Watch Out for the Language Police

BEIJING - Two white dudes can't help sticking out on the streets of China, but what happens when you're trying to remain undercover?

This was my predicament as I met with a friend from university for a quick dinner yesterday evening. He's not with the CIA or any undercover organization. The reason for our discretion was that being discovered by an even more sinister group: his fellow classmates. Steve is on a language program here, with a language pledge.

Language pledges are a special form of punishment. With these programs, you agree not to speak English for several months at a time. Not to your friends, not while you are at dinner. This particular program had just a couple exceptions: writing e-mails, calling home and reading the Internet. That's it: no English hour or getting trashed clause (this would not be a problem for me, as the amount of Chinese I speak is directly proportional to the amount of drinks I've had). Just a hell of a lot of Chinese.

I've been speaking a fair share of Chinese these past few days; I'd even wager the some days the amount of Chinese spoken has been nearly level with the amount of English, but there was no way that our only meeting in several months was going to be conducted entirely in Chinese.

But there can be serious consequences for breaking this pledge: you get thrown out of the program.Waiting outside the East Gate of Beijing Normal University, I practiced some stock phrases to greet my friend. He appeared, speaking Chinese at the speed of a cheetah (he's in a quite high level) and wandered into a back-alley roast meet restaurant.

When the conversation switched to English, I got to hear more about the program: it was really, really hard. There's hardly any time for socializing, no matter what language. The people here (many from Ivy League schools) are really serious about learning Chinese. By the end of this program, Steve should learn a lot of Chinese, and get really good at spotting white people from miles away.

Shopping for Hong Kong's Next Megatalent

HONG KONG - I've never been one for "American Idol." I could never get too excited by a bunch of teenagers from Kentucky squaring off to win the favor of Paula Abdul by singing hopelessly sacrine renditions of Barry Manilow songs. Clearly 40 million Americans, and the hundreds of millions of others who watch around the world, disagree.

Competition does excite me. When I saw that the nearby Westwood mall would be having a "Chinese Folk Singing Competition" this Saturday, I was interested. It didn't matter that the sign advertising it was all in Chinese, and didn't list a time. I was there.

I wandered over to the mall around 1 p.m. This turned out to be the perfect time, as the concert was in high gear. The first performance I saw was two teenaged men, each with guitars and harmonizing in Cantonese. I didn't recognize the song, but they were pretty tight.

There was about 100 people in the crowd, young children, some clutching guitars and all fussily dressed, with their parents. This competition, it turns out, was strictly for children.



The next contestant was a young girl, who was maybe 7. She got up and started singing. The song was "It's the End of the World." Not the REM song, but an old standard, sung in English. Her tone was good, but it was clear she definitely didn't speak English had just memorizied the lyrics.

The judges seemed to like it. There were two of them, dressed formally and gazing constantly at the singers. They were positioned for maximum drama - only about two meters from the stage and blocking part of the audience. For the performer, they were the only thing that mattered.



The third act was better. This person was a bit older, maybe 16, and dressed very fashionably. This was fashionable in the Hong Kong sense, so that meant ripped jeans with a lot of pockets. He opened his mouth, and I couldn't believe it: out came "Wonderful Tonight," by Eric Clapton.

It's a nice song, but this guy didn't have the range or the language skills for it. I'm not sure if he knew this was about a man and his wife, or just generally about life, but by just shifting the accent from the "wonderful" to the "tonight," all feeling seemed lost. He played guitar quite well, but just couldn't connect.

After that I left; I'm not sure what the results were. My vote was with the "The End of the World" girl. But I do know that the definition of "Chinese folk singing" is much broader than I originally suspected. Maybe at the next competition I should enter. I can do a pretty mean rendition of "Crazy."