Our foreign friends are the new owners of a "Happy Virus" fan!Here in China, we often laugh at the funny signs around town that have been translated (poorly) into English. These signs are usually awkward sounding, politically incorrect, or just plain wrong. We are not entirely sure why there is a need for so many random things to be written in English considering we are 2 of maybe 10 people in our area whose first language is English. I have heard it makes a city look "modern and developed." It is also quite fashionable! Nevertheless, poor translations and funny labels continually make us laugh. We thought we'd share just a few with you:
- We have some dinner plates that are emblazoned with the phrase "Dream flying in sky. HOW ARE YOU??" (there is also a picture of a cartoon cat flying over a rainbow) Every time I look at those it makes me laugh.
- Signs in the park read "Cherish plants and lives," "conservation of the lawn, don't walk into it!" and "human needs green and green needs civilization."
- Signs in the park read "Cherish plants and lives," "conservation of the lawn, don't walk into it!" and "human needs green and green needs civilization."
- Our school hallways were lined with signs (in both Chinese and English) commanding, "Talk low, walk slaw, and keep right!"
- "Strive to be civilized" and "ways to be civilized" signs have recently been put up around town and translated into English. I can't help but laugh wondering who decided the English-only speakers in town needed to be reminded every several kilometers of "no spitting!"
- School notebooks labeled with "Lalalal. Choo Choo. No. 21. Oh, My Teacher!" "travel Town" (with cartoon pictures of a church and Noah's Arc) and "Beautifu LLife"Another Hilarious Notebook
- A popular brand of ice cream's motto is "For a better Kife"
- Our favorite snack is sadly translated as "digestive cracker/milk partner." Despite our attempts to think of something different to call them, the poorly translated name seems to have stuck
- Trash cans and recycling bins are labeled; the latter is sometimes called "trash redeemer"
- I have bought two bags of sugar, both of which I was seriously unsure were actually sugar until I opened them because the English labels were so cryptic. The first one simply said (in bulletpoints)-Plant more Crafis resarches to manufacture
- Of exceptional quality
- or refinement
- suibtable for men and women - The second sugar package clearly explained in paragraph format: The product is made with the advance scientific technology. It is sweet and delicious. It can be taken directly. It can also be taken with the fruit juice mixture. It is absolutely necessary for you to use it in cooking.
There are many, many more. We see something funny every day and I wish we had a picture of each funny sign. But they are a bit nervous about foreign cameras. Also, we try not to look overly judgemental and are extremely thankful for the attempts the make to communicate everyday information to us, like which is the bag of sugar or which one is the recycling bin.
Park signs (please note the first is likely a literal translation from Chinese which is often a language of blunt descriptions - not meant to be politically incorrect) However, to look at things from a different perspective, I’m sure we look equally foolish in the eyes of the local citizens as we walk around town spouting off our terrible Chinese. At this point, we’ve studied quite a bit and have definitely improved a lot from when we arrived here nearly 8 months ago. Still, many times I feel like we know just enough to make ourselves look ridiculous. I got to thinking about some of the awkward interactions we’ve had over the past 8 months and how frustrating many of them were at the time. However, they’re also some of the funnier situations we’ve been in here and being in them has actually helped improve our Chinese in the end. I’ve written some of the funnier exchanges we’ve had below, and I hope you enjoy reading about them and laughing at our expense!
Our Funny Chinese
Often, we’ll (accidentally) answer a question with a completely irrelevant answer. Other times, we’ll confuse people by (also accidentally) asking for something totally off-the-wall. For example:Situation 1:Store Clerk: Do you want your groceries put in a bag? (You’ve got to pay extra for that here – The purpose is to use less plastic and help the environment).
Me: I don’t have a bag.
Store Clerk (Confused): I know. Do you want one?
Me: I don’t have a bag.
(Store clerk gives up and doesn’t give me a bag).
Situation 2:
Me: I would like a steamed bun.
Store Clerk (Confused, as she does not have any steamed buns, only plastic bags): You want what?
Me (pointing to the rack of plastic bags): I want a steamed bun.
Store Clerk (pointing to the plastic bags): These are plastic bags, not steamed buns.
Me (feeling dumb): Oh! I would like a plastic bag! Sorry!
