China Dreaming with Deborah Fallows

As any new Beijinger knows, moving to China isn’t easy, especially if your Putonghua isn’t exactly perfect. In her new book Dreaming in Chinese, author Deborah Fallows relates her time in Beijing and Shanghai back to the tribulations of learning Mandarin. She’s back in Beijing for a visit, and is speaking at The Bookworm on Tuesday (June 15) night at 7:30.

Before moving to China, you had lived abroad before- how did learning Mandarin and moving to China compare to your previous moves? Did the difficulty of the language make the move more daunting?
I have been lucky enough to live abroad several times, the first when I was 13 years old and stayed for several months with a French family in southern France. I was an exchange student in Sweden during high school. My husband and I lived in England when we were first married, and we also spent many months in Ghana and Kenya. Later we lived with our children in Japan and Malaysia for several years.

Japan and China were the most difficult of those moves. The language was certainly a factor in both cases! We only had the chance to study a little Japanese and Chinese before arriving.

Living in China and Japan was difficult for different reasons. I would say China was easier than Japan for social reasons – Americans often find a kinship of temperament with the Chinese! But China was probably harder in everyday aspects of life; sorting out everything from the big things to the small – for example, from how to buy train tickets to where to get a zipper repaired -- was really challenging.

How did you get over the initial difficulty of applying classroom Chinese to real life?
Well, I didn’t have very much classroom learning to apply to my real life. I studied a little in Washington DC before we left for China, and that definitely didn’t apply very well. My teacher spoke with a heavy Beijing accent, and I was surprised when we arrived in Shanghai that I couldn’t understand a single word! So, there was nothing subtle about that.
I started studying at a small commercial school in Shanghai called “Miracle Mandarin”, and everything I learned in class applied to the streets from the very beginning. I remember the first time I tried out my lessons on the street. It was a typical foreigner situation, where I was fending off a guy wanting to sell me knock-off handbags. I would pass the same guy every single day on my way to school. After several weeks of seeing him, and going through the same routine, I finally blurted out vocabulary I had just learned in class: “Zuotian bu yao! Jintian bu yao! Mingtian bu yao!” After that, he left me alone..

How did life in Beijing and Shanghai compare? How did the experiences differ?
Oh, you have asked the nice version of the question that no one wants to hear. “Which do you like better, Beijing or Shanghai?” You only lose if you answer that question!

We lived in Shanghai first. That happened to be a good decision, because I think Shanghai is an easier place for foreigners to live than Beijing. I think it is easier to get around in everyday life in Shanghai – easier to make your way on your own -- walking places, finding what you need, traveling shorter distances around town. And Shanghai is a city with more experience in absorbing foreigners, so it’s easier on us.

After 18 months in Shanghai, we moved to Beijing, I thought I knew how to live in China by then, but I was wrong! I was as surprised by Beijing as I had been by Shanghai. Beijing seemed bigger, tougher, and more foreign to me than Shanghai. I almost felt like I was starting over in an older, more traditional, conservative China. Many foreigner say Beijing is “more Chinese” than Shanghai, and to me that means it is more challenging for foreigners to ease into life here. But once I did, I felt like I had learned much more about China.

How do you feel the language affects or reflects the culture of these cities? For instance, does having a second language prevalent in Shanghai create a different dynamic than mostly-Putonghua Beijing?
I think many foreigners say this is true, but I do not feel it applied to us. I was out on the streets, in the shops and markets, on the buses and subways, and among the laobaixing as much in Shanghai as in Beijing. So my experience was similar in both places. I did find the Beijing accent easier to understand than the southern Shanghai accent.

Did you learn any Shanghainese?
No! It was hard enough to try to learn Putonghua. And Mandarin and Shanghainese are very dissimilar dialects.

How did the idea for Dreaming in Chinese come about?
During a visit back to the US, I was talking with a friend who happens to be a book publisher. I was telling her that from the perspective of my background in linguistics, I found Mandarin an extremely curious and likable language. I was also telling her about many experiences of living in China. Thinking like a publisher, she imagined how the two might come together and suggested I try to write a book about learning about China by learning the language.

While writing the book, what kind of experiences from your time in China stuck out most to you? How did you decide which to include?
That is a great question. I thought about this problem of what to include in the book for a long time. After a while, I actually created a spreadsheet. On one side was a list of interesting, or curious, or unusual points about Mandarin. On the other side was a list of surprising or puzzling or very “Chinese” things I saw or experienced. Then I realized they could match up, and that examples from one side would often inform or illustrate points from the other side. It became very interesting to begin to see life through language.

Do you have any tips for easing the transition into Chinese life?
Well, looking back on my own life in China and looking around at other foreigners living in China, I noticed that the people who seemed to engage with the experience in the happiest way were those who had “a way in”. People find a way in to China through many different kinds of passions or interests – art, music, martial arts, painting, calligraphy, history, architecture, photography, fabric, children, their work – so many things. For me it was language. I think that having something you love, to use as an entrée to a place as big and overwhelming as China helps both the transition and the experience.

Dreaming in Chinese, booktalk with Deb Fallows, 7.30pm, Tuesday, June 15, The Bookworm. RMB 30/20 (members)