Ridiculously Badass in ShanghaiLife experiences as a foreigner in Shanghai and how you can learn from them – including my shortcut techniques for studying Chinese.

Is it hard to pick fruit at a fruit stand? Do you need some sort of certificate or degree? I didn’t think so and i’ve been picking fruit for years. However, in Shanghai every time I go to buy fruit, the people working there always want to help pick fruit for me.

Here’s a dialog from the other days:

Fruit stand person: (FSP)What kind of fruit do you want to buy?
ME: I want to buy some bananas.
FSP: How bout these ones? (he hands me some bananas with holes in them)
ME: These have holes in them.
FSP: How about these ones?
ME: Those ones have bruises on them. I’m going to choose the fruit myself, thanks.

After I manage choosing bananas with no bruises or holes in them, which seemed to be quite a tough task for the Fruit Stand Person, I go to pick some oranges.

FSP: You want some oranges, eh?
ME: Yup.
FSP: Here, how bout these ones?
ME: I’ll pick them myself, thanks. (as much as I’d really like to take your oranges with bruises and holes in them).

Then I moved on to the next fruit and the same amazing dialog repeats again. I think I’d be more satisfied with the “service” if monkeys worked at this fruit stand. At least it would be entertaining and maybe play with them, and wouldn’t be so annoying. And the monkeys wouldn’t force their crappy fruit on me (but they might throw it at me, or poo on it).

Then comes time to pay. I have all my fruit ready and there’s a man in front of me with a watermelon on the scale. Then the cashier asks, “do you want some watermelon too?” “No (bu2yao4),” I replied. Then the old me says “bu2yao1, buyao1″, (notice the tonese are wrong), then says “foreingers like to say it like this.” Uh, maybe who’ve been to Shanghai for about 1 day. Bu2yao4 is about the first thing us foreigners learn because people on the street want to sell us everything.

I know I had correct tones and I do with most things I say, and I wonder why only old people in Shanghai like to say to us that we have the wrong tones , but we actually said the right tones. I finally found out why, my gf said it’s because old Chinese people enjoy watching old shows on tv where they have a foreigner speaking really bad Chinese, with really bad tones. I guess those shows are kind of popular now with old Chinese people.

Anyways, after they try to make fun of my tones, I like to say, with correct tones, 我是这样发音的吗？(meaning: did i pronounce it like that?) They usually say “no.” Then I say, “well, did you say it like that? It sounds really weird. Did you go to school at all?” After I say this, they usually don’t say much back. Or, rarely, they start talking to me like a real person.

Seriously, though, if a Chinese person in Canada was talking to me with bad English, do I make fun of him right to his face? Uh, no, that’s pretty weird. And rude. And a big waste of time.