What? You can’t read OR write Chinese!??Our problems are compounded by the fact that we are basically living here completely illiterate. At this point, our spoken Chinese has improved considerably since our arrival 8 months ago, but improvement in our ability to read Chinese characters has been minimal. We can decipher some of the simple characters, but we have a really tough time deciphering most of them. For a point of reference, I’d say that right now I can read around 20 characters. In order to read a magazine or newspaper, you must be able to read somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000. So, as I said, we’re illiterate. Still, it is completely beyond the locals’ comprehension that someone could not read or speak Chinese! Oral miscommunications happen often and are understandable: Within each region, province, and even county, there are numerous dialects and people from neighboring towns may have trouble understanding each other. However, all across China the written language is the same (i.e. the characters may have different pronunciations between dialects but the same meaning). As such, when a taxi driver, store clerk, or other person around town realizes that we have no idea what they are saying, they just assume that it’s because we speak some other Chinese dialect. It doesn’t even cross their mind that we are unable to read Chinese. So, their first solution to our communication problem is typically to write down what they are trying to tell us in characters, often quickly and invisibly on the palm of their hand with their pointer finger as a pen. The wide-eyed look of amazement (or horror?) on their face is priceless when it hits them that we don’t understand what they’re saying OR writing in Chinese. Without fail, they exclaim, “Ting bu dong ma?” (You can’t understand what I’m saying?) “Kan bu dong ma?!” (AND you can’t understand what I’m writing?!)? Then, after we walk away, they just shake their heads in disbelief. We feel like such a disappointment when this happens! But after all, this is a country that has been closed off to foreign visitors for quite some time. In America, we think nothing of a person residing in our country and not speaking English fluently. Because of this, we have found the Chinese to be unaware of helpful communication tips they could use when speaking to a "Chinese as a second language" person. They will repeat the same thing they said, over and over, just as fast as the first time they said it. I just wish there would be a public message reminding all the good citizens to speak slowly and clearly to the foreigners!!
Sometimes, you just smile and nod . . .Sometimes, people just won’t take “Ting bu dong” (I don’t understand what you’re saying) for an answer. They are so excited to meet a foreigner and are determined to have a conversation with you. This happened to us once on a crowded, nighttime train ride from Changsha to Zhuzhou. It was a quick, 1 hour train ride, so we’d purchased standing-room only tickets at the last minute. However, the train attendant for our car would not allow the foreigners to go seat-less, even on such a short trip. After a bit of miscommunication, (he didn’t speak English and I thought he was trying to kick us off the train initially), he showed us to his quarters (a small room at the front of the car, just big enough for 2 people to sit inside) and insisted that we sit in his seat. We tried to politely decline his invitation, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. After we were situated in his cabin, he proceeded to have an exciting and fast-paced conversation with us for our entire ride back to Zhuzhou. It was a pretty one-sided conversation, to say the least. He spoke loudly and quickly, and neither of us understood a word of the Chinese that was coming out of his mouth. It sure looked interesting, though: His body language and facial expressions were quite animated, as if somehow his combination of words and charades would help us to understand (It didn’t, really). In the end, about all we got out of the conversation were the 3 sentences he said in English:
"Obama: Very, very good." (While giving a thumbs up.)
"NBA: Very, very good." (Again, with a thumbs up.)
"Kobe Bryant: very, very good!" (With yet another thumbs up.)
The whole time, we just smiled, nodded, and pretended as though we understood every word that came out of his mouth. We were sad (but also relieved) to leave our “new friend” after the hour-long train ride was over. He seemed like a really nice guy and was SO excited to see us and tell us his thoughts and opinions. It’s a shame we couldn’t have understood more.
A Guessing Game
Often when we’re out around town, people will be excited to see us and want to have a conversation with us. While it’s nice that they are so friendly, we feel a bit bad because we usually have trouble catching what they’re asking (especially since they are usually speaking in our town’s local dialect, not Mandarin). Instead of admitting that we don’t understand, we usually seem to guess what they’re asking and respond accordingly. It’s pretty embarrassing when we guess wrong, but from our experience, it seems like there’s about a 95% chance they’re asking one of the following questions:
"What country are you from?"
(To David) "Are you Chinese? You look a little Chinese."
"What are you doing in China?"
"How much money do you make?"
The fourth question was a little awkward for us at first. Our American culture had taught us to not discuss our earnings with anyone outside of our immediate families. However, in China this is not seen as a rude question. (I guess its sort of like spitting wherever you want and letting your child defecate in the middle of the sidewalk are also not seen as rude. But I shouldn’t get sidetracked.) And everyone wants to know how much the foreigners are getting paid. Our teaching job here in China pays us each 2,500 Yuan per month, which translates to about $300. Even by Chinese standards that’s not a lot, but it’s approximately what entry-level teachers in our city make and its more than enough to live on here. Still, the people we talk to on the street are dumbfounded when they hear how “little” we make. Many don’t even believe us (“That’s impossible” is a response we’ve heard more than once after telling someone our salary). One taxi driver wondered out loud why we’d even bothered coming here for so little (“2,500 Yuan? That’s not even worth it.”). Foreigners in our city are akin to celebrities in Zhuzhou, and apparently in the minds of the local citizens we should be making the exorbitant salaries of movie stars or professional athletes. There was one time when we did manage to satisfy someone with our answer to the question of our salary, although it was completely inadvertent. One day, Tiffany went to the local bus station to purchase a new bus pass (the old one had been stolen by a pickpocket, but that’s another story). Anyway, as she was waiting for her pass, a man working at the station asked what her salary was. Excited to have actually understood what someone was saying to her in Chinese, she eagerly responded. The man seemed satisfied with her response and Tiffany was pleased that she’d had a “conversation” with someone in Chinese. It wasn’t until after she’d left the bus station that she realized she’d told the man she made 25,000 Yuan per month – 10 times her actual monthly income (that would go a long way here! She was a bit embarrassed about saying the wrong thing and definitely didn’t like the idea that she helped to uphold the false notion that all westerners in China make exorbitant salaries that are “out of reach” for local people. Still, at least now we know what a “satisfactory” answer is to the question of how much we earn here!
