IT'S A TRAP

To begin, a short play in one act.

Hypothetical friend: Yo, Liz, do you like it when people watch you do things at which you are inept?

Liz: No. I very much do not like that.

Hypothetical friend: In your current life, at which activity do you feel most inept?

Liz: That’s easy. Speaking Chinese.

Hypothetical friend: Hm, ok. Now, at what time of day would you be least interested in participating in any kind of activity?

Liz: Let’s see… probably a weekend morning any time before noon.

[CURTAIN]

So I am pretty freaking displeased that THIS SUNDAY at SEVEN-THIRTY AM I am going to a contest at which I will be asked to SPEAK CHINESE in front of what could potentially be a LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE. In fact, it is sort of my worst nightmare.

How did I get here? Simple. I was bamboozled.

 A few weeks ago, my Chinese teacher announced that if we entered a program-wide speech contest just within our little school, we would get out of that week’s speaking test. And the speaking tests aren’t all that bad, but the thing is, if you don’t have a speaking test, then on Friday, as soon as you’re done with the written test (at like 9:30 am) YOU ARE DONE FOR THE DAY AND CAN GO BACK TO SLEEP. No sane person turns down an offer like that. There was another thing she said about how if you did well you’d go on to some further competition, but that seemed irrelevant.

And the preliminary contest itself was no big deal—I gave a five-minute speech about my family (there were five topics, all of which I “prepared in advance,” and then I drew one randomly) in front of four teachers in a classroom. It went ok, I guess, except I mixed up my family words and accidentally said that my dad was starting college in the fall and then ran out of material four minutes in. Instead of enacting my emergency time-killing plan of listing the birthday and favorite beverage of everyone I know, I panicked and ended up muttering, “I…really…like…my…family…” and a bunch of other things so ungrammatical I won’t attempt to translate them here.  BUT in a truly horrifying and baffling sequence of events the judges (moved no doubt by my father’s bravery and commitment to his education) gave me third place out of the 100- and 150- level students. And the top three from each bracket have to go to this BEIJING-WIDE SPEECH CONTEST FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS EARLY IN THE MORNING ON THE WEEKEND. It’s some kind of sick joke.

To make matters worse, I have a sneaking suspicion some of the other students can actually speak Chinese. And oh my god, we have 16 topics to prepare!! The only one I feel confident about speaking on is “Is learning Chinese hard?” because I have a lot of feelings. If it is any of the other ones—“The gift Beijing has given me” or “My American university” or “My weekend activities”—I am screwed.

Yeah, the topics are pretty easy. But that just makes my impending incompetence all the more humiliating.

All I have to do is learn Chinese between now and Sunday morning, which would be easy, given that I’ve mastered tones and characters (I have mastered neither). Except that Chinese has these horrors called, wait for it, MEASURE WORDS.

Measure words are sneaky little trolls that lurk between numbers and nouns. So like you can’t just say “five eggplants”; you have to say “five measure word eggplants.” And you can’t say “this eggplant”; you have to say “this measure word eggplant” (for reasons unfathomable to me, however, “My measure word eggplant” is wrong wrong wrong).  And there are a million different measure words!!! You have to learn them and remember which one goes with which noun!!! An imperfect parallel with English are those cute little words we use to talk about groups of animals—a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a murder of crows, and so on. Now imagine that you have to memorize one of those words for every noun you learn. NOT SO CUTE ANYMORE.

At least the measure word-noun pairings make sense. OH WAIT THEY DON’T. So like you use zhang for flat things like maps and paper and photographs. But also beds and tables. But not letters or envelopes. And there’s a measure word for items of clothing: jian. Yi jian chenshan is one shirt. But do not even think about using jian for skirts. No, the measure word for skirt, as for other “long, thin objects” is tiao. Other tiao nouns are pants and fish. Ba is used only with chairs, rulers, and umbrellas. I am not making this up.

*          *          *

Nightmare-inducing competitions and grammar patterns aside, things are progressing well here. For one thing, we have discovered that breakfast is secretly the most delicious Chinese meal. It turns out, right across the street, literally a twenty second walk from our dorm, we can buy jidan guan bing, which are fresh eggy crepes brushed with spicy garlic sauce and wrapped around a few leaves of fresh lettuce. They are, without exaggeration, one of the most delicious foods I have ever eaten. Plus, the lady who makes them totally recognizes me now! I AM A LOCAL.

