So… I’ll be in china then…
with stretch!
i’ve been here 5 days now. and i’ve loved every second.
you’d think after living with bei for 5 years i’d know or wouldn’t have forgotten the chinese meaning of my name. the correct way to introduce myself is, ‘wor jyao ben’, the direct translation being ‘i am idiot’. ben means idiot. perfect.
picture the scene. i’m in an shop surrounded by about 7 members of staff, all female, except for the owner who is doing his best to speak english with me. upon asking my name, the reply sends the audience into giggles, desperately trying to hide thier laughter behind each others backs. note to self. your name is benjamin.
chinese isn’t as complicated as i thought, the structure of the language is very logical, the problem is getting the right sounds out of your mouth. so far i’ve learnt about 30 words, and about 10 characters. but there are 10,000 ish characters! though apparently i only need 3000 to read a newspaper. i had never really considered that reading a menu would be impossible, we found our selves looking for busy restaurants, not because it indicates good food, but because there is more food to point to on other peoples plates. nobody seems to mind. tonight we’re leaving the city, we’re told the luxury of at least a few words being understood will disappear.
