It really is an amazing experience living in Shanghai, especially with children. Our daily routine includes a trip to the compound playground most afternoons from about 3.30, until Daddy gets home somewhere between 4.30 and 5.30. Our playground has kids of all nationalities, speaking a diverse selection of languages. We also meet a wide range of expats at our various activities such as music and through other friends.
We, being English speakers, greet the Spanish speakers with ‘Hola’, the French with ‘Bonjour’, the Japanese with ‘Konichiwa’, the Chinese with ‘Hello’ and other English speakers with ‘Ni Hao’.
After 9 months I am finally feeling confident in going into a shop and asking if they have something. And then telling them that my Chinese is not very good and I don’t understand their response, which usually elicits a smile and a very simple answer that they don’t have it, or they show me what I am looking for. It is the best way to learn vocabulary though, for me, to go looking for a specific thing and learn the word for it beforehand.
Once I knew where I was going I quickly built up my taxi speak, but always just told the taxi driver to turn left or right, usually without much notice. Now I am getting quite good at asking them politely, or asking to go to a particular intersection and then just giving the final directions. They all think I am crazy though, as most of the time when I am in a taxi, I have Ellie climbing around like a monkey, and Jamie in his cocoon (which looks like a sports bag) or strapped to me in the baby carrier and the most enormous pram they have ever seen, plus whatever other essential paraphernalia I am lugging around.
At our main gate, we have a lovely lady selling fruit from her bike, and with her help I have slowly learned the Chinese words for the fruit we like, so have apples, bananas, mangos, kiwis and papaya down, grapes are coming into season, so will have to learn them soon. She often sells tomatoes, but for some reason I cannot for the life of me remember that one ever. Xihongshi – I dunno, can’t get it… maybe now I’ve written it down I’ll be OK, but I’ve already looked it up 100 times, so no promises. I have a special sign language, and she knows I mean tomatoes!! The other thing she has been great with is helping me with my number pronunciation.
Our Ayi, Zhu Qing Yun, is also slowly helping me with my Chinese. Although she is a very keen learner of English, and her English is progressing far faster than my Chinese. I am sure though, that Ellie is learning well from her though, and Jamie smiles and laughs when she chats to him, so I bet his Chinese ends up being the best of all of us. [Mental note – mandatory Mandarin classes for the kids when we are home again!!]
I sometimes go to a Pump class on Friday nights, in which I am usually the only non-Chinese. I smile a lot at the instructor so that he thinks I know what he’s talking about, and I hope that I learn all the main muscle groups in Chinese by osmosis. So far I can keep up with the class as much as my poor body can keep up, so I actually have lots of time to make sure that the action matches the demonstrated action, rather than the descriptive action. Two babies and no gym work for nearly 3 years means that my fitness levels are not the highest.
Interestingly to me, since I have started consciously thinking about words in Chinese, I have found that my memory of French and German vocab from school has been jump started, and sometimes when I am struggling to think of how to say something in Chinese, it pops into my head as clear as day in French or German or both, and while I’m not proclaiming to be suddenly fluent in either of these languages, I feel I could definitely express myself as required. (And as demonstrated at station coming home from Nanjing.) I also understand a lot of what other Mums are saying to their kids in these languages, so I must have learned something at school, because I can’t understand those speaking Japanese or Spanish!! However, Dora and Diego have a lot to answer for as far as contributing to the additional language skills of my toddler. Ellie has been picking Spanish at the rate of knots!! I have heard her say sube (when climbing the rope ladder), rapido (when telling me to hurry up), arriba (when wanting to be picked up) and telling me we have to save the river dolphins when we are swimming!!
Another interesting thing is how English differs around the world. I now have a lot of American friends and aside from the basic 'cookies' vs 'biscuits' kind of vocabulary differences, there are a lot of things that are just slightly out of step, for example Americans don't tend to use or understand the concept of a fortnight. I have chatted about this extensively with one of my American friends, and she is determined to draw up a nice table with word variations, and once she has maybe I'll be able to post a link to it here!
I really hope we all become fluent in Mandarin while we are here. It is something I am definitely working on, and making a big effort with!! Will let you know how we go!!
Zai jian.
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