My throat is killing me. Well, not really killing me more like swollen and not the most awesome thing. The reason, well, I can only speculate because of what I ate yesterday. I went to a pizza place (Pizza Hut knock off) to eat and scope out a girl that I got the hots for. I ordered my Super Ached pizza and asked for hot sauce / peppers. The guy left and came back with, um, not Tabasco but a little dish full of peppers and oil. This is not uncommon, so I was like yeah awesome. I started eating the hotness. It was hot and it was good. Although when I finished the heaping table spoon I noticed something. That something was swollen. My mouth, and my throat started to get scratchy. Not good. This usually happens when I eat nuts. Yes, I am allergic to nuts. Darn. It wasn’t that bad and I had only eaten little. I also wasn’t that worried because my Chinese is good enough to get me to the hospital. Haha. Well, that’s kinda true. So I held out and it started to go away. But this morning. Oh boy. It felt like my throat was the Gobi desert and needed water. It’s swollen and not feeling good. But anyway.
So I am sitting here at Starbucks again. More like a mobile office. All the power outlets are taken. I got here a little late from my usual time. So I decided to sit upstairs in the thick of it all. Where I can hear everyone. Love me some eaves dropping. It reminded me of something that most foreigners that have never been to China don’t know. Everyone in China speaks two languages. Most anyway that where born after the proclamation of the current government in 1949.
China is basically a bunch of different places that are put together. Because it is hard to travel from place to place back in the day, and probably a bunch of other reasons. Every city and town mostly have their own language. But the current gov which started in 1949 the gov mandated that a standard Mandarin Chinese be taught in all schools. So kids learn Mandarin at school and their hometown language from their parents. I got reminded of this because there are a few lovely ladies have a massive conversation in the local dialect. Which I don’t understand at all. A few words will get through that I recognize. But for the most part, hell, they could be talking about how handsome I am and I can’t do anything about that.
This is also a good point to bring up because of business. Even if you speak Chinese your vendor, partner, whomever you are doing business with, can switch to their local language so long as who they are talking to speaks it. Shady, I know. That’s why you never let anyone know you can speak Chinese. Shady on my part, maybe, but you don’t thing they are doing something shady either. Please.
Anyway. This whole dialect thing is pretty similar to Texas. I mean really who the hell understands them.