I’ve been going to Chinese lessons for the last few weeks. I’m enjoying it but it really it is astonishingly different to any other language I know. After a couple of languages it gets easier as you find out how you learn and you start to recognise patterns and similarities/ common roots. None of the languages I speak is remotely helpful for learning Mandarin however. For the first time in my life I’ve had to sit down and learn vocab lists – and as for remembering the characters – let’s just say it’s a slow process.

Then there’s the pronunciation. Mandarin has 4/5 tones depending on whether you count a neutral one. The tones completely changes the meaning of words. I’m pretty much tone deaf so this isn’t easy for me. I’m also pretty sure I’ve said some mad things in the past judging by some of the looks I’ve had.

Maybe fortunately given that I’m not great at replicating or hearing the tones, it’s also a language that is very much context based  – ie you mostly need a sentence/ context around a word to understand its meaning. That makes it tricky if you don’t possess enough vocabulary to create the sentence to put the word into. I spent a week trying to buy a needle by saying “needle” in Mandarin. This was monumentally ineffective even when I showed people the character. I ended up having a lot more luck with a photograph. Actually this is usually my starting point now. Google images has come to my rescue on many occasions.

One thing that I do really appreciate about Mandarin is its relative simplicity. If you can make yourself understood without some of the words, it’s Ok just to take them out. I have spent ages learning tenses in various languages, but it seems that in Chinese, even these are only used when absolutely necessary. For example, if you say “Last week….” you don’t have to go to the trouble of using the past tense as it is obvious that last week is in the past. Good huh? They don’t have any nonsense like past historic either.

On the subject of verbs, what are the first verbs you learn in most languages, or at least the ones that you use most often? They have to be “to be” and “to have”. Mandarin has those of course but they just aren’t used as much. You don’t say “I have a cold” or “I am ill”, you say “I cold” or “I sick”. Not only does it make things easier but it also explains a lot about how many Chinese people often speak English….Even better, you don’t decline the verbs – so hurrah for that 🙂

The way that words are contstructed makes some sense if you can decipher the logic behind them. Eg a film/ movie is dianying – electric shadow, a mobile phone is a shouji (hand machine) and aeroplane is a fei ji (flying machine). Now I think about it, the last two are remarkably similar to the German Handy and Flugzeug. Maybe I’ve found some similarities after all.

One thing that is definitely very different is the concept of measure words – all nouns come in measures of something. Some are easy – eg drinks come in bei or ping – glasses or bottles (these are beizi or pingzi if not being used as measure words) but then trousers and fish come in measures of tiao – long flat things I think and  horses come in measures of pi- which is apparently a large flat thing – which horses emphatically aren’t. I think I should stop trying to make sense of this and just learn them…

Beyond the everyday vocabulary, apparently it gets more complex.I have heard that there can be heated debates among Chinese people about the appropriate measure for certain  things (although apparently they have no problem with pi for horses….)

So the good news is that I am learning, it’s going to be a long slog though, full of the dreaded vocab lists. Progress is at a glacial speed but that said, I am definitely understanding more and more.

Just where the main East West Yan’An road intersects with the main North South road there is an unusual pillar with striking golden carved dragons circling it.

It turns out that there is a story behind it. A modern day legend. I’ve heard various similar versions – here’s a combination of them:

Back when they were building this important intersection in the mid-late 90s the construction hit a snag. When digging the foundations all the machinery reached a point where it couldn’t dig any deeper. The construction crew consulted geologists in case the rock there was particularly hard. It turned out to be the same rock as everywhere else – and certainly nothing that the excavators should have been able to deal with. Time went on, with the construction delay causing concerns at many levels of the city’s politicians, not least of all because of the costs that were mounting every day. It’s not as if they had a choice to move the intersection of the roads…

Eventually, almost at their wit’s end, those in charge of construction turned to the lead priest at the local Jing-an temple to take a look. He did and quickly proclaimed that the problem was the dragon that was sleeping under the proposed site of the new pillar. The construction crews implored him to help. He didn’t want to, afraid that disturbing the dragon would cause bad luck to befall those involved. More and more senior people put pressure on him and he eventually gave in and performed a sort of dragon exorcism (I’m quite sure it isn’t actually called that….).

A matter of weeks later the priest died and bad luck affected many of those involved. To appease the dragon, clearly pretty unhappy with having to change his sleeping place, they decided to honour him with a beautiful pillar covered in dragons.

<rant>

Yesterday I went to buy some replacement contact lenses. I went to an optician that has boxes of all sorts of contact lenses literally lining the walls. I brought my empty box with me so they had all the type, size, prescription info.

When I asked the sales assistants (for some reason they had FIVE people to help simultaneously) for some of the same they said they didn’t have any. And they couldn’t order any either.

I went back over to one of the huge display cases – It seemed a little hard to believe that not one single box was going to be appropriate. I asked them if they had anything similar, on account of needing lenses to see. No.

OK, so what do they have? They rummaged around for a bit and came up with some daily lenses (I asked for 2 weekly), from some random Chinese brand (clearly dodgy) and for a prescription for someone who is very nearly totally blind (I’m not).

