Shick-shick-Shenma? (Whick-whick-What?)

I love communication. It's one of my passions. So, learning Chinese is an absolute blast for me. Here I am gaining the knowledge of how to communicate with 1/5th of the world. More, probably. With my Spanish abilities (and my barely remembered Hebrew skills?), I may soon be able to have a casual conversation (if not a more intense one) with half (if not more) of the world. I am as happy as a little girl!

Speaking in Chinese is difficult. I am not the first to say as much, but I will elaborate on the difficulties I perceive. N.B. I have observed Chinese people even have issues communicating with one another.

Take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were.

As a Westerner, my first language creates immense obstacles to acquiring a symbologic and tonally based language like Mandarin; this is a two-way street, many of my students struggle to understand a lettering system and the sounds of the phonetic alphabet. Comprehending the basic building blocks of learning one language when the other is the native language is the first obstacle. Example: the Mandarin "r" sound. It is not the sound that we make in English that comes slowly from the back of the mouth and even in the throat. Rather, the Mandarin "r" is created with the tongue elevated and forward and with an expulsion of air that makes "r" sound strangely similar to a French "j."

Though the four(.5ish) tones are easy to comprehend, they are not always so easy to produce. In fact, the transitions can be downright frustrating. When Chinese people speak, the tonal changes are subtle. When Chinese language students speak, the tonal changes are absurd and exaggerated. Syllables are elongated, and with some words I catch myself sounding something like a hiccuping cat mid-meow. Tones are important because of how limited the Mandarin phonetic alphabet is. For instance, a tone can designate the difference between "pen," "arm," and "nose." They also differentiate "to ask" and "to kiss"--which, every Chinese teacher loves to point-out so that students don't say "May I please kiss." There are many examples like this. Context becomes most of the thing--though not everything. Sadly, the four(.5ish) tones do not produce sing-songy or rhythmic language as in Swedish or Dutch. Still, there is some pleasure to be derived in ascertaining how to tweak your mouth shape and vocal chords to hit those notes. I like to move my finger with the correct pinyin sign accompanying what I [try to] say. Imagine Harry Potter casting spells that sound like hiccuping cats mid-meow. Now you can see and hear me ordering spicy peanut chicken.

Should a Westerner want to learn how to read Chinese, they can thank Mao for simplifying the character system. There used to be complex characters that involved 10's if not 100's of strokes. Now, most symbols probably fall somewhere in the teens if not fewer in strokes. Since the written language is universal to all Chinese dialects (when the tones and phonetics are not), one would presume that characters would just have their meanings. Not so. The character for "chicken" also means "prostitute." Suddenly my "spicy peanut chicken" reads like a totally different order. Again, context becomes most of the thing--though not everything. Of course, there is the challenge of shifting one's Western-language-oriented brain from a system with letters or strokes that have sounds to a system with minimal pairs only in full concepts and/or words. I seem to be struggling to communicate this in English writing. That is how different this is.

Mandarin uses syllables to convey meaning. Almost every syllable has its own meaning. When syllables are put together, it is really the joining of words with their own meanings (minimal pairs). This is important to help develop a context for what is being said. This is pretty neat in how the language suddenly becomes a puzzle of assembling blocks to create meaning or breaking down blocks to ascertain meaning. This also reveals another confusion: there are multiple meanings and multiple characters to words that sound the same--phonetically and tonally. It is easy to discern whether someone is using the verb "to want" or the noun "medicine"--both yao in the fourth and falling tone. But not all confusions are cleared so preconsciously. As mentioned before, the symbol for "chicken" is also "prostitute." Coincidentally, the spoken word for "chicken" is also the spoken word for "prostitute." When repeated in succession, it is slang for a man's small "member." To say "she sells tofu" is also to call her a prostitute in slang. The characters would be different. But, how would you know the difference if you were not talking to someone who you knew was either being entirely candid about a street vendor or being totally sarcastic about a street-bound "vendor"?

With all these difficulties, even Chinese people have issues communicating with one another. I often watch people extending interactions beyond the point of the point being communicated simply because one person has repeated what the other has said to confirm but the other does not understand that this is a confirmation--they may interpret it as a counter-offer or who-knows-what. Then there is the difference in dialects from around the country. The difference is more pronounced than say the accent of a New Yorker to a Bostonian to a Southerner to a Minnesotan to even a Londoner. Words are different, and tones are different. There are 16 such dialects. Maybe more. There is a joke about how learning how to speak Mandarin (the official language) is impossible in Guangdong province because that is the home of Cantonese (which is considered by China as a dialect of Mandarin but is considered by the international community as a totally different language). Coincidentally, I am learning Mandarin in Guangdong province. This is a curve ball beyond belief. The letter "h" plays a crucial role in Mandarin with the "sh" sound; Cantonese speakers drop the "h" in "sh," so this creates a whole other layer of ambiguity to communication between Chinese speakers and for non-native Chinese speakers.

Then there are the confusions of colloquial expression. This means that some asshole like me will walk into a bakery and ask for "kafei he yidian nai" thinking that I am ordering a coffee with a little milk when I am actually ordering a coffee with a little breast milk.

Textiles--options for future bow ties

There are great mispronunciations and misunderstandings in the other direction as well. It is fun being simultaneously a student and teacher in this regard. My students have a similar level English vocabulary to my level of Mandarin vocabulary. This means that they read "yummy" as "I am money." They see "salts" as "sex." Halloween takes on a different and less cute tone when "trick or treat" becomes "trick whores treat." And so on...I have a gang of these. One last puzzler: How do you explain a silent letter to a child just trying to figure out that letters have sounds and blend to make words.

Speaking in China is a bunch of gobbledygook. Between Chinese people and Chinese people, between Chinese people and Westerners, between Westerners and Westerners trying to figure out where the hell meaning is in the clouds of communication pollution. For me, this is part of the fun. It is a challenge, and, when approached with a light-heart and sense of humility, communication becomes a constant joke and sound party. Meow.

Movies, Music, Books, T.V.: I picked up a few DVD's, and I am waiting to see something that I can confidently recommend in this section. More on this later. Until then, I am listening to The Hood Internet, "The 3 E.P.'s" by The Beta Band, "Zorbing" by Stornoway, "You Make it Rough" by Chromeo, and "All Day Sucker" by Stevie Wonder. I am reading Leaves of Grass to create a reading group and language-learning cultural exchange for my English department coworkers. Mad Men (season 3), Glee, 30 Rock, and I just started The Walking Dead.

Strange China: