It's been a while since I last blogged due to being ridiculously busy the past few months on a host of projects… However I found time to squeeze in the odd date here and there. Not ideal, but it’ll have to do for now!
Anyhow, remember how I said that in an ideal world, I’d date a BBC? Well that’s because she’ll speak English and (hopefully) Chinese, which means that I have a much easier time not trying to bridge cultural gaps and all that jazz. And barring the odd encounter here and there, I am mainly meeting girls via internet dating. I know… “fun”, right?
On the internet however, is mainly girls from Mainland China… Whilst I mentioned my distaste for the strong Chinese accent in an earlier post, I’ve been on a few dates with some and now realise that there can be massive disparity in the quality of their English:
- There are those who do high-quality, good pronunciation etc, and written English that isn’t noticeably different to native English writer. It seems that this usually comes about as having made the effort to integrate and make some English/Western friends. Also they understand the slang and colloquialisms I use. These girls are alright.
- And then there’s those whose English is still as if they’re fresh off the boat, despite having been here for 14 years in one case; absolutely shocking. Often these girls came here to study, and honestly, it’s an absolute miracle that any of them managed to get a degree. Or a job for that matter!… How can their English be this bad?
So… A very strong Chinese accent is a virtual dealbreaker (sorry girls, you know Scouse accents rule in this Banana’s opinion), and just as bad, is sh*t English… I know I still go to Chinese school and am a massive hypocrite, but at least make some bloody effort!
And this appallingly bad English has led to the occasional misunderstanding i.e. they think I’m a bit of an idiot. These misunderstandings have happened a few times to varying degrees, from girls telling me I spoke too fast (fair comment, I do talk quickly), to those telling me I had a strange accent (yeah, that’s a good one coming from you, love), to something else completely. And whilst me being a bit of an idiot is pretty close to the truth, at least think I’m an idiot for the right reasons!
I’m pretty sure I don’t mean what you think I mean…
There was Dorothy from Oxford who I had been WhatsApping, and happened to mention that I thought that I’d heard eHarmony was more “girl-friendly” than some of the other dating sites out there. Despite perfectly fine eConversation for a while, she suddenly went quiet.
A week or so later, I sent a “Hey, how’s it going?” message, only to get a reply in the form of both barrels. I was told that I was extremely disrespectful and some other stuff indicating I was on a par with Hitler for sheer douchebaggery and evilness; I even got “you are a nasty show-off man” thrown at me! (I’ll remember that one for the next time I really really wanna tell somebody off). My crime? I had "many girlfriends on so many other websites”… This girl was an interpreter FFS, but she’d interpreted my “girl-friendly” comments as me boasting to her about having many other girlfriends on other websites. Not entirely sure how she came to that conclusion, given the conversational context … Or why she didn’t ask me to clarify my comments at the time.
I didn’t bother dignifying her message with a response.
I didn’t bother dignifying her message with a response.
They’re All Quackers
The other one I’ll mention was a date about 7-8 weeks ago in which we were talking about favourite foods. Nice girl, played piano really well, PhD candidate in something clever. Now, I bloody love roast duck, and I can talk for England (China?), so I spent a good period of time waxing lyrical about how I loved duck. Literally 15 minutes of her looking at me as if I was some sort of philistine and asking me repeatedly why I liked it so much (Mmm… flavour, texture, aroma, all that delicious fat…) before I finally cottoned on… In the end I resorted to childlike simplification:
“Ooooooh, no! Haha, I think we’ve got our wires totally crossed [Not sure she understood this phrase either]. Oh man, this is embarrassing… right, just to be clear I really like DUCK; Quack Quack? But whilst I’d be willing to try, I’ve never had DOG; Woof Woof… and I think it’s illegal in this country!”
I didn’t see her again.
“Ooooooh, no! Haha, I think we’ve got our wires totally crossed [Not sure she understood this phrase either]. Oh man, this is embarrassing… right, just to be clear I really like DUCK; Quack Quack? But whilst I’d be willing to try, I’ve never had DOG; Woof Woof… and I think it’s illegal in this country!”
