Student Sheila (white, British) recounted her experience in Shanghai (which she loved) when she went to China to teach English, c.2002:
Sheila: I went to an opera and the whole row in front stared at me until the show started.
Me: Hahahaha, so YOU became the star!
Sheila: It was horrible.
At least she only got stared at.
In 1988, when I was in China for a 37-day film shoot (following an American multi-millionaire on his motorcycle ride across China), the British film director and I were the first to walk into the hotel lift in 郑州 Zhengzhou. Another eight locals or so followed suit, so we were jammed right into the back of the lift.
The Chinese don’t like to trouble people, e.g., they almost never say “Please pass the salt” but will reach across the table (and the front of the other diners) for it.
My first interpreting assignment in 1979 looking after a delegation of four from a textile factory in 南通 Nantong (about 127.5km from Shanghai) had me feeling like a mother or nanny with quadruplets at the dinner table.
Rather than ask for the sugar to be passed over, they’d stand up and reach across to the other (long) end of the table, fetch a teaspoonful of sugar from the pot, then bring it back across the table (and the front of the other diners), leaving a trail of spilt sugar on the table cloth and hardly any left on the teaspoon.
With this in mind, you can picture the scene in that packed hotel lift in Zhengzhou: people just reaching over and across the others to push the buttons for their own respective floors, instead of asking someone to push their button for them.
As I was wedged into the back of the lift, furthest away, I couldn’t even begin to try to reach the buttons — it’s not my style, anyway, to shove past people. So, I said, “五楼，谢谢 / wǔ lóu, xièxie (5th storey, thank you).“
The change in the atmosphere within that little box of a lift was electrifying. All the Chinese froze, then turned round to look at the face that had issued those four sounds. After staring at me and ascertaining that it was indeed this Oriental-looking person who’d said them, they turned back to face the lift door.
As the lift travelled upwards, one of them broke the silence, saying into the air, “五楼，谢谢,” adding, “哈哈哈哈哈 / ha ha ha ha ha.” All the other Chinese roared with laughter.
Another man picked it up, “五楼，谢谢，哈哈哈哈哈,” which set all the Chinese chortling again.
The film director asked me, “Why are they laughing?” I said, “Don’t know. All I said was, ‘Fifth storey, thank you.’” She said, “What’s so funny about that?” No idea, I said, adding that perhaps it was the “xièxie” that had tickled them, because the Chinese don’t tend to say “please” and “thank you” as much as speakers of English (or other languages).
Later, as I thought further about it, a second theory arose: it might perhaps be because I didn’t use a verb in my request, that I should’ve said, “请你按五楼，谢谢 / qǐng nǐ àn wù lóu / please press Storey 5“, which was the most likely reason I could think of for them thinking the Chinese was so hilarious (because it was ungrammatical).
I’ve since sought a second opinion — from a mainland Chinese friend who, apart from being a native-speaker of Chinese, had also taught Mandarin, and is a freelance exam paper setter for ‘O’ level Mandarin for a well-known university board. She said my sentence was fine without a verb.
She thought my first theory might be the right explanation: that someone saying “thank you” is just so alien to the Chinese in that kind of context/situation. Which would also explain why they all turned round to look — to check my ethnicity.
I will continue to ask my other mainland Chinese contacts. Watch this space.
(China, 2002 / 1988)
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