Me In ChinkyLand - Whats in a name?

What would you call your mobile phone in “day-to-day” Hindi?

Come on, try guessing. Scroll down for the answer
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Mobile!! (PJ???)

Now, those of you who know Kannada, what do you call your mobile phone in Kannada?

At least, guess this one,

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Mobile (again :()

Now, lets try it in Tamil …. Nah!! Chuck it. I think in most of the Indian languages (AFAIK), a mobile phone is called a mobile phone. But in China, everything has an English name and a Chinese name!!! English Names are rarely used. Chinese names are the more widely used. So, the Chinese name of mobile phone is “yí dòng shì” (and there are many variants too). If you don’t believe me, you can go here and search for “mobile”. “yí dòng shì” literally means, “Movable Small Machine”. Just imagine calling your mobile phone, “Chalta Phirta Chota Yantra” in Hindi!!! (I remember Shaktimaan tele-serial:D). Similarly, they had Chinese names for technical terms like computer, folders, video games etc!!!

I am not trying to demean Chinese people and their culture. I just found this strange. I was from a different land, and their way of life was unknown to me. I felt it strange because this is not the norm in India. If Indians used their local languages for some gadgets, I would not have found this different and would not have written this post. We are so accustomed to and cozy in our comfort zone, that any thing outside this draws attention, interest and unfortunately ridicule too.

There are pros, cons and perceptions attached to every approach. Pros of the Chinese approach are that they can preserve their language and heritage for many more years to come. In India, try talking for about 5 minutes in your native language without using any other language words. At least, I will struggle. I think a huge section of the urban world will struggle. Apart from preserving our own culture, we need to adopt some positives (only) of every other culture. That’s how we get to be more accommodating. I think India is very enterprising this way. I read some funny mail some time back which said why India is safe in the IT world compared to China. It said acronyms rule the IT world, like FYI, FYA, AFAIK, PFA, IMHO, ASAP etc. Mandarin, the official Chinese language uses phrases and not alphabets. So, acronyms cannot be used and hence Chinese IT industry will see a setback. LOL. ROTFL ;D. Again, the entire discussion above is my perception.

Let me give you a little history, about why I chose the word “mobile” for setting the context for this post. I was on an onsite assignment in China to work for a Chinese giant in “Mobile phones” (You get their products in India too now – I cannot give further clues about this company :D ). So, to go to office I had to take cab and I had to mention XYZ “yí dòng”(short form for “yí dòng shì”) to let the cab driver know my destination. An English word like “mobile” would never work. It was not just cab drivers, but even highest executives of the client company could converse only in very basic English.

The most common English sentences I have heard in my short stint in China are:

a) “Just a moment please” – This was used by the staff of the hotel where I checked in. This “moment” was used to catch hold of a person who knew better English than them. There was only one person, Winnie, in that 4-star hotel !!!

b)“How do you do” – Seeing me, anybody could make out that I was a foreigner. So, whenever I walked by, young boys and girls used to wish me with a “How do you do”. The glee in their eyes when I reacted with a smile or “Hello” was out of the world. I never knew that even such a small gesture could make someone totally unknown so happy.

I quickly learnt some words to help me with some simple daily activities. Here they go,

a) "nǐ hǎo" – Hello. A broad smile with a little bend in your body would do too :D. I always used to say nǐ hǎo" coz one of my Chinese colleagues said my Chinese pronunciation was spot on and of course I wanted to flaunt that.

b) "xiè xiè" (X is pronounced as “Sh”) – Thank you. Chinese are very courteous. You would always hear them saying "xiè xiè". So, I thought I better be courteous, after all I was at client site :D

c) "mǐ fàn” – Cooked rice. The rice in China is excellent. Unlike the Indianised Chinese Fried Rice, the fried rice there was oil-less. Extremely tasty. My colleagues there used to tease me that this rice might be cooked in pork stock or something like that. On enquiring, I got to know that it is covered with spinach while steaming it. I tried this in India and it was a huge flop. The spinach got charred. Still donno how it happened. Anyway, it is better not to bet on my culinary skills.

d) I learnt the numbers, to help me get a telephone number etc.

I too taught some Hindi to my Chinese colleagues (They wanted to know some sentences to be used during a conference call). Examples are:

a) “Namaskar” – This was practiced during every conference call with the Indian team :D I hardly wish somebody with a “Namaskar” in India :(

b) “Kaise hain aap?”

c) “Ek minute wait kijiye” – Here they were confused how this could be Hindi as there are two English words here. Silently, I changed it to “Thoda samay intezaar kijiye” (Doesn’t that sound like lyrics of some “Mujhra” :D)

d) “Isi samay, Isi din, agle haphthe” (TV anchor ishtyle :D) – To ensure that we had the conference call same time the coming week.

