So all of this reminiscing made me think about how important a role food plays in one’s quest to understand a culture and its language. Indeed, the most common question I would get, after telling someone that I had just gotten back from China, was “How was the food?” I would tell them that 90% of what I had to eat in China was absolutely delicious—Peking Roast Duck (北京烤鸭, Běi jīng kǎo yā), Sweet and Sour Mandarin Fish (松鼠桂鱼sōngshǔ guì yú), any stir-fried vegetable (especially green beans or broccoli), and my favorite of all time, dumplings (饺子，jiăozi). The other 10% of the food I occasionally encountered was a little weird (fried scorpions on a stick, little white sautéed silk worms, a mélange of duck tongues, and a tureen of chicken soup with AN ENTIRE CHICKEN, FEET AND HEAD INCLUDED inside), but I could easily pass up any of those for the majority of really tasty Chinese dishes.

The problem was how to order such wonderful food if I was on my own in China. Left to my own devices and forced to eat out nearly every day (because my hotel room had no cooking facilities), I quickly figured out some useful ways to keep from starving (or avoid eating goose intestines). Here are three of them:

1. Try to find a restaurant that has menus in English. As Beijing, Shanghai, and other large Chinese cities become ever more cosmopolitan and internationally oriented, more and more restaurants provide such menus. (The translations on these menus are often hilarious: One listed a dish that was called “Eggplant and Fried Bees”; another, “Oven Bread and Gruel”; and another, “Rice Glue Balls.”) The word for menu in Chinese is 菜单 (cài dān): 你们有没有英文菜单 (nĭ men yŏu méi yŏu yīng wén cài dān) means, “Do you have an English menu?”
2. If there is no English menu, see if there are at least pictures to help you out; then you can just point to what looks good to you. (You can also say, 这个, zhè ge, meaning “this one” as you point.) Be warned, however. Sometimes food that looks good on the page might turn out to be something you would not normally eat. When a Chinese friend asked me, “Which looks good to you on the menu?” I pointed to one tasty-looking dish and said, “This one. What is it?” “Dog,” she replied.
3. Be adventurous! You are a stranger in a stranger land, so expect that the food will be a little strange, too. Don’t ask what it is; you might just be surprised at how much you like food you have never eaten before. Although I’m not sure I’ll go out of my way again to eat frog dumplings (like I was trying to do in the picture), I do remember one night in Beijing when my colleague Deb Riegel and I went to a highly recommended dumpling restaurant, only to find that the menu had no English and no pictures. Deb is a vegetarian and knew how to say 我不吃肉 (wŏ bù chī ròu, “I don’t eat meat”) and then we left it up to the waitress to pick out dumplings for us. We had no idea what non-meat fillings those dumplings had, but they were delicious and we gobbled them up.

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1. 浴室里的莲蓬头怎么开？ (yù shì lĭ de lián péng tóu zĕn me kāi?) How do I turn on the shower in the bathroom?

On the first morning of my first visit to Beijing in 2006, I was immediately presented with a plumbing problem: What did I need to do to operate the shower? I could see that there was a shower head high up in the wall over the tub, and there did seem to be some sort of handle or something in the tub itself that I tried turning this-a-way and that-a-way, all to no avail. What to do? I had already been told that the desk clerks at what was advertised as an “international” hotel on the PKU campus spoke little to no English, so calling the front desk was not an option. Then I heard the sound of muffled talking outside my hotel room and peeked out to see that one of the hotel maids was making her rounds. “你好!” (Nĭ hăo / Hello!) I waved at her. (Later, I learned that I could have called her 服务员(fúwùyuán)—the same term used for waiters in restaurants.) When she got to my door, I showed her in and then, through what I’m sure appeared to her to be a ridiculous pantomime, I acted out pointing to the handle, pointing to the shower head, using my hands to suggest water flowing down, and then shaking my head “No.” After watching a couple of rounds of this idiotic performance, my 服务员got the point, calmly walked over to the tub, and pulled out the handle (which I had been trying to turn). Water flowed. 谢谢! (Xìe Xie!): “Thank you!” I called after her as she left, no doubt to regale her fellow maids with an hilarious description of the crazy 外国人 (wàiguórén / foreigner) in room 602.

