The Language Centre sponsors with lessons in Mandarin 'Two Girls on Expedition in China'

‘Two Girls on Expedition in China’ was a project undertaken as part of an effort to promote the Special Collections of the Maastricht University library, as the journey was inspired by the travels of two Jesuits, Albert d’Orville and Johann Grueber who had travelled through Beijing, Tibet and went on to India. Their journey and observations were written upon extensively by Athanasius Kircher in his work, ‘China Illustrata,’ which is a part of the Special Collections.

Just like the Jesuits before them, Samantha and Angelica, the two girls who went on the expedition, had to carry out extensive preparations before their trip. Although this preparation had lasted about a decade for the Jesuits, the girls had only a few weeks. It would not have been possible for them to be ready for their journey without the crash course in Mandarin offered to them by Ms. Su Li of the UM Language Centre, in addition, of course, to the guidance and insight to Chinese culture she was able to provide them.

Having now just returned from their 16-day expedition, Samantha and Angelica are full of smiles as they recount their time in China, both still caught up in their travels as Angelica sits with a Chinese shawl draped around her and Samantha answering the first question directed at them.

Before leaving on your journey, what were you able to learn from Su Li about China and the Chinese language?

“Su Li taught me some basic Mandarin and some general structuring but mostly, she taught me some key words so that I could pick up on them and at least understand what people were trying to ask me, even if I couldn’t understand the full sentence, which was very useful.” Samantha goes on to recount her last day with Su Li, when she taught her some important phrases like “Help me” or “Pain” so she could get help or an ambulance in an emergency. Su Li also took her to the Asian supermarket in town where she pointed out the food Samantha would encounter on her trip and what to call them in Chinese. She laughs as she remembers Su Li telling her that she would probably eat a lot of travel noodles, “…but I wasn’t so sure because I don’t really like them but we did end up eating them a lot, so that was useful!” She says that the phrases she found most important that were taught to her by Su Li were related to bargaining for prices and ordering food.

Angelica pipes in at this point, saying that they also learned how to identify the question, “Where are you from?” to which Samantha would answer England, a boring reply judging by the response of the Chinese locals, and Angelica would answer Italy, which always elicited excitement and people telling her that they love Italy because of the football teams!

Apart from what you learned from Su Li, what did you learn about Chinese culture and the language during your trip?

Samantha says that language-wise, what they used the most was the word, “Piàoliang,” which means beautiful. “Someone would be chattering away to us, gesturing at all the mountains and we wouldn’t understand a word that they were saying, so we would just say, “Piàoliang, piàoliang.” And they would just accept it!

Angelica then says that the word she used the most was “Xièxiè,” meaning ‘thank you.’ “If people were kind or gave us something to eat, we would just say, “Xièxiè.” I also found that it was quite easy to communicate with people just using about six words. If you just smile and say things like, Piàoliang and Xièxiè, and are nice and open, it’s surprisingly easy to connect with people because they are also very open and they try to understand you.”

Samantha chimes in saying that there is quite a fine line; if you try and speak a little Mandarin, then people are very open and they will try to talk to you, but if you only speak in English and they don’t understand you, then they will ignore you, which might be because of their embarrassment at not being able to understand you. So it was very good to be able to attempt a conversation or at least, to be able to understand what they were asking if they repeated what they said a few times, she concludes.

Following up on that, were the classes given to you by Su Li helpful for you and did they make your journey easier?

 “It definitely would have been better to have more time with Su Li to learn the language,” comes Samantha’s immediate response, “but it was definitely better to have [the classes] than to not, for sure.” She goes on to explain that Su Li always spoke clearly and slowly to ensure that she understood, a luxury she did not have with the faster-speaking, accented locals.

Angelica adds that the extensive vocabulary the classes provided them with was very helpful, with one of her most used phrases being “Bù míngbái,” which very usefully translates to “I do not understand.”

They both agree that one of the most useful aides in their successful communication was a phone app introduced to them by the locals themselves. It works by translating Chinese spoken into the phone to English, which then comes out in the voice of a native speaker, and vice versa by translating spoken English to Chinese. A supposedly popular app in China which many of the people had on their phones and made the girls’ journey much easier.

What was the funniest language experience on your journey, where something was lost in translation?

Samantha laughingly admits that once when she was trying to buy a bottle of water, her jetlagged brain caused her to mix up her phrases and instead of asking for the price of the water, she ended up saying, “Bù míngbái,” or “I don’t understand [the water]” which greatly amused the shopkeeper as well.

Asked if they were on the receiving end of translation bloopers, the girls burst out in giggles with Samantha explaining, “If people wanted to know if you wanted something, they would say ‘What’s wrong with you?’ so at one point in the journey, there was a guy who was very aggressively saying, ‘What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?!’ but he only wanted to help!”

Angelica shared another common mistranslation caused by the Chinese translation app. Apparently, it is a common expression in China to say, “Do you want to play?” when referring to going around town to interesting places or tourist attractions. So quite often, they were asked by locals or their taxi driver, “Hey beauties, do you want to play with me?” through the translation app. Initially the girls were shocked by this phrase until they understood that it was a common phrase with a strange translation!

The girls recounted many more incidents and experiences they had in their time travelling through China and Tibet and seemed to have many more which they simply did not have the time to share. However, they have recorded many of these memorable moments along with breathtaking pictures of their trip on their blog: Two Girls on Expedition in China.

The Expedition in China was made possible with the support of the University Fund (Universiteitsfonds) and the Maastricht Academic Heritage Fund. Special thanks to the UM Language Centre.