Stuck.. dammit,
Another mei guo ren (foreigner) stuck in the small town of Jiantuan, south china after missing a connecting bus. The advise from lonely planet is so true, "When in Yunnan, multiply durations of your plans by two... everything is slower in Yunnan". Well well... things can't be so bad, theres a market and I spotted a muslim restaurant somewhere. It's kind of nice being a foreigner in China sometimes, people leave you to yourself and you are allowed to do stupid things and ask silly questions about the weather, directions, food, internet, etc. Speaking a bit of mandarin is a huge boon, people totally love you if you can speak some. 50 working phrases and you are on your way.
It turns out that the town is pretty nice, reasonable hotel, the prices in markets are reasonable and the shopkeepers don't treat you like a business opportunity. By 11 pm, the roads are deserted and shops closed, bad timing ... no food. Being used to eating a late night snack, I head to the single food joint that seems open. A one-shack affair run by a husband and wife duo, mostly selling boxes of instant ramen.. or "la mian" as chinese would call it. You pick a box, and the lady would pour in boiling water and hand it over in a couple of minutes once it's done. Pretty neat. Then came the intersting observation that they were otherwise totally engrossed in an Indian soap... on CCTV8 the national channel. Atleast it didn't look like the stuff churned out by Ekta kapoor as the characters seemed to be reasonably sane, and didn't turn their heads 3 times accompanied by sound effects whenever they wanted to make a point. Women are quite forthcoming in China, she quickly figured that I was Indian and resembled the characters in the soap. Good for her...
I tried to tell her the particular flavour I wanted by pointing towards the box, but ended up confusing her, attempts to tell her made the situation worse. People in Yunnan have their own distinct "Yunnanese" accent to mandarin, which made my broken mandarin sound like white noise to her. This continued for a short while when she paused, put her hands on her waist and turned around to me. This is what she had to say... (in translation)
woman: You are indian ?
me: Yes.
woman: I understand everything people say in this soap, no problems.
me: (Ahh woman... but that's a dubbed soap).. Yes
woman: But I don't understand what you are telling.
me: Hmm...true, but...
woman: I don't even have to read the sub-titles !
me: (Ahh... woman, a chinese doesn't need to read mandarin subtitles when the dialogues are in mandarin) .. due due. (yes yes, i can see that)
At this point I don't see where she's taking this converstaion to, what's the point in comparing my hard earned.. quite broken.. but still hard earned mandarin. Against, a dubbed dialogue on TV ? Then she comes up with the stunner.
woman: I understand everything they say, but you don't make any sense to me ! Why don't you speak normal mandarin like rest of your countrymen ?
me: (Whattt ! woman... come'on) In a second or two it sinks in that the couple don't realise that the serial is dubbed into mandarin.
As I realise the hilarious situation, and consider making them understand about dubbing, etc. Then a second thought if they are being sarcastic, but a look on their faces tells that they are totally genuine. Wow ! I just feel that I've no business changing their happy notion that Indians speak excellent chinese and that i'm just a stray "Yindu ren" who ended up with mediocre language skills. Also noting her rather compassionate expression...
me: due due.. wo de zhongwen bu hao
The woman turns around to her husband and together they get engrossed into the soap again where the army officer Vivek is speaking eloquent about nature to Sulekha and trying to hold a normal conversation, while being love-sick to the core inside. By now one or two customers who had been there all the while, also lose interest in me and get engrossed in the soap and their noodles. I finish mine and move on too wondering if what the lady said is a sign of things to come, Indians speaking mandarin...Chinese speaking hindi.. well, why not.
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