Journal: The Policeman's Tea

Jason is a bit different to the typical chinese college student, because he didn't arrive straight from highschool. He failed the national tertiary entrance examination, and worked four years in a paper mill. But he wanted to further his study, and his cousin, using I-don't-know-what means, managed to get him a place in the college where I teach.

This cousin, Liu Jun, works at the police department—a policeman with a penchant for english. I met him through Jason, because he wanted me to record some english sentences for him. 365 Essential Oral English Sentences to be exact, on online freebee from the scrawny guru of english learning (and incidental commercial success), Li Yang and his "Crazy English" empire. A few weeks ago I recited the first half into Liu Jun's tiny disc-shaped MP3 player, and last Sunday we met again to finish the job.

At 9am, Liu Jun picked Jason and me up in his little old hatchback, and we went to a nearby cafe/bar. It usually doesn't open until midday, but Liu Jun knows the owner so they opened up specially for us. Liu Jun is a connoisseur of tea, and he brought a few varieties for me to try. I was able to enjoy watching him brew it, which is my favourite part of the chinese tea ceremony. I went to a teahouse near the college once, but my enjoyment of this part was spoilt by the waitress nattering on to my friend about where I was from, how old I was, how much I earned, and so on. And to think we paid a 60 yuan service fee alone! Teahouses are really expensive in Northern China, and no doubt most of their clientelle are businessmen. Customs vary in other parts of the country. I've heard that Sichuan province teahouses cater more for common folk, but on the other hand there is no tea ceremony.

To my great disappointment, the conversation was mainly in english. It was very stilted english on Liu Jun's part, but I have to admire him since a lot of what he does know is due to private study. After downing numerous (albeit very tiny) cups of tea, I recorded the rest of the Essential Sentences. At least the sentences in this list are correct and most of them are common in conversation, which already sets them apart from a lot of oral english teaching material in China! But it was a bit odd saying them out of context, and I had to look at the chinese translations to know the correct tone of voice to use. I still messed up one or two. For example, when I said "I've had enough", I used a tone of voice which meant "I've had enough [of your nonsense]", but it should have been "I've had enough [to eat]"!

At the moment, Liu Jun is not only boning up on english, but also international trade. His uncle manufactures metal statuettes. They're quite ghastly, but some have already been sold in countries like America, Australia, and Germany. Up until now his uncle has been represented by a chinese trading firm, but now he would like to cut out the middleman. So at the end of the month, Liu Jun will travel to Guangzhou to attend the biannual Chinese Export Commodities Fair. Meanwhile, he's scouring his guanxi (connections) network for possible buyers, and while he's in Guangdong province he plans to meet his classmate's mother (a manager in a foreign company), his wife's colleague's daughter (who works for customs), and one of his father-in-law's old students (a doctor who has studied overseas). He even asked me if any of my foreign friends might be interested.

Metal rabbit statuette
If not for this critter, I probably wouldn't have this story to tell.

At noon, Liu Jun's wife and 10-year-old son joined us for a very nice meal of Beijing roast duck. It was quite surreal. Apart from me, everyone at the table was intent on speaking english. Even the young boy, who incidently attends the best primary school in Dalian at his father's considerable expense, answered all my chinese questions in english. Liu Jun later said to me, sometimes at home he speaks to his wife in english. And to think I have trouble just getting my students to do the same in oral english classes!

Toast

"Beijing Toast Duck" was what Liu Jun called it at first. It's an easy mistake to make, since roasting a duck and toasting bread use the same verb in chinese (kao). But they're two completely different things, I hear you shout! Fret not. Now that bread is becoming more popular in China, those like Liu Jun who like to start their day with a piece of toast prefer to call it by a loan word which approximates the english:

tusi