A Chinese revelation

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a long-time patient’s wife. She complained that her husband often switched to speaking in English from Punjabi whenever he downed a few pegs beyond his ‘normal’. She said the transformation was most visible when he was with his old friends; he would selectively use the choicest English expletives. This brought back memories of a medical conference I had attended in Beijing, some years ago.

The First Army Hospital in Beijing had organised a medical workshop but only a couple of Chinese doctors could communicate in English. The Chinese Army doctors looked intimidating in their uniforms. The head of the team was a stocky fellow who could comprehend our questions and comments and managed to convey his responses in broken English. To facilitate a two-way interaction, the hospital had arranged a translator. After the conference, some of the foreign delegates were invited to a lavish resort for dinner, and my compatriot and I found ourselves on the guest list.

The resort looked warm and inviting— almost reminiscent of Rajasthani palaces— with opulent hallways adorned with old artifacts. But the sight of doctors in army uniform, wearing grim expressions spooked us. As luck would have it, my Indian friend and I were ‘honoured’ by seats next to the ‘chief’. The evening started with shots of Baijiu. Each guest was given a small flask of the liquor which could be refilled from many larger ones. The host started with a toast to the head of the hospital and then multiple rounds of toasts followed, to the first patient, to the last patient, to the tallest guest, to the best surgeon and so on. We were in a quandary— the grim expressions of our hosts seemed to threaten our sobriety. We soon realised that if we were to down each of the refilled toasts, we would soon pass out. We surreptitiously filled our flask with water and then started cheering the group to each toast with even more vigour than our hosts.

After a few drinks, the conversation turned more relaxed and uninhibited. The ‘chief’ pointed to his new smart watch and bragged about its advantages and functions, how it could be synched with his mobile phone in mix of drunken English and Chinese. Another few drinks, and our host prompted his colleagues to converse in English. He himself complimented us on our English and wanted us to confirm if his English was as good as ours. “It’s definitely good,” we assured him. He also exclaimed that after a few drinks all Chinese blurt out whatever English they know. It was hilarious and I was reminded of the common refrain in our part of India that it takes only a few drinks for Punjabis to proclaim their command over the Queen’s language.