Somé’s profession began with his simple curiosity in the Chinese language. His intrigue grew with time until it became his motivation to persist and learn. Now, it has inspired him to consider a new path for his own future career.

“In my culture, we have a saying: ‘you don’t do your best if you have a second choice.’” Somé’s story will prove the validity of this piece of wisdom from Burkina Faso.

Quitting School to Learn Chinese: “I Always Give My 100%”

During his second year in university, Somé came across some Chinese words by chance. The twisting hieroglyphs formed pictures before his eyes. A curious flame awoke within him. He had been pondering the future development of his country and his own place in the world. Should he be doing something different? By a stroke of luck, he found an opportunity to study Chinese in Taiwan. Driven by his insatiable curiosity, Somé told himself: “Why not take this chance to learn more about Chinese?”

Somé never did anything recklessly. He knew there was a price to ask and a price to pay for every choice. After much deliberation, he decided to quit school and realign his goals in life. At the same time, he promised himself: “Don’t give up until I reach my goals!” There were two parts to his resolution. On the one hand, he had the courage to decide his own fate. On the other, he took full responsibility for his decision. 

Despite this, his family could not comprehend why he would drop out of school to learn Chinese in a faraway nation. Though he had no support from his family, he never gave up trying to communicate with them. Today, after all he’s accomplished, the rift between him and his family has begun to heal.

When he first arrived in 2011, Somé studied Chinese at the Center of Chinese Language and Culture at Fu Jen Catholic University. 

No one in his class was there just to get good grades. Everyone was strongly motivated to study for themselves, to really master the Chinese language. Somé remembers that during exams, the atmosphere inside the classroom could be described as “defeat is not an option, errors are not allowed”. Somé was immersed in a learning environment that was highly competitive and he expected much of himself. This helped him hold himself up to a higher standard.

He recalls, “If I did not get a perfect score, I’d feel really bad and uncomfortable, I’d feel like I was a terrible human being. Once during the final exam, I only got 99 because I wrote one word wrong. I did not cry that night, but I sure drank a lot.”

I asked Somé how he dealt with setbacks during his education. His reply was both surprising and very impressive. He said, “Since I was determined to learn all I could, I never felt Chinese was very hard, or felt there were any setbacks. I told myself, ‘if I wanted to learn to write, I needed to work many times harder’.”

Besides going to class, Somé also actively signed up for Chinese speech contests during his time studying Chinese. His reason was simple: “I wanted a challenge!” He drafted his own script, then asked teachers at the language center to improve upon it. Then he practiced like there was no tomorrow. Remembering the first speech contest he entered during his time in Taiwan, he says, “I did not win, but I thought I did great. The other participants had studied Chinese for five years, I had studied for only three months.”

In 2012, Somé had been studying Chinese for two years. He joined a Chinese speech contest for foreign students held in front of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. The contest went on from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. After eight hours of competing, he emerged from 84 contestants to take the third place. Before returning to his country, Somé entered in five Chinese speech contests in all, and each time he surpassed himself. 

Clip from the speech contest: The Chinese Wit & Humor 2012 Mandarin Speech Contest for Foreign Nationals, organized by Radio Taiwan International and HanGuang Education Foundation.

From Student to Teacher: Learning the Secret of Changing Between Languages

During his last year studying Chinese in Taiwan, Somé made a new decision for himself: he would go teach Chinese in his home country. He returned to Burkina Faso in September of 2014. His first job was a teaching assistant at the Chinese language center established by Taiwan in Burkina Faso.

After working for eight months, Somé quit to freelance as an interpreter. He found that unlike in 2011, when he set off to learn Chinese in Taiwan, there was growing interest in learning Chinese in Burkina Faso. He says, “Especially in the last few months, I got more and more calls asking to hire me as an interpreter.” (This interview was conducted in November 2018.) Though there was more and more interpreter work, Somé never stopped teaching Chinese. At first, he taught as a private tutor, sometimes with only one student and sometimes with many students. The students all started with the basics. The classes were divided into speaking and writing classes. Students in the speaking class mostly learned Chinese because of work, or because they were diplomats or their children.

Currently in Burkina Faso, there’s no other Chinese language school besides the one Somé and his friends opened. He teaches Chinese twice a week for four hours. Because people’s first impression of learning Chinese is that it’s difficult, Somé says the most important first step when teaching Chinese is to tell everyone to unfetter themselves from their imagined limitations. He uses techniques to tell students not to give up on themselves, to help students build confidence in themselves: “I can learn Chinese if I want to.”

“I use easy words like ‘fire’ (火) and ‘eye’ (目) to show everyone it’s not so hard to learn Chinese.”

Among people learning to speak Chinese in Africa, it is said that students from Burkina Faso have the best pronunciation. It’s because many of them speak the native Mossi language. Somé explains that the Mossi language has inflections just like Mandarin Chinese, so the “four tones” are not difficult to learn. But because Chinese has some sounds which don’t exist in the Mossi language, problems arise with harder words in the vocabulary, such as the word for country, “Guo” (國), which students often mispronounce as “Go.”

Somé continues to share his experience. He says, “My native tongue is the Dagara language, people who speak this dialect mostly live near the Ivory Coast in southwest Burkina Faso and Ghana. I think the Dagara language helped me a lot, because there are many tones and inflections in this language, even more than in Chinese.”

The curiosity from three years ago has been tempered and forged into his profession. Through persistence, he’s also acquired a reputation as the best Chinese-French interpreter in Burkina Faso. Now, besides teaching Chinese and taking interpreter jobs, Somé is planning the next step of his career.

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Preparing to Start His Own Business: “I Have No Second Choice”

“I never thought of taking an office job and staying there. Working for other people was a way to prepare myself. In Taiwan, I saw many people start their own businesses, this also inspired me to start my business.”

But Somé discovered another aspect of Taiwanese businessmen upon returning to Burkina Faso: self-limitation. Unlike ambitious Chinese businessmen who are everywhere in Africa, Somé found many Taiwanese businessmen and businesses hold an irrational fear of west Africa. They always say they’re “unfamiliar” with the region and still “considering”. They never move forward. But Taiwanese products have a great market in Burkina Faso, it’s this self-limitation that’s letting this golden opportunity go to waste. He feels this is a shame. “Honestly, your competitors know no more than you, why are they bolder in moving forward than you are?”

The Taiwanese are fond of giving themselves excuses for being scared, but they don’t find the courage to move forward. They say they are unfamiliar with the market but don’t send anyone to study it. Therefore, Taiwanese products are missing out on the Burkina Faso market.

Somé turned curiosity into the motivation to move forward. In a short time, he made Chinese his profession, and became the best Chinese-French interpreter in Burkina Faso. Through his work, he built a network with bigshots in politics and commerce. These two pillars are the foundation of his future empire that will lead him to higher ground. His next step is to set up his own company and become a reseller that introduces Taiwanese products to Burkina Faso.

“In my culture, we have a saying: ‘you don’t do your best if you have a second choice.’ Some people want to be entrepreneurs, and all they have to do is write a business plan and borrow money from their family. Do you think I can eat, sleep, and live with such people? I don’t have their resources so I cannot, I have to build a world of my own.” 

Translated by Jack C.
Edited by Sharon Tseng