China Talk Tuesday - A Simple Yes?

(Me, Lo Gung and BBJ, November 2006)

If any of you have ever immersed yourself in a foreign language environment, you might know what I'm talking about when I say that it's pretty easy to forget where your native tongue ends and your foreign tongue begins. Like, really easy. I remember one sister I lived with, towards the end of her mission, wandering around the apartment asking each of her 5 roommates in turn, "This word is English...right?" (It wasn't. I think the word she was thinking of was 送 (sung), pronounced with a long "o". It means to gift something to someone. She was probably confused because our phonetic spelling of the word was identical to the English "sung", as in past tense of "sing.")

(Big hat tip to Tonggu Momma for showing me a good Cantonese dictionary online where I can copy characters, BTW. Thanks!!!!)

I came home with most of my English intact, thank goodness. I had trouble pulling up English words for a few things (like Chinese concepts and customs) but, on the whole, my native tongue was fairly scar-free.

Except for one thing. Yes.

Now, if I were to call you up right now (which I wouldn't, because it's 8 in the morning here...which means it's much earlier in the morning for most of you!) and ask you a simple question, you would give me a fairly simple response. Let me illustrate.

Have you had breakfast yet?

To which you might respond:
Yeah.
Yes.
Mhmm.

Take a look at that last one. It's not really a word, but we all understand it, right? (Let me explain that, growing up, that second choice was the preferred choice in our house. My father's grandmother was an English professor, and proper English and Grammar are as ingrained in him as scratching an itch....but that's another story for another day!)

Imagine his surprise when I came home from living in Hong Kong for 18 months, and our exchanges went something like this:

Did you hear that Mrs. Jones invited us for dinner?

Mh.

What, you don't get it either? Try this - the "Mh" is more of a grunt...like if you were shoving a piano over with your right hip. Try it again.

Mh.

At first he thought I was cranky, then he thought I was rude, then he heard me talking on the phone to a friend in Chinese...and realized I'd lost my mind. My conversation was one long series of Mh and 係 (haih) and (my personal favorite) haih la!!

That was when he finally came to me to ask why his perfectly articulate (Speech Communications Major) daughter had come back from China...grunting.

I explained, and apologized for not remembering that mh isn't English. He was understanding...in more ways than one. (I think he was realizing that half of my brain must still be on the streets of Hong Kong somewhere! When I found, and married, Lo Gung...I felt so relieved - I could bring all of me back to the States! I had someone else who could remind me how Hong Kong was.)

Has this ever happened to you? You go from one place to another, and use a word that just doesn't mean the same thing?? Share!