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Published: March 19th 2006
WangFuJing is this massive street maybe 100 feet across and a kilometer long. It is closed off to cars, and for pedestrians only. Along the side of the street there are all sorts of stores selling anything from cheap paraphernalia to Rolex Watches (yes, actually real Rolex. Not the ones in briefcases handled by people on the street). And, best of all, the street is really close to school.
I talked Maggie into going to the WangFuJing book store with me. We turned the corner onto WangFuJing and we didn’t get far before we hear behind us: “Hello, Excuse me. Do you speak English?” There was a small Asian woman maybe 40 years old speaking to us. We said something in English, and she had us. She got right to the point: “I am an English teacher at this school (she points to a building). We have an art exhibit, do you want to see it?” We don’t say "no" too bluntly. Instead, we don’t directly answer her question. Then she tried flattery. She asked us our names and we gave her our Chinese names. She said our names were very pretty. Then she called Maggie pretty and me handsome (except for the “Growth Dots” on my face). Every time we tried to get her off topic, she would always bring us back: “please come in and just sign your names and have a look around, it won’t take long.” After maybe 15 minutes of frustration she learned that this wasn’t working. She finally gave up. She just turned around and batted her hand behind her head, not saying a word. We left.
Mag and I walked on and discussed what just happened. We decided that next time we won’t speak English and pretend to speak something else. So I asked Maggie if she knew a couple phrases (that is all we need) in another language. She said she studied Spanish and could count in Norwegian. I didn’t think we could pass for Spaniards and counting isn’t enough. So, I offered the Russian. We now had a plan for next time someone came up to us. However, we didn’t expect to put the plan into action so quickly.
We don’t get half way down WangFuJing before another woman approached us. “Excuse me, do you speak English?” I looked at her for a second formulating the Russian sentence so I could make it sound somewhat fluent. “Do you speak Russian?” I asked in Russian. She recognized the language and started to mumble what sounded like “hello” in Russian. I corrected her by giving a nice big zdrasvuitie! Ok, so, we established that we are speakers of Russian. Maggie then explained in Chinese that her English is really bad and her Chinese isn’t much better. The woman didn’t give up. But instead of speaking to us in Chinese, she spoke in part English, part Chinese. The English helped us, and we had the same conversation we had earlier with the other woman, but communicating in Chinese, gestures and her English.
This didn’t go on for 6 minutes before a Chinese-looking man with his wife (I think) in hand approaches me and asks in a small Chinese accent if I can speak English. I was then faced with a dilemma: should I cut the act and try to help this poor man, or continue with the Russian facade. I open my mouth to say something (not sure what, not even sure what language), before the woman we have been talking to saves us. She says, “Oh yes, I can speak English.” The man asks her where the Hard Rock Café is (I feel a certain relief because I couldn’t help this man even if I did answer him in English for I had no idea where the Hard Rock Café was). So now these two are having a conversation in pretty good English, while Maggie and I are standing across from each other trying to look dumbfounded, when in fact we understand everything. The man eventually asked the woman: “Can you speak Mandarin?” The woman must not have known the word Mandarin because she gives a confused look. The man points to his wife and says she can speak some mandarin. The wife starts speaking Mandarin. So now the conversation is in English, Mandarin and something else we didn’t understand. The scene was like out of a movie. After the man and wife leave, we leave.
We got to the book store laughing the whole way, trying to figure out what just happened. We asked each other a bunch of questions: why would the woman keep speaking in English when she thought we couldn’t speak it? How come she didn’t recognize that we had an English accent when we spoke Chinese? Why did the wife start speaking mandarin to this one woman, when there were plenty of other Mandarin speakers? We get to the book store and buy a few book.We leave the book store, and are back on the street. She was going to go north, back to school, and was going to head south to the gym. We parted ways and I’m not at the end of the bookstore before another woman approaches me.
She starts with the same beginning: “Excuse me sir, do you speak English?” I look at her for a long time because I can’t believe this is happening again. I respond in Russian, but she doesn’t understand. I ask in Chinese (from here on the rest of the conversation was in Chinese) “do you speak Russian?” She responds with “Oh, you can speak Chinese!!”
“No, no, no! My Chinese is really bad, and I can't speak English.” I state,
“No, your Chinese is very good. We are art students. Please come and look at our art” she says. The only reason I understood what she was saying was because I knew what she was going to say before she said it. I was waiting for words.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m going exercise . Closes at 7 o’clock. 5 o’clock now. Got to go” I utter in horrible Chinese.
“You have 2 hours, this will take 2 minutes”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
I turn to leave. I take 2 steps, look over my left shoulder and pronounce loudly in English: “Thanks again, but I’m not interested.” I continue looking at her long enough to catch a wait-what-did-he-just-say expression of confusion on her face. I skip with delight all the way to the gym.
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Eric Messinger
non-member comment
Hahah
Your story made me laugh at least a dozen times dude, very amusing. I'm impressed you actually went for the Russian. Those art students seem very enthusiastic. Maybe try communicating only in "ai ya"s if this situation pops up again.