I haven’t eaten, but I’m doing fine!
Sometimes, even when we do understand what people are asking us, we still don’t know how to respond. One thing that stumped us for months after arriving in China is how to respond to one simple (but commonly asked) question: “Chi fan le ma?” (which translates directly into English as “Have you eaten rice yet?”). In China this is more of a greeting than an inquiry as to whether or not you’ve eaten rice. Here, this phrase is used the same way that “How are you?” is used in English. Although to directly ask how someone is doing would be a very personal and invasive question. It seems simple enough: If you’ve eaten rice (“chi fan le”) then you’re doing well, and if you haven’t (“mei you”) then you are not. (This concept really demonstrates the importance of eating in Chinese culture!)
I guess we are just more “literal-minded” than the Chinese, because the question really left us confused at first. For us, the problem was that we could never really tell if people genuinely wanted to know if we had eaten or if they were simply asking how we were doing (or if they really were one in the same). It was especially difficult to for us to answer the question due to the fact that our eating schedule is slightly later than the rest of the folks at our school (typically, dinnertime is between 5:30 and 6:30). We’re used to eating a bit later than that, and we often encountered many people who would ask “if we’d eaten rice yet” before we’d actually had dinner. This left us in the awkward position of trying to determine how to answer. We hadn’t eaten yet, but we were doing just fine. In fact, we wouldn’t even be hungry for an hour or so! So, what were we supposed to say? On the one hand, we could have been truthful and said we hadn’t eaten yet. But then would they think we were not doing well (which is a bigger deal in a Chinese society where you are supposed to put on a “positive front” regardless of how bad you are feeling) and we risked “losing face”. Or, we could have just lied and said that we’d eaten. But that would’ve been lying, and we may have just forfeited an invitation out for dinner! Anyway, in our confusion, we usually ended up not giving people an answer at all and instead just stared at them blankly with a “deer-in-the headlights” look. This may have been the worst possible response: Now, the person asking thought that we were the silly foreigners who can’t understand any Chinese (which wasn’t too far from the truth, but this was one of the few phrases we actually did understand and wanted to show that we knew something!). One of the first times this happened to us was one evening in the fall as we were walking up the stairs to our apartment. We happened to cross paths with the owner of our school (a quite wealthy and influential local businessman). As we walked past him on the stairs, he smiled and asked “Chi fan le ma?” Excited to have finally understood something someone was saying to us, we badly wanted to respond appropriately and show off our Chinese “skills”. However, we hadn’t actually eaten yet and did not know how to respond. We just stared dumbly at him. As he continued past us and down the stairs, he grinned and loudly stated “Ting bu dong” (“They don’t understand what I’m saying”), as if it were no surprise that we didn’t understand. As he said this, I wanted to scream “No, actually I understand you completely! I just don’t know how the heck I’m supposed to respond! Why is your language so cryptic?!” If only I could speak enough Chinese to have said that . . .
Why must all restaurants give “Cutsie” names to all their food?
Even as our Chinese has improved, ordering food at local restaurants has proven to be a difficult experience for us at times since we can’t read the menus. Some of the first words we learned in Chinese related to our favorite meats, veggies, and seasonings. We’d learned these words first in hopes that we would at least be able to describe what we wanted at restaurants in lieu of actually ordering off of the menu. This strategy worked just fine when we didn’t have anything specific that we wanted. Most of the restaurants have the same items on the menu anyway, and we would just ask for beef, chicken, pork, eggplant, tofu, etc. and we’d get generally what we wanted. Problems arose, however, when we wanted something more specific. For example, we’d go to local restaurant one day and notice a fellow patron eating a delicious-looking noodle soup with leafy green vegetables and mushrooms. We’d then decide that we should try that dish the next time we were at the restaurant. When that next time came, we’d walk confidently up to the counter and try to order (in Chinese) the noodle soup with the leafy green vegetables and mushrooms. Without fail, we’d get a confused look from the person taking our order. They clearly had no idea what we were talking about and didn’t think they served what we were asking for at their restaurant. This was a frustrating response, because we knew they served what we’d asked for. So, we’d then go search the restaurant for someone eating noodle soup with green leafy veggies and mushrooms. When we found them, we’d bring a server over, point to the dish and say “This is what I want! See, you do serve it here!” At which point, the waitress would say, “Ah, but the name of this dish is not ‘noodle soup with green leafy vegetables and mushrooms, its (insert some cutsie name that didn’t appear to have anything to do with soup, noodles, green veggies, or mushrooms here).” This response left us unimpressed. Even though we couldn’t read the “official” name of the dish we wanted off the menu, we could describe it accurately. I feel like they should have been able to use their reasoning skills to figure out what they wanted. If you walked into Burger King in America and asked generically for a hamburger, I don’t think they would just stare at you confused because they in fact do not sell “hamburgers” but sell “Whoppers” instead. Even if it was a bit confusing at first, I feel like the Burger King staff would at least work with you until you got what you wanted (also, they’ve got pictures at Burger King, which they seem to rarely have in restaurants here – wouldn’t that be nice!).
