"lou-is vui-tton" (maya's first blog)

Ok, here it goes, my first blog entry EVER, so try not to be too judgemental! (Praise is appreciated and expected.)

The coolest "interaction with the locals" episode just happened to us, and since I was the one doing most of the interacting, I get to describe the incident.

We were underground, waiting for the subway, when an old Chinese man, his smile showing only one front tooth on top, came up to us to examine the tattoo on Brandon's right arm. (Throughout the trip so far, Brandon's tats have gotten lots of attention from the locals, all of it good, and have led to some interesting interactions). He pointed at it, and when Brandon raised his sleeve for him to see the whole picture, the old man looked awestruck, said "picture" and proceeded to rub Brandon's arm as if he expected the image to come off by rubbing it. Then he asked us in broken English where we were from, and when we said "America," he made a fist and said "Ah, America, strong". We thought that it was pretty funny, but that that was the end of our brief encounter: Our train has arrived and we thought the old dude was staying on the platform, but he came into the car with us and stood right next to me. He had some bags with him, out of which he took a ratty, old copy of a Discovery magazine, showed it to me (I had no idea where this was leading, so I just smiled nervously) and then read "Dis-co-ve-ry" while apparently looking for encouragement from me. I said, "Yes, Discovery" and smiled, thinking, "OK, where is this going?". He then read all the cover lines in the same fashion, looking for me to correct his English pronunciation. We then went on to the Table of Contents and, the best thing of all, the ad pages. This is all going on with the rest of the Chinese commuters onboard looking at us in bafflement, trying to figure out how we know each other and what is going on. As I was sounding out "Louis Vuitton" in the one of the ads for him, both Brandon and I could barely suppress our giggles, like, this old Chinese dude will ever have any use for knowing how to say Louis Vuitton correctly! Anyway, throughout this exercise, when he would mispronounce things, I would pronounce them correctly for him, and because the train was pretty noisy, sometimes I would practically have to shout all kinds of brand names to him, while he dilligently tried his best to repeat after me. Sometime is the middle of this, the situation somehow struck me as being incredibly familiar, almost, deja-vu-like, but I couldn't really pinpoint why... until later, after the whole thing was over, and I told Brandon how familiar it felt, it struck me that I used to do the very same thing with my grandpa! He had never learned to speak English, because he came to America when he was 80 years old, but he did learn to read, and sometimes when I would come over to visit him (in his 90s at the time) he would read random English words from newspapers or magazines to me, expecting me to correct his pronunciation and showing off his language skills in the process. (Anyway, my grandpa passed away recently, and I miss him a lot, and this experience with the old dude was really touching and made me feel really good.) So, back to the story, (because it only gets better). I complimented him on his English, and he said it wasn't so good at all, and that, as far as me and Brandon could understand him, a long time ago he had been an artillery commander in North Korea or something like that and that is where he learned English. Then, he thanked me for the English lesson, and asked me some crazy thing about dialing mobile phones in Beijing, which took, like, 5 minutes for him to explain and for me to understand. After that, he looked at me and Brandon and asked "You have baby?" I laughed and said "No," and he laughed and said "Hurry up!" at which both Brandon and I cracked up to his even greater amusement. Then he realized that his stop was coming up, and when I complimented him on his English again as part of preparing to say our goodbyes, he, unexpectedly, in an attempt to showcase more of his English skills, started singing "Row, row, row your boat"! It was unbelievable, so endearing and just totally awesome! I looked at Brandon, and he was beaming, like, Damn, this rocks! As the old dude was singing, all the onlookers kept watching us even more uncomprehendingly, but with obiviously amusement. I actually sang a little with him (to help his pronunciation, of course), I just couldn't help it, I actually wanted to give him a hug (but stopped myself)! Then his stop came and he told us both "Best luck with your trip" and smiled widely and said "Bye bye" as he walked off the train. Brandon and I just looked at each other in total disbelief at the awesomeness of what has just transpired. Maybe the Chinese aren't so bad after all (just kidding).