I Sound Like a Cave Man

I sound like cavemen when speaking Chinese. Seriously, ya'll. I have studied this language hours and hours on end and I still sound like a cave man. It's incredibly depressing. This is by no means a reflection on the Chinese langugage itself, but a rather a reflection on my limited abilities in speaking!!!! I have so much head knowledge of the language and can get into a long explanation of sentence structure and character meanings, but sometimes simple everyday tasks baffle me, especially when looking for peculiar objects.
So, I go to Zhong Xing today (a local warehouse kind of place filled with merchandise you have to bargain your way through) and was made aware of this all the more. Number one, while many people love the whole bargaining-in-a-foreign-language experience, I simply dread it and avoid it by all possible means.
I needed a pie pan. When it comes to buying a pie pan for my apple pies, it's a whole new ball game. I do a lot of pointing at pictures and charades, which may or may not go over very well. It took me twenty minutes to explain that I wanted a pie pan. I explained it like this in Chinese (after she didn't understand what apple pie was): "I have apples that I want to bake and to do so I have to put it in an oven on a specific plate- do you have the plate?" Actually, if you want what it sounded like in direct Chinese: "apples, round plate, bake, put in, oven, turn on, sweet apples, eat; plate, have-don't have?" She goes to the back and gets me a plate with pictures of apples on it. No. Well, at least she understood the apples and plate part of it. So, I go to the next lady and go through the whole exchange again. Finally I start looking through the shelves myself and found what I was looking for! I say, "this! this!" (as if I'd just discovered gold) OH (says something frustratingly in Chinese I don't understand, but I just smile and nod). "How much?" "45 kuai (5 dollars)". "4.5 or 45?" "45" "45! Much expensive!" I say (again, direct translation of my limited abilities): "store, over there, yesterday, price said 15 kuai" and then she proceeded to tell me that this was a "special" plate. Of course it is. I tried arguing with her that it was the exact same as the other one ("this one, that one, the same"), but after several rounds of this I was so exasperated that I walked out without a pie plate. That's a lot of energy to walk home empty handed.
And then there was the time that I needed to find a shower curtain for my...um, shower. Now, granted, most Chinese bathrooms do not consist of a bathtub so shower curtains are not needed. And my little pocket dictionary does not have the word for "shower curtain". Well, I guess this one is going to be interesting. So, when I go to the curtain ladies I ask them "curtain, bathroom, have-don't have?" Why do you need a curtain for your bathroom? "curtain, get wet, okay" Huh? "curtain, bathroom, water, okay" (all done while acting out a shower hose). Again, "curtain, water." I say character for shower, write down character for shower, they laugh at the way I write mentioned character, they argue with each other over which character it is and which tone is the correct one used, I show them the character in the dictionary, character is too small for them to read, can't find their glasses...AHHH!. Again, "curtain, shower, water, have-don't have?" (as if repeating it five times will make it all the more clearer) Oh oh! She goes and gets a curtain with pictures of umbrellas and rain. NO. At this point all the curtain ladies are involved in a conversation arguing over what I'm referrring to, as if I'm not there anymore. Finally, one lady understands! Yes! Yes! We're jumping up and down because we FINALLY understood each other. I say, "have-don't have?" Don't have.
Yeah, okay.
Today I needed whiteboard markers. If my little pocket dictionary didn't have the word "shower curtain" in it, do you think it'd have "whiteboard"? Surprisingly that didn't take very long. It sounded like "pen, white, classroom, not chalk." Whew! Got that one.
Sometimes when we are given the wrong thing after ordering at KFC, we'll take it back and point at the object, say "this thing, not good. Want other." Then they jabber on in a much more developed language we cannot understand and we just *sigh.*
Granted, it's not always like this. Some days I get into really great conversations with the vendors or restaurant owners, and especially with people on the train. The other day my taxi driver, after finding out I am American, jabbered on about how much he hates America :) and I was able to engage him in a rather interesting (though limited) debate. So, why is it on some days I can't find a shower curtain or order the correct size of french fries at KFC?
Eventually the cavemen graduated and discovered fire and the wheel--I have to believe that day is coming for me, too.