(Foreigners on Parade)
On any given day in China I will have interactions with a variety of local Chinese people, mostly street vendors and shop keepers. As long as I keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, these conversations tend to be both ridiculous and hilarious for both parties.
As promised, today I will attempt to write what a typical conversation between me and a local Chinese person sounds like:
Picture me and my friend Jhania approaching a street vendor who is selling hot bread.
On any given day in China I will have interactions with a variety of local Chinese people, mostly street vendors and shop keepers. As long as I keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, these conversations tend to be both ridiculous and hilarious for both parties.
As promised, today I will attempt to write what a typical conversation between me and a local Chinese person sounds like:
Picture me and my friend Jhania approaching a street vendor who is selling hot bread.
Jhania - mmm, let’s get one hot bread to share. Hopefully we can communicate this…
Laura - Wo men yeow iga… gigah (points to a piece of hot bread)
Translation: We want one…. That (I think)
Old Vendor Man - starts giggling to himself and rambling in Chinese.
Laura - Okay, I’ll try again - Tsing gay woah men iga
Translation: Please give us one (I think)
Old Vendor Man - continues chuckling and begins to spin some bread around (on this oven-stick thing).
Jhania - Right, maybe we should just give up.
Laura - Nah, I think he wants to give us a freshly baked one…
Old Vendor Man - begins to say the same thing in Chinese over and over… and he’s still laughing - he starts patting his stomach.
Jhania and I join in with the laughing… because, what else can you do? We start patting our tummies and saying, “Yeah, it will be yummy!”
Old Vendor Man - he’s probably thinking you stupid foreigners, I just got you to pat your bellies.
He then takes a freshly baked bread and puts it on the pile with the rest. He hands us a bag.
Jhania - score! Grab the fresh one!
Laura - doh shao tcien?
Translation: How much is it?
Old Vendor Man - e quai
Translation: 1 dollar (RMB)
Jhania hands over the money and says, Xie Xie
Translation: Thank you
We both walk away with our bread feeling a little more confident with our Chinese abilities. The Old Vendor man is left with an even sillier opinion (than he likely had before we came along) of foreigners.
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