Shénme!? Shénme!? Tīng Bù Dòng!

With Katie back home, I am taking over the blog for awhile. I have a number of posts in the queue. Enjoy!

We are trying very hard to learn Chinese. We take classes three days a week for two hours at a time. For me, the weekday classes are immediately following a 10 hour work day. It is exhausting, but I am actually enjoying it. Many of the friends we have met have been here longer than we have. Some people have only been here a couple of months longer and others have been in China for many years. Their Chinese skills vary just as much as the length of time that they have been here. Some people know little to no Chinese, others are nearly fluent. In either case, there are some common phrases that get everyone by with when you come to visit. Here are a few of the tricks.

"Hǎo de, Hǎo de, Hǎo de" meaning "OK, OK, OK". The "Hǎo de, Hǎo de, Hǎo de" trick is used when you don't know exactly what the person is saying, but if you agree with them then you will likely get what you want. An example is when you are giving a taxi cab directions. Once you instruct the cabbie where you want to go, they usually respond with a series of Chinese words that I cannot understand. It doesn't matter if I am giving them directions to my home, the office or a restaurant in the city. The response to my attempt at saying the cross roads is always countered with a string of Chinese that means nothing to me. My typically response is to repeat the crossroads I am going to one more time, and then see if the driver looks like he understands. If so, then I respond to the cabbie's gibberish with a "Hǎo de, Hǎo de, Hǎo de". This is probably the most versatile of the expressions as it can be used just about whenever you think the person knows what you are asking, but have no idea what they are saying to you. Common places to use this: Taxis, massage parlors, ordering food, and asking for just about anything. Related saying: "Duì, Duì, Duì" meaning "Yes, Yes, Yes"

"Zhè ge" & "Nà gè" meaning "This one" & "That one". A mere point with the index finger and a "Zhè ge" or a "Nà gè" does the trick whenever you are buying just about anything. Lucky for us, most menus at non-western restaurants are about 50 pages long and include pictures of everything. This makes the ordering process a bit time consuming, but it ensures that something resembling the family pet doesn't end up on your plate. How do I know this? Well, when you order duck in China, you typically get the whole duck – from beak to feet. Ordering a fish? You got, it comes with the head and tail. I have even seen an entire sucking pig present on a plate. It was a bit strange, but it was so delicious. I am convinced that the Chinese believe that they are being cheated if they don't see where the thing they ordered started and ended. I, on the other hand, am just glad that I get a picture book to choose my meal from and can use "Zhè ge" and my index finger. Common places to use this: fake markets, restaurants, street vendors, etc. Related sayings "Zhèlǐ" and "Nàlǐ" meaning "here" and "there".

The grunt. It has been quite apparent that the way languages are taught in class and manner in which they are spoken on the street are much different. I have a hard time understanding Aussies, Kiwi's, Brits and Saffas although I am a native English speaker. Sometimes I even have a hard time understanding people from the left coast or Deep South in the US. The same is true with Mandarin and whatever language they are speaking in the streets of Shanghai. However, the affirmative grunt is always there to save the day. A grunt can be a question, an affirmative answer, a negative answer or just about anything in between. It is universal and very useful in China. Especially since the people that I typically have to speak Chinese to (e.g., cab drivers, waitresses, doormen, and shop owners) are not the most educated. Thus, when they talk it sounds a whole lot like grunting anyways. A friend of ours said it best when he uttered "You can grunt your way through China for 2-3 years and no one will notice". I think he is right. Common place to use this: everywhere. Related sayings: none.

When I came over to Shanghai, one of my goals was to be conversational in Mandarin before I left. The first week I was here I thought that goal would be unachievable. The language seemed so strange and I was so bad at the tones. However, after nearly two month's worth of classes I can honestly say it is starting to click. Thus, there is a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel that makes my goal at least seem plausible. However, I have also learned that not everyone is as willing to learn Chinese as I am. A teacher friend of ours told us a story about a 2nd grade Korean boy that he had in his class. This young Korean boy was attending an international school with kids from across the globe and all the classes were taught in English. Since he already knew English and Korean, he felt that there was no reason for him to learn Chinese. His native Chinese speaking classmates did not share this opinion. Thus, they continuously pressured him to learning Chinese. They would typically do this by speaking to him in Chinese and teasing him when he couldn't respond fittingly. According to the teacher, the Korean boy would begin to grow agitated with the other students and yell "Shénme!? Shénme!? Tīng bù dòng!" Translated to English that means "What!? What!? I don't understand!" This is my new go to phrase and I plan on wearing it out like a comfortable pair of sneakers.