Little Victories

After living here for almost 10 months, the language barrier continues to bring good and bad days. This morning I was greeted by a utilities visitor or some sort. I assume the man worked for the gas company. Clad in a blue uniform and wielding a unique device, he proceeded to shout something in Mandarin and then head towards my kitchen where he wanded around my oven with said "unique device". (Okay, he might not have been shouting but almost all Mandarin conversations sound like people are angry). No idea what he did (I'm guessing he looked for leaks), but I signed a piece of paper legitimizing whatever it was he came to do. Later in the morning I tried to call for more drinking water. I called yesterday and thought the delivery man understood my request. No water came. I assumed wrong. So, today I repeated the request. The people on the other end of the line continued to repeat what sounded like "shi wu". Bu zhi dao--I don't know. No idea what "shi wu" means. It could mean "i am five", "teacher five" or a variety of other things depending on the tone of the word. Seeing as my vocabulary is still quite rudimentary, I had no idea what was being said.

Fortunately my afternoon proved to be more successful. I managed to string together some Neanderthol-like sentences at the fabric market, tell a taxi driver I wanted to go to the Olympic tower (without using my handy dandy taxi book), and ask a police officer for directions. It truly is the little things that matter.