In one of my early posts, I mentioned that one day I had 2 taxis refuse to take me to my destination. I learned a few reasons for this from one of the teachers at the boys' school. The first one is that at lunch time, the taxi drivers have a specific place they go to lunch, and they may not want to venture too far from it if it is close to break time. Chris confirmed this by saying at his company, the lunch room runs out of food within 30 minutes. They are very careful not to prepare too much food. He has noticed that his coworkers won't start anything new too close to lunch, as they are very focused on getting to the lunch room on time!
But more plausible to me is that many of the taxi drivers come from a nearby island. I was correct in assuming that sometimes these drivers do not know the city, and was told that some of them cannot even find the most famous places in town. However, another issue, probably more common, is that many of these drivers are illiterate. So our system of handing out a slip of paper with the address and cross streets written in Chinese won't work for them. Luckily, this same teacher was able to provide us with a taxi assistance phone number for English speakers. Apparently, the government started the program last year in time for the Expo, and it is free. Just call and tell your address in English, and they will translate and tell the driver the destination in Chinese. I haven't tried it yet, but will let you know if it doesn't work!
But more plausible to me is that many of the taxi drivers come from a nearby island. I was correct in assuming that sometimes these drivers do not know the city, and was told that some of them cannot even find the most famous places in town. However, another issue, probably more common, is that many of these drivers are illiterate. So our system of handing out a slip of paper with the address and cross streets written in Chinese won't work for them. Luckily, this same teacher was able to provide us with a taxi assistance phone number for English speakers. Apparently, the government started the program last year in time for the Expo, and it is free. Just call and tell your address in English, and they will translate and tell the driver the destination in Chinese. I haven't tried it yet, but will let you know if it doesn't work!
Most likely the drivers are not illiterate but simply do not know the area as most of the taxi drivers in China are from more rural areas surrounding the cities. They must pass a test to become a licensed taxi driver and also need to be able to read road signs, etc. Another reason could be they don't want to drive to a particular area because of the traffic situation.
ReplyDeleteSource: my Chinese wife
One thing you could do is to learn how to pronounce Mandarin and write the pinyin (phonetic) above the Chinese characters on the cards so that you can sound it out for the taxi drivers.
I'm your husband's colleague by the way.
I didn't mean to contradict myself. The pinyin/Mandarin pronunciation can work if they really can't understand what is written.
ReplyDeleteJordan, thank you, I have so much to learn. For sure Shanghai is a HUGE city, and I suspect even the seasoned taxi drivers cannot find every place, and heaven knows traffic can be brutal!
ReplyDeleteWe generally do write both the characters and the pinyin, but right now I cannot pronounce anything. Papa Dumpling shared a pinyin pronunciation guide from one of his colleagues, was it from you? Perhaps this is a good place for me to start in my language studies? Also, I have heard that Shanghai has its own dialect. Can you tell me if this has any bearing on written language or strictly spoken language?
I gave your husband the Chinese/English picture dictionary, so maybe it was something else.
ReplyDeletePinyin is a very good place to start because it can help you to learn the pronunciation and practice sounding out Chinese words. I would say that the pronunciation is the most important aspect when first starting to learn Chinese. Tones are possibly even more important than the sound itself. It is difficult at first, especially because you have to put your tongue in strange places to pronounce the sounds, but focus hard on this first and then you can transition to learning the characters. Your mouth will be sore after a bit of practice but you will get used to it.
Shanghai does have its own dialect, Shanghaihua (Shanghainese), which when spoken is unintelligible from Putonghua (Standard Spoken Chinese a/k/a Mandarin Chinese). Every child in China learns Putonghua in school, so even Shanghainese people will be able to understand (even if they are speaking Shanghaihua among themselves - you may not be able to eavesdrop on their conversations though!).
All of the Chinese dialects use the same characters but some of the dialects use their own slang terms that even when written, speakers of other dialects don't understand them.