nation under his reign; even British colonizers were afraid of his valor and skills in the war. In the historical texts, Shaka and Zulu people were often described as formidable and capricious, adding more to the sense of exotic mystery of the Zulu nation. I luckily had the privilege to visit the Zulu rural areas in early 2020, which helped me discover my innocent and unintended bias established simply by reading these historical texts.

In January 2020, my friend took me to visit the old palace of Shaka which is now turned into a museum open only during the slack farming period. We were extremely fortunate to have the curator introduce the intimate Zulu history from a local perspective. “Generally, people still hold a deeply respectable attitude toward King Shaka! We are so grateful for the unification of the nation and sincerely hope that South Africa will become even stronger and united in the future.”

According to the curator, Shaka is not only a deceased capable king, but a giant cultural emblem and cultural heritage for the whole South Africa. The old exotic sense of mystery was fabricated only for colonial purposes and discourses.

He was named Shaka, which refers to a certain stomach disease, only because his mother was not liked by the royal family. Zulu people appreciated King Shaka’s endeavor as once an ignored and deserted child to strive to finally become a strong leader. It hugely encouraged South Africans to overcome their adversity in life.

Huang Lizhi (third left) with young scholars from BRICS countries at the BRICS Young Scientist Forum in Durban, South Africa, on June 25, 2018 (COURTESY)

We then decided to go to the deep mountains to honor the tomb of Queen Nandi, mother of King Shaka.

If it were not the precious opportunities of visits and witnessing, I would never have been able to discern the subtle and fabricated discourse on the Zulu myth and might still take it as a pillar of strength of the Zulu nation. But a real visit dismantled the historical fabrication and made us see the real echoes of history in people’s heart. It highlighted the importance of field visits and further dispelled the false cognition and perpetuating prejudices.

My journey with the Zulu language is still going on, and more years are needed for a real in-depth understanding of the culture. Learning a language is not simply for utilitarian purposes of research, but also a genuine and lively encounter with the cultural heritage. Language is intertwined with history and mindset. Historical esteem is coded in the language itself. The sound and morphological structure also shaped people’s perception, as is stated in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

This journey in South Africa served as an invaluable culture lens in which the passion of South African people, the bravery of South African society, and the ongoing economic struggle and development are merged.

Only through the learning of language could I touch the real facet of South African people’s heart, which should be the ultimate aim of understanding as an academic. To me, language is not just a tool; it’s everything.

(The author graduated from joint Ph.D. program between Peking University and Cornell University. She is doing her Zulu studies in Wits University, South Arica)