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Esprit Spring 2005 Home
Cover Photo
Awards
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Submission Information
Mazurka
Self-Portrait
Relig na mban
Eureka
Twelve Days into January
Under-Pass
Like a Virgin; or, On Madonnas
Suisio, July
My Backyard
On
Beethoven's Sonata, Op.81a
Fade to Black
Passing Fascination
Shifting View of Window
Soiled Yogi
Thinking of Toledo
Protrusion
Storytelling in Grotte di Castellana
DeGrazia's Doors
The Sorrowful Mysteries
Dawn of Dante
Little Hope
Triptych
Self-Portrait 2
Zow Gow
Anthroarachnonet
A Breasted
Experience
A Hat in Bath
Front Cover:
Side Door, Holy Trinity
Episcopal Church,
Philadelphia
Inside Front Cover:
Together
Inside Back Cover:
Femke
Back Cover:
Monkey Toes
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| | Zow Gow
The Berrier Prose Award
Spring 2005
Leah Laspina
There are some languages that the American tongue isn't meant to master. Chinese is one of them. One sound in particular in Chinese that's particularly rough is the equivalent of "R." Ri, pronounced as a throaty, glottal
"Rrrrr" means 'day' or 'sun.' And just then I wished that time was comprised solely of nights and the sky of darkness. The printed characters of my reading comprehension homework did not change. I cleared my throat of grit, wondering how odd it would be, back home, to finally shake the pollution-caused, affectionately-dubbed "Beijing
cough." The characters in my book stared back at me. Hilda waited patiently. I sighed, contouring my throat in some manner of oddity.
"Today is my birthday. Jin-tien shir whoa-du shung-rrr. Today is Sunday. Jin-tien shir
Shink-chi-rrr."
"My tutor nodded. "Good, Li Xiaojie," and she read the passage again, presumably for my benefit. "Jintian shi wo'de shengri. Jintian shi xinqqiri."
Hilda (her real name, translated, meant Moon) looked up from my textbook. "Read like that, Li Xiaojie. You must enunciate on your words more clearly, and pronounce on the tones more clearly." Hilda didn't quite understand the idea of particles and modifiers yet; then again, I didn't understand 99.64% of the Chinese language. I swigged a
sip of my now-cool boiled water and pushed my glasses back up my nose.
"Can you say it one more time, Hilda? I just don't understand—I can't hear what I'm not saying properly." She took a
minute to understand my request, then nodded.
"Okay." She said 'okay' very cutely, with a pure, light 'o' that bounced sharply off the 'kay.' She shifted to face me head on and leaned in close. The Chinese have a much
smaller sense of personal space. She pointed at her mouth. "You see—watch—" she grinned at her lingual triumph, "—here." She formed her words slowly, her tongue shaping each guttural syllable deliberately. Add with that her exaggeration of the tones, and the overall effect was quite comic. I realized I'd never actually watched someone
form their words before; I just knew how to make the appropriate sound. Now, I couldn't even shape my syllables well enough to be understood. Very disconcerting.
Hilda finished with 'xinqqiri' again and looked at me
expectantly. "Now, try again, Li Xiaojie." I sighed, and complied, awkwardly, but growled my way through 'shengri' and xinqqiri' again. When I finished, Hilda was giggling quietly behind one hand.
"I think, Li Xiaojie,
that 'ri' is a very difficult sound for foreigners to make correctly." Hilda was always very polite.
All I could do was nod in agreement. "It really is. Rrr..." Hilda tittered again. I broke into a smile myself. "I sound
like a lawnmower."
Hilda's broad forehead furrowed. "A what? What is that?"
Oh dear. I turned to a
blank page of my notebook. "Well, a lawnmower..." How do you explain a lawnmower? "Well, a lawn is the grass around a building—"
"I know this word, lawn, yes."
"Right. And a mower is a machine that keeps the grass in the lawn nice and even." I sketched out a little stick-man pushing a box on a leash. "Or sometimes, they're big enough to ride on."
"The light snapped on behind
Hilda's eyes. I've never seen this phenomenon so much as when struggling with a language not your own. "Oh! Like the things they use on the yard near the cafeteria!"
Why didn't I think of that? "Exactly!"
Hilda gestured at my notebook. "Can you write that word, lawn—lawn—?"
"Lawnmower."
"Please?"
"Certainly." I spelled it out as I printed it. "L-A-W-N-M-O-W-E-R." Hilda echoed my spelling, over-pronouncing each letter—I suppose the way she wanted me to 'enunciate on my words more clearly.'
"Li Xiaojie, in Chinese,
we call a lawnmower a—" and I still have no chance of every reproducing the burble that means lawnmower.
