Few people know that the Philippines has more English speakers than the United Kingdom. Many people know that Filipinos speak English, many people know that they speak Filipino/Tagalog as well in the Philippines–but what a lot of people don’t know is the extent that English is spoken. In Japan, as well as many other countries in Asia, English is used to puncuate or emphasize something like… “Aki no Trendy Style!” (Trendy styles for Fall) In the Philippines, they’d just flat out say “Trendy styles for the fall,”. I remember Japanese people being amazed when I told them that Filipino TV was 90% in English. To the Japanese, English is a language for Caucasian Westerners–nevermind the fact Singaporeans, Hong Kongers, Indians and Filipinos all speak English.

I remember on a trip to the Philippines one of my friends was stunned that street children could speak better English than the high school students she taught in Japan. How does that happen, we wondered? Well, it’s easy. They just use it. TV shows are often in English, not subtitled or dubbed. If they’re not fully in English, a good part of it will be. Especially if the show is about something technical like medicine or law. Hugh often understood the gist of what was going on around him simply due to liberal use of English.

Other examples? During a Filipino wedding, all the prayers and songs were in English, the priest’s sermon was also in English. During the reception, all speeches were in English despite the fact that out of the 500 guests only 5 people in the room didn’t understand Tagalog.  You would never see this stuff in Japan–not that this is the way it should be. Language is important for cultural identity, and the loss of language is something which I consider very sad. I found out that several of my cousins CANNOT speak Tagalog despite being born and raised in the Philippines. I find that very odd.

Yet, the question of how should Japanese people learn English continues to bother me. The only real way to make sure people learn it is to make it a requirement, more so than just something kids have to do to pass a test to graduate high school.

I usually love this sort of juxtaposition stuff, but instead we was hot and cranky and eager to find something to eat. After a remarkably long walk which wasn’t helped at all by the fact I decided to buy the WORST guide-book to Shanghai. It’s full of beautiful pictures and history on all the buildings, but it doesn’t tell you whether the building is actually functional (long history on the architect of a theatre, but no information on what actual is performed there) nor do the maps bother to list all the streets. I digress–finally, Hugh found a place and we were like, fine, lets go here.

Turns out it was a restaurant that has been around since the 1800s and it was at this restaurant that, finding myself simply overwhelmed, I almost burst into tears. I suppose it was a mix of the heat and the just being so unable to communicate when people think I can. I never know if someone is shouting, “Hey you! Watch out!” or what to do or say when someone asks me a question. You know, it was culture shock.

But remembered this saying we invented yesterday–Think: Luke!

See, I have always greatly admired anyone who went to Japan with me who didn’t know anything about the language or the culture. Me, I studied it for years and came to Japan near fluent in Japanese. It was easy for me. I could have never done what some of my friends did. This is where the phrase Think Luke! came from. We tried to think of one of our friends, someone who came to Japan non-fluent but kind of had fun with that and had a good attitude, smiled, tried to be positive about it, etc. So we thought of Luke (if you’re reading this buddy, you better be flattered ;P) When you feel let down, think Luke!

China is the first country I’ve gone to in Asia where lots of people don’t speak English–cause, well, why should they? They do in Cambodia because the economy in Angkor Wat is based around tourism. I’m just grateful for my Japanese ability which means I can more or less understand signs and read maps and sometimes even make a decent guess at pronunciation.

So anyways, after a delicious lunch and a pep talk, we set off feeling better — found a Starbucks, got our caffeine fix, people watched, pep talked a bit more (which made Hugh feel better this time. We then managed to spend the next 12 hours wandering around Shanghai on foot, amazed at just how sprawled out the city was and how clean it was. There’s always this impression that China was dirty, told to me by my Chinese friends nonetheless. Maybe it is, but Shanghai is near spotless.

At night we had arranged to meet a friend for dinner, but due to my shitty guidebook we found ourselves lost in the French Concession. So we decided to ask a waitress at a cafe, who proceeded to take my book and ask another customer where the location of an unmarked road was. In the end, the waitress asked me if I could read Chinese–I responded that I could a little, and she presented me with a JAPANESE advertisement tourism book that just happened to have incredibly detailed maps of all of Shanghai including all the street names in CHINESE characters and not useless English ones.

THANK YOU!

Anyways, dinner was fun (Yunnanese food) and in the end we got to a taxi and managed to make our way home communicating with the driver only with what limited Chinese we have learned, which, well, made me feel really good. I know I could probably get by just speaking English, but I’ve always felt when in a country every effort should be made to speak as much of the language as one can until the locals laugh at you and speak in English to you. Most of our broken-gibberish Chinese phrases has been greeted with Chinese spoken at natural speed, which tells me either they think we can understand them because our Chinese is just so awesome or they don’t speak English at all–so Chinese it is!

Anyways, after walking around for 12 hours straight we’ve decided that tomorrow is going to be a day of rest….probably.

P.S. I can’t seem to access LJ within China, if anyone knows of a proxy server, please let me know.

The flight was uneventful and I fell asleep before the flight took off (as usual) to wake up to a very disgusting meal, thank you very much China Eastern Airlines. After lunch I gazed out the window until I came upon this vast expanse of chocolate brown below us.

Ah, could it be a desert? I wondered, No, we’re too far east–it must be post harvest rice paddies?

Then I saw a container ship cut through what I had previously thought was earth…

No, it’s the ocean. It takes a special kind of pollution to make the ocean look brown from 20,000 feet, I must say.

Anyways, so we arrived at Shanghai, took a harrowing taxi ride into the city and arrived at my friend Jon’s father’s spare apartment located in the expat district of Shanghai. We ate lunch, bought some breakfast supplies, than had traditional Chinese massages. All in all, a very nice start to our adventures. Honestly, I’m glad we’re able to ease into the China thing…. I’ve heard plenty of scary stories (all vastly exaggerated, I’m sure). We’re heading pretty far off the typical tourist path in the next few weeks, so it’s nice to have the chance to acclimate and learn a little Chinese first.

Now I just need to learn how to say, “I don’t speak Chinese,”