Culture, Language And Context

Yakun and I were walking to the supermarket last night when I told her: "context is something we really need to pay attention to when trying to understand each other, when trying to make a point English speakers like to explain themselves and then say their point, while most Chinese would say their point and then explain."

Earlier on in our relationship I said "I probably wont understand you if your trying to tell me something by "beating around the bush", if you tell me directly it will make life much easier for both of us".

Something Ken Carroll wrote in an article recently put this further into perspective for the both of us. And an article he referred to made me realize, if I'm speaking Mandarin then I need to place more importance on the social situation and implications that it may have contextually.

Whenever we're eating and I'm a little tired from leaning down to the bowl (our table isn't exactly set up according to fēng shuǐ standards) I may set my kuài zi down for a finger fatigue break. Its at this point that she will look over at me and ask "bǎo lē ma?" if its something shes cooked it may have a hidden meaning of "it doesn't taste good?" so when I reply with "no I'm just taking a break" it may sound like "yes, its not very good". Which would result in a disappointing sigh, and my preceding bewilderment.

I give her a lot of credit, shes been very direct when speaking English with me when she wants something and doesn't expect me to just "get it". And even though some may view this as a crutch for me, she is speaking English, and that's the way it should be done (most of the time). When speaking pǔ tōng huà I will keep in mind that I cant and shouldn't be direct as much as I should play with the social context to get my point across.

On an unrelated note, here is a classic Chinese cartoon representing 36 different characters. (thanks to Yakun for finding it)

Lantern in flight

Tonight was a lot of fun, as soon as we arrived at the dock we saw tens of them flying through the sky. At first I even thought "what the heck are those" until I realized what was in my very hand.

We got up to the water front and there were plenty of people selling Kong Ming Deng, when we whipped out our home made lantern heads turned people started talking and we even got a small crowd huddled around us as we lit up the candles, it did fill up with air but it wouldn't take flight, Yakun over heard someone say "I tried to make one so many times but I didn't make it work!" Nevertheless it was fun trying and we got a few good pictures out of it. After that we had even more fun, right when we arrived near someone selling lanterns my eye caught two policeman rounding them up and taking all the Kong Ming Deng!!

I wasn't going to let them ruin the night so with Yakun in hand I dashed to the next salesmen on the dock (it was quite crowded) we looked behind us and there was a policemen right on our heels! Which made it kind of exciting I have to admit... Yakun was screeching "crazy foreigner!" But that was it, I was on a mission to fly!

We reached the next person selling them, as I panicked to get 10 yuan from my pocket Yakun grabbed the first Kong Ming Deng handed to her and before the policeman could stop us we disappeared into the crowd.

It seems they weren't stopping people from lighting them, just the sellers, so we made a circle back to our spot and lit it up, it started to fall at first but the wind picked it up and it flew like an eagle until it was the highest Kong Ming Deng in the sky, our wish is still out there somewhere.