Chengdu: Double Talk

Last Saturday I flew to Chengdu to attend a conference on Public Administration, at which I was presenting a paper for my grandfather. Overall the experience was interesting and, I suppose, worthwhile. I presented the paper, heard several other lectures, and got to meet professionals and academics in the field of Public Administration from America and China. Things were a bit on the surreal side, however, and I felt very much out of place.

This discomfort was heightened by the existence of Lizzie, the Chinese volunteer who met me at the airport (useful) and had apparently been told not to let me out of her sight (annoying). She’d show up at the end of the morning session to walk me back to lunch, which was a block away at the hotel where I’d spent the night and where I’d eaten breakfast. Also, she seemed unwilling to believe that I spoke Chinese. Consider: At the airport I mentioned to her that I was studying in Hangzhou for the semester. I then asked her Chinese name and repeated it back to her. She commented that I’d pronounced it well, and by way of explanation I said, in Chinese, “I am here studying Chinese.” A while later on the bus, she is talking to a Chinese professor on the bus. She explains the contents of the conversation to me, and I reply in Chinese “Yes, I understood it”. Which startles her and impresses the professor, to whom I speak with briefly in Chinese. Later in the hotel, as she continued to serve a translator function for me through check-in, she was searching for a word, and I supplied her with the Chinese one, which was more succinct. She gave me a strange look as if she wasn’t sure what language I’d addressed her in. On Sunday morning I explained to her that I was planning to leave before dinner and meet two classmates who were in Chengdu, and she seems to think I want to leave for the whole day. I explained it again, and when she left I sent her a text message in Chinese to avoid confusion. As we leave the meeting, I hear her commenting to a friend in disbelief about the long message, but of course the attitude with which she speaks is still one which assumes I don’t know she’s talking about me.

Sunday evening I took a cab into town to do some exploring. I found a Tibetan neighborhood and a really cool souvenir shopping area with a Sichuan snack street, where I tried a few gloriously spicy snacks before wandering farther uptown, eventually meeting up with Xueqin and Shushan for an authentic hotpot dinner. Not exactly taking in all the sights, but it got me thinking about what to do when I go back in December.