And we’ve been traveling, both around Beijing and to other tourist destinations. A few weeks ago, we went hiking for the weekend in Anyang! In gorges! On my birthday! What is this life??

This past weekend Gabe, Alex, and I went to the Forbidden City, which is one of the main tourist attractions of Beijing. I am terrible at tourist attractions though, because unless I know a lot about the history of a place (which I still do not but SOON I WILL READ ALL), I can do little more than wander around and express approval for the nice turtle dragon statues. They really are nice. The picture at the bottom is from the Forbidden City—we posed normally and then the Chinese tourist taking the picture yelled something about how we were too close together (we think), so we jumped apart into the unawkward positioning you see below. He seemed much happier.

*          *          *

This Sunday morning around 9am my time (that’s 9pm Saturday night if you’re on the east coast of the US—I am serious enough about the following request to do the supercomplicated time zone math), if you can spare any good thoughts please, PLEASE send them my way. In return, I will proclaim to the assembled masses your birthday and your favorite beverage. 

ZAO GAO

Something I’ve neglected to mention is that the four Yale fellows (Hayley, Alex, Gabe, and I) and most of the other American students on this program are all living with local Chinese students as our dorm roommates, so they can help us practice and learn about Chinese culture and things. So the other day Alex’s roommate Xin Tong asked me what my zhuan ye was, and I was extremely excited because I knew both that zhuan ye means college major AND how to answer in Chinese (I KNOW RIGHT). But when I responded with an oh-so-confident, “Yingwen,” his face fell. Because, as he managed to express to me, who spends their college career studying the language they were born knowing how to speak?? For God’s sake, didn’t I know it already?? In an attempt to salvage the situation, we frantically looked up the word for literature, and I hurled it at him in a panic—WENXUE WENXUE WENXUE—but the damage was done: Xin Tong thinks I’m a bit of an idiot.

I didn’t think this would be a problem, because I’m not an idiot, and I assumed that this would become clear in the ordinary course of things. But, um, I’ve spent now a good amount of time with Xin Tong (he is actually awesome and takes us all on outings), and, um, he still asks me to count things out loud. Like to count to nine. In English or Chinese. And this has forced me into a realization: If you were to start with the assumption that I am stupid, which Xin Tong unfortunately has, NOTHING I DO OR SAY IN THIS COUNTRY WOULD LEAD YOU TO CHANGE YOUR MIND. After all, here is how I spend my time:

1.     Studying words he knew as a toddler

2.     Mispronouncing words he knew as a toddler

3.     Misunderstanding words he knew as a toddler

4.     Doing stupid things as a result having a functional vocabulary smaller than that of a toddler

I contend that, except for that one time I didn’t lock the bathroom door right, all of the questionable situations I’ve gotten myself into have been a problem of language confusion (And even the bathroom thing would have been better if I had known Chinese and didn’t have resort to wordless yelling)(But that did work). And not all of these errors can be solved with Google Translate.

Take crossing the street, for example. I keep almost getting hit by cars, but I realize that it’s because I’m mistranslating the pedestrian signals. When I see the little green walking man, I think he means, “Traffic has stopped; proceed across the street.” But I’ve figured out that what the Beijing little green man means is “Now’s as good a time as any to risk life and limb; proceed across the street.” And I’ll tell you, in this context, the countdown feels somehow more ominous.

While we’re on the topic of traffic, something I haven’t figured out is where exactly cars and other vehicles are allowed. No matter where I am walking, there is always a a bike/scooter/sedan/16-wheeler creeping up behind me and then blasting its freaking horn in my ear. I AM SORRY I THOUGHT THIS WAS A SIDEWALK I HAVE MOVED ARE YOU HAPPY. Anyway, none of this is winning me many points with Xin Tong.

So now I have come to the question and answer I come to every post and every day of my life: What is the solution to all my problems? LEARN CHINESE. Last post I told you about tones and why they are standing between me and functional humanhood. Today I will tell you about Chinese characters.  Guess what: They are hard to learn.

