As a gwailo (Cantonese for Foreign Monster) living in China one of the most common questions I get asked by locals and foreigners alike is “What’s it like to be so damn perfect?”

What? It’s true. Okay, so that is the most common question I get asked in my dreams. In reality the most common question is “Do you speak Chinese?”

That seems like a simple question but when you realize that China has 2 main languages (Mandarin and Cantonese) and hundreds of other dialects you soon realize that there is no such language as “Chinese”. However, luckily in my case, I can respond with a very simple “No” since I don’t speak any of the languages that make up “Chinese”.

I have studied Mandarin off and on for about 3 years now.  Way more “Off” than “On” and I have managed to pick up about 100 words so far that I can actually say with some degree of accuracy.

Over the course of my life I have lived in many different countries and I have learned little bits of the local languages where ever I was.  In all cases the first two things that I learn is always the same.  I learn how to count to 10 and I learn how to order a beer.  So far it has been a very useful duo to learn.

Before I moved to China I started learning Mandarin, which is the “official” language of China.  I figured I couldn’t go wrong learning Mandarin if I wanted to live and work in China.  Of course, as luck would have it I ended up moving to the part of China where everyone speaks in Cantonese.  Nice.

Mandarin is tough enough with its 5 different tones (more if you talk with linguistic Nazi’s) for every word but at least you have lots of cool tools out there to help you learn Mandarin.  And there is even an official western way of writing the words.

However, Cantonese is a different animal all together.  For each word there is 9, count them, 9 tones for each word.  There is no westernized way of spelling them and for most of the words I don’t think there is a western way of even saying them.

None the less, some people have humorous ways of trying to teach people how to speak Cantonese.
While not speaking the language here in China is a bit of a handicap it really hasn’t slowed me down at all.  As a matter of fact, I am now a better pantomime artist than Marcel Marceau.

Learning the language in any country that you live in is not really necessary to do.  However, it does make life much simpler and it shows that you respect the locals enough to want to learn how to communicate with them.

What it all boils down to is that I need to stop being such a lazy bastard and start learning the language.  If my baby boys can do it, so can I.  I hope.