Lost in Translation

I am the Baddest MoFo to walk the streets of Taiyuan. How did I figure this out? Good question. I present a 3 part answer:
A) Have you seen me?
B) Have you seen your average unassuming Chinese person?
C) Read the following story:

I had my first class today at the TiYu Guar (體育館兒) campus. 張先生 in his thorough yet all together to fast tour of the 5 campuses told me that I could take the 610 bus to get there from my house. It’s a public bus, how difficult could it be really? So I set out an hour early to get there with time to explore and re-read the lesson plan for the class. I knew the bus stop wasn’t too far from my house, only, I couldn’t remember which direction to turn. (as it turns out it’s two turns. Hindsight…) I asked a man on the corner in which direction the athletic district in town was (體育館兒 = athletics area) and he pointed me in a direction and off I went, rather happily. I got to the corner I should have turned at to catch the bus and continued to walk straight. Slowly but surely, my surroundings became less and less familiar. I looked at my phone to check the time and I had 30 minutes to class. At this point, I had a few options. I could wander around more, I could call 張先生 or another person from the school, or I could ask someone on the street to direct me. Option 2 I quickly realized wasn’t much of an option. I’d look like an idiot AND I’d have NO CLUE how to explain exactly where I was. Street signs aren’t very prevalent and describing my environment really wouldn’t help. I quickly opted for decision 3. I asked a man 請問，你知道那個體育舘兒是在那裏啊？ (Excuse me, do you know where the athletic area is, man?)

He replied, “HELLOOOO”. Boy was I relieved. ENGLISH. So I asked him 哦，你會講英語嗎？ (Oh, Can you speak English?). To which he replied, IN CHINESE “No, I don’t speak English, I speak Chinese” Now if you know me you can probably picture my face when I heard that (If you can't see it, think VAST disappointment mixed with Michelle form Full House's "How Rude" face).

He was impressed that I could speak Chinese though (this is going to happen A LOT) So impressed that he wanted to talk to me about EVERYTHING he could besides what I needed to know. At one point he asked me my opinions on Obama (Obama count: 1) Although, having not heard an Asian yet say the name OBAMA, I thought he was trying to pronounce, Alabama. At which point I was a tad offended b/c I'd thought he assumed I was from ABALAMA (yes spelled that way for Doug) because I was Black. But once I explained that I was from upstate NY and he confused as to why I told him that info once again spoke of PRESIDENT Obama, I replied, "better than Bush I think".

He asked where I was from, about my family, how I'd studied Chinese, why I was here by myself, How I was adjusting, My thoughts on the food, he just wouldn’t shutup. And the more he talked the larger the crowd around us became. Eventually, I had to reissue my primary question a bit more assertively this time. He looked a bit taken aback for an instant, and recovered. He gave me some surprisingly simple instructions. I followed them to a tee and it brought me to a main road (解放北路) (North Beifang road). It was then that I saw the double decker bus I should have been on. I almost hopped on the bus before I realized that I was about a block and a half away from the campus, so I walked for the cultural experience and to say that I'd walked to school at least once. I got to class with a whopping 2 minutes to spare and all my face saved. Did I review the class lesson? No, but it was fine, the lesson was on colors and question words or something. The kids were so excited I was there, black, their teacher, and funny, they ate it all up.

MORAL: Have a bit of confidence in your voice in China or you’ll never get what you want.

OBAMA Count: 1

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