2. 多少钱 (duō shăo qián) How much does it cost?

Some of the other nerve-wracking situations I faced during my early trips to China involved buying things, whether at the mini-mart next to my hotel or at any of the various small outdoor shops on the PKU campus. Since I didn’t know how to ask what something actually cost (多少钱？Duō shăo qián?), I would just give the vendor a ridiculously large bill and get back whatever change they offered. (I frequently bought two bananas with a 100-yuan bill.) In actual retail stores, most often there would be an electronic display on the cash register that would tell me exactly what the total cost of my purchase was, and so I was able to pay with the exact change. But then one day the cash register display was out of order or something, and so once again I had no idea how much money to give the cashier for my diet cokes, Lay’s potato chips (green tea flavor!), bottled water, orange juice, and yogurt. The cashier looked at me and said slowly and carefully . . . something. Then she said . . . something . . . again. I started to panic. Suddenly a voice came from behind me, speaking in English: “She says your purchases come to 57 kuai.” Ah, a lovely young Chinese student had come to my aid. “谢谢!”

And then there was the problem on the bus.

Through a mutual acquaintance I had made a good friend in Beijing whose English name is Elizabeth (her Chinese name is 汪 晓芳, Wāng Xĭaofāng). Elizabeth and I had many wonderful adventures together (we even went to Shanghai and Xi’An!), many of which involved me meeting her someplace as she lived quite far from the university. I would always insist on taking a cab to meet her because 1. Cabs in China are amazingly cheap, compared to those in big cities in the US; and 2. I could just hand the cab driver a note with the directions to the meeting place in Chinese (which Elizabeth would have emailed me earlier). But Elizabeth, a true Beijinger, was horrified that I was spending so much money on cabs when buses were so much cheaper, and one day she convinced me to take a bus from PKU and meet her at an agreed-upon spot for an outing. “OK, I’ll try it,” I told her, “but you must send me the name of the street/bus stop where I’m supposed to get off so I can show it to the bus conductor. And please tell me what is the exact fare for the bus ride?”

She told me which bus to catch (No. 22) and how much to pay (2 yuan). What could go wrong?

So on a bright sunny Sunday, I hopped on the No. 22 bus, which was crowded, but (being Sunday) not as jam-packed as buses usually are during the week. I found the conductor, a very official-looking woman, and showed her my directions from Elizabeth. (I smiled to myself as I imagined that the Chinese writing on my paper might actually say, “Please help this pitiful old foreign woman get off the bus at Mu Xi Di subway station.”) The conductor read my paper and nodded at me. Then she said . . . something. I realized that she was asking for the fare, so I quickly handed her my two yuan. She shook her head “no” and again said  . . .  something. I began to panic.

Suddenly, once again I was saved by a lovely young Chinese woman. “She is telling you that the fare is 1 yuan, not 2.” Must be a Sunday rate, I think.  “谢谢!” I told my young savior as I handed the conductor 1 yuan. Then I felt a tug on my jacket and I turned to see that a lovely elderly Chinese woman was gesturing to me that I should take the seat next to her. I did so gladly, and for the next 30 minutes or so of the bus ride, I looked towards the conductor as we arrived at every stop, and every time she made me understand, nonverbally, “Not this one.” Finally, we came up to a stop at which the conductor nodded her head vigorously, “Yes!” and I looked out the window and there was Elizabeth waiting for me. Kindness had once again saved the day.

So if you are planning to visit China soon and your knowledge of Mandarin is either miniscule or nonexistent, here are two tips from me:

1. If you need help, find a young, nicely dressed Chinese woman. The odds are that she will not only be able to speak English, but she will also be willing to help you out.
2. After 你好 (nĭ hăo, hello), 谢谢 (xìe xie, thank you) will be your most useful phrase, not only because it is good to always be a polite and grateful外国人 (wàiguórén, foreigner), but also because, if you’re like me, you will be using it a lot.

