I broke my Chinese

Two years ago, when I told anyone that I was moving to China, everyone responded with, “China? Really? Can you speak Chinese?”

At the time, I could barely string two words together in Chinese — not because I didn’t know the language, I studied it for 11 years at school, ostensibly as a first language (and failing at it most years). Singapore is not a place where I was (or currently am, Thank the sweet, sweet Lord) required to speak Chinese, Australia even less so when I moved there for university. So when I started my life as a working adult, everyone assumed I did not know the language and bitched freely in Chinese in front of me.

Back to my point. Moving to China has, to re-phrase my mother’s wise words, forced me to dredge up rusty memories of Chinese lessons (and private tuition — and still, I failed at it most years) and try to converse with the locals. Being a part-time English teacher in China enabled me to pretend I didn’t understand Chinese, so I didn’t have to speak it.

Too bad I hated being an English teacher. I don’t know how you teachers do it. I do not have the patience that is so necessary in education. Maybe that’s why I failed the Chinese subject most years at school.

My first months in Xiamen, therefore, were an absolute comedy routine for the Chinese people who had to deal with my clumsy, primary-school level, English-grammared attempts. It took me an hour to get a SIM card for my mobile phone because I didn’t know what SIM card was in Chinese, I didn’t know what SMS was in Chinese, I didn’t know how to say international direct dialing in Chinese. Taxi drivers couldn’t reconcile the facts that my pronounciation was good, but I was unable to say much more than I came from Singapore.

Have I told you I failed Chinese most years that I studied it at school?

The boyfriend wishes he would make more of an effort to learn the language, — he can’t even get a haircut without me to say ’shorter there’ or ‘leave that part long’ (no, he’s not got a mullet). He can now understand bits of Chinese, but is nowhere near the level of holding even the simplest conversation. He always asks me to tell him what this or that is in Chinese, but that’s about the extent of my tutoring him.

As for me, my grasp on the language seems a little less tenuous today. No longer am I gulping and stammering as I try to answer someone in Chinese — I can respond in Chinese (that is peppered with English) and most people can understand me! Way to go team!

This morning I found myself thinking about a project I’ve been busy on, working with locals who do not speak English. As I’ve spent almost all my time dealing with this project, I was thinking about it — in Chinese. Now, my conversation and writing skills may have improved, but my vocabulary is still pitifully small, so my thoughts were cut short fairly quickly. And I immediately thought (in English), Oh man, I’m thinking in Chinese. Next thing I’ll be changing my mobile phone system language to Chinese and start singing karaoke or something.

• 3 Feb 2005

• Thinking