On Not Learning Chinese
"Are you going to learn Chinese?" : A question asked of me again and again upon sharing the news that I was going to be living in China for five months. And even though it's the hardest language to learn in the world, sure, I thought I should at least try. So a few weeks before coming here I bought a Mandarin phrasebook and downloaded some apps. Three months in, I have yet to touch either one.
In my first days in Shanghai, upset stomach longing for American food, I go to a restaurant called Mr. Pancake and mime everything else but ask for "shway." "Shway" means water in Chinese, and it stuck because it also means "little bit" in Lebanese. "Xenali shway", "I'd like some water" : my rough translation, my haphazard transliteration. "Shway" was the first word I learned from Xiao, a good friend who moved to New York from his home in Fouzhou ten years ago. When he volunteered to cat-sit for me in Brooklyn just a month before I left, he came over to meet Mojo collect the keys and we ended up talking for an hour, about Chinese, and so many other things, like: Mandarin and Cantonese aren't variations of one language but entirely different languages. And: they are two among hundreds spoken in this country. My heart sunk as Xiao told me all this cheerfully, insisting on teaching me a few phrases that I did my best to write down and say after him, even though I swear it felt like they were entering in one of my ears and falling right out of the other.
"Shi-shi" and "nee-hao" : "Thank you" and a greeting. In my first days, I catch on to these basics; it seems like the least I can do. I want to say "shi-shi" so much of the time, but something that's taken me a little longer to learn is that it's rude to be too polite.
The first time we Skype when I'm in Shanghai, Xiao re-teaches me the five tones, which feel impossible to hear, even as he uses his hands to indicate the pitches and tells me again and again I’m doing well as I repeat them after him. He shares with me links to a page that explains pinyin (which is the official way of transliterating Mandarin into English, was going to be officially adopted over the characters at one point, though that never happened) and another page that shows the evolution of the Chinese characters over the years. We look up "turtle", "fire", and "fish" and the revelation of a written language based on ideograms and not sounds strikes me anew.
"Tung" : Pain. This, I learn from my second masseuse in Shanghai, a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner with ten years experience I was told by the cheerful women who up-sold me, but you doesn't speak English and insists on muttering over me in Chinese as he hones in on all of my most painful parts. "Tung chullee?" Yes, pain here, but don't stop.
On Skype, Xiao listens to me patiently. I tell him how frustrating his language is. He talks me through my student roster, pronouncing the names I don't know. He says and I repeat words for spicy, pork, sesame, words I barely remember. I do remember "nyonai" which I figure out on my own when ordering and Americano one day. I record a message for him, saying this word, triumphantly. He writes me back with variations on what else I might say. There’s always more to learn.
"Context is so important" : so says my friend S who was born to a Chinese mother and an Australian father and grew up in England. She sort of knows Chinese but is here for a year to learn it for real. She has been taking classes for tells me that all the simplified Chinese characters fit on one sheet of normal sized paper, and I've already learned that most words need two characters. She says, "I mean context is soooo important. Confidence too."
"Chullee": Here. Useful and empowering when I manage to hail a cab and he understands my pronunciation of the intersection I want to go to. This, after failing many times. Now, I say it loud and deep. Fifth tone. X road and Y road. "Lu": road. Drop me off here.
I am terrified the first time I go to yoga class at the gym in my apartment complex. Will this even work, I wonder, as I angle for a spot where I can both see the teacher and not be in the way. Turns out it's easy to follow along, and the teacher treats me like everyone else, adjusting my stance with exactness, pushing me to my limits, no where near as kind as yoga teachers in Brooklyn, but that feels really good. Like everyone else, she takes photos of me in my poses to post god-knows-where, saying "douye" as she walks by me. "Douye, douye" : "Yeah, you got it, yeah." And "had-haw" which I think means "how good." Throughout the class, she repeat four words, again and again. "Ii, er, san, si." One, two, three, four, and we all drip with sweat. The other day, one of the yogis right next to me, looked over and said something right after I fell out of a pose. I'm pretty sure it was, "You are awesome."
What am I saying? Something about language and belonging, something about things that feel impossible being the most fun. And I'm definitely not learning Chinese, but I'm learning so many things I never knew before.
The first written character I've started to pick out of blocks of texts I see everywhere is 人 : "ren" : person. Xiao taught me this in our first or second meeting, I realize as I look back over my notes from Brooklyn, chicken scratches I jotted down hopelessly lifetimes ago, and here I am swimming in the language, and I see it every where: ren, ren, ren.