Tones Tones Tones Tones! That’s what the language of Mandarin revolves around. The actual pinyin (standard mandarin romanization system based on sound) is a helpful tool, however that is only half the battle. The more challenging part is to pronounce it correctly by hitting the right tone. (Mandarin has 4 tones.)

So in my first few weeks of extreme ignorance, I would hop into cabs and hand over my cheat sheet card of my address in both Chinese and English, and just hope the driver wouldn’t take me for a ride. After a few days, I opted to attempt to direct the driver verbally in addition to use the cheat sheet card… And of course, this laid out the welcome mat for mass confusion.

See, the area in which the school is situated is the “Green City International Community” or … “Jin Qiao” in mandarin…..

It took me a while to get the pronunciation correct… “Jin” has a super high tone. “Qiao” has this downward hook tone, and for a while I was mis-pronouncing the area to the likeness of asking the driver to take me to some beer - Tsingdao Beer to be exact. (I now invite you to share my dizzying pain of getting around town over here… Le Sighhhhhhhhh)

. . don’t burn the day. .