Chinese Tales: It's my First Day

This week my story is a bit short because I have been busy and just changed jobs. Yesterday was my first day at my new job. There were lots of great new people and an even greater amount of new things to learn. New names, new systems, new computers, new toilets, new everything: so I'm very happy and very tired. Because work is from 9-6 at my new company, my manager is allowing me to start at 8am and finish at 5pm on Tuesdays so I can go to Chinese class.

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Zhège xīngqí wǒ de gùshì shì yidiǎn duǎn, yīnwèi wǒ shì hěn máng, gāng huànle gōngzuò. Zuótiān shì dì yī tiān wǒ zài wǒ de xīn gōngsī. Yǒu hěnduō de hǎorén, gèng duō xuéxí xīn de dōngxī. Xīn de míngzì, xīn de xìtǒng, xīn de diànnăo, xīn de wèishēngjiān, xīn de yīqiè: Suǒyǐ wǒ hěn gāoxìng, hěn lèi. Yīnwèi gōngzuò shì cóng 9 diǎn dào 6 diǎn, wǒ de jīnglǐ ràng wǒ xīngqí'èr 8 diǎn kāishǐ, 5 diǎn líkāi, suǒyǐ wǒ kěyǐ qù zhōngwén kè.

Chinese Tales: All of my Trains are Broken!

Once again, before I start, apologies for the English-to-Chinese grammatical weirdness. Also, if I ran the London Underground I probably wouldn't have a go at the government down the phone quite so bluntly: it's been a boring week and I'm literally making up ways for me to use some of last week's new vocabulary!

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All of my Trains are Broken!

Last week was not very interesting, so I'll talk about the London underground a bit. Last week the underground was really bad. On Wednesday the tube was faulty, so I was nearly late for my dance class. On Saturday the tube was faulty again, so I was late to meet my friend. On Sunday the trains were too slow, so again I was nearly late for dance class. The lessons are important because I have to practise for a show in April- I was not happy. If I was the boss of the Underground, I would call the government and tell them to build a new system, don't fix an old, bad system!

~ ~ ~

Wǒ de Huǒchē Dōu Huài Le!

Shàng ge xīngqí méi yìsi, suǒyǐ wǒ shuō shuō huǒchē/ dìtiĕ yīdiăn. Shàng ge xīngqí dìtiĕ zhēn bù hǎo. Shàng ge xīngqísān dìtiĕ huài le, suǒyǐ wǒ jīhū chídào shàng wǔdǎokè. Shàng ge xīngqíliù dìtiĕ zàicì huài le, suǒyǐ wǒ jiànle wǒ de péngyǒu wǎn. Shàng ge xīngqíiān dìtiĕ tài màn le, suǒyǐ wǒ zàicì jīhū chídào shàng wǔdǎokè. Wǒ bù gāoxìng. Wǔdǎokè hěn zhòngyào, yīnwèi wǒ zài sìyuè de wǔdǎo biǎoyǎn, yào liànxí. Rúguǒ wǒ shì dìtiĕ de lǎobǎn, wǒ huì gěi zhèngfǔ dă diànhuà gàosu tāmen jiànlì xīn de xìtǒng, bù xiū lǎo huài xìtǒng!

Chinese Tales: Culture Confusion

Every week part of my Chinese homework is to prepare a short spoken piece about my week. It only occurred to me this week: why not combine blogging with my weekly Chinese dialogue? My stories are still the sort of thing I'd post here. So from now on, every week I'll write one interesting (or not objectively) thing about my week in English and translate it into pinyin (phonetic Chinese). And, if I have enough time/ can get a Chinese keyboard, translate into character later.

Note: the English part is going to be grammatically structured in a way that will let me translate directly into Mandarin more easily (for example I'll write something like "yesterday I went to the cinema" rather than "I went to the cinema yesterday"). It's going to look a little strange, but thinking with Chinese grammar from the start is much easier than thinking with English grammar and then having to rearrange everything, trust me on this!

Here we go! This week's story: Culture Confusion.

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My friend looks Chinese, but was actually born in India, so waiters in Chinese restaurants will often speak to her first, and speak in Mandarin: so my friend always has to say "I'm sorry, I can't speak Chinese," and the waiter will always look confused.

Last Thursday, myself, my friend and her boyfriend went to a hotpot restaurant to eat dinner. The waiter immediately spoke Chinese to my friend. "Wanshang hao, ji wei?" he said. ("Good evening, how many people?")

My friend said, "I'm sorry, I can't speak Chinese...", and the waiter looked confused. But he looked even more confused when I suddenly said "san wei, xiexie!" ("Three people, thanks!")

He looked at my friend, her English boyfriend and myself. "Oh!" he said. "Are none of you Chinese?"

My friend said "Er... no..." I thought, "I'm half Chinese", but I didn't say this out loud because I wasn't confident! However I did try to order food in Chinese: but not the dishes that were too difficult!

~ ~ ~

Wǒde péngyǒu kànshàngqù xiàng Zhōngguórén, bùguò tā chūshēng zài Yìndù, suǒyǐ Zhōngguó cānguǎn de fúwùyuán chángcháng tā shuōhuà. Suǒyǐ wǒde péngyǒu zǒngshì dĕi shuō "duìbùqǐ, wǒ bù huì shuō Zhōngwén," hé fúwùyuán zǒngshì kànshàngqù yī diǎn kùnhuò.

