I can remember the morning having breakfast to my dad but apart from that
it's like a blank week from what I earn I was a passenger in the car and a truck
crashed into the side of the car and crashed into the side that I was
passenger in I've just been told I can't remember it seems he was in a coma for
over a week and during that time it was unknown how he was going to wait on we
got a call to say that he had awoken and you know we were starting a course in at
least that was a first step but they also had some other news for us and I
don't I know where they thought it was good news for us or bad but to say that
he was actually speaking Mandarin in high school we had to do two languages
and I decided okay I'll do Chinese but it was basic fluency after waking up
from the coma I saw a Chinese looking nurse because the first person I spoke
to was in Mandarin my internal monologue became Chinese it did suddenly get
really a lot better after cover because it just became so much more quick I'm
probably first three days three or so days I'd only speak Mandarin and then
when my parents came and saw me I'd speak to them in Mandarin as well and so
that would have really frightened everything on God you know we're gonna
have to start learning Chinese so I wrote I love my mum I love my dad I'll
get better and Mandarin and then gave it to them oh sure just translate it for my
dad I love my mum also you can join them
it sort of was like a little hook that he could grab on to and you know he's as
I said made a fantastic recovery far better than anyone could have expected
and it's been a platform of his Mandarin skills well you can feel SEC yeah so
after I came out of rehab I needed said ah I need to do something with myself my
Mandarin is kind of the thing that I'm doing at the moment so how about I just
do one unit of Mandarin at Melbourne Uni so I progress pretty quickly and then
they said okay I'm Ben this is competition at the Victorian finals of
Mandarin do you want to represent Melbourne you know sandy here sure sure
and then likely got to the Australian finals and then went on to represent
Australia in China yeah I was amazing tired really that he
could do that because he was one of the youngest contestants it was a fantastic
way of almost letting us know that you know I'm going to recover from all these
challenges that I've had my my my voice slightly higher when I
speak Chinese which is interesting okay café lá da perfect I mean I pronounce
words wrong all the time because I might use the wrong tone or
something like that then it means something completely vile good example
the language is that my name Ben Ben means stupid in Chinese so the first
time I introduced myself to a Chinese per se anyhow what y'all been and yeah
they kind of lasted oh hi I'm called stupid they thought I was almost joking
show me your John I would say I'm fluent in Mandarin I would not say I'm fluent
fluent but I'm fluent enough to talk with friends to host in basic manner in
a little a small TV show
hello daddy aha financial campin to me man survived him hosting any a second
languages do you know but one host is from Taiwan one is from
mainland China so they speak of course fluent Mandarin oh my god if I try to
figure that pace I'll just tumbled and full of my own words
hey 1 2 go Ali gentlemen Oklahoma why I mean they've really welcomed me with
open arms because there are too many people that studied the language
Mandarin at this level you know that really gives you a lot of force behind
yourself just keep going and going and continuing that kind of Chinese path I
think one thing that's very telling that was when I look back over everything
that's happened I've never heard him once compliant he's always been so
positive and I think that's part of was recovered so well I hope I'm helping
bridge the relationship between China and Australia and not only on just a
business level but also on entertainment and then also have who knows in the
future level as well