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When my hour-long lesson with my Chinese language teacher is over, I always feel as though my head is about to explode. Ow, ow, ow, learning Chinese is too hard, I complain to myself. I have to memorize all those characters, most of which look completely unmemorable. (And my teacher makes me memorize BOTH the traditional and the simplified characters.) Then I have to memorize the pinyin. And THEN I have to memorize which tone goes with which word. Poor, poor pitiful me: 学中文太难! (Xué zhōngwén tài nán! Learning Chinese is too difficult!)

Good thing I enjoy it so much.

According to an article published on CCTV America in 2015: “There are Chinese programs in more than 550 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, a 100% increase in two years . . . and early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has ‘got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000.’” So I’m definitely not alone, but I’m pretty sure I’m one of the older students (having completed my own higher education nearly four decades ago).

I had never thought about going to China: I had no friends or relatives who had ever been there and all I knew about Chinese culture was what you could order at a Chinese restaurant in the US. (Fortune cookies! So traditionally Chinese!) My own heritage is distinctly European: All four of my grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the early 1900s. I had been to Ireland many times, as well as Germany, Italy, Scotland, and England. France, Spain, and Greece were still on my to-do wish list. China was not on the list.

And then, in 2006, I accepted a 6-week position as a visiting professor of Business Communications at Peking University in Beijing. My students all spoke English more or less fluently, but every day I could hear Chinese being spoken all around me and I began to wish I could understand what I was hearing. “你好” (nǐ hǎo), of course, I learned immediately. Also “谢谢” (xièxie, thank you), which is a nice thing to learn right off in any country. Soon I had learned how to call the waitress (“服务员” fúwùyuán) and how to order my newly discovered favorite Chinese food: “饺子” jiǎozi, delectable dumplings).

Fast forward to 2013, and I have now traveled to China 14 times, teaching in Beijing and visiting Xi’An and Shanghai, and the only Chinese phrase I have added to my repertoire is “不要” (bù yào), Don’t want! (which is a useful phrase if one is bartering at the Silk Market in Beijing or fending off aggressive vendors outside the home of the Terracotta Warriors). This is ridiculous, I conclude. I have too much invested in China now. I must learn more about this country’s unique culture by learning its language. What a surprise—in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I find a Chinese teacher who is originally from Suzhou (I’ve been to Suzhou) and Taiwan. Nearly three years later, I have still not reached my goal of someday being able to speak Chinese at the level of a two-year-old child, but I’m getting close. I recognize many characters right away, and can even construct simple sentences and basic questions. The tones are still a major headache, but I am determined to prevail.

I believe that three key practices have helped me immensely on my journey to learn Chinese and have kept me moving forward, one step at a time, without discouragement:

1. Tutor

I found a great teacher (很好老师), one who is not only interested in teaching me Chinese but is also interested in me. During our twice-monthly hour-long sessions, we not only review and correct my homework—we also chat (in Chinese!) about our daily lives. This interaction allows me to practice what I am learning and so I learn faster.

2. Learning Material

I use a very good Chinese language text book: Practical Audio-Visual Chinese, volumes 1 and 2, 2^nd edition. This text includes dialogues on different topics (that I can both read and listen to with the accompanying CD) and extensive exercises; most importantly, its structure is recursive, which means that the content of the exercises constantly circles back to vocabulary and grammar from earlier chapters, thus ensuring that I don’t forget things I may have learned a while ago.

3. Immersion

I try to immerse myself in Chinese culture as much as possible by watching Chinese movies that I get from Netflix (I will watch any movie directed by 张艺谋, Zhang Yimou) and Chinese TV shows on YouTube. (Children’s programs in Chinese are particularly helpful for a student at my level.)

If you want to follow my practices for learning Chinese, you can start with Dig Mandarin, where you will find many resources for teachers (online and onground), textbooks, informative articles, and videos.

Now I must go. My Chinese lesson is two days away and I have homework to do. 我可以做这个! (Wǒ kěyǐ zuò zhège!) I can do this!

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