On some occasions, we will be surprised to find that the staff at food & drink establishments will actually speak and understand some English (speaking English is really rare here). One time, we were in one of the milk-tea shops down the street from our school. We’d wanted to order a banana-flavored drink but had forgotten how to say “banana.” After trying in vain for several minutes to convey our order using other descriptive words (well, the only two other descriptive words we knew of at that time – “yellow” and “fruit”, which we just repeated over and over), I made a last-ditch effort and just blurted out “BA-NA-NA” loudly and clearly. To our surprise, the girl working behind the counter said “Oh! Banana! I know!” We were shocked that she understood (and in trying to talk to her afterwards it seemed that banana may have been the only English word she knew). We also felt a little bad that we’d tried unsuccessfully for so long to order in Chinese when we could have just gotten what we wanted right away by speaking English! If only it were always so easy!
Are these the same or not?
Another place we seem to frequently have communication breakdowns is at the local supermarkets. In particular, product comparison seems to be an area where we often have trouble. Since many of the products do not have labels in English, it can be difficult to determine what things are (cleaning products, hair-care / personal hygiene products, and other “non-food” items seem to be the most difficult to tell). Anyway, a situation that often occurs is that we’ll be trying to buy something (say, stain remover for clothing), and we’ll be debating between two bottles of what we think are stain remover. One of the bottles will typically be more of a “name brand” and might actually say “stain remover” on it. The other one will be half the price but have no English labeling. Ideally, we’d want to buy the cheaper, “Chinese-only” bottle to save money. However, before making the purchase, we’ll want to confirm that it is in fact stain remover. So, to confirm that the bottle in question is what we think it is, we approach a store clerk with our two bottles and ask in Chinese “Are these the same?” These store clerks are either extremely dense or think that we are complete idiots, because without fail, the store clerk will always give us the most ridiculous answers. Usually, they’ll say something like “No. This one is ‘Brand X’ and this is ‘Brand Y’.” Or worse, they’ll point out the differences in the coloring in the bottles: “No. These are not the same. This one is a blue bottle and this one is a red bottle.” These responses make you want to scream, “I’m not that stupid. I just want to know if these both will get stains out of my clothes!” To this day, I still haven’t figured out why the store clerks feel the need to point out the silliest differences in the products we are asking them about, yet completely fail to mention anything else regarding their basic purpose. I think this is just one of those things I’ll never grasp. Our only thought on the situation is that people here can't imagine not speaking Chinese (since that's the only language they've heard) and therefore they think we must be plain stupid in all areas, not just language.
I’m an English teacher, and I want some water. Do you know who I am?
You can’t drink the water straight out of the tap in China, and no one does (not even the locals). In order to get drinking water you either (a) boil it or (b) have someone deliver a big Ozarka-Style “Water Cooler” jug of drinking water to your apartment. We don’t mind boiling our water some of the time, but we wanted to have one of the big jugs delivered to our apartment for convenience. People here prefer to drink their water hot...and for us we prefer cold. It took way too long for boiled water to reach a temperature at which we would drink it. For the first 4 months we lived in China, we had the toughest time figuring out how to get one of these jugs delivered. It didn’t seem like it should have been that tough of a task. The jugs are in every office at our school and around town, and there are businesses that solely exist to deliver water to people. Still, for us getting water delivered to our apartment was one of the biggest challenges of our first semester in China. This was because (for reasons still unknown to us) the other teachers at our school really didn’t want us to have the water delivered to our apartment. My best guess is that somehow they thought the water was unsafe for us to drink. Anyway, we were willing to pay for the water delivery service, but we needed someone who spoke Chinese to call the first time to set things up. It would be about a 30 second phone call. Anyway, nobody seemed to want to help us, and they told us the strangest things in hopes that we would give up trying to have the water delivered to our apartment. At the beginning of the semester, our liason, Mr. Zhang, told us that he thought the water from the tap was better (or “fresher”) than the drinking water in the bottles. His logic had something to do with the fact that the bottled water sat “stagnant” in the bottle, while the tap water flowed freely through the pipe system. I wanted to tell him that I’d rather take the “stagnant” bottled drinking water than the parasite-infested tap water, but I chose not to. We went to Mr. Zhang several more times trying to get him to help us with the drinking water service, but instead of calling the service for us, he offered up other “solutions.” I think the best one was when he told us we should “bottle our own water,” and then cary the 5 gallon jug up 4 flights of stairs, using the school water fountains (which we had already decided never to use after watching our students stick their mouths all over the spouts). After several attempts, we gave up on Mr. Zhang and tried another friend name JuJu. JuJu actually initiated the process: She found out that the service would cost 8 yuan per delivery, and after she made the initial call to set the service up, we could then call on our own whenever we needed refills (We could just tell them that we were the foreign teachers from Beishida Fuzhong, and they’d know what to do). This sounded promising, and we thought that we’d soon have closure on this issue. Sadly, it was not to be. The next time we met with JuJu, we asked about the water. She told us that she thought that having the water delivered was a bad idea after all, and that we should get our water through a two-step process of (a) bottling the aforementioned school water fountain water and (b) boiling that water (because the kids germs are all over it). Disappointed, we decided to give up on the bottled water for awhile. However, Tiffany was not about to give in completely. About a month after our last attempt, she went to JuJu and told her that she was constantly getting sick, thought that our water supply was the cause, and needed the bottled water to solve the problem. Finally, JuJu agreed to make the phone call to set up water delivery for us. The next day, a man on a motorcycle showed up with a “water-cooler-style” jug of water, which he installed in our kitchen. He handed us his business card, and JuJu told us that when we were out of water that we could just give him a call. All we’d need to do was tell him who we were and he would come with water. We were extremely excited to have won this small battle. It really seemed like it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but someone at our school really didn’t want us to have this water. I don’t think it was just Mr. Zhang and JuJu either. Each time we’d asked Mr. Zhang, he consulted with others before declining to call the water-delivery service for us. He’d usually call someone (a school headmaster, maybe?) on his cell phone, talk to them for a few minutes, and then give us his crazy alternative solution to obtaining drinking water. We also thought it was strange that JuJu was initially going to help us, but changed her mind a couple of days later. Who did she talk to? I doubt we’ll ever know. We were just happy that it worked out in the end.