These Hindi lessons were a laugh riot. I used to laugh my heart out seeing the competition among my colleagues to pronounce it the right way and the mutual practice sessions. I felt like being mischievous and teach something wrong like Revathi teaches in the Tamil movie Mouna Raagam. But then, what if they are in a tit-for-tat mood :D

In spite of all this fun I had, I still found this whole Chinese name stuff very cumbersome. How would you feel, when you had to say "kě kǒu kě lè” if you had to order a coke? Mind it; those tiny strokes above the letters have impact on your pronunciation. A slight variation means something else. What if it means something rude or obnoxious?

Nevertheless, it was fascinating to know the origin of some phrases and their meaning. For a Sanskrit buff like me, it was very interesting to note the common ground on which these two languages have evolved. I felt I was on a cultural exchange program rather than a technical assignment!! Thanks to all my Chinese colleagues out there who used to speak so passionately about their language and culture during our long lunch breaks. Mostly, I will never see them again in my life time, but they will remain dear to my heart forever.

Signing off!!

Name of the Moment: Wenglina – That’s my Chinese name. Yes!! Even people have two names. As my name is pretty rare, I have heard people calling me Vandana, Vanitha, Nanditha, Vanaja etc. Not surprised, to add one more to the cart.

Next to Come: Tryst with Timma

Me In ChinkyLand - Crossing the Seas

I am back to continue with the series of posts on my travel to Hong Kong and China. I was traveling for the first time overseas on the night of 14th February 2005. I traveled from Bangalore to Bangkok and then to Hong Kong.

That day started off quite bad at office. There was some confusion about my visa and the other financial details. As many people do not travel to China and that too a remote part of China like Huizhou, the finance and the HR department were not in sync!! That was the last thing I expected from my extremely process oriented company!! Any case, due to the intervention of my project manager and some senior executives of the company, things sailed of smoothly at the end. I came back home around 4pm to ensure that I could leave home at 7pm for the 10pm flight.

I repeated the story-of-the-day to my folks as soon as I returned home. Then, the last minute packing of some official documents went on. Some instructions from both dad and mom were pumped into my virtually deaf ears. I was just thinking about how my first flight would be and story-of the-day was on a repeat telecast mode. The taxi which I had booked arrived at 6:45pm and the entire family (I, my parents and my bro) got into it along with my luggage. I think here I should introduce my luggage, prime partner of my entire journey. I had the following things:

1) One suitcase with wheels (I am not aware if there is a shorter name for such luggage ;D)
2) One bag which was my cabin baggage. This was almost like a college bag but with wheels.
3) My handbag (I read in one of Chetan Bhagat’s books that girls’ handbags are no lesser than survival kits to Antarctica :D)
4) My laptop

Except for suitcase, I had to keep the rest of them with me due to check-in luggage weight restriction. So, imagine how I would look with a bag on my back, a handbag on the right shoulder and the laptop bag slinging from the left. Huh?

We reached the airport at around 7:30pm without much discussion during the taxi travel. When I saw the airport, I understood why there was such a hue and cry for an international airport in Bangalore. All my imaginations about an airport based on movies, novels and other rosy media was shattered by the deserted look, dirty corners and old-fashioned walkways of the airport :(

After a silent wait for about an hour, the announcement for check-in for the passengers of Thai Airways flight was made. I had total theoretical information about how a check-in happens. But practical is not the same as theory!! I first let my luggage one-by-one through the scanner and then entered the security door to collect it at the other end of the scanner. Here, I had to bid good-bye to my parents and brother.

After checking in my suitcase, I put tags to the cabin baggage. I was given a form to fill before the visa and security check. There I met some more first time travelers, a young lady going to US for higher studies and an old couple going to US to meet their son. With some knowledge transfer between us, we filled in the form. At the check-in counter, they asked the reason for my travel and my company ID card. I fished that out from my survival kit, a.k.a handbag. Then the cabin baggage went through another round of checks and they were all stamped with “Bangalore Airport – Out” seals. Later, I got to know that the no other airport metes out such torturous treatment to the cabin baggage.

