Liver n’ Cheese – a joke and beyond (How to talk to a Chinese in English)

[The joke]:
There were these three guys at a cafe, drinking their coffee - an American guy, a black guy, and a Chinese guy.

They see a really attractive waitress and comment on her good looks. Next thing you know they start making bets on who can get her to go out with them first. The waitress overhears them, and she goes up to them and says, "Hey, I heard you talking about me. Well, I like an intelligent guy, so let's see who can make the best sentence using the words 'liver' and 'cheese'."

So the American guy goes, "That's easy. I love liver and I hate cheese." The waitress shakes her heard in disgust.

The black guy goes, "Well, I hate liver and I love cheese." The waitress says, "That is so stupid. That's essentially the same thing!"

Then the Chinese guy steps up and puts his arm around the waitress' waist. "Liver alone, cheese mine!"

[Gooroo's advice]: Didn’t get it? Read aloud the catch line and you’ll know what the Chinese guy was really saying.

Admit it, we all have accent when speaking English. Yet, Chinese have a unique style of accent, largely due to their mother tongue. The numerous dialects in China only make the situation worse: you may have been used to a type of accent, Cantonese for instance, but frustrated by the English spoken by a guy who comes from Beijing or Shanghai. Well, don't feel so bad, because even themselves, the ones from the three cities, can hardly understand each other if they all speak their own dialects.

What makes things really worse is they brought with them the Chinese grammar when speaking English, and that's where the most confusion and frustration comes from. My advice is simple:

1. Attitude is everything. Give up your pride of being a native English speaker (trust me, a lot of people do have such pride) and be humble, be patient. Typically, as an important part of China’s culture, Chinese people are humble enough to dislike any cocky jerks. You would literally shut yourself to further conversation if you somehow show your meaningless pride. After all, you want to understand them and be understood well if you really want to do business or make friends with Chinese.
   
   Still cannot put your pride down? Think about this: they can speak your language, can you speak theirs?
   
   Don’t impress, but bless.
   
2. Slow down. You are used to speak English at a “normal” speed, which could be too fast to the ones who pick up English as their second language. Remember, confused mind always says “No”. When you are fast, they get lost. The more you babble in such a speed, the more anxious and frustrated they become. When you slow down with breaks (minimum 3 seconds when you finish your talk), you are really giving the others more time to organize their wording in a better mood.
   
3. Relax. Keep smile in your face, and never get fidget. By doing that, you show your respect to the people you talk to, and ease their nervousness (yes, they know they are not speaking good English and they are nervous about it). It takes only 13 facial muscles to smile but 30 to frown. Why not smile? Simply say: “Sorry, I didn’t quite understand what you said just now. Would you say it again?” with smile in your face, when you are lost in the conversation. Very likely, they’ll apologize for their crappy English, and they’ll love to say it again, usually in an easier way.
   
4. No slang. Even for those Chinese who have lived in English speaking countries for years, they might not know all the slang you use everyday. I know it’s hard for you to live without it. It’s almost like the air you breathe in and out. Just try your best to speak plain simple English when you find the person you talk to is not at the “native” level. Instead of “bang on the buck”, simply say “return on investment”. Instead of “It drives me nuts” or “I go ape-shit”, try “It drives me crazy” or “I become very angry”. So much so on. Otherwise, you may really drive them nuts.
   
   Believe it or not, many Chinese immigrants to North America, scoring over 700 in GMAT or 2000 in GRE, own more vocabulary than you do. But the problem is they all learned English in a bookish way, knowing the meaning of each word but not knowing how to apply them to everyday life. By talking to them patiently, you actually help them adapt to the local environment while improving your communication skills. Win-win.
   
5. Rephrase. Don’t assume (I don’t have to tell you what ASSUME stands for). A great way to clarify what they are saying is rephrasing in clear and simple English back to them. This technique works extremely well whenever there’s an important point to make. The fact is that many of them, although don’t speak fluent English, can understand you quite well unless some slang or jargons strike them in the middle.
   
6. Use body language. This is almost spontaneous. Typically, westerners are better than easterners at this point. Take advantage of your strengths, and use body language to help express yourself. It’s really fun, and they will appreciate it. To your surprise, westerners and easterners use different body languages, in some cases, to express the same thing. Ask a Chinese how they mimic taking a shower, and show him/her how you do it. I bet you both will laugh.

As a growing number of Chinese study and live in English speaking countries or do international businesses, you’ll find a lot more of them speaking fluent, sometimes close-to-native, English. Be careful though. Sometimes, you feel so relaxed talking to them that you forgot they are not native. You throw lots of jokes or something heavily related to the western culture into the conversation, and then you see some reluctant chuckles or even blank face before you realize you are overdone.