I bit my lip hopelessly. "Hilda, how am I supposed to learn Chinese? I can't even hear the sounds, let alone speak
them."
Hilda leaned back and gave me the look that meant she thought I was being 'silly.' "Li Xiaojie, you must relax! Take it easy! Have the confidence! You have the talent—this, I know!"
"Hilda," I called her on it, "You're just being polite, saying that."
"No, no, Li Xiaojie. Lianxi ba. Let's practice a little more. You will see." She took my kewen, my reading, and found the next assignment. "Qing gen wo
shuo." This statement we'd learned on day one, one of those classroom commands: "Please repeat after me." She pointed at the list of characters and pinyin. "Tianqi... leng... xia xue... zao gao." She pointed to the first character. "Li Xiaojie, it is your turn."
I grimaced. "Tienchi... lung... shya shway... zow gow."
Hilda grinned and nodded. "You are improving. Li Xiaojie. I know you have the talent. Now, I make a sentence for you. Please repeat it and translate it. Qing gen wo
shuo. Shuo yihou, ni ye fanyi."
I nodded. Repeat and translate. Fair enough. Hilda started slowly. "Zhen zao gao, jintian tianqu hen leng, xia da xue." My turn. Hilda nodded eagerly and mouthed the words with me.
"Jen zow gow, jintien tienchi hen lung, shya da shway... that means... Such bad luck, or what a mess, or some general thing like that—"
"Good," said Hilda. "Hen hao."
"Today's weather is very cold. It's... snowing heavily?"
Hilda beamed. Again, the light bulb effect. "Good, Li Xiaojie! I knew it! You translate very fastly! You do very well."
I blustered a little. I knew that translating was one of my stronger skills, tied closely with listening comprehension. However, it is the Chinese way to not openly accept a compliment, or one sees arrogant. What was the response Hilda taught me yesterday? "Nali, Nali—" She laughed. "—But I've still got so much to learn," I finished.
Hilda nodded. "Now, Xianzai, xiuyxi yi xiar."
Yay, a little break—literally, a 'tea break' with a fresh side of Beijing slang. Everywhere else, locals repeat the verb when the mean something short or quick. Not in
Beijing—in Beijing, not only is it 'yi xia,' 'a little,' but the 'R' tacked to the end of most words makes Beijing-ese the most marked-and most mocked-dialect of Mandarin Chinese. As much as I hated the sound of the 'R' at the end of most words, speaking the few phrases I could with the Beijing 'R' seemed to give me a little credence—and
being a 'jin fa bi yan,' I could use all the credence I could get my pale little hands on. Blondes are too much like a side show here to be taken as people if they don't speak Chinese.
Hilda tapped me on the shoulder. "Ni
chi fan le ma?" Instead of asking 'how are you?' Chinese people ask if you've eaten. Very pragmatic take on it, really.
"May chur," I responded. Too much homework makes for a hungry Li Shuang.
Hilda frowned. "Mei chi? Really? Why?"
I grinned. "Zow gow." She laughed. "But really, I had a lot of work." She looked at me puzzled. The Chinese, for as hard as they work, make sure to do things on a schedule—if she'd
been in my place, she's have eaten at her desk, or gone out for fast food. That was becoming more popular in China too. Zao gao.
She brightened again. "I have not eaten my dinner yet either." I figured she was trying to
make me feel better—so considerate of her. "Do you want to move our lesson to the twenty-four noodle shop?"
24-hour Noodle was a cross between Wawa and Taco Bell, but with rice, skewers, and pan fried noodles rather than
6-inch subs or fajitas. The sign was really fun too—it was lit up with neon lights in lots of bad English and a few Chinese characters. The place is really a cute little Asian fast-food shop.
"That sounds like a great
idea, Hilda, but—" I groped for the phrase, "—Wo ching nee chur fan, how ma?"
She gasped in serious shock. "No! You should not treat me! Ni bu qing wo!"
"Certainly I should. How's this: I treat you, but you order our food. Okay?"
She made this really cute face and nodded. "All right, Li Xiaojie."
¶¶¶
24 wasn't very crowded, for once, and as soon as we were seated, our waitress was waiting at Hilda's elbow.
"Li Xiaojie, what do you want to eat?" Hilda waited for me to go first.
I already knew, which was good, because Chinese waitresses will stand at the end of your table staring at you until you make up your mind. "Can I have
three chicken skewers, a plate of egg-fried rice, and a bottle of Coke?"
Hilda translated my order to the waitress and added hers. The waitress repeated our orders back—they don't write them down, as a rule; it wastes
paper—and Hilda nodded. the waitress wormed her way back to the kitchen. Hilda pointed at the TV over the register. "Look Li Xiaojie! They are playing "Sex and the City" on their DVD! I love this television program. Do you?" The series was wildly popular in China, it was all black market, of course, but quality was decent.
