Chinese lessons and Foot massages!

Ha ha! I cracked the Hanyu (chinese) mid term test! I got 96 out of 100 and my laoshi (teacher) was very impressed! But that’s where my amazing Hanyu skills stop! :) When I try my hand outside it rarely works to my satisfaction! Here are some examples.

My friend and I were in a massage parlor getting a foot massage. The foot massage itself sucked - Huan Huan (the masseur) is way too strong for her size! My foot hurt for the next two days. But still the massage experience was totally worth it because I could practice my Hanyu skills with non english speaking girls and believe me, it’s a fun experience communicating when its one way either side. Back to the example that shows how poor is my Hanyu skills.

So the masseur asks me (or atleast I believe that’s what she asked me) in Chinese: "Do you have a wife?". My brain says I should reply "I don’t have a wife". As usual, I take a minute to repeat her question. Take another minute to understand what she just asked. Take the third minute to identify the translator that I should use to translate the answer to Hanyu! (Remember, I have more than one half-baked translators in my poor over burdened brain now - English, Tamil, Hanyu)! Take the fourth minute to actually translate the words and string them together into a proper Hanyu sentence (atleast what I think to be a proper sentence!) And take the fifth minute to actually say the sentence. Ha, don’t smirk! You don’t know how tough it is to speak a sentence in hanyu even after thinking it through for a while. You think you are going to speak a word in the 3rd tone but your mouth (as ever the one that gets you into trouble saying things that it shouldn’t) speaks the word out in 1st tone! So after 5 minutes of intensive thinking and struggling, what do I end up saying?!!! Yes, something stupid as "Wo bu yao tai tai"!! (If you are wondering, that translates to, "I don’t WANT a wife!"). Remember, right now my brain is thinking that I am going to say, "I don’t have a wife". But after 5 minutes it comes out as "I don’t want a wife!"

"The reaction of the masseur is interesting", thinks one part of my brain. "Why does she look so surprised", queries another part of my brain. Yet another part of my brain is frantically replaying and reviewing the last 5 minutes to see what the hell went wrong! Electric signals fire all over the brain, one part trips over another part to figure out the apparent disconnect between my answer and the reaction of the masseur. "Aha, you stupid idiot", says one small part of my brain that’s showing atleast a semblance of normalcy still! Now every other part of my brain looking dumb as usual, frantically tries to correct the mistake! My mouth goes into overdrive and finally says the correct words, "bu bu yao, mei you!" (Not don’t want, DON’T HAVE!). And finally the masseur understands and stops freaking out at my answer! :)

Hmm… I have to abruptly break off this post, since I started writing this 4 weeks back and now I lost my train of though! :(