In all the languages I’ve studied—Spanish, Italian, Latin, Korean (XIN TONG ARE YOU LISTENING)—once you know how to say a word you can also write it, because there is, you know, an alphabet. But with Chinese, you learn the pronunciation and tones and then this whole other category called characters!!! Which correspond to syllables, meaning a single word can be made up of two or three or four of them!!! With multiple strokes you are supposed to do in the right order!!!!! And the real zinger is that if you don’t know a word you see on the street or on a menu or in the doctor’s office, you can’t just sound it out—you have to write it into a fancy smart phone app (I don’t have one) or look it up in a Chinese dictionary (Difficult and time-consuming because of the no alphabet thing. Also I don’t have one) if you want to know how to say it. Ugh.

The one saving grace is that characters are made up in large part of different recognizable parts, called radicals. Radicals have their own independent meanings. For instance, here is the radical for “Water”:氵

Extremely helpfully, this radical appears in the characters for watery things like:

thirsty: 渴

sea: 海

shower: 洗澡

Before you get too excited, it also shows up in the characters for things absolutely unrelated to water like:

pretty: 漂亮

to not have: 没有

OK, if right now you are thinking, “Gee, I don’t know about absolutely unrelated, Liz-- Water is pretty and seems like an important thing not to not have,” do NOT talk back to me, but also GOOD GOOD YOU WIN. Finding ways to make radicals make sense in your mind, even when they don’t really, is Liz-Approved Method Number One For Learning Chinese Characters. The problem is, as we’re learning more and more characters, they are becoming less and less distinguishable. It’s no longer enough to remember that such and such character starts with that radical that looks like a backwards t because now we know ten that start with the backwards t!!! EESH!

Which brings us to Liz-Approved Method Number Two: make up elaborate stories. Take zao gao, which means What a mess! The characters are a little complicated, so I’ll make them nice and big:

糟糕

Confusing, right? Now think: “GRAB YOUR CHRISTMAS TREES AND YOUR SUITCASES AND RUN BECAUSE ALIENS ARE ABOUT TO ATTACK TOO LATE THERE’S ONE HOVERING OVER THE GRASS WHAT A MESS.” If you don’t see Christmas trees, suitcases or aliens (actually there’s just one alien), I promise you that if you find yourself trying to learn 35-50 new Chinese words a night, you will see crazier. And you will love it.

Bedtime now, because I have to get to class early tomorrow; I, um, accidentally slept through the first hour of class today due to an unfortunate alarm-setting error, 糟糕! 

Please don’t tell Xin Tong.

IS THE GREAT WALL REALLY THAT GREAT??

YES. YES IT IS. But more on that in a bit. First I will tell you about my ultrasound.

As I mentioned in my last post, we need a health exam for our work visas and when we tried to go our first week of classes, the doctor's office was closed because of dragon boats. So the next week, we arrived again at the clinic and followed the welcoming "Medical Examination for Aliens" sign to a desk where we got our instructions: a form with a list of 7 or 8 stations and room numbers. Our task was to visit each of the stations and collect signatures confirming we'd done all the things. A scavenger hunt! Sort of.

The problem is I don't speak much hospital Chinese. Complex medical terminology such as "lie down," "open your mouth," "take off your shoes" are not in my repertoire, aural or oral. And it turns out, your command of the language seems to determine whether you feel in control of your medical care and or, well, like an alien. With very few pertinent words at my disposal, my only option was to present myself at each station and then brace for impact.

So yeah first I got an ultrasound. I don't appear to be pregnant. I don't know what else one gets an ultrasound for so I can't speak to the presence of other ailments as found/ruled out by this test. I really wanted to yell IS IT A GIRL??? but I decided at the last second that my humor would likely go unappreciated. Then I got a full body x-ray. I think. In the next room, terrifyingly mislabeled SURGERY, a guy touched my neck a lot. I have no idea what he was looking for, and my neck is extremely ticklish, so you can guess how that went. And 25 seconds after walking into the EKG room, I was lying on a bed, covered in suction cups. That was honestly one of the strangest moments of my life. I hope I passed all the tests, and maybe when I get my results, I’ll figure out what the neck thing was all about.

To avoid situations like this, I should just learn to speak Chinese already, right?! BUT. TONES. Ok, I'll make a confession: I used to think that Chinese tones were like good table manners: everyone expects you to use them and maybe sneers at you if you don’t, but in a pinch you can get along without them.

