The Price of Tea in China

One of the most useful Chinese phrases is pronounced “can ee can”. It means “just looking” or in my case “Quit picking up merchandise and banging it against my glasses. I can be trusted to find any items in plain sight.” Once a little bit of Chinese is heard, the vendors usually stop pulling items off the shelves and under our noses, and start a rapid fire of questions.

Frecsa and I were in a local tea shop trying to find a present for her mom, and when the shopkeeper asked what we were buying, we said “just looking”. Instead of asking us the usual questions, from “Are you Russian?” to “Are all foreigners as fat as you are?”, he asked us to have some tea.

The shopkeeper called over an interpreter from another shop, a younger man who said he speaks English. He speaks English the way some of us can remember a bit of bit of our high-school French or Spanish, only his high-school English teacher was not only not a native speaker, but had probably never met a native speaker. Anyway, he was able to ask us questions as long as we wrote down the answers in block letters. The two men were shocked to find out how old we are, and then the interpreter started to practice his next question.

“Marry. Marry? Marriaige? Marring? Marry?” he says to himself. Just when we think he’s going to propose, he asks us if we’re married. The shopkeeper is telling him a list of questions for us, at least I keep catching “wen ta men” (ask them) in the paragraphs of Chinese questions.

After some more tea, the interpreter returns to his store. The shopkeeper takes the pen and paper and starts to write down another question. Fresca and I just look at each other. He’s got to know we can’t read Chinese. The old man finishs his question and passes me the paper.

And I read it. In Chinese.

The shopkeeper had written “Do you like China?”. Actually, due to the peculiarities of Chinese grammar, he wrote China good question signifier but that’s close enough! He wrote it, and I understood! I read Chinese and answered in Chinese!

Then we bought tea for Fresca’s mom, and walked to dinner. Ok, Fresca walked to dinner. I skipped down the street singing a little song about how I’m the smartest person ever and I’m practically bilingual!

This entry was posted in New York City and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

0 Responses to The Price of Tea in China

  1. time bandit says:

    ni hao bang o!

  2. Robin says:

    Very funny! You just won a new reader of your blog ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Anonymous says:

    I visited Yantai when I was a kid. The summer weather there is great. The city is most known inside China for its Yantai pears.

    Chau

  4. tandyandres74311680 says:

    Get any Desired College Degree, In less then 2 weeks.

    Call this number now 24 hours a day 7 days a week (413) 208-3069

    Get these Degrees NOW!!!

    “BA”, “BSc”, “MA”, “MSc”, “MBA”, “PHD”,

    Get everything within 2 weeks.
    100% verifiable, this is a real deal

    Act now you owe it to your future.

    (413) 208-3069 call now 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

  5. jingyang says:

    Hi, just got here from Sinosplice, your blog is pretty funny so far. I like your observations too, helps prevent us older-timers from being too blase ๐Ÿ™‚
    yeah, you just described one of those language learning milestones, which is all the more satisfying in Chinese cos of being repeatedly told how difficult reading is. I still get weird looks when I say I find reading Chinese far easier then speaking or listening. As for writing,best not said.
    Another milestone I remember is that moment when you realise you are following a conversation that isn’t addressed to you at all. That is when you start telling people that you can’t speak Chinese ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. Eddie says:

    Hello, Just wandering the blogosphere and happened on your blog. I like the way how you have put it all together. I’ll be coming back again.

    Regards,

    Time shares for rent

  7. Anonymous says:

    Great work!
    [url=http://jfqeeocs.com/bmbt/vniy.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://trktugeh.com/ovtq/odpp.html]Cool site[/url]

  8. Pingback: Cute Tea Infuser

  9. Pingback: Cute Tea Infuser : On Healthy Living

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *