The linguistic battle of wills

A fascinating socio-linguistic phenomenon to observe is the battle of wills between two people who are each trying to practice the others native language. It can happen in any place, at any time, and to nearly anyone.

You could be at the local 7-11 (ok... one of the local 7-11's) buying a bottle of 酒 and instead of quoting the sales price to you in Chinese the tiny and meek attendant slowly but deliberately says "seventy four dollars, please!" followed by the proudest and toothiest (and in Kaohsiung, the reddest) grin you may ever encounter. It's sweet, it's cute, it's wonderful, and it's one of the most annoying things on the face of the Earth.

The linguistic battle of wills occurs most often between foreigners and natives in Taiwan. Some foreigners come to Taiwan hoping to practice Chinese only to discover that an increasing number Taiwanese people want to practice their English with almost anyone who will talk to them.

Imagine being Taiwanese and spending every single year of your school life learning English! Imagine your parents sending you to an English language tutor nearly every day after school! Now imagine that at long last there is a real live American right in front of you that you can finally speak to!

Now imagine your disappointment that he refuses to speak to you in English and insists upon using sub-standard Chinese to communicate the very simplest of ideas.

Of course there's the opposite disappointment of being from the English speaking world. We say goodbye to our family, friends, and dog, fly all the way to Taiwan, enroll in Chinese classes, go out of our way to make Taiwanese friends only to find that our dream of "total language immersion" is impossible because everyone wants to practice English, the language we are trying to escape from!

There's even another layer to it: Taiwanese culture demands a large amount of courtesy be shown to guests and many Taiwanese feel as though all foreigners are somehow guests in their country. In Taiwan, as in much of Asia, the locals don't want to cause the guest a loss of face by speaking to them in a language the guest can't understand; instead of even trying to speak Chinese it's just safer to speak to the guest in English. In most other ways this courtesy is extremely appreciated.

Although there is no strict rule in the West the general convention is to only use one language in a conversation- and whichever language is spoken first should be the language used to respond. If I start a conversation in Chinese and someone insists upon answering me in English they've actually caused me a loss of face; they've just implied that they don't think my Chinese is very good. There's not even a good way to respond because in American culture it's rude for me to tell you that I'd rather you speak Chinese. My Taiwanese friends tell me that it wouldn't be rude in Taiwan but I'm still not comfortable doing it.

Must we be locked in this ridiculous duel for all time? No, probably not. Following the 4th World War of 2038 the majority of survivors will upload themselves into the technological singularity and all of our conversations will look like this:

0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110
0100001001100101011101110110000101110010011001010010000001110100011010000110010100
10000001110101011011100110001101101100011001010110000101101110

(Good luck babelfish.yahoo.com on that one!)

Note:
Missing is my obligatory swipe at foreigners who are always complaining that Chinese is impossible to learn. Since most Taiwanese people look around and see 20 million Taiwanese people who managed to learn Chinese (plus another billion people across the strait) they can be forgiven for concluding that foreigners suffer from pigment induced, Chinese specific, aphasia.

簡單 -- Not so simple!

One of my newly arrived friends recently recounted a conversation in one of his adult classes that went something like this:

Adult student 1: What do foreigners think of Taiwanese people?

Teacher: Um... (obvious discomfort) well... I guess lots of different things. Nothing too severe.

Adult student 2: What kind of things? I really want to know.

Teacher: Ok... I guess... maybe sometimes I've heard that some people think that some Taiwanese people can be a little, um, boring?

(The adult students talked among themselves in Chinese for a minute.)

Adult student 1: Yes. That is true. We are very boring.

(Entire class laughs in agreement. American teacher is puzzled and attempts to move on with the lesson.)

After he mentioned this story I began to notice how often I have heard Taiwanese people describe themselves this way. Purely for research purposes I even accessed some Taiwan centric dating websites and was shocked to see how many men and women prefaced their dating profile with "I'm a simple woman with simple dreams looking for a simple man" or something to that effect. (I promise it was mostly, almost, entirely for research purposes.) "Simple," "boring," "ordinary," "pure," or even "naive" seemed to be sought after qualities.

All of the above words are attempts at translating "簡單." It's supposed to communicate a sort of trustworthy ordinariness. When someone describes themselves as "簡單" they are advertising their stability and lack of complications. While both of these qualities can be admirable it is far cry away from what most people boast about back home. In a weird twist many of my adult students all but boast about how little they have to boast about.

Unfortunately "簡單" simply doesn't translate well. When an adult describes themselves as "simple," "naive," "ordinary," or even "pure" the words immediately conjure up an image of a person who is bereft of responsibility and possesses a sort of childlike foolishness- hardly the first impression you want to give.

The best translation I've been able to come up with, accounting for the western cultural preference of exaggerating our uniqueness, is "dependable." Calling yourself "dependable" can emphasize your reliability and implies that you have a routine that you follow- it doesn't mean that you're boring but it does mean that you don't let impulsive flights of fancy disrupt your existence.

I'm afraid cultural differences just don't allow for an exact translation of "簡單" that doesn't make someone sound incredibly boring. Most of my Taiwanese friends don't find "dependable" to be an adequate translation but it's the best I can do. One of my students went so far as to point out, almost passionately, that "You are saying that we shouldn't call ourselves "ordinary" but most of us are ordinary. There aren't very many exceptional people in the world; why should I call myself one when I know that I'm not?" Coming from a westerner I would think that she needed some serious self esteem boosting; here in Taiwan it was an admirable showing of just how "簡單" she thought herself to be.