Mandarin Medicine

Turns out you can't actually learn Mandarin by osmosis.

Or even by dating a Chinese fellow. Which is a pity since I never actually had the opportunity to learn the language. Hardly heard it spoken at home, never had classes at school and the horrid People's Own Language ( POL ) extracurricular bits after didn't help. Could barely write my own name for years.

But necessity helps - and when you're at work dealing with hundreds of Chinese-speaking folks, you do tend to pick up a few words here and there. So at the moment I'm only good for the rudimentary bits of the language - ordering from a menu, bargaining for a cabinet and probably talking my way out of a bloody fistfight by apologizing profusely. Though for the latter, I'd probably get a lil banged up trying to come up with the proper words.

But that's about it. When it comes to the more complex functions of the human body, I tend to run out of suitable vocabulary. Unfortunately once the befuddled relatives hear me struggle through a couple of words in pidgin Mandarin, they tend to insist / beg / plead that I continue.


Paul : You mean I gotta talk to the relatives?!
Resident : Yes. And in Mandarin.
Paul : Fuck.
Which always turns out to be a disastrous mistake since my lamentable grasp of the language is only elementary at best.

Relative : So how is my father, doctor?
Paul : Let me get someone to explain. My Mandarin's not that good.
Relative : It sounds alright. So tell me how's my father, doctor?
Paul : Bad, so very bad. His respiratory function ... umm.. his lung... umm... has gotten poisoned.
Relative : Poisoned?
Paul : Tainted? Blighted? Infected?
Relative : Is his condition stable? Will he be able to survive the operation?
Paul : Ill, so very ill. Die, could die.
Relative : OMG! That's terrible!
Paul : Cry, don't cry.

It's hard to deliver tragic life-altering news in a language you're not used to. Especially when I only have ten words at most in my woefully inadequate arsenal.

And I still subconsciously try to translate the words from English.

Seriously. I sound like a mindless simpleton. Pretty sure they'd be wondering where the heck I actually graduated from. Some shoddy, two-bit medical school that hands out shady diplomas online?

Maybe it's time I wrote cue cards for myself.