In the waiting room, the boarding instructions were announced. The senior citizens first, then the ladies and children and last the men (Wonder why this order!!). I was greeted with a “Swadiha”(Greetings in Thai) by the lovely airhostesses. Aping others I too picked up a newspaper to accompany me during the flight. After some safety instructions in 6 languages (Uff!), the plane started moving. I was very excited to see the lights outside. I was so thrilled to see the number of lights growing as the plane took off. Bangalore lights slowly dimmed away.

The journey was very short, just about two hours. Not much eventful, except for frequent serving of food, beverages and other accessories. In these two hours, we were first served a headphone, a blanket and two pillows (I hardly had space for the huge sized pillows). This was followed by a serving of welcome drink, then a snack, then dinner, then another round of drinks, some Thai special snack which was made of algae(I dint know whether it was vegetarian, isn’t algae a plant. I dint risk it with the limited knowledge of botany I had :D). At the end of the two hours, we were served with a refreshing orchid stem. (I have this preserved. I am crazy in preserving such things. My mom gets fed up of cleaning my collection of such memories). There I was in Bangkok, 10 minutes ahead of schedule, first time breathing the air outside India.

The three hour wait for the connecting flight at Bangkok was very enlightening. In the sense, I saw how exactly an international airport looks like. There was a counter where you could get an on-arrival visa for 14 days. I dint know something like that existed (dumb me). There were many counters were people queued up to catch their connecting flights. There were a lot of shops around, which I visited putting my entire “cabin” luggage on to a small trolley. Chocolate stores, orchid flower shops, foreign exchange counters, information kiosks and so on. I checked-in for the Hong Kong Thai Airways flight an hour before schedule. The check-in was much simple. No enquiry, no cabin check, nothing. What if I was a terrorist!! I have read that the most criminal minded people look very sophisticated too, something like software professionals ;D

The flight to Hong Kong was also around two hours and more or less like the Bangalore to Bangkok travel (as I traveled by Thai Airways again). By now I was a little more restless because I was traveling eastwards and I had not slept. The journey started with same 6 language safety instruction. Again, the journey as such was eventless except for the drinks-snacks-breakfast-snacks-drinks cycle. This was the first time, I had breakfast within 4 hours I had my dinner.

The book “The Alchemist” entertained me till I reached Hong Kong. I could see the plane descending on an air strip surrounded by water. Hong Kong airport is on an archipelago. The sight was breath-taking. On entering the airport, I could sense how much better this airport was compared to Bangkok (human brain is into this vicious cycle of comparing :D). I believe that Hong Kong is rated as one of the best international airports in the world.

For the check-out counter, I had to travel by an express train. Then I had to take a couple of elevators and then a moving sidewalk. I had to never walk for any of these. I wonder how Chinese, on an average, are so slim. As I had expected, there was some trouble putting my luggage onto the train and then the elevator. But, an unknown angel is always around to help.

After checking out, I got a 14 day on-arrival visa for Hong Kong. That meant I could stay in Hong Kong now for the next 14 days (and then expect a expel letter from my company ;D). I rushed to the American Express counter to convert USD to Chinese currency, known as Remimbi, symbol is RMB.

I had complete instructions from my client manager, on how to travel from Hong Kong airport inside China border and then to Huizhou. Here, it goes: I had to take an EE bus which would take me to Hong Kong border after one hour traveling. There I had to get down and check-in to the China border. By then, the bus would have crossed the border. Then board the bus again, travel for another hour and there you are in Huizhou (how simple – just like 2 minute Maggi noodles. Really?).

I reached the EE bus counter. Paid 200 RMB for the transport service. The lady at the counter put dark green stickers on my luggage and then started walking to guide me to the bus. Chinese walk really fast. I had tough time catching up that too sans the luggage, this time . I entered the bus and saw it was decorated with a lot of golden and red tinkers used during Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year was celebrated just two days earlier. So, the festive mood was still on.

I made sure my luggage was put in the right place. I ensured the bus goes to Huizhou, by checking the Chinese Name of Huizhou written inside the bus against the Chinese Names I had (my client manager had sent this to me). Huizhou, in Mandarin, looks like this 惠州.

Later, set the time and time zone on my wrist watch based on the clock inside the bus. The driver was about to board. I wanted to confirm at this point that I was in the right bus. I usually do this even when I am traveling alone in unknown areas of Bangalore. I turned around and threw an open question to the co-passengers enquiring whether this bus passes through Huizhou. A no reply to my “English” question ensured that I am going to China.

Signing off!!

Post of the Moment: Around the world in 34 hours by Deepthi

Next to Come: Me In ChinkyLand – What’s in a name?