Another funny water-related story: Eventually, our water jug ran empty, and it was time to order a new one. We knew enough Chinese to say who we were, where we taught, and that we wanted a bottle of water. We were told those would be the only phrases necessary for the delivery man to understand what we wanted, so we thought we could make the order on our own (we try not to be completely helpless, and when we can do something on our own, we definitely try). Anyway, Tiffany decided to call the number on the business card. The transaction did not go smoothly. I was in the next room when she made the call, and all I heard was the following (in Chinese):Tiffany: Hello. I am the foreign English teacher from Beishida Fuzhong. I would like one bottle of water.
(silence)
Tiffany: I am the foreign English teacher from Beishida Fuzhong. I would like one bottle of water.
(more silence)
Tiffany: Do you know Beishida Fuzhong?(silence)
Tiffany: Do you know Beishida Fuzhong?
(silence)
Tiffany: You don’t know Beishida Fuzhong? Thank you. Good bye.
(Tiffany hangs up the phone).
Apparently, the phone number on the business card was not just for the man who had delivered the water to us the first time, but a larger business that did more than just deliver water. The person who Tiffany called had no idea why a foreigner was calling and asking for water, and was extremely confused. The phone got passed to other, equally confused people before the call ended. Ultimately, we just had JuJu call and make the order for us. Shortly after JuJu called, the water delivery man showed up on his motorcycle. In the end, we got what we wanted, but were a little sad that we couldn’t have done it on our own!
Getting better, but not good enough
8 months into our time in China, I’m proud to say that we are making some big strides in learning spoken Chinese. We can have some simple conversations with the locals, which is fun (and great practice!) Still, after these conversations are over, we often analyze what was said and cringe over the mistakes we made (which the people we were talking to were too polite to point out). In the end, we feel good, though. We knew nothing when we arrived here. When people around town spoke to us, it sounded like complete gibberish. Now, we can understand some of what others are saying, and they can (usually) get the gist of what we’re saying, too. There are still some embarrassing moments, like the other day at Church when someone asked me if I was a first time visitor, and I responded in Chinese, “I am American. I’m An English teacher at Beishida Fuzhong. I teach in the Junior School. I will be in China for one year. I arrived in China in July 2008. I will go back to America in July 2009.” (Boy, did she look confused by that response.) Those embarrassing moments are getting fewer and farther between. And hey, at least we can learn through our mistakes! Often, when we meet people around town, they give us their number and ask us to call them so we can “drink tea” together sometime. We’re not quite to that stage yet, but at least it gives us something to work towards!
"Obama: Very, very good." (While giving a thumbs up.)
"NBA: Very, very good." (Again, with a thumbs up.)
"Kobe Bryant: very, very good!" (With yet another thumbs up.)
The whole time, we just smiled, nodded, and pretended as though we understood every word that came out of his mouth. We were sad (but also relieved) to leave our “new friend” after the hour-long train ride was over. He seemed like a really nice guy and was SO excited to see us and tell us his thoughts and opinions. It’s a shame we couldn’t have understood more.
A Guessing Game
Often when we’re out around town, people will be excited to see us and want to have a conversation with us. While it’s nice that they are so friendly, we feel a bit bad because we usually have trouble catching what they’re asking (especially since they are usually speaking in our town’s local dialect, not Mandarin). Instead of admitting that we don’t understand, we usually seem to guess what they’re asking and respond accordingly. It’s pretty embarrassing when we guess wrong, but from our experience, it seems like there’s about a 95% chance they’re asking one of the following questions:
"What country are you from?"
(To David) "Are you Chinese? You look a little Chinese."
"What are you doing in China?"
"How much money do you make?"
