“Ni Hao”
It’s very collegial for a Sikh to greet an official colleague with a formal ‘Hello’ or Indian traditional ‘Namaste’ apart from the revered ‘Sat Sri Akal’ but the former two words are quite a strange bit of piece to be used in his day to day life.
Evening, 5th February ’09, a young Sikh walked down the ramps of the Beijing airport with 40 kgs of luggage bags which for sure had to catch the attention of the exit security. The luggage scan could reveal nothing but a stroller dumped with a few packets of packaged food including Biryani, Halva, Dal and Rajma Chawal, the MDH Gola Gappa masala, pickles and a few bottles of hair fixer and lots of sweaters and clothes apart from the other insignificant stuff. If that baffles you, then it would be worth highlighting that in a normal case, an Indian is seen bringing in bags filled with lots of the Indian Curry masalas, raw Pulses, Wheat fluor etc. and very few clothes.
This was the first time I was traveling abroad and that too to a place where I knew no one at all. The month before the travel had given me enough nausea with the friends and relatives all pouring in with advises and warning me of the definite difficulties I’m going to face. “They don’t understand English”, “You won’t get to eat anything. Good that you’ll shed some extra pounds for sure”, “I heard that they eat all kinds of meat including Dogs and Donkeys”. But, I, inspired by the pages of ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ walked on with a few words in Chinese scribbled on a piece of paper which meant, ‘No Meat Please, Chicken is OK’. I sent my taste buds on an unpaid leave in the wake of Food Recession. A few other placards included ‘Wo Bu Dong Zhong Wen’ meaning ‘I don’t know Chinese’ (I had learned to pronounce this one) and a few printed on my mind like ‘Mei Nv’, means Beautiful Girl (Please ask for right pronunciation from a Chinese colleague or you’ll end up calling her a Cow, like I did for the first four months. No Wonder I couldn’t get a date).
I had always heard that Chinese are very friendly people. As this Sikh, embellished in a Red turban, walked down the airport corridor, he was greeted by series of stares from a good number of Chinese eyes who moved along or across him. I smiled at them, and quite apparently, they smiled back at me. I was well prepared for this part of the story during my visit. Probably because my Google search for ‘Gurudwara in Beijing’ had returned no results, so I assumed that I was going to be a newbie to the little eyes that scanned me from head till toe. A fluffy foreigner with thick facial hair and a strange looking Hat covering his head would be a feast to the rather skinny Chinese, who genetically don’t really have much of facial hair.
To be continued...
It’s very collegial for a Sikh to greet an official colleague with a formal ‘Hello’ or Indian traditional ‘Namaste’ apart from the revered ‘Sat Sri Akal’ but the former two words are quite a strange bit of piece to be used in his day to day life.
Evening, 5th February ’09, a young Sikh walked down the ramps of the Beijing airport with 40 kgs of luggage bags which for sure had to catch the attention of the exit security. The luggage scan could reveal nothing but a stroller dumped with a few packets of packaged food including Biryani, Halva, Dal and Rajma Chawal, the MDH Gola Gappa masala, pickles and a few bottles of hair fixer and lots of sweaters and clothes apart from the other insignificant stuff. If that baffles you, then it would be worth highlighting that in a normal case, an Indian is seen bringing in bags filled with lots of the Indian Curry masalas, raw Pulses, Wheat fluor etc. and very few clothes.
This was the first time I was traveling abroad and that too to a place where I knew no one at all. The month before the travel had given me enough nausea with the friends and relatives all pouring in with advises and warning me of the definite difficulties I’m going to face. “They don’t understand English”, “You won’t get to eat anything. Good that you’ll shed some extra pounds for sure”, “I heard that they eat all kinds of meat including Dogs and Donkeys”. But, I, inspired by the pages of ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ walked on with a few words in Chinese scribbled on a piece of paper which meant, ‘No Meat Please, Chicken is OK’. I sent my taste buds on an unpaid leave in the wake of Food Recession. A few other placards included ‘Wo Bu Dong Zhong Wen’ meaning ‘I don’t know Chinese’ (I had learned to pronounce this one) and a few printed on my mind like ‘Mei Nv’, means Beautiful Girl (Please ask for right pronunciation from a Chinese colleague or you’ll end up calling her a Cow, like I did for the first four months. No Wonder I couldn’t get a date).
I had always heard that Chinese are very friendly people. As this Sikh, embellished in a Red turban, walked down the airport corridor, he was greeted by series of stares from a good number of Chinese eyes who moved along or across him. I smiled at them, and quite apparently, they smiled back at me. I was well prepared for this part of the story during my visit. Probably because my Google search for ‘Gurudwara in Beijing’ had returned no results, so I assumed that I was going to be a newbie to the little eyes that scanned me from head till toe. A fluffy foreigner with thick facial hair and a strange looking Hat covering his head would be a feast to the rather skinny Chinese, who genetically don’t really have much of facial hair.
To be continued...
