foreigner living in the prc #2: speaking the language/Chinese stereotypes about foreigners

[Nanjing to Seoul]

please understand that my ability to speak, read or write the language is, at best, at a nine year old level. I can read about 4000 characters, write about 2000 and can speak well enough to be understood (more on that in a moment) most of the time, though i speak Chinese with an absolutely horrible New York accent. (你好, Youse Guys. 你的 dawghtah 在那里?).

Anyway, certain problems pop up when trying to speak. First problem: dialect. Yes, there is a massively different dialect between Northern and Southern China, as well as little pockets of "wtf is that you're saying?" Here's an example:

i lived in Shijiazhuang 石家庄, the provincial capital of Hebei 河北 for three years, which speaks the Beijing dialect (北京话）. The Chinese word for ten is 十, Shi, pronounced sure, as in "shirt" without the "t."

Let met give you the numbers in Chinese
零 - ling 0
一 - yi (e) 1 (flat tone)
二 - er (r) 2
三 - san 3
四 - si (suh) 4
五 - wu 5
六 - liu (Lucy Liu) 6
七 - qi (chee) 7
八 - ba (8)
九 - jiu (Geo Metro) - 9
十 - already said
百 - bai (bye) 100
千 - qian (chee-n) 1000
万 - wan (want without the "t&quot 10,000
亿 - yi 100,000,000 (down tone)
兆 - zhao (juh-ow) 1,000,000,000,000

Keep that in mind please. i went on vacation to haikou (China's Honolulu). it was hot. i wanted a hat. i saw a guy on the street selling hats and i found a flat cap i liked. i asked 多少钱 (how much?). He said 四四 (look at the number). 44 for a hat. . .he's on drugs. i say no and put it down. He said. 好吧。 四 (okay. four). i smiled, whipped out four and left. guy grabbed my arm and screamed "不是。 四" (no. four) and put up the hand signal for 10. Confused, i just gave him ten. i can tell a southern by the dialect. There is a pornographic mattress actress named evelyn lin (i found out about her on baidu. they ran a profile on "famous chinese actresses and i didn't know who she was). i watched one of her videos when she spoken Chinese. Her words:

我的名字是evelyn lin. 我现在四八岁. 我好奇我的工作 (my name is evelyn lin. i am 48 years old. i love my job). i knew instantly her family was from the south. she's eighteen 十八, but pronounced it 48 四八.

Anyway, back to the topic. . .apparently the act of just saying hello in Chinese warrants huge compliments.
“你好。” hi
“恩。 你好” yeah. hello.
“哇。 你的中文很好。" wow, your chinese is good.
“但是我只说话你好。” but i only said hello.

There is absolute amazement when someone who does not have slanted eyes or black hair can do the simplest things in their language. However, if you make a mistake, be prepared for them to laugh at you. Because “你是孩子话" (you baby speak). However, when they practice their english (which is normally someone shouting hello to you, then running away laughing at his, it's always a man, moron friends), you can't laugh at their mistakes. "my english is poor" will be the excuse. when you tell them "my chinese is poor," they just shake their head and say "我可以教你" (i can teach you), but never do.

However, normally, when you speak to a Chinese person here, the instant response is "听不懂" (hearing confused). then they turn their backs and ignore the dumb foreign monkey.

Dealing with stereotypes is a little hard too. imagine, if you are a guy, standing at the urinal with men on either side looking over the divider and staring at your junk while you pee saying "好大" (very big). i've turned a few times and said "你可以有照片" (you can have a photo) while still peeing. Apparently, men in this country have all come out of the closest. i have no problems with it, but not while i'm peeing please.

other stereotypes involve relationships. foreigners only want sex. foreigner all have diseases. where foreigners live, mixed breed babies (洋娃娃 follow. foreigners are all 花花公子 (playboys), well in my case, that's true, until i met the girl now that i am going to marry. i was know as “强壮帅哥外国鸭子在1904号" (strong handsome man whore in #1904). again, speaking the language opens doors, especially with married women whose husbands used them for marriage and a baby (because married fathers get promotions at work faster than single men) and do not touch them anymore because they have a 小三 (little third), or a 小太太 (little wife) or a 二奶 (second milk).

another stereotype is rather racist. black people are dirty. My GF tells me this all the time. it drives me crazy. and it isn't just China. This is normal all over east asia. Koreans will not hire black people for the most part. . .and if they do, they will treat them like subhumans. i know a japanese man that dated a black friend of mine and during sex, he would call her "Awarena saru" which translates to "pathetic monkey." My GF speaks Japanese. My black friend thought it meant "beautiful princess" because the japanese man lied. relationship ended on the spot. Chinese people do it too. i have alot of friends here from africa, mostly Kenya, Zimbabwe and Sudan. i have heard so much 黑鬼 (black devil, similar to the n-bomb) used it makes me sick. one girl turned to a friend of mine and screaming “我不喜欢你。 我害怕你，他妈的黑鬼。 滚开." (i don't like you. i'm afraid of you, fucking black devil. fuckoff). i lit into her so hard she started crying on the subway and ran off at the next stop.

i'm Jewish. according to Chinese people, i am wealthy, intelligent, successful and part of the most "amazing race" on Earth. i smile and blush, but it is a little off putting. btw, Chinese for Jew is 犹太人, which roughly translates to "still great people."

Anyway, my time in Nanjing has come to an end. Nanjing to Seoul will turn to Suzhou to Seoul.

i will talk about my new students at my international school next time.

拜拜

[intaglio]

1. Thanks, fascinating n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. When I was in China, we spent our first two weeks in Beijing, where everyone talked like the

textbooks. Xian wasn't too different, but it was in Chongqing that I first encountered the hand signal of crossed fingers (like the 十 character) to distinguish "4" from "10." Evidently, it confuses Chinese people, too.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

3. Sichuan and Hunan dialects are insane to understand. Shanghai too, with the wu dialect

i went to Shanghai with a ex-girlfriend from Chengde (northern part of Hebei near the inner mongolian border). She kept telling me she didn't understand a word anyone was saying.

Then you have the ethnic minority languages (such as the Hui, uyghur, tibetan, korean and zhuang languages). . .then you have Cantonese in Guangdong. Then you have Hainanese in Hainan. Then you have the insane accent in Taiwan.

[davidpdx]

4. That one gave me a good chuckle

Dealing with stereotypes is a little hard too. imagine, if you are a guy, standing at the urinal with men on either side looking over the divider and staring at your junk while you pee saying "好大" (very big). i've turned a few times and said "你可以有照片" (you can have a photo) while still peeing. Apparently, men in this country have all come out of the closest. i have no problems with it, but not while i'm peeing please.

other stereotypes involve relationships. foreigners only want sex. foreigner all have diseases. where foreigners live, mixed breed babies (洋娃娃 follow. foreigners are all 花花公子 (playboys), well in my case, that's true, until i met the girl now that i am going to marry. i was know as “强壮帅哥外国鸭子在1904号" (strong handsome man whore in #1904).

If some guy stared at my junk I would say to them "unless you are going to marry me, we should not be getting that personal".

As you probably know from experience the stereotyping in Korea happens as well. The "netizens" write stories about how foreigners are all a bunch of diseased womanizing animals. Even some of the TV networks have published horrible shit.