Spectral Traveling

One of the weird things about traveling in a country where you can't speak the language is that you feel a bit like a ghost, passing through without being able to communicate or interact with those around you. That feeling is, of course, incompatible with the fact that I also feel like a bit of a spectacle at times, but never mind that. There is still that very frustrating feeling that in such a social culture, we are only ever seeing the veneer of things as we float by.

While it has been easier to get around without language than I expected, trying to communicate with phrases has in general been much harder than I thought it would be. Since we are not travelling with somebody who can speak Chinese, we don't have anybody to help correct our atrocious pronunciation. As a general rule, nobody ever understands anything we try to say from the phrase book. Without any toehold in the language, it has been difficult to even learn simple things, so we have almost given up trying.

Instead, we travel around like a pair of deaf-mutes. We point and gesture whenever possible, and get a lot of mileage out of holding up pieces of paper with Chinese characters written on them. Some combination of gesturing, pointing at characters in a phrase book, and trusting people not to screw you seems to be enough to get by rather well.

Actually, rather than a true phrase book, the best aid we brought is a little "Point It" book that is nothing but a collection of big-type characters, and occasionally pictures, to point at when you need something. I'm also trying to learn a few characters every day since that sticks in my head a lot better than spoken word.

I suppose that Tara's previously mentioned knitting-connection struck me so much because it felt like we were suddenly materialized into the real world. The communication with the women was by gesture and a few simple phrases (mostly they would point at the yarn and say "how much?") but it was enough to get a sense of feeling back and forth. Every once in a while, one of the women would turn towards me, smile, and give me the thumbs up.

Gesture based communication is why all travelers love street food so much, you might not know exactly what you are getting when you point at something, but at least you know what it looks like. The vendor then holds up fingers for the price, and you have completed a whole transaction in silence.

Even better was a concept-restaurant in Guilin called Aunt. It was kind of like dim-sum in reverse. When you sat down in the place, you were handed a card. You then went up to a huge bank of chef's stations that had sample dishes placed in front of them; after pointing at a dish, they stamped the card and the item was magically at your table within a few minutes. Even beyond the fact that it avoided the language barrier, it was a really fun way to eat. Seeing the ingredients prepared gives you much more information than a one-line menu description ever can; I probably wouldn't have ordered the bamboo shoots unless if I hadn't seen the preparation and that would most certainly have been a loss.

Really, this all isn't that big of a deal, but I sort of feel some bourgeoisie guilt for not trying harder to be a conscientious language-learning traveller rather than just another ignorant American abroad. Especially here in Yunnan, the backpacking Americans are not the stereotype one wants to aspire to. I suppose I'll just keep working on my characters and trying to become a literate deaf-mute.