Fellow travelers,
Honestly we wished someone taught us this the second we got off the plane. It would have helped so much. The Chinese use hand signals to count from one to ten on one hand. You don't have to worry about tones. You don't have to memorize words. Just get these hand signals down and you can bargain like a pro. 1 through 5 are more or less the same, but a lot of people count three starting from the pinky. Six through ten are totally different.
Six through ten in order
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Dear Aunt Liz and Uncle Seth,
Thank you for all of the one hundred pictures. We are sorry we have not written in a while. I love the dumplings. Them look so cute.When you come to visit me we will have to go to a Chinese restaurant.
Thank you!
elana
Elana said...
August 14, 2009 at 4:45 AM
Dude I had so never heard of that.
Allen said...
August 16, 2009 at 12:32 AM
Ah yeah, counting to ten with one hand! I loved this the second I picked it up when I lived in Shanghai. (You can do a 10 by crossing your index and middle finger as well.)
I've picked it up, and now I can't help it. I've done the '6' sign to hostesses in restaurants in Canada, only to remember that they had no way of knowing what I meant. :) I also to this day do the '3' as you describe, starting with the pinky and holding the index down with my thumb.
Once you pick that up, doing a '9' with two hands feels so... inefficient!!
The Backpack Foodie said...
August 27, 2009 at 11:33 PM