NOT TRUE.

Tones are the difference between “I like to play ball” and “I like big balls.” They are the difference between the verb “to be” and the number 10. They are the difference between a cab driver gaping at you, shaking his head, and leaving you on the side of the road and a cab driver opening his door, letting you into his car, and driving you to your home. In other words WITHOUT THE RIGHT TONES NO ONE WILL HAVE ANY EARTHLY IDEA WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. And I rarely have the right tones.

But there have been a few minor successes. I know about that cab driver thing, because I lived both scenarios. Meaning that, YES, the second time, I said something that got us to our home!!! I spoke Chinese!!! There is hope!!! (I said one word: dongwuyuan. It means zoo).

*          *          *
 

Let me paint you a picture. You are sitting on the Great Wall of China, about to dig into the lunch that you have been hoofing up and down battlements for several hours. You pull out the chocolate croissant you were delighted to find last night at the shop next to your school. You bite into it, waiting for the sweet, creamy chocolate to hit your taste buds. But, hang on, something is wrong—the chocolate isn’t really that sweet, and, worse, it’s sort of crumbly but also chewy. What in god’s name is happening??

You, my friend, have just been Red Beaned. And trust me, it has happened to the best of us.

Turns out red bean is a very common filling-type ingredient around here. And it’s pretty sneaky. You can find it spring rolls when you're expecting pork, in popsicles when you're expecting strawberry, and, yes, in croissants when you're expecting chocolate. Poor red bean has a pretty raw deal—it’s not bad tasting! You're just always looking for something else! (This problem can be filed under the “Not a problem when I read Chinese” heading, along with, you know, most things.)

The only other thing I have to say about food here is that it is both delicious and extremely inexpensive. Tonight, Hayley and I bought ourselves a full restaurant meal for a grand total of 32 kuai, or about 5 dollars and 4 cents. Ice cream bars on the street can run anywhere from 16 to 60 cents (this is a pretty big problem, actually, as I’m learning that stinginess and not health-consciousness is all that’s been keeping me from eating a hundred ice cream bars a day). Cold milk tea is 63 cents! FOOD HEAVEN. THAT IS WHERE I LIVE.

Also, via pointing at menus with photographs, I’ve found this sweet, spicy chicken dish (for various reasons I have unvegetarianed for my China stay, with all intentions of starting back up again after) with scallions and peanuts and huge slices of hot pepper. I love it. It’s amazing. I felt pretty legit for a while: I’ve found this authentic Chinese dish all on my own! I have a culinary identity here! I win Chinese food! That’s until I found out what it’s called: Gong bao ji ding. Yep. The authentic, unique Chinese dish I have fallen in love with is Kung Pao Chicken.

*          *          *

Things can be frustrating here, but China threw me a bone that could have made up for a hospital full of surprise EKGs and a bakery full of red bean croissants. And that bone was called Last Saturday. Because last Saturday 1) We went to the Great Wall and 2) It was sunny.

Clear, sunny days are rare around here (and rarer still in Changsha, so I hear), but it’s almost worth the scarcity for the overwhelming joy I feel when the sun finally does come out. After two weeks of cloud and smog, I was pretty much beside myself with happiness when I stepped outside into a world of crisp shadows and warm light and BLUE SKY. My Chinese vocabulary didn't seem up to expressing the depth of my feelings, so I mostly just pointed to the sky and made wordless happy noises.

And the Great Wall itself is stunning. With most historical-destination-monument-building types, you get there, you look at it for a while, maybe you can check out the inside or climb on top of it, and then you’re pretty much done. Not so with the Great Wall. You can walk along it for hours, so you have an activity, AND you are seeing it from a new angle with every step-- new segments of the wall curl out from the mountain as you go. And you don’t have choose between seeing it and standing on top of it—the best view of the wall is from the wall itself! Plus there is a lot of cool history, none of which I know. YET.

More reasons I think Great Wall is awesome:

1) The mountains are breathtaking, and you are standing right there in them.

2) You can buy these killer coconutty popsicles right there. On the wall.

3) You get exercise!! But for real, and without even meaning to!! 

4) Also visiting the wall are groups of Italian tourists speaking Italian (I am who I am)

So, yes, as my mother commented, I cannot get over the Great Wall. And, as my brother responded, that was kind of the point.