My Mandarin Minivan Man

Go ahead and say out loud all the Mandarin words that you know.

Go ahead.

No judgement. I started practicing 3 months ago and can say only 30 or so words. And of those, I would only understand 20 of them if you were pointing or using sign language to confirm my guess of what you were saying.

How many words did you say? One? Two? Three? Yeah, that is about as much English as everyone I have met so far knows. Aside from the young girl who scans our IDs at breakfast, everyone is just as clueless as to how to talk to me as I am on how to talk to them. (The girl at breakfast is smitten kitten with little Tucker. She cuddles him up every time we see her whether we are in the lobby or eating.)

This language barrier is so overwhelming that every little minute that I spend outside our apartment finds itself with compounded exhaustion.

So with all this going on, you become crazy gracious when people who know the language offer to take you off the ranch to eat. Up to this point, we have survived on "pizza" from downstairs, peanut butter and jelly, popcorn galore, random fruits, that amazing meal (but very American) we had after foreign fellowship on Sunday, and the various easy snack foods I picked up at the supermarket (chaoshi). Last night we went out to eat with Josh's boss, Jeff, and a friend who we had met previously in Indiana, Cristos.

Wowza. It was so interesting! Let us start with the chef's specials.

Mommy...intestine again?

Jeff was happy to order our entire meal. In China, everything is served family style, so we had seven main course dishes on our table. And you just go for it. Eating a little of this, a lot of that. Everything has spicy heat to it and it is fantastic.

We did get the pan fried dumplings (pictured at very top) and a beef and broccoli dish which were made not spicy (bu xinla) for the kids. Tucker actually ate!!! Hudson was game to try several dishes, but he really went crazy on those dumplings. They were fantastic.

My favorite dish was this cabbage thing. It had red chills in it and was just so tasty.

Today I used our driver (Mr. Song) for the first time. He took us to Cummins so we could attempt, with  the help of those who speak English at the company, to talk to him about logistics of how this driver thing works. Mr. Song speaks no English as far as I can tell. This is a pretty freaky thing if you think about it. We have this guy driving us around and I just have to hope that he understands where to take me. And if he starts to go someplace wrong I have no ability to tell him that, but how would I know because I have no idea where I am.

For example, we are getting low on diapers so I thought I would have him take me back to WanDa shopping area so I could buy some at the WalMart, which is in the huge three level mall about a mile and a half from our apartment. The taxi driver had just dropped Rebecca and I off on Sunday on the road right outside the door. Granted we kind of had to jump out and dodge all the cars but it was at least at the front door. Well, Mr. Snow goes into the parking garage under the mammoth mall and I immediately had no clue where anything was. I did not have even a clue where the elevator was. Every sign is in Chinese. I do see the word English word EXIT which is no help because that is for leaving the whole compound and the word EMERGENCY and that is some type of safehouse shelter room. He parks the van and just sits and waits for me to get out.

Um, okay. So I look at him and point up (thinking where is the elevator) and he points towards one direction and I, with my two blond babes in tow, go for it. 

Turns out the elevator he pointed to was for a particular store, but whatever I can figure this out, right? I pick a button and walk out into a very nice Macy's type place. But you know how crazy lost they can make those department stores? I bet it took me another 10 minutes to figure out how to get out of the very nice Macy's type place and get into the actual mall. Immediately we see a playplace. It  is awesome and there are kids everywhere! I let the kids play for a minute but feel the pressure to get back to the van. So we start to wander through this mall with no clue which direction we are to be going. And, of course, (you know where this is going) people are STOPPING and TAKING PICTURES of the kids. Good gracious.

Finally I see a sign that says IMAX which I knew was right by WalMart so we go that way. I bought the diapers and let the kids each pick out one thing (Tucker got a tub of plastic dinosaurs 19 RMB ($3) and Hudson got an Angry Birds mug 21 RMB ($3.50)) We did a slow detour around the huge display of fish scales, skins, eyes, and other assorted dried fish parts. (I have a picture of that on my phone. I will try and share it later.)

Walmart is multiple stories tall (just like the mall) so I am slowly but surely getting myself towards the checkout. Thank goodness I have a really great sense of direction because if you were one of those people who could not retrace your steps, you would be there for days. Somewhere near frozen foods I feel myself being followed. I look directly at the man and it is Mr. Song. It took me a minute to figure that out since I just met the man and frankly I am still the stupid American who thinks most Chinese men look extremely similar. About the time I started to wonder how the heck he found us, someone else stops mid-aisle to take a picture of Tucker. Oh yeah...we are the aliens here. I am sure we are emitting some type of yellow glow and are easy to locate.

Thank goodness we do stand out because Mr. Song had taken the liberty of moving our van to right outside the WalMart doors on the parking garage level. What if he had been moving it when we retraced our steps and went back through the department store elevator to the parking garage? What if I lost him? I can not even let my brain go there. Are you wondering why didn't he park outside the store in the first place?(!??!)  Yeah, me too. However, I can not ask him because we don't. speak. the. same. language.

Ahhhhh...best part? I get to do it all again tomorrow (mingzao).