The fourth question was a little awkward for us at first. Our American culture had taught us to not discuss our earnings with anyone outside of our immediate families. However, in China this is not seen as a rude question. (I guess its sort of like spitting wherever you want and letting your child defecate in the middle of the sidewalk are also not seen as rude. But I shouldn’t get sidetracked.) And everyone wants to know how much the foreigners are getting paid. Our teaching job here in China pays us each 2,500 Yuan per month, which translates to about $300. Even by Chinese standards that’s not a lot, but it’s approximately what entry-level teachers in our city make and its more than enough to live on here. Still, the people we talk to on the street are dumbfounded when they hear how “little” we make. Many don’t even believe us (“That’s impossible” is a response we’ve heard more than once after telling someone our salary). One taxi driver wondered out loud why we’d even bothered coming here for so little (“2,500 Yuan? That’s not even worth it.”). Foreigners in our city are akin to celebrities in Zhuzhou, and apparently in the minds of the local citizens we should be making the exorbitant salaries of movie stars or professional athletes. There was one time when we did manage to satisfy someone with our answer to the question of our salary, although it was completely inadvertent. One day, Tiffany went to the local bus station to purchase a new bus pass (the old one had been stolen by a pickpocket, but that’s another story). Anyway, as she was waiting for her pass, a man working at the station asked what her salary was. Excited to have actually understood what someone was saying to her in Chinese, she eagerly responded. The man seemed satisfied with her response and Tiffany was pleased that she’d had a “conversation” with someone in Chinese. It wasn’t until after she’d left the bus station that she realized she’d told the man she made 25,000 Yuan per month – 10 times her actual monthly income (that would go a long way here! She was a bit embarrassed about saying the wrong thing and definitely didn’t like the idea that she helped to uphold the false notion that all westerners in China make exorbitant salaries that are “out of reach” for local people. Still, at least now we know what a “satisfactory” answer is to the question of how much we earn here!
I haven’t eaten, but I’m doing fine!
Sometimes, even when we do understand what people are asking us, we still don’t know how to respond. One thing that stumped us for months after arriving in China is how to respond to one simple (but commonly asked) question: “Chi fan le ma?” (which translates directly into English as “Have you eaten rice yet?”). In China this is more of a greeting than an inquiry as to whether or not you’ve eaten rice. Here, this phrase is used the same way that “How are you?” is used in English. Although to directly ask how someone is doing would be a very personal and invasive question. It seems simple enough: If you’ve eaten rice (“chi fan le”) then you’re doing well, and if you haven’t (“mei you”) then you are not. (This concept really demonstrates the importance of eating in Chinese culture!)
I guess we are just more “literal-minded” than the Chinese, because the question really left us confused at first. For us, the problem was that we could never really tell if people genuinely wanted to know if we had eaten or if they were simply asking how we were doing (or if they really were one in the same). It was especially difficult to for us to answer the question due to the fact that our eating schedule is slightly later than the rest of the folks at our school (typically, dinnertime is between 5:30 and 6:30). We’re used to eating a bit later than that, and we often encountered many people who would ask “if we’d eaten rice yet” before we’d actually had dinner. This left us in the awkward position of trying to determine how to answer. We hadn’t eaten yet, but we were doing just fine. In fact, we wouldn’t even be hungry for an hour or so! So, what were we supposed to say? On the one hand, we could have been truthful and said we hadn’t eaten yet. But then would they think we were not doing well (which is a bigger deal in a Chinese society where you are supposed to put on a “positive front” regardless of how bad you are feeling) and we risked “losing face”. Or, we could have just lied and said that we’d eaten. But that would’ve been lying, and we may have just forfeited an invitation out for dinner! Anyway, in our confusion, we usually ended up not giving people an answer at all and instead just stared at them blankly with a “deer-in-the headlights” look. This may have been the worst possible response: Now, the person asking thought that we were the silly foreigners who can’t understand any Chinese (which wasn’t too far from the truth, but this was one of the few phrases we actually did understand and wanted to show that we knew something!). One of the first times this happened to us was one evening in the fall as we were walking up the stairs to our apartment. We happened to cross paths with the owner of our school (a quite wealthy and influential local businessman). As we walked past him on the stairs, he smiled and asked “Chi fan le ma?” Excited to have finally understood something someone was saying to us, we badly wanted to respond appropriately and show off our Chinese “skills”. However, we hadn’t actually eaten yet and did not know how to respond. We just stared dumbly at him. As he continued past us and down the stairs, he grinned and loudly stated “Ting bu dong” (“They don’t understand what I’m saying”), as if it were no surprise that we didn’t understand. As he said this, I wanted to scream “No, actually I understand you completely! I just don’t know how the heck I’m supposed to respond! Why is your language so cryptic?!” If only I could speak enough Chinese to have said that . . .
Why must all restaurants give “Cutsie” names to all their food?
