Learning Chinese - NOT!

By: Lance Carr
Submitted: 2008-04-04 19:35:54
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When I first came to Taiwan to live I listened to the language and thought to myself, “OK, this doesn’t sound so hard. I have high-school French and German so I already possess some linguistic ability. I can learn this.”

Over the next year or so I worked constantly with an interpreter and never really put my theory to the test. When someone asked me: “Do you speak Chinese?” I would make an excuse and add, “But I am planning to learn it very soon…”

But my Chinese has never gotten beyond the ambiguous grunt that I uttered the first time a 7Eleven attendant hit me with a string of strange syllables. Here is my sad, sad story…

I’d heard all about the four, five or is it six(?) tonal endings and they seemed daunting, but if you can learn German grammar, I reassured myself, you can learn anything: I was just saving myself for the right moment to start. One day on a flight from Taipei to Kaohsiung, I decided this was the day; today I’d start actually learning the language of my hosts, my friends, and my wife and my two stepdaughters. I listened carefully to the clearly enunciated announcements as the plane began to descend into Kaohsiung airport: “Gerway lee ker chi…something something something…”

Okay, I’d start with that; I’d memorize that phrase, learn the English meaning and that could be the beginning of my grasp of Mandarin.

When I got to my meeting, I drew my friend Oliver aside and asked: “What does this mean? Gerway lee ker chi…something something something?”

He looked at me with a blank expression. “What does what mean?”

“That,” I said. “The thing I just said, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know?”

“It’s Chinese. I heard them say it on the plane.”

“I don’t think that is Chinese.”

“Yes, it is, they said it three times. Gerway lee kerchi…whatever…whatever whatever.” He may have moved back a step; I didn’t notice because I was wondering why he was being so difficult about this. Then I realized that perhaps I was missing one of the tonal endings, so for the next five minutes I tried variations: “Ger WAY lee KER chi…dah dah DAH….Ger way LEE KER CHI…dum…DUM…DUM!...”

He continued shaking his head and glanced at his watch. I took the not very subtle hint and we returned to the meeting. Later when I reviewed the experience I realized that for whatever reason he didn’t want me to be able to learn his language. Obviously, somewhere in there I must have hit on the right combination but he had not wanted to admit it. This had given me a new and chastening insight into his character. Two days later I lay in bed with my wife, and tried again, confident that love would overcome whatever malevolent cultural influence was denying me my right to speak Chinese.

“Darling, what does this mean? ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’.”

Two hours later, by analyzing all possible landing announcements she finally said: “Oh, you mean Gerway lee ker chi…something something something.”

“Yes, darling! That is what I have been saying for the past two hours: Gerway lee ker chi…something something something.”

“No, dearest, you have been saying ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’”

“Yes! Exactly!”

“No, not exactly…maybe not exactly at all. You know ‘Ber Per Mer Fer’?”

“Of course,” I said, stung by her disloyalty. “Everyone knows who that is…”

Later I lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling and wondering just how deeply this heretofore undetected current of cultural enmity ran? 

Two years later my 7 year old son came from Australia to live with me in Taiwan. He travelled with me as I moved about, spending more time than was healthy in hotel rooms watching cable cartoon shows. After a few months, I overheard him conversing in Chinese to his step sisters. I thought: “Uhuh, they are taking pity on him.” Another few months passed and one day, as the three of us were driving somewhere, my friend Oliver told me: “Your son speaks very standard Chinese. How did he learn it?”

By now there was a great rift between me and Mandarin; my current theory was that you had to be born into the language. “I guess from his sisters,” I said.

“No, Dad,” he said from the back seat. “I learned it from TV.”

“Hah, hah!” said I acknowledging his infantile attempt at humor.

Two years later I realized that I was the only member of our family who couldn’t speak Chinese; at dinner time everyone else would yap back and forth while I wielded my chopsticks in silence. I had to face reality: I needed to learn Chinese.

And so I resumed my quest. Where should I start? I just happened to take another flight with my son from Kaohsiung to Taipei and heard the same announcement. “Okay,” I said to my son. “What did that mean?”

He looked up from his Game Boy. “What?”

“That announcement.”

“I didn’t hear it, Dad.”

“They said ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something.’ He looked at me blankly. Fortunately for our relationship at that moment the same announcement was broadcast again. “That! You heard that, right?”

“Yes, dad. They said ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’ But that’s not what you said. You said ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’”

His expression was so kind, even pitying, that at last my arrogance crumbled. Crestfallen, I asked: “But why? Why can’t anyone understand me?”

He thought that over. “It’s because you don’t have a Chinese sound, Dad. You’re trying to speak Chinese with your English sound. It doesn’t work. You have to get a Chinese sound. That’s how I did it. I got it from TV.”

“You mean like ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’?” I said trying for the right intonation.

“Yeah,” he said, going back to his Game Boy. “But Chinese.”

Now when he and I go somewhere he does the talking. Inevitably taxi drivers and shop assistants remark with delight on his extremely standard and fluent Chinese, and then they ask if the brooding fellow beside him can also speak Chinese.

In his reply I imagine he is summing me up most succinctly: “Sadly, my honorable father is wise in many things but he is a complete moron as far as speaking this excellent language is concerned. He is deserving of pity. Don’t look at him for he will feel ashamed.”

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