I cannot say (London)

My new British ambassador student, Sir Leonard Appleyard KCMG, asked me during a tea break one day, “I understand you teach evening classes as well.  What are your evening students like?”

“Well," I said, "when I first started in the mid-80s, we used to get mainly OAPs* who wanted to learn the Chinese language more because of their interest in the culture and the poetry — to help them read Chinese literature in the original — than for using the language itself out in real life.  It also got them out of the house, gave them a social life and, from what I heard, saved them a bit on heating in the winter months.  A decade later, we started to get younger types:  people who’d either come back from time out in China, were about to go out, would like to get a job out there, or who’d married Chinese spouses.

“Let me tell you about an interesting one.  He’s just retired from the MOD**.  When you asked him, for oral practice, things like what his job was, where he worked, what his telephone number was, his answer was always: ‘我不能说 / wǒ bù néng shuō / I cannot say.’”

My ambassador student got quite interested, “MOD, eh?  And just retired, eh?  I might know him.  What’s his name?”

In reply, I said, “我不能说 / wǒ bù néng shuō.”

(Event happened 1994) 

*OAP = Old Age Pensioners

**MOD = Ministry of Defence.