Language Observations

Six hours a day. It's been a good combination as Alan is fairly understanding of my beginner status, while Zhao You (and of course, her English name is 'Zoe') is the she-devil. She barely speaks English and my two hours every afternoon with her are fraught with fear and nerves. However, I've definitely been picking up a decent amount of Mandarin and would consider myself able to "order at restaurant", "direct a taxi", "ask for directions" and "order at a bar" which are the four fundamental building blocks of any language instruction.

Some observations of the Chinese language during my study:

I'm a big Diet Coke person. I think it was late in college, due to a general distaste for coffee, that I began to utilize that artificially refreshing taste of Diet Coke for caffeinating purposes. I would consider myself enough of a connossieur to rate the quality of the mix of syrup and soda water at a foutain dispenser. I asked Alan about how to translate Diet Coke, and apparently, the literal translation is amazingly "Wu Tang Ke Le", with Wu Tang literally meaning "without sugar" and "ke le" obviously meaning cola. I can't tell you how excited I've been at every opportunity to be ordering Wu Tang soda. Apparently what the RZA and GZA actually meant to be involved with is written is more closely pronounced and written as Wu Deng.

If someone asks you a qualitative questions and your answer is "eeehh" or "so-so", the word is MaMaHuHu, which translates literally to "Horse, Horse, Tiger, Tiger"....because you're actually telling the person, "not quite a horse horse, not quite a tiger tiger". In a thick Chinese accent it's even better.

The most interest and somewhat controversial observation: the first few days I incessantly heard people, old and young, saying "Nei Gah" almost every sentence. I definitely felt a little uncomfortable and was wondering what the hell was going on. I've since found out that it is just another language transitional phrase. I've seen from Italian, Spanish and English there are many random phrases that are said constantly while people are thinking/transitioning thoughts. In Italian, the number of "allora"s or "comunque"s, or in Spanish the "entonces" or "pero"s, or in English I guess the "like"s or "umm"s are far more frequent than basic grammar would demand. "Na ge" translates to 'that there' and is pronounced 'Nei Ga' in Beijing. It's still kinda uncomfortable and racist in my mind, but the idea of looking at a menu and then looking at a waitress and saying "nei ga, wu tang ke le" is still weirdly exciting.

As the foremost trader of the Hong Kong Dollar during my epic days as a trader, I was naturally curious to find out the translation in Mandarin. Turns out, it's "Gang Bi" (pronounced Gahng Bee). I won't get further into it, but I found this funny.

That first day of Alan playing a song for me was no fluke. His Asian love for the crooner song has definitely made class much more interesting, as early on in class I noted that I wouldn't mind learning some Chinese songs to belt out during karaoke. Alan has taken this to the next level as every day, at least thirty minutes are spent going through two songs. The first translates to "I Love You Like a Mouse Loves Rice". This one, as ridiculous as it sounds, was pretty easy for a beginner in Chinese to learn and easy to sing, and was actually a major hit apparently about four years ago. We've since been working on a more intense song about a historic battle of the Three Kingdoms in about 250 AD that is kind of a Rock Opera by a group named "Tank". The best part of this song is that there's a bridge that, well let's just say, is meant to be sung by either a woman or an eunuch. Alan does not hold back as in that quiet classroom and with only the faint sound of his budget speakers backing us, he'll belt out those ever so high notes as I cower to the protection of a lower octave.

This is the "I love you like a mouse loves rice" song that we sing together. Just picture it, Alan and Me, alone in a classroom, heartfully singing these words: