February 9, 2009

The acknowledgement of the level of rust on my Chinese as I forgot the word for salt in the supermarket--I went up to one of the store assistants with pepper in hand and proceeded to say I was looking for pepper's white friend and a plethora of other vague-ish descriptions. The assistant tried earnestly to help, but it proved futile. After a while I told her it was okay and she left; I then asked a 20 something shopper if she knew English, which she said "very little". I went through the same dialogue, but she just brillantly pulled out her cell phone which had an English dictionary app on it: I input salt and it spit out 盐, to which she said "ohhhhhh, yan!" When she said it, I remembered it perfectly and wondered how I could forget such a rudimentary vocab word. After that was sorted, I went back to the assistant and told her. She gave me that oh-that's-what-you-were-after-with-your-silly-description look & we both had a laugh.