Learning the language here is interesting. It uses the brain in a new way. I’m realizing that it’s as much muscle memory for the spoken factor as it is like decoding a not-so-hidden cypher that ties itself up in complexity in order to create a labyrinth of the mind that is available for deciphering and making it through, for those who are able to give it enough time and attention.

To get better with the language is something that I find imperative. For example: I just walked out of a bank where I had as a task the replacement of my current card as it was broken, snapped in the magnetic strip, for the fact that it had lived in my back pocket for the last four years. Simple thing. Sort of. I had to maneuver the discussion of the fact that I couldn’t come back the following week for one with the same number, that one of the cards from their box that I knew from experience was sitting under their desk would do just fine, reason being that I live in another city.

Side point, one interesting fact about Chinese banking is that the regions/provinces are not as connected as I expected, coming from the USA. The U in the USA is a unique factor, I’ve come to realize. Here, if you want to do specialized banking, may it be international transfers or the kind of banking that addresses certain matters like having a new card, or changing a passport number, it often has to be done in the home region~ though not always. For example: international bank transfers are welcomed by the Bank of China through the Wenzhou branch with my Guangzhou card from three provinces away, but the other bank I’m with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China or ICBC, does not do the same even though they are everywhere throughout China, with giant offices etc. . . They explained to me that it’s really because my account was opened in another region. If I’d opened it in that city, it would have been fine. Even with Bank of China, getting a replacement card isn’t possible here. . . This is my second time getting one. . . While this trip was smooth, since I knew to come to the home-region’s bank offices. (I’m vacationing in Guangzhou this week.) My first experience replacing a Bank of China card was a real adventure. I had gone to Beijing with a friend on vacation and lost my wallet while going around the city. I can actually still remember the bench that I am pretty sure it just slipped out of my pocket while sitting on, due to earlier use and later recognition. . . So, I went to the bank in Beijing with passport in-hand and asked for a new card. They had to cancel my account from the other region, open up a new one, then issue me a Beijing card so that I could use money that I had in their bank. Then I had to do it all over again when I got back home so that I could do regular banking while there. It says Bank of China on the label, but there’s more to it in the fine print that I never accessed. That, I’ve come to find out.

So, it’s true what “they say” about language being key to learning about how others think and are, culturally. For as many regions of China that I’ve lived in and traveled through, one thing that I’ve noticed is that it is a culture that values symbolism very highly. From emblems of good fortune posted on front doors to the famous social element of ‘face,’ Chinese folks are generally rather thoughtful about outward imagery as representative of deeper reality. From the ancient Feng Shui traditions of pointing doorways in homes and graves in particular directions, divined by a shaman with a compass, to the modern commercial norms shared with the rest of the capitalistic world, based around status symbols of wealth and social strata. Folks here are invested deeply in the poetic meaning of visual elements, as the written language is one that is inherently ideographic.

Something that I credit the ancients with is the genius of NOT attaching a necessary verbalization to the characters. For example (American cultural reference): Lots of people go out for Dim Sum in the US. The ‘sum’ is the Cantonese word for heart. But in Mandarin, that word is ‘xin’. There are over fifty actual spoken languages in China (as represented by the museum dedicated to language in Anyang, which I visited in 2014), and they all agree that the image 心 represents the heart. But they don’t all agree on how to say it. This was a piece of genius that the conqueror and legendary emperor Chin (who reigned over one of the shortest dynasties in all of Chinese history!) from Xian was able to make his mark on history about. He’s credited with unifying China, but if you look at the thousands of years that followed him, this wasn’t a thing that actually happened. China didn’t become a unified state, but rather a community with an agreed-upon technology in the form of the written ideography of this script. It had been in use for at least a thousand years previous to his 12-year reign, as can be seen in the marks on the shells and scapula of animals used in divination generations before, again, in the Anyang, Henan region. But it was he who decided that in order to contain a people, through trade and all, there needed to be an agreed-upon language to do business. To this day, there are many different ways to say a given image; from Dongbei to Yunnan, and from Xinjiang to Shanghai, but they all agree on the meaning of the image. I’ll never forget when I was in a noisy spot with a bunch of Chinese friends who were trying to order from a waiter who didn’t speak Mandarin. My friends didn’t speak Cantonese, so they pulled out their phones and opened up an app that they could use to type to each other in order to communicate. . . Two thousand years later, and it’s still the same situation. So, yeah, learning to read is important and I take the time to do so, if only because my Putong Hua (Mandarin for Mandarin) isn’t sufficient at times. That, and text messaging is a valuable skill~

Sometimes I feel like China is more of a continent than a country. In reality, it seems to be something of a hybrid between the two. Perhaps “a many-layered, ancient and yet cutting-edge, diverse culture” would be a better term, but that’s a lot of words. Regardless, it certainly is an interesting place to be.