Don’t get me wrong. Chinese do have sense of humor, but in a different way in many aspects. It’s very subtle and it varies region by region (of China). Often they laugh at your catch line not because they appreciate the humor, but they understand why it’s funny to you. In other words, they sometimes laugh to show you some friendliness. Language jokes, many related to slang, are typically difficult for them to "get it". As for the western culture, especially about music and arts and sports, don’t expect them to pick up the knowledge and sense overnight. Ditto to their English.

Stay humble, stay patient.

Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) -- way more than Kung Hei Fat Choi

The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees.

The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people's sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

Strictly speaking, the Spring Festival starts every year in the early days of the 12th lunar month and will last till the mid 1st lunar month of the next year. Of them, the most important days are Spring Festival Eve and the first three days. The Chinese government now stipulates people have seven days off for the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Many customs accompany the Spring Festival. Some are still followed today, but others have weakened.

On the 8th day of the 12th lunar month, many families make laba porridge, a delicious kind of porridge made with glutinous rice, millet, seeds of Job's tears, jujube berries, lotus seeds, beans, longan and gingko.

The 23rd day of the 12th lunar month is called Preliminary Eve. At this time, people offer sacrifice to the kitchen god. Now however, most families make delicious food to enjoy themselves.

After the Preliminary Eve, people begin preparing for the coming New Year. This is called "Seeing the New Year in".

Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What's more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.

Before the New Year comes, the people completely clean the indoors and outdoors of their homes as well as their clothes, bedclothes and all their utensils.

Then people begin decorating their clean rooms featuring an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper. The content varies from house owners' wishes for a bright future to good luck for the New Year. Also, pictures of the god of doors and wealth will be posted on front doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance.

The Chinese character "fu" (meaning blessing or happiness) is a must. The character put on paper can be pasted normally or upside down, for in Chinese the "reversed fu" is homophonic with "fu comes", both being pronounced as "fudaole." What's more, two big red lanterns can be raised on both sides of the front door. Red paper-cuttings can be seen on window glass and brightly colored New Year paintings with auspicious meanings may be put on the wall.

People attach great importance to Spring Festival Eve. At that time, all family members eat dinner together. The meal is more luxurious than usual. Dishes such as chicken, fish and bean curd cannot be excluded, for in Chinese, their pronunciations, respectively "ji", "yu" and "doufu," mean auspiciousness, abundance and richness. After the dinner, the whole family will sit together, chatting and watching TV. In recent years, the Spring Festival party broadcast on China Central Television Station (CCTV) is essential entertainment for the Chinese both at home and abroad. According to custom, each family will stay up to see the New Year in.

Waking up on New Year, everybody dresses up. First they extend greetings to their parents. Then each child will get money as a New Year gift, wrapped up in red paper. People in northern China will eat jiaozi, or dumplings, for breakfast, as they think "jiaozi" in sound means "bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new". Also, the shape of the dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure.

Southern Chinese eat niangao (New Year cake made of glutinous rice flour) on this occasion, because as a homophone, niangao means "higher and higher, one year after another." The first five days after the Spring Festival are a good time for relatives, friends, and classmates as well as colleagues to exchange greetings, gifts and chat leisurely.

Burning fireworks was once the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. People thought the spluttering sound could help drive away evil spirits. However, such an activity was completely or partially forbidden in big cities once the government took security, noise and pollution factors into consideration. As a replacement, some buy tapes with firecracker sounds to listen to, some break little balloons to get the sound too, while others buy firecracker handicrafts to hang in the living room.

The lively atmosphere not only fills every household, but permeates to streets and lanes. A series of activities such as lion dancing, dragon lantern dancing, lantern festivals and temple fairs will be held for days. The Spring Festival then comes to an end when the Lantern Festival is finished.

China has 56 ethnic groups. Minorities celebrate their Spring Festival almost the same day as the Han people, and they have different customs.

Source: China Internet Information Center

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Chinese New Year, a.k.a. Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year (pinyin: Nóng lì xīn nián), is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. The festival proper begins on the first day of the first lunar month (pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival (pinyin: yuánxiāojié).

Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxì (pinyin). Chu literally means "change" and xi means "Eve".

Celebrated internationally in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had a strong influence on the new year celebrations of its neighbours. These include Koreans, Vietnamese, Mongolians, the Nepalese, the Bhutanese but no longer the Japanese since 1873.

In countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand, and other countries with significant Chinese populations, the Lunar New Year is also celebrated, largely by ethnic Chinese, but it is not part of the traditional cultures of these countries. In Thailand, for example, the true New Year celebration of the ethnic Thais is Songkran, which is totally different and is celebrated in April.

The period around Chinese New Year is also the time of the largest human migration, when migrant workers in China, as well as overseas Chinese around the world travel home to have reunion dinners with their families on Chinese New Year's eve. More interurban trips are taken in mainland China in this 40-day period than the total population of China.

Source: Wikipedia. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year