I wish talk Chinese very unmistaken
So, on the advice of a new friend -- and because I constantly write little narratives in my head about my daily life to keep from suffering utter nervous collapse and ending up huddled in a corner somewhere, forming characters out of fragments of half-eaten jiaozi -- I've decided to start blogging about my Chinese goings on. After all, there aren't nearly enough blogs already in existence in which a lao wai makes a joke about squat toilets and then posts a picture of some local dude with bad teeth with a caption about this totally "awesome" guy that they met in some hutong where there were "NO other foreigners." Upfront: I spend most of my time here with other foreigners, because I can talk to them without sounding like a encephalitic monkey.
Please keep in mind that I've been here for almost a semester now, and all I do in my twenty hours of class every week is study Chinese. That's it. Chinese. Sometimes I listen to it. Sometimes I write it. Sometimes I speak it. Wo. Xue. Xi. Han. Yu.
Despite all of this very diligent studying, I have conversations every day that sound like the one I had when I bought my breakfast this morning.
Setting: Morning, at a small campus restaurant.
Me: I want two baozi.
Fuwuyuan*: (unintelligible.)
Me: What?
Fuwuyuan: What do you want?
Me: Two baozi.
Her: (pointing) these?
Me: Affirmative*.
Her: One?
Me: Two.
Setting: Later, at a small store.
Me: One bottle of grape juice.
Fuwuyuan: (moving the first bottle of grape juice to reveal that there are two varieties available.) This one?
Me: (Transfixed with horror) ...
Fuwuyuan: ...
Me: The...green... (unintelligible mumbling).
Fuwuyuan: Two fifty, (In English, because I am clearly incapable of speaking Chinese like a normal person) O.K.?
They are very kind to me here, in the way that in America we are kind to six year old children with severe mental disabilities. The other day, when I hesitated for a moment after a cafeteria worker asked me how many of something I wanted, he helpfully added in English, "ONE, TWO, FREE, FOUR?" I said "ONE!" and fled in shame shortly thereafter.
The Difficult One has been telling me lately that my Chinese has gotten a lot better, but he just sent me a text message asking me about "green business management," and if "this master major is good in the North America." Clearly, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about*.
*Fuwuyuan literally means "service person." You will hear it most often being bellowed across the room in restaurants. Occasionally I'll have a quixotic moment and do things like close my menu and attempt to make eye contact with the waitress when I want to place an order, and then I'll remember that I'm in China and start screaming FUWUYUUUUUAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNN at everyone who walks past until one of them is motivated to saunter vaguely in my direction and then stare at me in abject puzzlement while I say things like "Me want this food, rabbit fire socks, two bowl rice before eat me happy bannana!"
*In Chinese there is no word for "yes." Or at least, there is not one that is taught in beginning or intermediate hanyu levels, and it seems rather odd, even for China, to imagine that they would spring the word "yes" on us like some sort of bonus weapon after you defeat a high level boss in Zelda. Only true heroes may wield the master word! One would assume that the need for such a word might have occurred to Ancient Sages Wang Peng and Friends when they came up with the wretched language, but instead for millenia Chinese people have been having exchanges like this:
Wang Peng: Did you go to the library today?
Li You: Did go.
The alternative, which most foreigners love because it gives the illusion of being the word "yes," is "dui." Dui really means "correct," but it gets used just like "yes" does. I like to translate it as "affirmative," because it makes me feel cool, like Captain Kirk. "Do you want rice?" "Affirmative!"
*It amuses me to make fun of people who speak grammatically inconsistent English as their fourth language, because I real good study Chinese now in China three months coming after.
Please keep in mind that I've been here for almost a semester now, and all I do in my twenty hours of class every week is study Chinese. That's it. Chinese. Sometimes I listen to it. Sometimes I write it. Sometimes I speak it. Wo. Xue. Xi. Han. Yu.
Despite all of this very diligent studying, I have conversations every day that sound like the one I had when I bought my breakfast this morning.
Setting: Morning, at a small campus restaurant.
Me: I want two baozi.
Fuwuyuan*: (unintelligible.)
Me: What?
Fuwuyuan: What do you want?
Me: Two baozi.
Her: (pointing) these?
Me: Affirmative*.
Her: One?
Me: Two.
Setting: Later, at a small store.
Me: One bottle of grape juice.
Fuwuyuan: (moving the first bottle of grape juice to reveal that there are two varieties available.) This one?
Me: (Transfixed with horror) ...
Fuwuyuan: ...
Me: The...green... (unintelligible mumbling).
Fuwuyuan: Two fifty, (In English, because I am clearly incapable of speaking Chinese like a normal person) O.K.?
They are very kind to me here, in the way that in America we are kind to six year old children with severe mental disabilities. The other day, when I hesitated for a moment after a cafeteria worker asked me how many of something I wanted, he helpfully added in English, "ONE, TWO, FREE, FOUR?" I said "ONE!" and fled in shame shortly thereafter.
The Difficult One has been telling me lately that my Chinese has gotten a lot better, but he just sent me a text message asking me about "green business management," and if "this master major is good in the North America." Clearly, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about*.
*Fuwuyuan literally means "service person." You will hear it most often being bellowed across the room in restaurants. Occasionally I'll have a quixotic moment and do things like close my menu and attempt to make eye contact with the waitress when I want to place an order, and then I'll remember that I'm in China and start screaming FUWUYUUUUUAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNN at everyone who walks past until one of them is motivated to saunter vaguely in my direction and then stare at me in abject puzzlement while I say things like "Me want this food, rabbit fire socks, two bowl rice before eat me happy bannana!"
*In Chinese there is no word for "yes." Or at least, there is not one that is taught in beginning or intermediate hanyu levels, and it seems rather odd, even for China, to imagine that they would spring the word "yes" on us like some sort of bonus weapon after you defeat a high level boss in Zelda. Only true heroes may wield the master word! One would assume that the need for such a word might have occurred to Ancient Sages Wang Peng and Friends when they came up with the wretched language, but instead for millenia Chinese people have been having exchanges like this:
Wang Peng: Did you go to the library today?
Li You: Did go.
The alternative, which most foreigners love because it gives the illusion of being the word "yes," is "dui." Dui really means "correct," but it gets used just like "yes" does. I like to translate it as "affirmative," because it makes me feel cool, like Captain Kirk. "Do you want rice?" "Affirmative!"
*It amuses me to make fun of people who speak grammatically inconsistent English as their fourth language, because I real good study Chinese now in China three months coming after.