My idea was to form the first ever heavy metal band at Shanxi Agricultural University. The first order of business was to locate the musically talented metal heads on campus. The preferred method of announcing things was to make giant red posters with handwritten 汉字 on them and post them up all over the campus using a liberal amount of thick gluey paste. So I asked a Chinese friend to help me out with the text and calligraphy for the posters. Here’s what our end product looked like:
In case you can’t make out some of his 草体 (cǎotǐ, cursive style) characters, here is the text of the poster and a translation:
海报 (hǎibào)
Announcement:
一个疯狂的美国人 (yígè fēngkuáng de měiguórén)
A crazy American hopes to share
带着他那炽热癫狂的激 (dàizhe tā nà chìrè diānkuáng de jī)
his insane enthusiasm for starting
情望与农大学子组建本 (qíng wàng yú nóngdà xuézǐ zǔjiàn běn)
this school’s first heavy metal
校第一个重金属乐队 (xiào dì yígè zhòngjīnshǔ yuèduì)
band with students.
(招募：主唱吉他手贝斯手 (zhāomù: zhǔchàng jítāshǒu bèisīshǒu)
(recruiting: a lead singer,guitar player, bass player,
鼓手) 有意者请联系：乔杰明 (gǔshǒu, yóuyìzhě qǐng liánxì: Qiáo Jiémíng)
and a drummer) Interested parties please contact: Qiao Jieming
电话：6287286 (diànhuà)
by phone at 6287286
A couple of days after posting my ads I met my first prospective guitar player. “你好。我叫乔杰明” (Nǐhǎo. Wǒ jiào Qiáo Jiémíng, Hi. my name is Qiao Jieming) I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Hi,” he says in English, “Nice to meet you. My name is Hand.” I paused, thinking, “I’ve heard some pretty weird English names, but, really? Hand?” So just to be sure I asked him how he spells his name and he spelled it out for me, “H.U.N.T.” Not wanting to criticize his English pronunciation before we had even been properly introduced, I nodded my head in recognition and we got down to the business of the band.
My first question for him was what bands had he been listening to recently. This was part of my screening process. He mentioned the Backstreet Boys, Beyond (a rock band from Hong Kong popular in the late 80s and early 90s) and Westlife (An Irish ‘boyband’ style pop group). Hunt had already lost his chance at being in the band with his mention of Westlife (who’s smooth melodies and loverboy lyrics were the polar opposite of the type of heavy metal music I had in mind for the band. For a classic example of Westlife at their cheesiest, check out “Season’s in the Sun”, a song that was very 红 (hóng, popular, lit. red) last year in Shanxi Province.
For a couple of days I continued meeting a bunch of so-called metal enthusiasts who echoed Hunt’s musical taste. Luckily I did also meet a couple of true metal fans who put Metallica and Megadeth at the top of their lists. The band ended up as a three piece outfit with Dragon and me on guitars and Jack on drums. We had three original speed metal songs at the height of our rehearsal career. The band was short-lived because of our bad work ethic and also scheduling problems since Jack was already married and lived with his wife in 槊州 (Shuòzhōu), a small city a couple of hours to the North of the University.
As I went about choosing musicians for the metal band I became more aware of the “language power struggle” in friendships where both people are interested in practicing their 2nd languages. In my bandmates I was looking for heavy metal enthusiasts who were willing to speak Chinese with me. Hunt didn’t make the cut for two reasons: his musical taste and also because he insisted on only speaking English with me. In general during my time in 山西 (shānxī) I tried to become friends with people who were willing to speak with me in Chinese for at least part of the time. When I was getting to know a new Chinese friend, there was usually a period of time when we were still trying to figure out the right balance of English/Chinese to use in order to communicate most efficiently. It was always a delicate balance because I didn’t want to discourage my friends from learning English, but also I didn’t want to feel like I was being used all the time for English practice. On the flipside, I also didn’t want my Chinese friends to feel like I was using them all the time to practice my Chinese.
I’m wondering how other skritter users have navigated friendships where there is a give and take between Chinese and English(or other languages). What are your thoughts on the “language power struggle” in friendships?