Language

One of the more challenging aspects for us here in Shanghai is that many people do not speak English – especially people from older generations. English is now taught in many schools so the number of young people that understand it is growing. We actually have a better chance of being understood when ordering a hamburger than we do by a police officer. Thus, in case of emergency, we have Micky D’s on speed dial but not “911”.

Another complicating factor is that despite Mandarin being the national language of China, many different dialects are spoken. For example, in Shanghai, those who are from here speak Shanghainese. Our impression, when we arrived, was this was similar to Mandarin with just a few variations. We thought it was like how, in Texas, we say “ya’ll” but in New York, they would say “you’s guys”. Unfortunately, we quickly learned this was not the case. Scott talked to his Mandarin teacher (he thinks her name is Ruth but he’s not exactly sure) this week about Shanghainese:

SCOTT: “Shanghainese is pretty much the same as Mandarin, correct?”
RUTH: “Well no, not really.”
SCOTT: “But the characters and “words” are the same aren’t they – just different pronunciations and sayings?”
RUTH: (who is not good at sugar-coating): “No it’s really a totally different language...but many people might understand basic Mandarin.”
SCOTT: “So what you’re telling me is that I am in the process of learning a language that many people in this city don’t speak?”
RUTH (who is from Inner Mongolia): “That may be accurate.”

The other language issue we have hits a little closer to home. No matter how hard we try, we cannot convince Juliet that people here are speaking Mandarin (or something like it) and not Spanish. We walked through Carrefour a few weeks ago and Juliet spied a Dora the Explorer DVD. The only thing that distinguished it as Dora was her picture. Everything else was in Chinese characters. Juliet asked, “Hey dad, don’t you think we need Dora in Spanish?” Unfortunately this had come just a few days after a long discussion we had with her after she asked, “Does everyone here speak Spanish?” The problem is being from Texas we’re just naturally so ingrained with SASL (Spanish as a Second Language). In fact, both of us have caught ourselves trying to be polite to someone and instead of saying “Oh, you don’t speak English?” trying “No habla ingles?” instead. This usually results in the person turning to a nearby co-worker or friend and saying something very loudly in Mandarin at which point everyone within 10 feet bursts out laughing. We can only deduce they have just said “this American moron didn’t get the memo that the Spaniards stopped in Mexico and didn’t actually make it to the Far East.”