Language Barriers

Language barriers: They're challenging. They're frustrating.  They're a part of daily life.  They're incredibly hilarious.

The other day I walked into dining hall 2 hoping and praying I would find one or two of my students to sit with.  This did not happen.  Feeling dejected, I decided to go order food and hopefully find someone to eat with after.  On my way to order 羊肉菠菜粉丝 (yang rou bo cai fen si, or Lamb, Spinach, and noodle soup, my new favorite food.) some students saw me and yelled "hello!!"  I excitedly turned to look at them, realized I didn't know them, made an awkward attempt to say something, and was waved on to order food.  While I was waiting for my delicious meal, one of the girls came up to me, said something in Chinese, and motioned to their table.  I figured that they were saving the table for me to sit at, and would leave once I came with my food.

Boy, was I wrong.

The next hour was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.  I had a Chinese, English, Chinese, English, Chinglish conversation with these students as I ate.  One of the girls, Yang Le, speaks virtually zero English.  She is a short, energetic, tomboyish girl who loves to play basketball.  She frequently shouted to several passing friends (in Chinese) "Hey, do you speak English, come translate."  Her friend, Pang Zi Jiao, finally worked up the courage to speak in English and served as a kind of translator for everything.  We established that I speak and understand yi dian dian (a little) Chinese.  We talked about their major, their hometowns, and what they do for fun.  They taught me the Chinese names for things, their own Chinese names, and I helped with their English.  They all told me "we will be best friends", "we should play basketball together, or go shopping", and "call us".  We parted with the promise to get together sometime soon.

Today I sent a message to Pang Zi Jiao asking if we could all have dinner together.  She replied "ok, we class over about 4:40, we can have dinner together at 5:00, see you at that time..at er shitang [dining hall 2]".  I showed up at the dining hall and saw Yang Le and someone I had never met before.  I soon realized that it would just be the two of us.  Her friend, Star, was given the role of translator.  I asked where Pang Zi Jiao was.  Apparently she had an interview. Okay. Round 2 of Yang Le yelling to random passersby to speak English with me.  As I ate another bowl of 羊肉菠菜粉丝 I was quizzed on my new Chinese vocab, and we had a strange, disjointed, conversation.  For about 10 minutes they tried to tell me about some "activity" that was happening tomorrow.  Finally, I figured out that at noon tomorrow we will get together and write things we want to say down, whatever that means.  I'll hopefully let you know.

In spite of, or because of, the huge language barrier between all of us, I'm so excited to see how this friendship develops.  It will certainly be filled with extreme confusion and a lot of hilarity.