As most of my stories, this one started once upon a blue moon with little yellow dots, i.e. a long time ago. I was working as interpreter in Mexico City and of course, because of my job, went from one place to the other and always had a booth colleague. One day, one colleague called me with a strange offer. She was teaching interpretation to a group of Chinese students in the Colegio de México, a sort of high-level university. However, since her pregnancy was advancing, she needed to find a replacement for those classes and thought of me. The idea sounded a bit crazy as I did not know a single word of Chinese but she said neither did she and explained what and how she did it.
Flowers in the gardens of the Friendship Hotel
The students were all teachers of Spanish in China that had obtained a scholarship from the Mexican government to come and perfect their Spanish and also learn some interpretation skills, so they all spoke very good Spanish. Interpretation, as most of you know, is the “art” of putting the words and ideas expressed in one language into another, to make them understandable for the public that does not master both. Well, to teach it, in principle, you have to know both languages, the original and the destination one, so you can correct the students and improve their skills. But what happens when you do not speak the second language? Well, it took me a while but finally I established that half of my group would interpret from Spanish into Chinese and the second half from that Chinese back into Spanish, which was the only language I could judge. It was fun because we were doing like the children’s party game of “telegraph” but at the same time it was difficult and the results were not always great. However, the students enjoyed the exercise and I did also. We became very good friends.
Tien An Men and a young woman waiting in a side street
At the time the Mexican government had accepted a lot of Chilean refugees – those that had had to leave their country upon the arrival of Pinochet. Most of them did not have any documents or certificates regarding their qualifications, but ended up as teachers and of course their Spanish language had a very strong Chilean tone snd vocabulary, especially for the everyday parlance and my students did not always understood it and worse even, they had difficulties communicating with the Mexican students that did not use the Chilean words, so same language, different words and sometimes lots of misunderstanding. The worse was the use of bad words, insults that in Mexico sometimes are used as terms of endearment but as such you have to know how to apply them otherwise you risk insulting someone and end up in total isolation.
My mother used to tell me that when I was a kid she should have washed my mouth with soap, meaning I could use some rather strong words not of her liking, but for once, this knowledge of insults and swear words were my passport to China. Let me explain. My Chinese students wanted to interact with the Mexican students but did not know how to use or react to insults and swear words, as they did not understand fully the meaning, so once they invited me to their communal house in Mexico, for tea, so I could explain to them how and where to use all these words. Since there are so many words of this kind, the invitations became frequent and then at one point I was even invited for dinner, served at 6 o’clock on the dot. They certainly improved their vocabulary and I enjoyed their Chinese home made dinners.
Teachers helping to prepare the Chinese ravioles
They went back to China after some months and we kept in touch on and off. A year of so later I received a letter from one of them, that was head of the Spanish Department of one of the universities in Beijing, inviting me to come to China to teach Spanish to undergraduate students. The young people spoke little Spanish and had never had Spanish-speaking teachers, so the experience would do them good.
Some of my students preparing the Chinese dinner
He gave me a deadline to answer, and if I did not, then they would look for someone else. As you might imagine, I was ready and almost packed in about ten minutes but first had to ask my mother for her opinion. My father was no longer and my sister was somewhere in Europe, so my leaving for China meant my mom would be left to her own devices, and she was not in the best of health. She immediately said I should go and take full advantage of that chance, and that she would rather miss me than have me there regretting it every day. Great my mom!!
If I could, I would’ve sent a whatsapp or equivalent to reply but unfortunately at the time social media were limited to letters and most communication had to be done the old fashion way. So, in order not to miss my chance, I sent three answers, one by regular mail – air mail of course, to my former student, another one I sent via a friend that was leaving the next day for Tokyo, so I asked him to mail it from Japan, just in case mail service in Mexico did not work, and the third one I asked another friend, living in Hong Kong at the time, to send a note to Beijing indicating that my “yes, thank you” letter was on the way. In the end, all three arrived and after some administrative procedures and getting my working visa and the like, I landed in Beijing at the end of August, was picked up by my friend, taken to the teacher’s quarters, settled down and started one of the most fantastic times of my life. Learning curve steep but also pleasure curve war incredible. Originally I had a one year contract but I ended up staying two years, making many friends, Chinese and foreign alike, learning a little bit of Chinese and travelling in that country as if it was the end of the world.
At that time, the tradition was that the unit – each university, factory, institute or the like was generically known as Unit, so the unit that employed me would offer a very nice welcome dinner at a fancy restaurant, with the main directors and administrators and of course, my personal interpreter, who happened to be Victoria, another former student of mine in Mexico. The food was great, for the most part, and it was better not to be too curious about what it was. However, there were two dishes I really had problems with, one was sea cucumber like a long insipid snail of sorts, and the other one was cows tendons, which consistency made it very difficult to swallow, for me at least, but unfortunately in the Chinese cuisine both were considered delicacies, so the dean of my university, when I quickly finished them wanted to give me another helping, but through my interpreter I said I rather wait for the other dishes that eat a lot of only one. Fortunately he accepted the excuse and I was liberated. When I was about to leave China I was offered another banquet, but then I forewarned my colleagues that I wanted Sichuan food, spicy and not inclusive of either sea cucumber or tendons.
Chinese Lions everywhere
Our lodgings were at the Friendship Hotel – a rather big compound with lots of green areas built some years before to celebrate the friendship between China and the Soviet Union but since that friendship had cooled down, it was now used to house the foreigners that were working for the various units in Beijing. We came literally from all over the world, most of us were there to teach our respective languages, be that Tagalog, Swahili or Spanish but as in many places, English was the lingua franca. Each one had a small flat with one bedroom, one bathroom, kitchen and living-dining room area. We had hotel service, sheets and towels were provided and also there were three communal restaurants where we could eat all or any of the three meals and all was included as part of our salary.
Speaking of salary, at the time if you translated our salary into US dollars, we were being paid a pittance, but for China we were being paid splendidly and much more than many ministers of the central government. Besides, we had the right to receive half of our salary in convertible RMB (the People’s money) that as the name implies, could be converted into foreign currency or used to buy certain goodies that the Chinese Government considered luxuries and had to be paid with hard currency. Also the convertible RMB could be used in hotels belonging to foreign hotel chains to buy for instance an espresso – real one, or a piece of cake or imported cheese, although a small portion of imported cheese could cost the equivalent of a week salary. Not for every day but for an exceptional situation it was great. There was also the Friendship store operating on the same principle, i.e. you could buy imported goodies paying with RMB if you had your teacher’s card or with hard currency if not.
and more lions
So as mentioned, I spent two years in Beijing, learned a bit of Chinese and learned to love the country and its people. Different from mine, sometimes difficult to understand and of course, they assumed that coming from the Empire of the Centre, they were rightfully the centre of the universe and some behaved like that, but it was great and not a single moment of regret ever since.
Mementos of my life 