Shàng ge xīngqísì, wǒ, wǒde péngyǒu hé tā de nánpéngyǒu qùle huǒguō cānguǎn chī wǎnfàn. Fúwùyuán mǎshàng gēn tā shuōhuà: "Wǎnshàng hǎo, jǐ weì?" tā shuōle.

Wǒde péngyǒu shuōle, "Duìbùqǐ, wǒ bù huì shuō Zhōngwén..." Fúwùyuán kànshàngqùle yī diǎn kùnhuò, dànshì wǒ túrán shuōle "Sān weì, xièxiè!" de shíhòu, tā kànshàngqùle gèng kùnhuò!

Tā kànle wǒde péngyǒu, tā de Yīngguórén nánpéngyǒu hé wǒ. "Oh!", tā shuōle. "Nǐmen shì bùshì Zhōngguórén?"

Wǒde péngyǒu shuōle "Er... bù..." Wǒ xiǎng, "Wǒ shì yībàn Zhōngguórén," bùguò wǒ méi shuōchūkǒ, yīnwèi wǒ méi zìxìn! Bùguò wo shìshìle shuō Zhōngwén diǎn cài: dànshì bù tài nán de cài!

~ ~ ~

A Mixed Bag of Nothing

A direct quote from one of my other blogs, Where I Like To Eat:

'...I am in fact Jewish, as well as being half Chinese. An unusual mix, granted, and indeed when with either side of my family I feel neither Jewish enough nor Chinese enough- but at least that makes me exotic and interesting (at least I like to think so!)'

I've never had a problem with being a mixed bag of blood (specifically half Chinese with Russian and Polish blood from the Jewish side). In fact, I've always thought of my mixed background as pretty darn cool: I get the elegant mystique of the Far East along with the proud grittiness of East Europe. I can handle both my stinky fermented tofu and my drink my chopped liver like a pro. I've never felt a crisis of identity, or an insecurity in who I am, or a feeling of not belonging. I've always felt that I belonged everywhere, and that anywhere could be home.

That is, until relatively recently.

It all started about a month ago, on the week of Chinese New Year (just to clarify, I've always found myself identifying with my Chinese side a tiny bit more than my European side). A colleague of mine brought in some oranges to celebrate. Later on I caught her by the printer, an orange in my hand, to thank her. I laughed that I was glad to have some fruit, after having way too much nian gao (new year sticky rice cake). My colleague gave me a funny look.

"Nian gao..?" She asked.

"Er... yeah, you know- sticky rice cake. I bought one of those cute fish-shaped ones," I added helpfully. My colleague gave me an uncertain smile.

"Natasha, you're not Chinese are you?"

I suddenly felt uncomfortable- it's not the first time it's been noted that I look extremely un-Oriental, but it was definitely the first time I felt almost caught-out. I explained I was half, and conversation awkwardly petered out.

I made my way back to my desk and had a sudden flashback, back to when I was at school:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was walking down the hallway with a Chinese friend, and she was talking about setting up a club for the Chinese pupils of the school. I said I thought this was a great idea, and I'd love to help out and join. My friend laughed.

"You're not really Chinese though, are you?" she said.

I was unfazed. "'Course I am! I mean I may not be 100% Chinese, but I have enough Chinese DNA to count I think."

"Oh Tash you know what I mean- I mean you're not Chinese enough."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Not Chinese enough.

At the time I was too bogged down with all my musical extra-curricular activities to care much that I didn't have another to add to my list, but I find myself caring now, after about a decade.

On a similar vein, I was thinking of giving dancing a whirl, recently- for fitness, and because I believe in completing things on your bucket list well before you'd normally consider having a bucket list (I'm just that organised in life). I thought of how cool it would be to do some traditional Chinese dancing- with fans and ribbons and whatnot. So I did some Googling and found a group that do adult workshops in London.

My usual devil-may-care confidence went a bit wobbly when I saw the photos of the willowy, beautiful, extremely Chinese ladies practising in their qipaos. And here's me, with my European curves, unremarkable features and distinctly un-Chinese face, hoping to join them.

I'd be like a goose amongst cranes.

Another spanner in the works is my shoddy grasp of the language- despite having studied Mandarin as a side-module at university for two years. It doesn't help that my Chinese friends have all been Cantonese-speakers and the Chinese side of my family speaks Hakka rather than Mandarin, but it's a poor excuse, even so. In fact, I studied Japanese for one year and for some bizarre reason excelled at it, while two years studying my heritage language bore slightly weaker results.

So here I am, wanting to be more involved in my own culture- but finding out that it's not my culture, after all- not really. In fact, it's starting to occur to me that my Chinese friends and family- or at least the people in Chinatown, Wing Yip or other places I frequent with a Chinese community- might actually see me as a bit of a White Girl Wannabe.

Only even without the Chinese side, I'm not really a White Girl, either.

So where the bloody hell do I belong?

I'll never find a community I can fully fit into- it's in the nature of being mixed race, after all, and I think I've forgotten this somewhere along the way. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy eating lots of different types of food and learning about my different heritages: and every time someone finds out for the first time that I'm half-Chinese and that my middle name is Ching, and responds with stark disbelief, I'll just have to get over it.

Perhaps I will ask about that dance group- perhaps not. I definitely want to take up Mandarin again (and Japanese while I'm at it- no sense in letting my knack for it go to waste...) I just wish I were as blissfully unaware of my 'unwholeness' as I was before. I suppose I'll just have to find a new level of accepting myself, and not caring about what other people think.

And yes, my middle name really is Ching.

~Fin~