Confessions of a Chinese School Dropout

I was enrolled in formal Chinese studies at a university here in Dalian for one year. And today I realized that one year was just not enough. Let me explain why. I’ve been living in China for 4+ years, and picking up Mandarin bit by bit over that time. Practical Mandarin. First it was the essential phrases like “Where’s the bathroom?,” or “Waiter, I do you have a cold Heinekin?”

My Chinese learning, for a long time, was on a need-to-know basis. When I needed a bank account, I learned how to say “bank account.”

When I began working in a computer company, I learned how to say crazy stuff in Chinese like “upgrade the system BIOS” or “hard drive partition.” Learning such advanced words certainly gave me a sense of pride about how far my Chinese study has come.

That sense of pride was shattered today, when I got hung up when my Chinese friend mentioned his “膝盖/xÄ«gài” in a conversation this morning. He said, he had gotten out of bed and hurt his “膝盖.” With my advanced knowledge of Chinese I supposed he must have meant his fibula or his femur, or some other obscure body part.

Turns out it means “knee,” which is apparently a word that I never picked up in my so-called Chinese study. I mean really, how often do knees come up as a topic of conversation?

Moral of the story: Don’t overlook the basics. At some point, as I did this morning, you’ll look way ridiculous.