Ping Ping!

 

Although it seemed to me a very difficult language, Chinese was also rewarding and I made an effort in Tonghua to find a teacher, so I could continue with my studies. However, I learned after our new UK colleague joined us that maybe I needn't have tried so hard.

In a way, I envied the attitude adopted by my new UK colleague who arrived at the end of October .

 

Ed, despite his Italian ancestry, didn’t speak a word of any language other than English, and said  he had no gift for language  learning and no motivation because he could always get  by with gestures. He demonstrated this to hilarious effect one day when he, Katharine and I  went to the 'Bai Huo Da Lou', Hundred Goods Big Shop' , or department store,  to buy rubber  bands.

Whilst I looked  vainly through  my mini-dictionary and Katharine was browsing the shelves, Ed was making stretching motions with his hands at the puzzled salesgirls and repeating ‘Ping! Ping!’ 

Eventually, I found the word for rubber in the dictionary and managed in my halting Chinese to say  ‘used for holding things together’. All at once the assistant  realised what I meant and produced a large bag full of rubber bands. Then she turned round to her friends at the nearby counters, called out something in Chinese and  repeated ‘Ping! Ping!’ They all laughed, and Ed remarked cheerfully that these women at the stationery department were always laughing at him.

 Ed  was obviously a great source of funny stories for them, as he was for us, but,  when it came to important  matters, even Ed made an effort with the language. He  was grateful to me for teaching him ‘mashang ‘, ’immediately’  to add to the one word he already knew - ‘pi-jiu’ or ‘beer’.

Woolshop Mannequins

 

 Quite soon after we arrived in Tonghua Katharine and I met eighteen year old student Helen, who lived in term time in the city of Changchun but was spending the Summer break at the family home. She could hardly believe her luck at meeting two English-speakers in her home town and appointed herself as our guide as well as introducing us to her family.

 

Helen’s mother ran a wool shop in the main street, above a handbag emporium, where she was surrounded by ceiling-high shelves and counters full of knitting wool. It took a while for our eyes to adjust to the gloom, the light filtering through a narrow grimy window at the end facing the street.  

A dozen or so alabaster mannequins were standing in front of the window, ghostly white in the dimness, their faces having distinctly western features. They seemed to date from the nineteen forties, judging by their upswept, victory roll, plaster hair-styles. Those not grouped by the window made up a double row down the centre of the room. They gave the sweaters and cardigans they modelled an air of unintended lewdness, as few of the models had skirts or trousers.
 

The assistants in the downstairs shop had called out ‘Huanying! Huanying!’ in welcome, and congratulated Helen, who insisted we use her ‘English’ name, on having brought in two foreigners.

Helen’s mother, who looked about 30, a vivacious, slender woman in tight-fitting clothes, with red lip-stick and quick movements, looked more like the hostess of a Shanghai night-club than wool –shop proprietor. At first the shelves of  colourful skeins, convinced me that the locals spent all their time knitting, but I found out later that most customers would choose a pattern in one of the catalogues and then order the garment to be knitted by an out-worker with  a machine. In a city with a six month  winter at twenty below, a wool shop did good business.
 

She brought us a couple of stools so we could rest a while and looked on as Helen became quite agitated with the excitement of having us in the shop, waving her arms about and repeating, ‘Oh, I am so sorry, but my English is so poor’ She had already told us they lived on the premises; towards the back of the room there was a small partitioned area with a double bed, a TV and a dressing table. The parents owned the whole building, she said, and let off the ground floor and an upper floor to other businesses. This was the slack summer season for her business, but with the first snows, in October, she would move downstairs.