bu4 dong3

After some eighteen months in China my Chinese is not what it might be. In fact, it is probably around about "nada de nada" to very basic. This I think is due to a number of factors. For instance, my exposure to the language is very limited; I watch satellite television or dvds, three Irish lads and a couple of Canadians provide the banter at and after work and I have this weird habit of learning what is basically, low frequency vocabulary. For instance, I was struggling today trying to find the word for "city centre" but I can tell you the words for "mentally ill", "unidentified flying object" and I can even say, "I have been bitten by a tiger." China has not and will not become a point of reference and if it were to, I would probably end up in a place where they keep the "jin1 shen2 bing4" (mentally ill). Moreover, there has never been an intention to study seriously and learn the script although I might at least have learned "pinyin" rather than write the words down as I think they sound. That would have better facilitated my remembering how to hit the tones better when using the vocabulary at a later date. It is there, however, that my responsibility for not learning Chinese might end and the problem of "bu4 dong3" begins.
One thing I actually like about the English is that they invariably don't make allowances for non-native speakers when speaking English. They speak to them as they would to someone who has English as their mother tongue. In Bavaria among a certain class of people there is a tendency to use the infinitive all the time when talking to foreigners; "Du wissen wie viel(e) Auslaender in Deutschland?" Whether they do this because they are as thick as two short planks or just pig ignorant, I still don't know. In China, there is the "bu4 dong3" phenomena and here too I am not sure; are they stupid or are they just ignorant or is it even me? My exposure to this phenomena is normally in the taxi, the one place where you can revel in the opportunity to use your little Chinese. This evening I took a taxi to "The Bookworm" in Suzhou's "Sichuan Jie". On getting into the taxi, I said, "Sichuan Jie" and off we went towards the said street. Now wanting to strike up a conversation I thought I would attempt to talk about the earthquake in Sichuan and, not knowing the word for "earthquake", said simply, "Si4 chaun1 you3 da4 wen4 ti2" (Sichuan has big problems), his reply was simply to ask for confirmation that I wanted the said address and I spent the next ten minutes explaining in, what I thought to be, a quite logical manner that I was talking about the disaster in Sichuan. With no joy and when I got off the taxi in "Sichuan Jie" the driver's final response to my last effort was a final "bu4 dong3". This phenomena occurs all the time and I am still not sure, do they really not know or are they just being ignorant or is it me? If I say to my students tomorrow, "Si4 chaun1 you3 da4 wen4 ti2" I am quite sure they will know exactly what I am saying. ...... or am I?
The post was saved and I returned home in a taxi. The same conversation was pursued with the second taxi driver and although he did eventually grasp what I was talking about, it was only after a massive effort. The Chinese use our word for logic and maybe they do have difficulty in establishing some sort of connection between the street name and the province. However, I do have to confess that, after the journey home, maybe they just don't understand me and that after 18 months in the PRC.
The picture above is of 'The Bookworm' at the bottom of Sichuan Jie.