All eaten in the lovely hotel courtyard.
After breakfast we packed up our room and hopped in a taxi for our next hotel - near the drum and bell towers. Thank goodness for Google maps to show the driver our destination. And a text from our friend with the name in Chinese.
I went up to the shopkeeper and said in perfect Mandarin, “I don’t speak Mandarin. Do you speak English?”
At which point he started jabbering away until my words sank in. Then he looked confused. “But you speak Mandarin very well,” he said.
“I am Fujian in origin and I speak Fujian dialect, but we are from Canada. I don’t speak Mandarin.” This was a reassurance I ended up using many times during our trip. It seems that many Chinese people were affronted to find a Chinese person who couldn’t speak Mandarin! But once they understood that I simply spoke a different dialect, that seemed to make them happier. Unfortunately it didn’t make them any easier to understand.
But those were good buns. I don’t understand the obsession with layers in all the food, but it’s a compulsion I mean to learn about and recreate eventually because it’s delicious.
The bed in our hotel was an old fashioned “entire family sleeping together on one mattress” specialty. Fortunately they obligingly gave the kids their own cots. During winter in the old days, a small stove underneath kept the mattress warm all night. I am told you freeze on top, and roast on the bottom. Sounds comfy. Reminds me of trying to sleep in front of a campfire.
- Bess
I went up to the shopkeeper and said in perfect Mandarin, "I don't speak Mandarin. Do you speak English?"
ReplyDeleteAt which point he started jabbering away until my words sank in. Then he looked confused. "But you speak Mandarin very well," he said.
"I am Fujian in origin and I speak Fujian dialect, but we are from Canada. I don't speak Mandarin." This was a reassurance I ended up using many times during our trip. It seems that many Chinese people were affronted to find a Chinese person who couldn't speak Mandarin! But once they understood that I simply spoke a different dialect, that seemed to make them happier. Unfortunately it didn't make them any easier to understand.
But those were good buns. I don't understand the obsession with layers in all the food, but it's a compulsion I mean to learn about and recreate eventually because it's delicious.
The bed in our hotel was an old fashioned "entire family sleeping together on one mattress" specialty. Fortunately they obligingly gave the kids their own cots. During winter in the old days, a small stove underneath kept the mattress warm all night. I am told you freeze on top, and roast on the bottom. Sounds comfy. Reminds me of trying to sleep in front of a campfire.