When in China, speak Italian. Off course!

Ok, that title will make sense in a bit. Hold on tight.

But first, let me get the objective facts out of the way. Today we went to see the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. The Forbidden City was the home of many Chinese Emperors, their families, their concubines, and a coterie of eunuchs. Commoners were forbidden from visiting this gargantuan and magnificent complex of living, ceremonial, and entertainment spaces. Hence the name. Pretty impressive it was, though as one of my co-travellers said, "nothing man does to perpetuate their immortality can stand up to nature." True, none of the emperors lasted forever, and their palaces serve different purposes for the people who visit them today. On a very practical level, a lot of tourism related jobs come out of this! I promise to post my own pictures when I get back home.

Now back to speaking broken Italian in China.

So yesterday we got lost, with three different taxi drivers delivering us to three different spots in a semi-labyrinthine Hutong (a traditional Chinese neighborhood/estate). As the threat of heavy rain loomed in the skies above and distant thunder could be heard, we tried to find each other, split in three groups with no cell phone. I was in the group where none of us spoke any Chinese, remember?

Our motley crew of four lost English-speaking tourists stood infront of a gate to some mysterious tourist attraction that had been closed for the day. No sooner had we been dropped off than had two aggressive pedicab drivers come to offer us rides on their rickshaws. In a minute or two, it was five different men all competing to get us to pay them for a tour of the Hutong.

They spoke no English. We spoke no Chinese. Actually, they spoke enough English to say something like, "Want Hutong tour? Get on my rikisho, I take you tour. Good price." Their entreaties were at times aggressive, persuasive, friendly, serious, light-hearted, and sometimes, all of the above at one go! Incredible you say, but you should have been there to see it.

"No!" we responded in English. Now, being the kind of person who rarely takes no for an answer, I sympathized with these folks trying to sell us a tour we did not need. They just could not take no! We even tried to explain in plain simple English that we were waiting for our colleagues to show up in two different taxis before we could even contemplate going on a tour. After about ten minutes that must have felt like an eternity, I realized that communication was virtually impossible, and our English was being fruitless in the situation. So what harm would it do to try explain the same thing in my broken Italian to these poor Chinese fellows? After all, Marco Polo did come to China, right?

Well, I had no shame in cobbling the best Italian sentence or two I could to explain the same point. Ladies and gentlemen, it did not work. They did not understand Italian either!!! Next time a Chinese person keeps talking to me in Chinese when I clearly can not understand them, I will try speaking back in Swahili to them. Now that is something they might understand. After all, the Chinese version of Disney's Lion King was on one of the television channels the day before yesterday.

Did somebody say "Hakuna matata?" Translate that, comrade!

PS:

My memory is a little foggy and non-linear in this humid weather as I try to type away in a balmy smoke-filled internet cafe with 171 (0ne hundred and seventy one) computers, most of them occupied by young Chinese men watching movies online, chatting, and playing video-games hardcore. I forgot to mention that necessity is the mother of invention, and we remembered that the Chinese translation for "I don't want" is "Bu yao!" When my Italian failed to make sense, we broke into a short chorus of bu yaos that finally sent the 'tour-guides' away.

Tomorrow we go for some meetings at the Chinese Ministry of Education. I look forward to learning a lot, and asking some questions.