Even as our Chinese has improved, ordering food at local restaurants has proven to be a difficult experience for us at times since we can’t read the menus. Some of the first words we learned in Chinese related to our favorite meats, veggies, and seasonings. We’d learned these words first in hopes that we would at least be able to describe what we wanted at restaurants in lieu of actually ordering off of the menu. This strategy worked just fine when we didn’t have anything specific that we wanted. Most of the restaurants have the same items on the menu anyway, and we would just ask for beef, chicken, pork, eggplant, tofu, etc. and we’d get generally what we wanted. Problems arose, however, when we wanted something more specific. For example, we’d go to local restaurant one day and notice a fellow patron eating a delicious-looking noodle soup with leafy green vegetables and mushrooms. We’d then decide that we should try that dish the next time we were at the restaurant. When that next time came, we’d walk confidently up to the counter and try to order (in Chinese) the noodle soup with the leafy green vegetables and mushrooms. Without fail, we’d get a confused look from the person taking our order. They clearly had no idea what we were talking about and didn’t think they served what we were asking for at their restaurant. This was a frustrating response, because we knew they served what we’d asked for. So, we’d then go search the restaurant for someone eating noodle soup with green leafy veggies and mushrooms. When we found them, we’d bring a server over, point to the dish and say “This is what I want! See, you do serve it here!” At which point, the waitress would say, “Ah, but the name of this dish is not ‘noodle soup with green leafy vegetables and mushrooms, its (insert some cutsie name that didn’t appear to have anything to do with soup, noodles, green veggies, or mushrooms here).” This response left us unimpressed. Even though we couldn’t read the “official” name of the dish we wanted off the menu, we could describe it accurately. I feel like they should have been able to use their reasoning skills to figure out what they wanted. If you walked into Burger King in America and asked generically for a hamburger, I don’t think they would just stare at you confused because they in fact do not sell “hamburgers” but sell “Whoppers” instead. Even if it was a bit confusing at first, I feel like the Burger King staff would at least work with you until you got what you wanted (also, they’ve got pictures at Burger King, which they seem to rarely have in restaurants here – wouldn’t that be nice!).
On some occasions, we will be surprised to find that the staff at food & drink establishments will actually speak and understand some English (speaking English is really rare here). One time, we were in one of the milk-tea shops down the street from our school. We’d wanted to order a banana-flavored drink but had forgotten how to say “banana.” After trying in vain for several minutes to convey our order using other descriptive words (well, the only two other descriptive words we knew of at that time – “yellow” and “fruit”, which we just repeated over and over), I made a last-ditch effort and just blurted out “BA-NA-NA” loudly and clearly. To our surprise, the girl working behind the counter said “Oh! Banana! I know!” We were shocked that she understood (and in trying to talk to her afterwards it seemed that banana may have been the only English word she knew). We also felt a little bad that we’d tried unsuccessfully for so long to order in Chinese when we could have just gotten what we wanted right away by speaking English! If only it were always so easy!
Are these the same or not?
Another place we seem to frequently have communication breakdowns is at the local supermarkets. In particular, product comparison seems to be an area where we often have trouble. Since many of the products do not have labels in English, it can be difficult to determine what things are (cleaning products, hair-care / personal hygiene products, and other “non-food” items seem to be the most difficult to tell). Anyway, a situation that often occurs is that we’ll be trying to buy something (say, stain remover for clothing), and we’ll be debating between two bottles of what we think are stain remover. One of the bottles will typically be more of a “name brand” and might actually say “stain remover” on it. The other one will be half the price but have no English labeling. Ideally, we’d want to buy the cheaper, “Chinese-only” bottle to save money. However, before making the purchase, we’ll want to confirm that it is in fact stain remover. So, to confirm that the bottle in question is what we think it is, we approach a store clerk with our two bottles and ask in Chinese “Are these the same?” These store clerks are either extremely dense or think that we are complete idiots, because without fail, the store clerk will always give us the most ridiculous answers. Usually, they’ll say something like “No. This one is ‘Brand X’ and this is ‘Brand Y’.” Or worse, they’ll point out the differences in the coloring in the bottles: “No. These are not the same. This one is a blue bottle and this one is a red bottle.” These responses make you want to scream, “I’m not that stupid. I just want to know if these both will get stains out of my clothes!” To this day, I still haven’t figured out why the store clerks feel the need to point out the silliest differences in the products we are asking them about, yet completely fail to mention anything else regarding their basic purpose. I think this is just one of those things I’ll never grasp. Our only thought on the situation is that people here can't imagine not speaking Chinese (since that's the only language they've heard) and therefore they think we must be plain stupid in all areas, not just language.
I’m an English teacher, and I want some water. Do you know who I am?
