Swapping countries.

I would imagine that Monday was terrible day for you if you're new to Canada. First of all, everyone has switched their clocks back an hour and forgot to tell you. You probably showed up to work an hour early and nobody was there. People would tell you that everyone switched their clocks back on hour on Sunday and offer no reasonable explanation as to why they all did that.

A little shaken, you'd go home and relax for the evening. Then the doorbell would ring. Little children dressed up as monsters would be at your doorstep yelling "Trick or Treat!" You'd give them a confused look and clue in that they want candy. You don't have candy, so you give them some money and they go away. Five minutes later, it happens again. You realize that you're having a terrible day.

This is probably an exaggeration, but it's something I've been thinking about because I'm going to China as part of my re-Asian-ification process. Back to the motherland that I never really knew. I'm told that things are really different there. People are implying that visiting China is a terrible idea if I'm used to North American standards of living.

Then I get another point of view from people who have visited China recently. They are telling me that China is changing, and they can barely recognize it from a few years ago. The urban centres are becoming ultra-modern. That's good for me, because I'm going to stick to the urban centres. Let's face it, I'm not going to last very long in rural China.

One thing hasn't changed, and that's the fact that they're going to be speaking Chinese there. I'll be okay in Hong Kong because I'll understand Cantonese, and people will know English there. I'll get some dirty looks for not knowing Cantonese, but I'm willing to live with that. In Beijing, they won't know much English or Cantonese. If I don't know Mandarin, I'm pretty much going to die there. This is why I'm going to hanging onto my girlfriend/interpreter for dear life.
In case I do find myself on my own, I've strategically learned some neutral responses to questions. I don't want to risk responding yes or no at random. Instead, I have learned to fluently say the following:

• I don't know.
• What?
• Nothing's wrong. Everything is fine.

I'll let you know how it all goes. I'll be leaving in December.