You are looking at the view from my hotel room here in Shanghai. This is a famous area in Shanghai known as The Bund. As beautiful as this looks, you should see it at night, when all the lights come on. It was hard to go to sleep!
I bought a small Mandarin phrase book before I left, so I could attempt to have a conversation with taxi drivers, etc... I thought it was perfect, because the book provides phoentic spellings. For example...Hello, what's new? Knee how? Cold/hot today, isn't it? Jing tee-en how yurr/larng?! I thought I'd be a hit!
I tried just about every phrase....How is your family; Thanks for your help; I need a dentist. Nothing worked. Until I finally found one phrase that I can articulate well enough that every Chinese person I try it on seems to understand - Yo mayo dar pie? which translates to Played any mahjong lately? It's not very useful, but it really cracks them up. Of course, I am not looking forward to the day that I meet an actual mahjong player. I'll have no follow up!
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