But it's one of the reasons I'm in love with the Mandarin language. I answer, "mama hoo hoo" to as many questions as possible from my Berlitz teachers.
How are you? Mama hoo hoo. How was lunch? Mama hoo hoo. But after all these wish washy answers, they finally taught me the word for wonderful -- and it's fun, too -- Bang!
A bus is gong gong chi che. My younger brother Joe is didi. Darling Madeline (when she's not calling me Ning) could call me lou lou (which means granny from my mother's side).
My language classes have given me an unexpected benefit -- I've gotten to know a lot of smart, young Chinese people. We study hard...but we laugh a lot. I begged them to teach me to say to a taxi driver, "If you abandon me again, I'm going to punch you in the nose!"
This morning I went to a seminar called "Inspired Beijing" -- designed for expat-spouses. The women there seemed nice, but I was immediately drawn to the one young Chinese woman in the room... Laushe -- teacher
A key element of Chinese culture is not looking silly (losing face) or making mistakes. But my life is an endless mistake -- fumbling for words...getting lost in taxis...not knowing what the hell I'm eating...
One of my Chinese teachers (her name is Jing Jing because she was born in Beijing), has this charming way of explaining a clause or sentence -- she'll say the word and then go, blabity blabity blabity to fill in the gaps. Thank God I finally realized it wasn't new vocabulary!
I watch a lot of Chinese music videos (Asian MTV). Songs are
slower than when people speak. I adore Chinese boy bands (shades of "New Kids on the Block" with a lot more hair gel). I thought I was really improving my comprehension until I realized that they often throw in a few English words! I even find myself humming the tunes...When folks in China realize that I'm trying to speak Mandarin (I'm still that bad...), at first they're shocked...they often laugh...then help me correct my tones.
Everyone in China is my Laushe.
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