Xie Xie Shanghai!

After signing a waiver form that i had no flu-like symptoms, lest I be the bearer of swine flu into China I stepped up to the Shanghainese customs checkpoint with my passport, late at night, tired and uncomfortable in that way you only get from long plane transits.

As I handed my documents over at the very clean and orderly checkpoint to a short man in smart uniform and cap I was given the option of critiquing my customs officials service.

There was a little electronic box in front of me with buttons and various emoticons; a smiley face, an ambivalent face or a sad face.

I looked at my guy, who was checking my visa without any kind of emotion and thought about it for a second.

Really, I was tired and over it as much as he seemed to be and felt ambivalent myself about the whole experience, then should I press the ambivalent button or just leave the poor guy alone?

Maybe communicating in Shanghai was not going to be as difficult as I expected?

I wondered if there were little electronic boxes everywhere that I could avoid offending people with my mandarin.

And I don't just mean offending people with the sound of my Australian accent trying to form Chinese, I mean actually offending people.

Before I left Australia I downloaded a Mandarin phrase guide onto my iPhone. I started by practising hello and thank you, you know the extreme basics.

The thing is because the only other language i speak even a little of other than English, is French and apparently there is some speech defect quadrant in my brain that switches on whenever I try out another language; it comes out with a French accent.

Which is embarrassing considering my French is so limited. But that it could be even more embarrassing than that surprised me, as i discovered with my Mandarin.

So, 'xie xie' is thank you in mandarin.

Just try to say that.

How does it sound?

Well, apparently i made up my own version, which sounded lovely and foreign to my ears where the 'xie' had more of a 'gzh-i' sound, you know, with a twist of French.

So i was saying it over and over 'gzh-i gzh-i', 'gzh-i gzh-i' a bit like how 'Gi Gi' would sound in French. 'Gi Gi', 'Gi Gi, 'Gi Gi'.

I tried my new word out on an employee of mine from Taiwan.

I watched her eyes widen in shock as soon as it came out of my mouth from my very proud looking face, before she recovered and very respectfully said "hmmm, um Jennifer what is it that you are trying to say?"

Mei Mei I'm saying thank you in Mandarin!

"ah, ok try like this;" where by she said Xie Xie and asked me to repeat til i had some semblance of it.

Satisfied, I asked her what she thought i was saying, and the reply came;

"Well Jen, actually, you were saying 'little boy's penis'"

...oh dear

So again, I hoped these little electronic boxes where everywhere, should come in handy with the taxi driver when i finally get out of the airport...