Realising that I was going to have to compromise, I then asked for Acuvue brand lenses if possible but said that dailies were ok.

After a small amount of rummaging, they brought out the below box. This is for a lens that is ALMOST IDENTICAL to the ones that I had asked for. I think the only difference was that mine were “Advance Plus” and the others are just “Advance”.

It’s a total mystery to me why they couldn’t have found these the first time around. Why is everything so difficult? And why is the first answer and the second answer (at least) always no. Urgh.

</rant>

Why is everything so bloody difficult here? It’s driving me crazy that even the tiny things can ridiculously difficult.

[it turns out that this is a bit of a rant – if you don’t want to read a rant – then the general gist is that it’s really difficult to get anything done here. ]

For example, how difficult do you think it is to get a remote control fixed? Extremely difficult as it turns out. So it isn’t actually ridiculous  asking for a working remote- we’re in a serviced apartment where they own and manage all of our TV/ audio equipment . On the whole fairly responsive to requests.

Anyway, in September the video remote control mostly stopped working, that is, some of the buttons stopped working no matter how hard we pressed them. This isn’t just a case of needing the remote to save walking those annoying 3 metres to the DVD player to press play. No. As the TV here is indescribably awful (and those are the bits that aren’t Chinese) we watch quite a few films and TV series on DVD (I’ll admit to having developed a bit of a “House” addiction since moving here.) In any case, most of these DVDs have options for scene/ episode selection which you can’t select from the machine – you need the remote.

So I dropped the remote control back with the building management and explained that some of the buttons didn’t work. A day later the remote was returned with the batteries replaced but no working buttons.

OK so maybe I didn’t explain this properly. I went back, explained at length exactly what the problem was and the next day had my remote returned. Not working but with new batteries.

So it went back again. Some days later it was explained to me that actually the problem was that my DVD was bad. “What all of them?” Apparently yes. Huh?

It went back.  This time it came back with an apology. Apparently there were no replacements available. I find this quite difficult to believe in China, where all manner of electronics is available for next to nothing.

I took a break from trying to get it repaired over Christmas but renewed my efforts in January (clearly I have too much time on my hands…). This time they said that they had a “special spray” that would help. Hallelujah it this actually worked. For about four days.

So I took it back.

Finally, last week I received a new remote. New to me in any case – it’s battered and scratched but it WORKS!

It took FIVE MONTHS to fix. I’ll leave you to imagine how hard it is to make the bigger things happen. It seems that the easiest answer to almost anything is No.

It gets pretty chilly in Shanghai which translates into freezing hands when scooting about town. (I can’t express quite how much I miss the heated handlebars of my BMW). My solution to the problem is to wear my skiing mittens but the locals have a much better solution. They have mittens pre-wrapped around the handlebars. Some are pretty fancy like the ones in the picture. These even look like this was what they are designed to do. Many others are distinctly DIY. Think bits of cardboard and miles of gaffer tape. For that matter, there are thousands of scooters out there that are entirely held together by gaffer tape. Reassuring…NOT.

The other day I took the first step towards getting my Chinese driving licence  – I went to a translation agency to get an official translation of my current one. Simples! you might say. Well, mostly.

The first thing they asked me to do is to write down my Chinese name. “I don’t have one.” I said. They looked at me as if I were crazy . “But you have to have a Chinese name…” I didn’t mention it, but it hasn’t been an issue before, what with living in Pennsylvania and bits of Western Europe.

Unfortunately there was no getting round it. Fortunately they had a reference book. A weighty tome with many thousands of names and their translations. Except mine of course.They did have my Surname, or near enough but no first name.

So after some discussion they came up with one. I have no idea what it means. Names are a BIG DEAL in China. There is a huge amount of superstition tied up with the number of characters involved and how many strokes they comprise even before you get to the meaning of the characters. I know that people have spent ages helping foreigners create appropriate Chinese names. Well I had some girl at the translation agency sort something out for me in about 30 secs. Great.

I haven’t dared look up what my new name means yet. I really hope it isn’t something like “Giant Horse’s Arse”. Still, it’s unlikely to be as completely bonkers as some of the names the Chinese give themselves. Maybe I should just ask for “Teapot Chambers” or something like that. That actually has a nice ring to it…

I can’t pretend that I’ve ever been remotely interested in washing machines or tumble dryers. Obviously I like to have them in the house so I don’t have to walk to a launderette but other than that I’m not really bothered. I know ex-USA expats have a hard time coming to terms with the smaller front loaders we have in Europe and, indeed China but I’m fine with them (although I have to say I do like the idea of being able to do a gargantuan amount of washing at once but ho hum).

So once installed in the apartment in Shanghai I happily washed and dried clothes in the two relevant appliances. Until the dryer stopped working and sprouted a new flashing orange light that is. Now I know that orange flashing lights are not good generally. That made me actually look at the thing.

After some poking around it turned out that the top drawer – usually absent in a dryer I think – is actually where the water that’s extracted from the clothes goes. The drawer actually runs the length of the dryer. When it fills up, the orange light comes on and you have to take the container out and empty it.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that isn’t plumbed to the outside somehow.

OK not Earth shattering – but I thought mildly strange all the same. Here it is.