A grave admission

My mother was right... I would regret not continuing to learn Chinese. Yeah…I don’t think I’ll ever live this down. I’m damn-well not going to be allowed to forget it. But in the wisdom gained from my increasly rapidly passing years, combined with the grim realisation of what a ungrateful, unappreciative and difficult teenager I was. For some time now, I have been having to come to terms with the idea that my mother hadn’t spend her entire mothering-life trying to spite me by sending me to chinese school every Sunday.

Chinese school was the first educational establishment I was introduced to. At the age of 2, I was driven for an eternity* every Sunday morning to Harrow…the other side of London to go learn how to write pretty stuff and play and read nice picture books. Aside from the issue it created for me at Infants and Junior school, when I finally got there, with the side books opened on. Then, later, at secondary school, where being occupied on a Sunday meant a reduction in available socialising time when people inconveniently organised everything on Sundays…curses…

It’s not that I hated everyone at chinese school…it’s just that they were all rather obsessed with looking cool. Which was something that, despite my valient efforts, was just not going to happen. So, I never hit it off with any of the guys there. Nothing personal. Just the lack of common interest. And personality.

Anyway, what was I going on about? Oh yeah, Chinese. SO. I should have paid more attention at Chinese school, and maybe have been less eager to disassociate myself from it as soon as humanly possible. Why? Because, I’ve actually been using more chinese in Japan than Japanese... people in halls, people at Uni, shop assisstants, waitresses etc…

In fact, one night, Greg and I were having dinner in Shimbashi (I think) at a nice little Japanese isakaiya (equivalent to a pub…you’re mainly there for the Sake and beer but the food is a hell of a lot better and cheaper…only downside is the smoking, and nearly everyone smokes in Japan…particularly anyone I have to sit next to in a restaurant. It’s a conspiracy I swear.). It was typically Japanese…with the little wooden plaques with the food names and prices all in Japanese hung outside the restaurant, on the inside you sit at about floor level on cushions (you have to take off your shoes) with the table not too much higher than where you sit and you put your legs into the void under the table…sometimes they release poisonous scorpions into this ‘pit’…so it’s best not to move, just in case…

Anyway, the restaurant. Yes. Well, as I said, the menu all in Japanese…so, I could work out what meats they had…if things were grilled (yaki), japanesified foods…like ‘sa-la-do’ [which! If you order in Japan, I cannot stress enough how it redefines how you view salad…try ordering a potato salad and you’ll see what I mean…but they are nice. Well, I like them.] and I guessed a lot. The first bit was easy…just order drinks…the food was a little more complex.

First I started off with ‘what do you recommend’…at least this is what I thought I said. I think the waiter heard ‘what monkey like typewriter’. He looked puzzled. The rest of the altercation was a series of pointing, me speaking Japanese using a series of verbs with no joining particles and then every so often saying…ok we’ll have that one (having very little idea what I was actually ordering. It’s like lucky dip everytime!) and the waiter looking hardpressed to find simpler words to describe already very fundemental things…oh yeah, and sashimi (very easy to order…unless they ask you which platter you want…then it’s back to lucky dip again).

After ordering a couple million ducky lip [reference: Mr. Harrington, Technology teacher, Tiffin Girls’ School] items we await our food…mainly because it would be nice to know what we ordered.

The food arrives, adorned with a lady, who, as she puts down the food, asks me in Japanese: ‘are you chinese?’
Me: ‘….errr, yes [Japanese]’ thinking to myself….well yes, I know it looks that way… followed swiftly by ‘Do you speak chinese? [Chinese]’.
[rest of the conversation is in chinese]
Waitress: ‘Yes, I’m Chinese’
Me: ‘Oh! How did you know I was chinese?’
Waitress: ‘The other waiter sent me over, he said that he thought you were chinese and that I might be able to help’
Me: ‘wow, that’s very nice of him’

Anyway, revelling in the joy that for once someone actually thinks I look chinese, and the fact that the whole communication situation is looking up, I’m now grinning my head off as she leaves. Not only does she make a special effort to check that we are alright through our meal in chinese, but we also have a chat just as we leave. It was all very nice. So yeah, chinese is useful. Even in Japan.

*when you’re 2 years old 2 hours of your life is a VERY long time…Probably because it’s a larger proportion of your memorable life than when you are 24, combined with the added hyperactivity and short attention span of a child, you’ve then got a starting point as to what an eternity feels like. In child time when someone says to you ‘we’ll be there soon’, ‘soon’ is expected to occur in the next 10 seconds. For the responosible adult ‘soon’ can mean anything from 10 minutes to a month^ .
^This is linked to relativivity theory…(wayway’s version…not the overly complex…and probably a-hell-of-a-lot-more-useful one by Einstein) where a measure of time is all relative to, well…what you’re referring it to…