Alien: $%"#$"&%$ (Hello?)
Humans: Hello?
Alien: "#%" $%"@%$" .....#!$@!???? (Wow, we've made contact! Hello?)
Humans: Uhh... heh heh.. re - mi - do - do - so
Alien: `"%$#*&!!!'$"#!*`+"%#&!!! (Hey, what the... stop pressing the buttons on the phone!)
(followed by an extremely uncomfortable silence)
I've never spoken to an ALF or an E.T. personally, however, I have experienced the confusion that would ensue in the situation described above. It was February 17th, and across the Sea of Japan, China was ringing in the Year of the Pig on the lunar calendar.
Japan, on the other hand, has been celebrating New Year's according to the Western calendar since 1873, so it was just a regular Saturday night in Tokyo for the most part. Nonetheless, I had plans to celebrate a bit with Jing and her friend, who is also from China, by all going out to dinner, but this is nothing compared to the festivities in China. As the most important festival of the year, Chinese begin celebrating the night before by having a "reunion dinner" with friends and family, followed by seven days of dragon dances, eating dumplings and visiting distant relatives.
I never should have gone off on my own if I'd known what was going to happen, but I wanted to pick up a few things at the electronics store just a few minutes away from the restaurant we had decided on, so Jing and her friend went ahead to the restaurant to get a table. While I was at the electronics store, as you can imagine, I took a look at a few other gadgets and somewhat lost track of time. I glanced at my watch and decided I'd better hurry up to the restaurant since Jing and her friend must've been ready to order by that point. I was just about to line up at check-out when my cell phone began to ring.
Thinking it was Jing telling me to hurry up I took a quick look at the incoming call display and hit the answer button. It was actually in that split second between hitting the button and putting the phone up to my ear that I realized the call was not from Jing. It was a call from overseas, which usually means one of my parents or a friend overseas, but this was country code "44". 44...44?! The phone was to my ear by this point, and another flash second and the synapses in my brain told me it was the country code to China. No sooner did I realize this that I sputtered out one of the few words I know in Chinese, that to answer the phone - "wei" - and stepped into very unfamiliar territory. Oh crap, I thought to myself.
On the other end of the line I heard a woman's voice speaking in Chinese.
"Jing zai bu zai? Ta shang na er le? ...................."
To my ears it might as well have been a Venusian language. The only word I could make out was Jing, and I was pretty sure she was asking if Jing was with me. I tried to think of something I could reply, but nothing would come. Suddenly I remembered, "my name is..." so I tried that.
Wo shi Steve.
I listened intently to the reply, but I couldn't recognize anything. Ah! It must be Jing's mom calling to wish her a Happy New Year. A moment later I heard fireworks and jovial laughter, some people cheering, more fireworks. Still, none of the Chinese I'd studied over the past few months would surface. Except.. oh, yes, I could say:
Wo bu ming bai ni shuo shen ma!
Which, over the telephone, is entirely useless since it simply means, "I don't understand what you're saying" and if you don't say it just right, with all the proper tones, you won't be understood either. There was silence. Panic set in. re - mi - do - do - so??
I tried to think of how I might say I would be with Jing in five minutes and to call back then, but nothing came. How do I say "after"? uhhmm... I tried to remember how to count and I was pretty sure "five" sounded like the letter "r", so I uttered, "Arrr!" and then, as nothing else would come out of my mouth, "Uhhhh!". Double panic mode! Emphatically, I tried again, hoping some miracle would set Chinese out of my mouth, "Um.. R! Jing! R!" My God, I must sound like a crazy person, (especially since, little did I know, but I was saying, "two, Jing, two!" and badly at that). I thought about yelling out for help to the other customers in the store as one might do if there was an accident and someone needed a doctor, "Is there a Chinese speaker in the house?!?" but I stopped myself.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the phone, there were equal attempts at expression with long silences.
"Mei shi er, mei shi er. ...Na jiu zhe yang. Gua le ba..."
Two minutes must have passed. I thought of speaking in Japanese or English, but her mother wouldn't understand that any better. The only other words I could remember were "zai jian" (good bye), but I didn't want to be rude and just say that and hang up on her mother. If only I had known that she had just told me, "It's okay. Nothing important. It's okay to hang up." But that was lost on me. Ironically, her mom didn't want to be rude and just hang up either, so there we were: two confused aliens staring into thin air and holding what at that point seemed like extremely ineffective devises for communication.
More fireworks exploded somewhere and another minute must have passed. Finally Jing's mom said something I recognized. Mixed in with a collage of Chinese, I recognized a distinct "Bai bai". Ah, "bye bye", it had to be! It was like a hunch a police detective gets and just goes with. I didn't have time to doubt it, I simply had to pass the rubicon (wink wink) and take the opportunity, so I hollered zai jian!! A moment later, the call was over.
I was in a sweat. What had just happened?!? Where was I? Blinking a few times, I found myself back on earth in the electronics store, standing in front of extension cords near the check out counter.
Happy New Year!!
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