So I had to get lunch by myself today and since I can’t speak a lick of Mandarin other than: Hello, Thank you, Receipt, Good bye… I knew it would be challenging. Here’s what happened today.
Food Lady: *something in Mandarin… probably “Can I take your order”*
Me: “chai dan” (Menu) and makes hands look like a menu
Food Lady: hands me menu
Me: Points to sandwich while holding up my finger to say I want one.
Food Lady: *something in Mandarin while pointing at the combo portion*
Me: Nodding, saying yes (hao) that I would like that
Food Lady: *something in Mandarin in the form of a question (ma?)*
Me: Motioning that I don’t understand what she is saying, trying to hand her money
Food Lady: *refusing my money, making a sound like she’s about to spit with her hands around her mouth*
Me: Uh….. *wondering if she’s ok*
Food Lady: *again, making a sound like she’s about to spit with her hands around her mouth looking at me*
Me: ni hao boo hao ma? (are you ok?… I think?)
Food Lady: *she looks fine, says something in Mandarin… “la mah?” is all I can catch*
Me: Oh! La? (remembering that means spicy in Cantonese and hoping it means the same thing) I make a face that I think implies spicy and using my hand to fan my mouth.
Food Lady: *she makes the same sound and same hand motions*
Me: yao (I think this means I want spicy since I have no idea what she’s saying)
Food Lady: *she just takes my money, hands me cash*
So I take my food and sit down and wondered what just happened. I take a bite of my lunch and I think I guessed right because it was pretty spicy. I guess this is more funny to me since her taking the time to actually ask me if I want it to be spicy despite our language barrier. I sat and ate my food with a smile on my face… Even though I can’t understand anyone (nor can they understand me)… they really do try hard to communicate. That makes me happy.
But you know what doesn’t make me happy? Squat toilets. I don’t know how to pee in those things and for some reason in China… even if there’s a toilet stall right next to the squat stall and both are empty. They choose the squat toilet. I always go for the sit down toilet…. or if they don’t have a sit down toilet. I hold my pee like nobody’s business and find a bathroom with a toilet. I don’t know how to squat and pee. Sigh.
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 20, 2011 at 1:52 am
Vivian
That I hilarious!! I love that the cashier took the time to gesture to you about the spiciness
too cute
Ugh those squat toilets scare me too. I refused to go into those stalls. I mean what if you fall into the hole??
November 20, 2011 at 7:19 am
donna
yeah..i didn’t dig the squatting either…luckily in most places i went they had more modern facilities…had a few small mishaps with those squatters! lol..now i would probably get stuck and unable to get up…lol
November 20, 2011 at 8:18 am
Grace
I think it’s because many Chinese people don’t speak Mandarin very well, so in somewhere like Shanghai they’re used to trying to communicate with people they don’t understand. I loved it too (and it came in really handy when I was trying to learn Mandarin because everyone was so patient with my broken attempts).
November 22, 2011 at 6:03 am
Ms. Zhukeeper
Squat toilets SUCK!! That was almost all they had in the middle east & I was so miserable haha. But yay for gesturing and trying to communicate!! So sweet.
And I know you’ll be fluent in mandarin in like a week so you won’t need to be frustrated any more soon!!