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7.28.03

You Ordered in Cantonese

Travel writer Daisann McLane is learning to speak Cantonese. Not many foreigners take up the language these days. Mandarin is the official Chinese language, as well as the one that Western professionals are racing to master for business reasons. As a result, the practical-minded Chinese in New York’s Chinatown, where she studies, think she is a little crazy.

But as she writes in a thoughtful and inspiring story in Friday’s New York Times, her new language skills have unexpectedly opened new doors in her hometown.

“I’ve lived in New York for more than 25 years, and for most of that time I related to Chinatown the way I suppose most non-Asian New Yorkers do: as a fun place to eat dinner that is exotic, mysterious but ultimately unknowable and even, on occasion, brusque,” she writes. “But when I spread my Chinese homework out on restaurant and coffee shop tables, unexpected things happen. It is as if a door swings open and Chinatown invites me into the house to meet the family.” McLane, who also writes the “Frugal Traveler” column for the New York Times, fielded questions from World Hum last year.

Posted by Jim Benning • 7.28.03
Categories: Weblog • China • Global Village • Life of a Travel Writer