pimsleur never recommended this

After my Walmart escapade of the day, and even after the school workers who showed up unannounced at my door to install security bars on my windows (in the process worrying me immensely as I watched their crazy-dangerous methods of doing so on the 4th floor), a more-or-less impromptu CTLC group reunion was arranged for central Futian, where we had heard the siren call of good pizza. To get there I hopped on a bus and transferred to the Shenzhen Metro subway. With public transportation I generally try to keep my mouth shut and blend in – no sense in attracting attention in such places. That tactic was working pretty well when the bus loaded up about 50 municipal desk-workers at the 6pm rush hour, all of whom filled the thing up like a sardine tin. Then Carolyn called me on my cell phone and I was forced to answer in English. 50 heads whipped around to look at me quizzically. Great.

Cab rides, though, are a completely different story. I love riding in cabs, but not primarily for the ease of transportation. The fees in Shenzhen can’t beat the buses for the distance. But what makes the price worth it is the built-in opportunity to practice your Chinese speaking skills with people who are used to interacting with foreigners and are always grateful for conversation. Better yet, you can use the same conversation on them all the time because they’re always different people, so even though you may not have any more vocabulary than you did the last time you took a cab, your fluency improves a lot. Tonight I cabbed it back from the Shijie Zhichuang (Window of the World) station after being unable to find a bus going back to my place.

Here’s a transcript of how this particular 15-minute ride’s conversation went, in the pinyin that Kedar requested and with notes indicating the specific’s relevance to the general:

Andrew: (approaches cab door.) “Hui dao Yucai Sanzhong ma? Zai Gongyeqi lu he Houhai Dadao lukou.“  [Can you get to Yucai Third Middle?  At the intersection of Gongyeqi Road and Houhai Avenue.]

Cabbie: (nods.)  “Xing, jinlai.”  [I can do that, come in.]

* If I am with other foreigners, we all stuff in at this point, and eventually the cabbie asks where we are from because my presence has confused his initial assumption that we are all European or American.  In these instances I begin with the origin story and then go to the work query.  If by myself I start with the work query, and when they say something I don’t understand, I apologize about my Chinese and this leads to my origin story.  Sometimes this goes on to an ethnographic discussion about huaqiao (overseas Chinese) and huayi (ethnic Chinese) and the distinctions between the two, which no two cab drivers have yet been able to consistently explain to me – although a quick dictionary check did the trick afterwards, tonight.

Andrew: (after a brief pause.) “Ni jintian wanshang hen mang ma?” [Has tonight been very busy?]

Cabbie: (nods.)  “Ah, ah.  Shi blah blah blah“  [*some kind of affirmative; they're always busy.   They ask me something I don't understand.*]

Andrew: (laugh and look sorry.) “Duibuqi, wode Zhongwen hai hen cha.  Wo bu dong.” [Sorry, my Chinese is still pretty bad.  I don't understand.]

*This will spur the cabbie’s curiousity, and automatically caution him to keep his Chinese vocabulary to a rudimentary level.*

Cabbie: (looks confused.)  “Ah, na ni shi naguo ren?  Ni haoxiang shi Yazhouren.“  [Oh, which country are you from?  You look Asian.]

Andrew: “Meiguo.” [America.]

Cabbie: “Hm, wo gangcai yiwei ni shi Zhongguo ren, yinwei nide koyin bucuo.“  [Hm, earlier I had thought you were Chinese, because your accent's pretty good.]

*This part differs from cabbie to cabbie, but each will generally compliment my Chinese – I’m pretty sure they’re all just saving me face.  Some cabbies think I am Korean or Japanese at first, and one has even mentioned that my accent sounded faintly Taiwanese after I mentioned having been taught by Taiwanese teachers in school.*

Andrew: “Wo zai Meiguo chusheng de, danshi wo de fumi zai Zhongguo chusheng hai zhangda de.  Tamen mei jiao wo Zhongwen, suoyi wo ziji xue.” [I was born in America, but my parents were born and/or grew up in China.  They didn't teach me Chinese, so I've been learning myself.]

*Sorry Mom and Dad; this is the best I can explain the situation given my poor Chinese.  The cabbie will then usually immediately ask what my impression is of China, xihuan bu xihuan, if I like it or if I don’t, and/or ask why I came back to China (usually in an incredulous tone of voice).  I never know the implied depth of this question, so I always hedge by clumsily saying Wo xihuan (I like it) to cover my political bases and then explain yinwei wo zhangda de difang meiyou beide Zhongguo ren, wo meiyou hao renshi Zhongguo, suoyi wo yao lai renshi he lianxi shuo Zhongwen, or, “because there were no Chinese people where I grew up, I am not very familiar with China, so I came to familiarize myself with it and to practice my Chinese.”  This usually satisfies them and they nod sagely.*

Hm, I’m getting tired of doing this dialogue formatting – you get the idea, I’ll just go back to paragraph explication.  Besides, there wasn’t much that was actually funny in this, just insightful stuff.

After speaking about me for so long, I’ll try to go back to them by asking “Ni jintian wanshang jidian kaishi gongzuo?” (What time did you start work tonight?).  I’ve learned that the cab drivers are a very hardworking lot, usually starting in the evening and working 12-hour shifts through the night and till the morning.  My sympathy sentences weren’t very proficient until today, when I remembered the word xinku (exhausting).  It’s usually used in a pity sentence, and the cab drivers will sigh and say “Dui, hao xinku” (yes, very tiring).  If, however, they reply with harder words and I don’t know them, I just repeatedly apologize and say that I don’t understand.  The apologies are to hedge my bets and guard against their possible frustration with their inept conversation partner, and so far it’s worked – they chuckle, and seem to treat it as an interesting challenge to reduce their vocabulary down to a level I would understand.  I learn a few new words sometimes, too.

Tonight I asked my guy about the distinction between huaqiao and huayi.  “Wo ting ren shuo wo shi huaqiao, ye tingguo ren shuo wo shi huayi.  Wo buzhidao, huaqiao he huayi butongyi ma?” (I’ve heard people call me huaqiao, but some people also call me huayi. I don’t know, is there a difference between the two?)

I had known before that there is some emotional freight carried by one of the two words, buoyed, I suspect, partly by nationalism and partly by sorrow.  There is a lot to the conditions that drive a diaspora to begin its exodus.  Each cab driver who I ask this question shakes his head just like an adult would shake his head if a child asked him or her about where babies come from or where people go when they die, and emphatically said “Huaqiao he huayi bu yiyang.” (They are not the same.)  Today’s cabbie actually explained it fairly well to me, saying “Huaqiao shi waiguoren, tamen meiyou Zhongguo hukao.  Huayi shi Zhongguoren zhu zai waiguo, you Zhongguo hukao” (Huaqiao are foreigners without Chinese residence.  Huayi are Chinese who live abroad and have Chinese residence.)  Except later I came home and found out that he got it backwards – my dictionary says that huaqiao are “overseas Chinese” and huayi are “ethnic Chinese.”  Ms. Wan, my contact teacher, has been introducing me to people as huayi waijiao (ethnic Chinese foreign teacher), so I will defer to her somewhat more reliable knowledge.

This whole huaqiao business has been very curious to me, especially after I found out about Shenzhen’s various Huaqiaochengs (Overseas Chinese Towns), which are basically theme parks.  I don’t know if they are built and funded by Overseas Chinese or if they initially began as communities for the Overseas Chinese, but there is one in Yantian District and another one here in Nanshan District.  I’m a bit curious about going there sometime.