The trouble with third tone
Chinese has four tones. Five, if you count the “no-tone” tone, and you really should. It’s important. If you give a no-tone syllable a tone, you could be misunderstood.
I had a phenomenal first teacher who spent most of her first semester with me practicing tones. It was boring, but invaluable. I’m forever grateful for her patience. I pretty much got first, second, fourth, and fifth tones during that first year.
Third tone, though, was tough. I didn’t really master it until 2011, when I’d been studying Chinese off and on for four years, and had lived in China for several months.
The thing is, it’s written with a marker like this: ˇ See? A valley. Down, up. I thought my voice was supposed to do that, too. Pro tip: It’s not. What you actually need to do for third tone is just drop your voice like you’re trying to sound manly for one syllable. As long as it’s deeper-pitched than the rest of the sentence, you’re good. Hěn hǎo.
Maybe they explain it better now, but I learned Chinese from New Practical Chinese Reader. It was first published in 1981, and by the time I started studying in 2006, it was obsolete. (Wanna see? Here’s a PDF of an updated version.) The art and science of teaching Chinese has come a long, long way since then.
I moved to China in 2010
Obsolete textbooks aside, the wonderful thing about learning Chinese in the 00s was that everyone told you how great you were at it. I believed them wholeheartedly. There weren’t many people in Arkansas I could compare my Chinese learning progress to, so I didn’t really have another yardstick.
I thought I was pretty great. I also thought I was nailing third tone.
Sooo, I said every third tone wrong and sounded like kind of an idiot for the first 7-8 months I lived in China. Honestly, I sounded like an idiot much longer than 7-8 months, but after that it wasn’t third tone’s fault.
Excuse me, where are the hamburgers?
I’m fine enough with directions, but I do have to spend some time looking at a map first. I’m not amazing (and don’t care to be), but I am good enough.
I didn’t know this about myself yet, though. I also didn’t know how to get to the supermarket in the middle of town. I didn’t know how to get anywhere. I couldn’t take the bus because I was illiterate.
I just started walking in the direction my roommate pointed, and then asked the first friendly-looking person I came across, “Where are the dumplings?” Only not that clearly, because I had what I can only assume was a thick, heavy American accent.
Bless people for listening to me.
Imagine if you were walking down the sidewalk and someone just came up and asked you, “Excuse me, where are the hamburgers?” in English you could barely understand. It’s weird. It’s understandable if it’s obviously someone new to the country, but still. A little weird.
The friendly-looking person said a few things I didn’t understand, then pointed in the direction I was already walking. So…I just kept going.
Several intersections later, I repeated the process with a young woman who was confused by my Chinese and wanted to clarify,
Me: “Excuse me, where are the [she has no idea what I said here]?
Her: “What? She thinks for a moment… Do you mean you want to eat dumplings?
Me: “Yes. I want to eat dumplings.”
It was a blow to my ego. She couldn’t understand me; that meant my Chinese wasn’t as good as I thought.
The next time I asked for directions, it sounded like this, “Excuse me, where are the dumplings? I want to eat dumplings.” Saying I wanted to eat them added enough context for people to guess what I meant, even though I felt kind of dumb.
Another friendly-looking person or two later, I came across a small dumpling shop. It was not the big one my roommate had told me about, but I was kind of over walking at that point, and decided this one would do.
The show
I gathered up my courage and tried to figure out who was taking orders. The lady manning the vats of boiling water? Either of the guys lounging by the kitchen corner in the front? The customer enjoying the show from a stool nearby?
The answer was all of them. They all took my order. I stepped up and announced to everyone that “I want dumplings,” and foolishly thought that would be the end of my travails and would be enough to produce…well, dumplings.
There were a flurry of follow up questions that I wasn’t prepared for, though. They were probably things like, “Would you like a large or a small?”, “Would you like some vinegar with that?” “Beef or pork?” and one that, in hindsight, must have been, “Do you want green vegetables with them?”
Someone made a decision for me. They collected the appropriate amount of cash, and instructed me to sit.
A few minutes later, they presented me with a paper bowl inside a translucent plastic bag and a pair of disposable chopsticks. This was not what I was expecting, but considering that I hadn’t even succeeded at ordering, I figured my best move was to smile, say thank you, and pretend this was exactly what I ordered.
The taste of…boiled salad?
I felt kind of awkward in the small shop and they had wrapped up my order like they expected me to take it away, so I did. I walked a few more meters to a little park and sat down on the steps of the platform that middle-aged ladies used for exercise-dancing at night.
I opened the bag, and saw a bunch of wilted green leafy vegetables floating sadly in water. My heart sank. All that, and I hadn’t managed to get dumplings.
I grew up in the south in the 90s, and my mom did a fantastic job of feeding us. I realize now that not every mom brought home starfruit out of curiosity, or tried a different cheese every week. We ate plenty of veggies. But the main way we ate green leafy vegetables was iceberg lettuce doused liberally with ranch and tomatoes.
I was determined to be open-minded, so I arranged my chopsticks in my right hand and addressed the soggy leaves.
Guess what was underneath them?! The best dumplings I ever ate. Not really—those were in a village in Beijing—but I was proud of myself for actually ending up with dumplings. They tasted like success.
And you know what? Leafy greens blanched in broth are awesome. They become tender and show off their herby flavor when you warm them up. They’re cozy. They’re good for you. They taste like success, too.
Welcome to China
An older lady came over to chat with me. I’m not exactly sure what she said, my listening skills weren’t that good. She was curious about me and why I was there and why I was eating dumplings on the park steps.
I couldn’t really answer.
She welcomed me to China, anyway.