Everything done in translation is a little adventure - whenever I'm not travelling, this is what I miss the most.
Pierre and I both have a history with Mandarin. Pierre has visited China several times over the past few years, and has been working hard on the Pimsleur Mandarin tapes; I taught in Taiwan for a couple of years and picked up enough to get by on day-to-day things. In addition to our small potluck of words, Pierre's brother Dre has learned a lot during his 5 years here and kindly takes on the role of our intrepid interpreter whenever necessary. Some days, especially in the beginning, this was quite often.
Now that we're settled in at home, Pierre and I head out on our own from time to time and try our hand(s) at communicating. Some days we pass the real-life "ordering food" dialogues with flying colours (Two orders of the Ginger Onion Beef, please) followed by trips to the grocery store to buy steamed buns (Two please, to go).
Things break down whenever we hit less familiar territory. One day we need to break a 5 kwai bill to catch the bus.
We bus, I tell the cashier, can five?
Not so elegant but it works well enough - we get our change.
Usually most of our conversations in China revolve around food (hunger is a great motivator), transportation and, lately, shoes.
Pierre needs shoes to replace his old ratty sneakers that have gotten him this far but which aren't very multi-purpose anymore. Over the course of several weeks we make many, many (many) trips to into town to hunt down the just-right pair: suitable for working, hiking and walking through puddles. Pierre quickly masters his foot size in Mandarin: he's a 44 which, with the tones identified via numbers, is transcribed something like: si-4 shr-2 si-4.
Pierre also quickly masters "mei-2 you-3" which he hears a lot in return. This rhymes with the first two syllables of "mayonnaise" and in this context means: sorry, we don't have any.
At first, we're surprised that only one or two of the stores we visit seems to carry anything in a 44. Eventually, we're more or less resigned to it. Most Chinese feet, it seems, only go up to 43, so most stores only carry mens' shoes up to that size. I also have another theory (only slightly serious):
Four is an unlucky number in China (and other parts of Asia). If it's said with the wrong tone it sounds like the Mandarin word for "to die" or "death." My theory is that the double four of 44 is just too unlucky a size to carry in bulk, especially when the majority of the population doesn't need shoes that size.
Regardless, we and Mr. Unlucky Feet manage to track down a few pairs of shoes that fit - the winning pair are hiking shoes (in 44!) that are in stock at a local adventure store. After a few group visits, Pierre wanders in alone one day to check them out again. We meet up with him again a few moments after he leaves the store.
"I wanted to tell them I don't have any money on me right now," Pierre says, "but I don't think I said it right." He translates in his head for a moment. "I told them: I am not money."
Pierre should have been money that day. A few days later we go back and find that shoes have mysteriously disappeared. (It's a mystery to us, not to the shopkeepers - perhaps another foreigner in another town needed them?) . Pierre orders in another pair of the same shoes. He and his unlucky 44s wade through a week's worth of work and rainstorms in soggy old shoes. His waterproofs arrive the day the rain stops.
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