Leslie: Pam asked me about how we are getting along without knowing the language. We are ashamed that we didn't learn a lick of Chinese before we left, but we'd about given up on the whole project after 2 1/2 years, and then when we finally got matched, it almost came out of the blue. There was a huge amount of paperwork to do in 5 weeks, along with trying to prepare ourselves at work and at home for the return, so we never managed anything other than "hello!" Literally. This is shocking to me, as we pride ourselves in not being tourists when we travel, and Phil knows something like 8 languages already. Oddly, we still aren't tourists this time, even if we are language-idiots.
Ok, guilt aside, here is how it works. In Beijing, the guide had us running around together all day and night, so all our meals were arranged. We'd be shown into a restaurant (all 18 families) and find seats at big round tables with a lazy susan in the middle. They'd bring out 8 or 10 different things, and we'd just eat them, figuring out what they were as we went along, but we never had to communicate. There was some shopping on the excursions, but at tourist factories (jade, silk, and cloisonne) so the people spoke some English, or you just needed to point. We've only had to interact with people ourselves in Chongqing, so just the last four days. But here, most of our meals are on our own, and all of our shopping. And we aren't just shopping for souvenirs: we need water, strollers, baby formula, snacks, etc. Our guide gave us a little dictionary/cheat sheet to carry around. For shorter things, she's given us a transliteration, which is great, except that Chinese is enormously complicated, with tones (sliding up or down) as well as different pronunciations. After 10 years of being an adoption trip guide, Marie's got a sense of what we will need to ask and has just written the longer phrases out in Chinese and English for us, so we show the paper and point to the right phrase. It is embarassing, but it works. The only time we've had to use it was buying a stroller because you can't just get one and take it to the register. The rest of the grocery items were easy, as we just put them in the basket and paid, and thankfully numbers are written in standard Arabic numerals.
Food is more complicated, and the most frequent opportunity/challenge. Fast food restaurants are easiest, because when they see us coming they pull out a picture menu and we point, though four out of five times we end up with something wrong in the order. We've twice ended up with extra meals, once with not enough, and twice with ice in the drinks (water is the biggest health issue, so we can't risk the ice). Even at McDonald's, it is frustrating! And anyone who knows me at all knows I am nuts about food, so the fact that we've been to McDonald's three times, KFC once, and Pizza Hut once gives you some indication of how stressful it is. If the restaurant doesn't have a picture menu, or English translations, we really just can't go, as we'd have no clue what we were eating. The Teppanyaki restaurant had English translations, though "Japanese Pizza" gave little clue as to what it was, and we still aren't sure. We didn't have to communicate beyond giving the order, and all we did was point to the dishes we wanted and we read the English while they read the Chinese.
Today we went to the Chongqing old town, which is a touristy shopping area. Only a very few spoke any English even there, and still only a few words. We wanted to buy the boys some Chinese outfits, but they only had adult and child sizes, and they are in between. We used our hands to indicate long pants, long sleeves, gesturing to our bodies. I'd tap them on the head to show I was buying for them, and we''d gesture longer or bigger with our hands to try to get another size. When it comes to paying (and you can haggle!) it is done on a calculator or with paper and pen. They'd type in the price, and hand it to me. I'd type in my counter-offer and so on.
Finally, we interact when we go outside and people want to know who we are and what we are doing. Here's the really embarassing part: we wear tags whenever we go out. On one side is written our names in English so our guide can all learn each all the names, and on the other side is written an explanation of who we are and what we are doing in Chinese. We hold out the tags and they read them. Then they lapse into Chinese with each other, discussing the situation, and occasionally try to ask us questions using gestures. We answer in English and with gestures, hoping we are on the same subject! Then we all smile and say "bye-bye!"
