When I first came to Taiwan to live I listened to the language and thought to myself, "OK, this doesn’t sound so hard. I have high-school French and German so I already possess some linguistic ability. I can learn this." Over the next year or so I worked constantly with an interpreter and never really put my theory to the test. When someone asked me: "Do you speak Chinese?" I would make an excuse and add, "But I am planning to learn it very soon…" But my Chinese has never gotten beyond the ambiguous grunt that I uttered the first time a 7Eleven attendant hit me with a string of strange syllables. Here is my sad, sad story…

I’d heard all about the four, five or is it six(?) tonal endings and they seemed daunting, but if you can learn German grammar, I reassured myself, you can learn anything: I was just saving myself for the right moment to start. One day on a flight from Taipei to Kaohsiung, I decided this was the day; today I’d start actually learning the language of my hosts, my friends, and my wife and my two stepdaughters. I listened carefully to the clearly enunciated announcements as the plane began to descend into Kaohsiung airport: "Gerway lee ker chi…something something something…"

Okay, I’d start with that; I’d memorize that phrase, learn the English meaning and that could be the beginning of my grasp of Mandarin.

When I got to my meeting, I drew my friend Oliver aside and asked: "What does this mean? Gerway lee ker chi…something something something?"

He looked at me with a blank expression. "What does what mean?"

"That," I said. "The thing I just said, what does that mean?"

"I don’t know?"

"It’s Chinese. I heard them say it on the plane."

"I don’t think that is Chinese."

"Yes, it is, they said it three times. Gerway lee kerchi…whatever…whatever whatever." He may have moved back a step; I didn’t notice because I was wondering why he was being so difficult about this. Then I realized that perhaps I was missing one of the tonal endings, so for the next five minutes I tried variations: "Ger WAY lee KER chi…dah dah DAH….Ger way LEE KER CHI…dum…DUM…DUM!..."

He continued shaking his head and glanced at his watch. I took the not very subtle hint and we returned to the meeting. Later when I reviewed the experience I realized that for whatever reason he didn’t want me to be able to learn his language. Obviously, somewhere in there I must have hit on the right combination but he had not wanted to admit it. This had given me a new and chastening insight into his character. Two days later I lay in bed with my wife, and tried again, confident that love would overcome whatever malevolent cultural influence was denying me my right to speak Chinese.

"Darling, what does this mean? ‘Gerway lee ker chi…something something something’."

Two hours later, by analyzing all possible landing announcements she finally said: "Oh, you mean Gerway lee ker chi…something something something."

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