Hi everybody, it is time to give you an update about my life here in China. Thinking about it, I should have a paragraph called „Communication Problems“ in my emails. So here are some tales from that topic.
I started to use Google Translator in order to translate from German/English to Chinese and vice versa. It is usually a very helpful tool, but sometimes it can be far off. For example, I get a lot of Emails from the Institute or SMS from my mobile service provider in Chinese. In the latest Email about common diseases and mental problems in spring time (yes, I really got such an email from our Institute) they had a proverb: “菜花黄，痴人忙”. Now Google Translator returns „cauliflower yellow, idiot busy.“ in English and „Blumenkohl gelb, Idioten beschäftigt“ in German. I really have no idea what to take from that translation, but I like it. Actually I should make a T-Shirt with that translation – priceless.
Last week I was searching for a hardware store in order to get a metal rasp. You might wonder why I needed one. Well, I found that Chinese craftsmanship sometimes is more like „it’s o.k. as long as it works“ rather than „let’s do the best we can“ (no offense, Fengzhen 😉 ). As a result, my apartment door is somewhat misassembled. When I came here I could close it as long as I pulled it with all my weight and I never managed to turn the key. With the rasp I intended to correct the opening for the lock. Using Google Maps on Changchun (长春) with the Chinese signs for hardware store (五金商店) I managed to find the rough position of one. When I tried to find it, I also passed by a store for musical instruments. When looking through the store window, the salesperson immediately opened the door and waved me inside. I just intending to have a look and ask for the direction to the hardware store, but this is also the story how I got myself a new acoustic guitar in china. I should mention that I had thought about such a purchase before, but hadn’t taken steps yet. Therefore it didn’t take much convincing on the sellers side. Fortunately, the salesperson did speak some English, so I could also ask for the direction as intended before the purchase. Unfortunately, hardware store wasn’t part of his vocabulary. I took the few words of Chinese I just learned and said
„wu jin shang dian“ which he understood and he showed me the rough direction. Now the hardware store was roughly 2m x 2m in size and had no discernible order of the items. The owner and his wife also didn’t speak any English and I didn’t know the Chinese word for rasp, so I started to mimic handling a rasp on a metal piece. I must have looked very funny; actually we both had a laugh. When I almost had given up, the seller gave me a piece of paper and a pen. I drew a rasp and immediately got one for 80 ct. I should have pen and paper on me all the time. So now I have a guitar, a rasp and a door which can be locked. Yippee :-).
In order to improve my Chinese and especially the pronunciation, I will get Chinese lessons from our secretary. I think this is really necessary. She was a teacher before she spent some years in the USA. In exchange did I get a new project: teach English to her and our colleagues. Now this will be interesting. We will have two English lessons a week. I am not sure yet, how to teach them. But I think the most important thing is for them to practice speaking the language. So I will make them ;-).
So far from my communication problems. What else happened? In July I will go to a big Polymer Conference in Ji’nan. As a member of a Chinese Institute my participation fee is about half of that of a foreigner. A colleague helped to fill out the Chinese registration form.
The weather in the last two weeks has been warmer (between -10 and +10 °C). However, now we got sand storms. The first time I wondered why the sky was yellow and why I constantly had sand in my eyes. Funny enough: the weather forecast on TV marked our region as sandy. Before I only knew rainy, sunny, cold, … – sandy is new.
Sometimes there are salesperson coming to our office, trying to sell massage balls and stuff. The colleagues and I usually ignore them. It really helps to say „I don’t speak Chinese“ – they give up faster. The most expensive (new) mountain bike (with Shimano gearshift and suspension) at Walmart is about 70 €. I probably should buy one here
and bring it back to Germany.
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