Six months living here in China, so would you expect us to speak some Chinese? Well, we’ve learned some survival Chinese, some useful words and phrases but not that much. But what I think we have learned is to somehow use other ways to communicate in  everyday life situations. Gestures, miming, pointing, showing pictures or sometimes just attitude and persistence helps a lot. Here in Ningbo, only well educated Chinese speak any English, so to communicate with taxi or bus drivers, market vendors, guards or other staff in our residence, you really need some other “language”.

Benjamin playing with Chinese kids, language is not an obstacle. Well, I’ve quickly learned how to say “mine” in Chinese…

Hardest thing for me is that I’m often not sure if people understand me or not.  Are they going to commit themselves to the task I ask them to do or are they simply not understanding what I am trying to tell them. Sometimes I feel really frustrated because I still cannot read their faces whether they got it or not… I guess saying no in this culture is not polite, so people try to avoid that. That makes things a bit complicated, when you don’t have a common language.

Today, I have to say, I didn’t have much luck in communication. Just before lunch I realized that our ceiling is leaking. Not much, but I still understood it must mean bad situation upstairs, maybe getting worse all the time. I went to the office and explained in very simple English, something like “we have a problem at home, water come down from upstairs, please send someone to see it”. I explained the same message many times miming, pointing upstairs, and saying shui  (water in Chinese). They called someone right away and took my address, so I thought it was okay and that they were sending someone. Three hours later, still no one.

I call Niko at work, quite upset. I’m still thinking of the huge masses of water that must be upstairs. There are many wet spots now in the ceiling and they are just getting bigger. Hoping that our ceiling doesn’t come down suddenly. A bit later, someone comes finally. The man stands under the leaking ceiling and looks really confused. Wo bu dong (I don’t understand), he says. I’m getting a little bit upset now. You don’t really need to be an expert to understand what the leaking ceiling means! I call a friendly Chinese lady at Niko’s work to be my language barrier. They speak on the phone for several minutes but the man still looks really confused and the message I get is that they can’t do anything today. Maybe try to go and check the apartment upstairs?

I call Niko back. Half an hour later comes someone else, very polite, probably the other man’s boss. It takes him one second, one look from the door to understand they need to go upstairs, and quickly. He comes back soon, explains that indeed there is a problem upstairs and they will come and fix it tomorrow. All in Chinese but I understand the message even if I understand just two words: shui (water) mingtian (tomorrow). Xiexie, thank you, finally they did what they should have done five hours ago! And guess what made it happen? Niko’s Chinese boss who also lives in our residence called them, twice!

I have no idea if the girls at the office understood at all what I was saying. That they didn’t even try to find a way to understand, is not a new thing for me here. But the first man who finally came and actually saw the leak and didn’t do anything, that’s more hard to understand. I guess that he was not in a position to do any decisions so he didn’t do anything.

Sometimes I’m more lucky, in communication I mean. Yesterday every mother’s worst nightmare happened to me: my two-year-old disappeared in our front door. I was just locking the door and telling him to wait and when I turn back he’s gone. I run out of our gate, call him, and I can’t see him anywhere. The worst, there is no one else outside, not one soul! Normally, there are lots of mothers and nannies with small kids outside, all the time! I run to the road and back to the garden like a crazy and it all seems so absurd! Finally there comes a nice ayi who is cleaning the common area and  who knows me and Benjamin and talks to him every day. Without words she understands in a second what has happened and comes to my support. Just standing there, next to our building, trying to see where Benjamin could be. The simple presence of that lady helped me to calm down and soon I found my son playing behind the bushes 50 meters from home in a place he normally never goes… Xiexie ayi, that was just wonderful she came to help me in that awful moment!