You can’t drink the water straight out of the tap in China, and no one does (not even the locals). In order to get drinking water you either (a) boil it or (b) have someone deliver a big Ozarka-Style “Water Cooler” jug of drinking water to your apartment. We don’t mind boiling our water some of the time, but we wanted to have one of the big jugs delivered to our apartment for convenience. People here prefer to drink their water hot...and for us we prefer cold. It took way too long for boiled water to reach a temperature at which we would drink it. For the first 4 months we lived in China, we had the toughest time figuring out how to get one of these jugs delivered. It didn’t seem like it should have been that tough of a task. The jugs are in every office at our school and around town, and there are businesses that solely exist to deliver water to people. Still, for us getting water delivered to our apartment was one of the biggest challenges of our first semester in China. This was because (for reasons still unknown to us) the other teachers at our school really didn’t want us to have the water delivered to our apartment. My best guess is that somehow they thought the water was unsafe for us to drink. Anyway, we were willing to pay for the water delivery service, but we needed someone who spoke Chinese to call the first time to set things up. It would be about a 30 second phone call. Anyway, nobody seemed to want to help us, and they told us the strangest things in hopes that we would give up trying to have the water delivered to our apartment. At the beginning of the semester, our liason, Mr. Zhang, told us that he thought the water from the tap was better (or “fresher”) than the drinking water in the bottles. His logic had something to do with the fact that the bottled water sat “stagnant” in the bottle, while the tap water flowed freely through the pipe system. I wanted to tell him that I’d rather take the “stagnant” bottled drinking water than the parasite-infested tap water, but I chose not to. We went to Mr. Zhang several more times trying to get him to help us with the drinking water service, but instead of calling the service for us, he offered up other “solutions.” I think the best one was when he told us we should “bottle our own water,” and then cary the 5 gallon jug up 4 flights of stairs, using the school water fountains (which we had already decided never to use after watching our students stick their mouths all over the spouts). After several attempts, we gave up on Mr. Zhang and tried another friend name JuJu. JuJu actually initiated the process: She found out that the service would cost 8 yuan per delivery, and after she made the initial call to set the service up, we could then call on our own whenever we needed refills (We could just tell them that we were the foreign teachers from Beishida Fuzhong, and they’d know what to do). This sounded promising, and we thought that we’d soon have closure on this issue. Sadly, it was not to be. The next time we met with JuJu, we asked about the water. She told us that she thought that having the water delivered was a bad idea after all, and that we should get our water through a two-step process of (a) bottling the aforementioned school water fountain water and (b) boiling that water (because the kids germs are all over it). Disappointed, we decided to give up on the bottled water for awhile. However, Tiffany was not about to give in completely. About a month after our last attempt, she went to JuJu and told her that she was constantly getting sick, thought that our water supply was the cause, and needed the bottled water to solve the problem. Finally, JuJu agreed to make the phone call to set up water delivery for us. The next day, a man on a motorcycle showed up with a “water-cooler-style” jug of water, which he installed in our kitchen. He handed us his business card, and JuJu told us that when we were out of water that we could just give him a call. All we’d need to do was tell him who we were and he would come with water. We were extremely excited to have won this small battle. It really seemed like it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but someone at our school really didn’t want us to have this water. I don’t think it was just Mr. Zhang and JuJu either. Each time we’d asked Mr. Zhang, he consulted with others before declining to call the water-delivery service for us. He’d usually call someone (a school headmaster, maybe?) on his cell phone, talk to them for a few minutes, and then give us his crazy alternative solution to obtaining drinking water. We also thought it was strange that JuJu was initially going to help us, but changed her mind a couple of days later. Who did she talk to? I doubt we’ll ever know. We were just happy that it worked out in the end.
Another funny water-related story: Eventually, our water jug ran empty, and it was time to order a new one. We knew enough Chinese to say who we were, where we taught, and that we wanted a bottle of water. We were told those would be the only phrases necessary for the delivery man to understand what we wanted, so we thought we could make the order on our own (we try not to be completely helpless, and when we can do something on our own, we definitely try). Anyway, Tiffany decided to call the number on the business card. The transaction did not go smoothly. I was in the next room when she made the call, and all I heard was the following (in Chinese):Tiffany: Hello. I am the foreign English teacher from Beishida Fuzhong. I would like one bottle of water.
(silence)
Tiffany: I am the foreign English teacher from Beishida Fuzhong. I would like one bottle of water.
(more silence)
Tiffany: Do you know Beishida Fuzhong?(silence)
Tiffany: Do you know Beishida Fuzhong?
(silence)
Tiffany: You don’t know Beishida Fuzhong? Thank you. Good bye.
(Tiffany hangs up the phone).
Apparently, the phone number on the business card was not just for the man who had delivered the water to us the first time, but a larger business that did more than just deliver water. The person who Tiffany called had no idea why a foreigner was calling and asking for water, and was extremely confused. The phone got passed to other, equally confused people before the call ended. Ultimately, we just had JuJu call and make the order for us. Shortly after JuJu called, the water delivery man showed up on his motorcycle. In the end, we got what we wanted, but were a little sad that we couldn’t have done it on our own!
Getting better, but not good enough
8 months into our time in China, I’m proud to say that we are making some big strides in learning spoken Chinese. We can have some simple conversations with the locals, which is fun (and great practice!) Still, after these conversations are over, we often analyze what was said and cringe over the mistakes we made (which the people we were talking to were too polite to point out). In the end, we feel good, though. We knew nothing when we arrived here. When people around town spoke to us, it sounded like complete gibberish. Now, we can understand some of what others are saying, and they can (usually) get the gist of what we’re saying, too. There are still some embarrassing moments, like the other day at Church when someone asked me if I was a first time visitor, and I responded in Chinese, “I am American. I’m An English teacher at Beishida Fuzhong. I teach in the Junior School. I will be in China for one year. I arrived in China in July 2008. I will go back to America in July 2009.” (Boy, did she look confused by that response.) Those embarrassing moments are getting fewer and farther between. And hey, at least we can learn through our mistakes! Often, when we meet people around town, they give us their number and ask us to call them so we can “drink tea” together sometime. We’re not quite to that stage yet, but at least it gives us something to work towards!
Park Signs
1 comment:
Wow! Some memories for sure! Glad you finally got your water and are working your way to ordering food! Then you can really answer that you HAVE, in fact, eaten rice...so strange. Can't wait to see you guys soon!
Post a Comment