Our food came quickly—out of the corner of my eye, I saw the chef using a ratty hair dryer to blow the smoke from the grill out the window. Funny, at home, that would really bother me. Here, I hardly paid it a moment's notice. So that's what they call being Asia-fied.
The waitress presented me with my and a nice big spoon. I frowned. I knew I looked incapable because I'm blonde and all, but I really did master chopsticks very quickly. Hilda saw my face, I think, and waved at the waitress. "Kuaizi," was all she needed to say to have the waitress produce a set from her apron pocket. Hilda's food was
brought out (she didn't get a spoon with her rice), and I pondered my Coke bottle. It looked like Hong Kong Disneyland was giving away prize packages; I checked the inside of the bottle cap before I realized the futility. I wondered if I'd won. The bottle itself was fun, though—the characters 'ke ko ke le' were done up to look like the
American Coke label.
I fingered my chopsticks and shifted them so that I wasn't holding them quite correctly, but near enough for a hand accustomed to a fork. I heard the waitress giggle quietly behind me; a stolen glance
confirmed it. She was laughing at the waiguoren who was not only using her chopsticks awkwardly, but was using the wrong hand altogether. I'm sorry my mother wasn't superstitious to discipline me from my natural tendencies.
I stuffed a stickful of rice into my mouth and looked up at Hilda. She had noticed the waitress as well, and was shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "How was work today, Hilda?" As a business school grad student, she had a full-time internship at GE in lieu of classes.
She made a face, and laughed, quickly. "It is a good experience to have." Translation: she hated it. Hilda worked in the visa department of General Electric Beijing, filing papers and visas for employees who needed to go stateside for job training. We both laughed and then, hungry, worked our way through our plates. This really popular
song came on—two Canadians sang it, and nearly all the lyrics of the song were in English. Needless to say, it was a smash hit. I started singing along before I realized what I was doing.
"Take me to your heart, take me to
your soul. Take me to the place I can grow old..." and then I remembered that I was in the middle of 24. The waitress, still standing somewhere behind me (they had posts assigned throughout the restaurant), laughed again quietly. I blushed and quickly took a swig of my Coke.
Hilda looked at me. "Li Xiaojie, I think you should talk to that waitress. You should show her that you can speak Chinese!"
I groaned. "Hilda, I don't know if that's a very good idea. I'd only embarrass myself even more
than I already have."
She shook her head stubbornly. "No, no, I have the faith in you." She called the waitress over, "Xiaojie!" and said something to her. The waitress looked at me doubtfully. Hilda was waiting as well.
"I told her you want to ask her a question. Ask about the weather-we did that lesson today. You ask her about tomorrow's weather."
I faced the waitress. "Mingtien tienchi how ma?" I hoped that was how to ask 'Is tomorrow's
weather good?" The waitress frowned. I knew my tones were bad but I didn't think they were that bad.
"Mingtian tianqi ma? Wo buzhido... I ... do not know... tomorrow weather." She probably thought I wouldn't understand the
answer. She wasn't even sure that I would understand her Chinese, so she used pidgin English. Well, close enough. I tried.
"Wo ye bujurdao. Shyeh shyeh." I really didn't know what tomorrow's weather was going to be, and
she was polite enough about it. Besides, manners demand that I thank her. "Oh, xiaojie?" I called her back, very glad for my sake that 'xiaojie' wasn't slang for 'prostitute' when used in direct address. "Maidan?" She echoed me, then went off to get our bill. 'Xiaojie' and 'maidan' are the only two words I really could say correctly,
since I used them the most.
Hilda placed her chopsticks across her empty plate. "Thank you very much for the dinner, Li Xiaojie."
I smiled. "It was my pleasure, Hilda." The waitress brought our bill and read me the price in Chinese, then in halting English. I did my best to have my money out before she read it a second time, but don't think she noticed, or cared, too much. When I got my change, Hilda and I both stood at the same time, and walked for the door. We
paused out on the sidewalk; I had to walk back to the international students' dorm, and hers was in the opposite direction.
"Same time tomorrow, Hilda?" I reached out to shake her hand. She took it and answered me.
"Of course, Li Xiaojie."
I knew the acceptable casual thing to say for goodbye: see you tomorrow. "Mingtien jien, Hilda."
She laughed. "Beijing people do not say 'Mingtian jian,' Li Xiaojie. They say 'mingr jian.' So, mingr jian, Li Xiaojie."
I grinned back, slightly. "Mingtien jien, Hilda." She made a face at me, and we parted ways until
mingr.
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