I didn’t see her again.
The Test
So… you’re going to go on a date with a lovely girl from China… How will you avoid the perils that have befallen me? How will you establish if you can communicate with her? How will you know if you will be able to bridge the cultural gaps?
Aha! Well, let me introduce you to the test…
It’s something that I used to jokingly take the piss out of my parents for, but I have devised a test as a rough ‘n ready way of establishing whether a Chinese girl’s English is good enough, and therefore make (quite a big) assumption of whether to date her. It’s not particularly accurate, but if nothing else it’ll give you a laugh.
Ok, so... Can your date pronounce these words properly?
- Woolworths: Woorwoo, Woorowoof, Woowoofu, Woorwoofs…
- Famous: Fimuss, Femuss, fermurs, fermuss…
- Parallelogram: No, I’m joking. Don’t really do this one.
Go on. Ask your parents/China friends/China dates to give it a go…
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On A Related Note… Nǐ huì shuō pǔtōnghuà ma?
There are of course some very specific benefits to dating girls from China. Mainly, that they speak Mandarin perfectly well!
A few months back, an old friend from university who went back to China, got in touch to say that he was getting married. And because I couldn’t make it all the way to Beijing for his wedding, he asked me to provide a short video message to be shown at the wedding. “I know you don’t speak Mandarin” he said, “but don’t worry, English is fine...”
… Challenge accepted, my friend. Challenge accepted.
I wrote a short wedding toast in English and then asked a friend’s Mandarin-speaking wife to assist in a decent translation. I couldn’t get much more help than that though, as they had a baby and it would be cheeky to take further advantage.
What I did have though, was access to Mainland Chinese dates. And I am ashamed to say that I have taken full advantage over the last few weeks. One particular girl, Rachel, who I’ve had some great dates with the last 6 weeks, has been beyond helpful; we’ve spent the best part of 2 dates and more WhatsApp VMs getting my Mandarin pronunciation nailed, over and over and over again. Forgetting all I’ve said so far about dating Mainland Chinese girls, she has been a super patient Chinese teacher and great fun to boot. Whilst I could read the wedding toast to perfection when I concentrated hard enough, I must say, learning the damn thing by heart and remembering the pinyin to be repeated into a camera was an entirely different affair! The day of me recording my wedding toast, I clambered into a suit (top half only!) and started filming... Over 120 takes later and I only had two satisfactory attempts… The only reason I stopped was because my bloody camera ran out of battery!
I now know, that I may never be able to pronounce these two phrases without losing my rag or having nightmare flashbacks:
… Challenge accepted, my friend. Challenge accepted.
I wrote a short wedding toast in English and then asked a friend’s Mandarin-speaking wife to assist in a decent translation. I couldn’t get much more help than that though, as they had a baby and it would be cheeky to take further advantage.
What I did have though, was access to Mainland Chinese dates. And I am ashamed to say that I have taken full advantage over the last few weeks. One particular girl, Rachel, who I’ve had some great dates with the last 6 weeks, has been beyond helpful; we’ve spent the best part of 2 dates and more WhatsApp VMs getting my Mandarin pronunciation nailed, over and over and over again. Forgetting all I’ve said so far about dating Mainland Chinese girls, she has been a super patient Chinese teacher and great fun to boot. Whilst I could read the wedding toast to perfection when I concentrated hard enough, I must say, learning the damn thing by heart and remembering the pinyin to be repeated into a camera was an entirely different affair! The day of me recording my wedding toast, I clambered into a suit (top half only!) and started filming... Over 120 takes later and I only had two satisfactory attempts… The only reason I stopped was because my bloody camera ran out of battery!
I now know, that I may never be able to pronounce these two phrases without losing my rag or having nightmare flashbacks:
- 錄像 lùxiàng
- 支持 zhīchí
I can only imagine how much more ridiculous I look and sound attempting Mandarin, as these girls do speaking English...
Next!
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