Communicating with the Chinese
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While shopping for clothes, the first thing I asked was, “You kou ma?” (Any discounts?)
Chinese: Kou? Kou shen me? (Reduce? Reduce what? Looks at me like I’m the Moron from Malaysia, which I am obviously)
Me: Err…jian jia? (Cut price?)
Chinese: mutter…mutter…you da jer. Da liu jer. (Translation: Sale on. You pay 60% of price.)
That’s my introduction to SALES in China. On the look-out now for small numbers, which means small payments as opposed to big numbers or big discounts in Malaysia and elsewhere. Is this the Chinese way for math? Really interesting.
Important phrase when shopping: “You da jer ma?”
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While buying dinner take-out for the adults at SM on our second day there, a helpful female assistant (xiao mei) answered any questions I had. Then, she left me with the last dish which was steamed xiao bai chai (Chinese bok choi). A male assistant was spooning out the oyster sauce by the scoops.
Me: Kou le. (Enough.)
Boy (or xiao di): Keeps scooping. I love oyster sauce. I live oyster sauce.
Me: Err…kou le. (slightly louder)
The xiaomei saw what was happening and rushed over.
Xiaomei: DING! DING! DING! (TRANSLATION: STOP! ARE YOU DEAF? YOU’RE EMBARRASING US!)
Xiaodi: Spell broken.
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Filed in China, culture 3 Comments so far
huisia on 23 Dec 2007 at 8:09 am #
haha…ya,i had experienced those “chicken talked with duck” talks before, don’t worry, you will get used of it very soon.
Allisia on 23 Dec 2007 at 9:14 am #
You should ask: da duo shou je? (Discount how many %?)
The continue with: wu je? (50%?)
hehe…
Yap, this’s the chinese way math.
KittyCat on 25 Dec 2007 at 10:48 pm #
Hui Sia - LOL got to have a thick face here if I’m gonna learn. Luckily I look like a wai guo ren.
Allisia - thanks for the Mandarin lesson! I’ll remember this